If I ever got cancer and it went on remission on its own, I would surely offer any help for research as to understand what happened instead of clasping hands and say miracle. My only request would be that those tests could be performed by a hot nurse in reduced uniform. Ya know, for pain relief.

(October 4, 2019 at 12:18 pm)LastPoet Wrote: If I ever got cancer and it went on remission on its own, I would surely offer any help for research as to understand what happened instead of clasping hands and say miracle. My only request would be that those tests could be performed by a hot nurse in reduced uniform. Ya know, for pain relief.

Pain relief for you, not the nurse.

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(October 3, 2019 at 10:59 pm)Inqwizitor Wrote:

(October 3, 2019 at 6:43 am)Gae Bolga Wrote: Your gap argument is and always will be a gap argument.  That's just the way it is.  It's not a good argument, at all...but it obviously informs you.  I think you might want to explore why it informs you, and why you reject other explanations.

What gap argument? The "god of the gaps" is a way of attributing to the divine what has a natural cause. I don't think that's a good argument, either.

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(October 3, 2019 at 11:25 am)Simon Moon Wrote: If you are defining faith in the Hebrews 11:1 way, then faith is irrational by definition. If you are defining it as belief without demonstrable evidence, then it is irrational.

Believing without demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, is irrational.

The author states that faith is not borne of observation, that's not irrational. Is logic irrational? It's not based on observation either. Is intuition irrational?

Quote:Name one confirmable, evidential, demonstrable supsiternatural event.

What does this mean, that I have to be able to repeat a supernatural event under experimental controls so you can verify it? That's obviously begging the question.

How about the miraculous healing of Marion Carroll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TO7PJkzcVU

Let me get this straight.   You have something you assessed through fallible senses;   interpreted using a brain that is not only in principle fallible, but specifically twisted to regard cognitive lassitude as "access to the divine",  and can not be independently observed and verified.    Therefore you have a higher form of truth.

Let me guess, you are 16 and really think you have all reality at your finger tips and resent the fact that people who know much more about these things tells you to pop a few pimples and stroke yourself.

(October 4, 2019 at 11:37 am)Simon Moon Wrote:

(October 3, 2019 at 10:59 pm)Inqwizitor Wrote: How about the miraculous healing of Marion Carroll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TO7PJkzcVU

Oh Please...

When medical scientists are doing experiments with rats, the control group of cancerous rats have a certain percent (small for sure) that have spontaneous remissions. The scientists currently do not have an explanation for this phenomena.

Are these supernatural events? Is it your god responsible for curing a tiny percentage of rats? Is the rodent god responsible?

Why are these miracle healings always diseases that can sometimes have spontaneous remission on their own?

There have been several studies recently, that have shown that 20% of MS patients are actually suffering from other (much less serious) conditions,and have been misdiagnosed, by similar symptoms and misread MRIs. Stroke, nerve damage, spondylopathy, migraine can all mimic MS, and even the MRI will look similar.

And other patients have gone into remission for years.

From another study:

"The truth is that 15 years after the onset of MS, only about 20% of patients are bedridden or institutionalized. Another 20% may require a wheelchair, or use crutches, or a cane to ambulate, but fully 60% will be ambulatory without assistance and some will have little deficit at all."

"Perhaps as many as 1/3 of all patients with MS go through life without any persistent disability, and suffer only intermittent, transient episodes of symptoms."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1069023/

Let me add, it took no more than about 10 minutes to find the above information with casual searching of medical websites. I am sure there is probably even more info available, if I spent more time.

See, this is what people do, if they really want to figure out of their beliefs are true, or likely true. They exercise a bit of intellectual honesty, and look for evidence that may disconfirm their pet beliefs.

They don't only look for evidence by those with the same beliefs as they hold, to 'confirm' their already existing beliefs.

(October 4, 2019 at 7:10 am)Grandizer Wrote:

(October 3, 2019 at 10:59 pm)Inqwizitor Wrote: How about the miraculous healing of Marion Carroll. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TO7PJkzcVU

Haven't seen the video yet. Is this about spontaneous remissions? If so, there are various potential physiological explanations for those, and so they aren't really good evidence for a god.

Anyway, will give this a watch later and what this is about exactly.

Just watched the vid.

I'm not going to critique Marion's experience, but one case of a spontaneous remission right after praying to God is not good evidence for God.

A much better way to demonstrate God's [probable] existence would perhaps be:

Having a significantly large number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur immediately after praying to God for healing AND comparatively small number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur but not after praying to God (sample size of attempts is large enough, of course) AND scientists aren't able to come up with any plausible naturalistic explanations

(October 4, 2019 at 1:32 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Pain relief for you, not the nurse.

Well, who said research was easy?

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At any rate, lek's god is indistinguishable (sp plz), from a frontal lobotomy.

(October 4, 2019 at 2:25 pm)Grandizer Wrote: A much better way to demonstrate God's [probable] existence would perhaps be:

Having a significantly large number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur immediately after praying to God for healing AND comparatively small number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur but not after praying to God (sample size of attempts is large enough, of course) AND scientists aren't able to come up with any plausible naturalistic explanations

Well, I am not sure how one would get from; spontaneous remissions after praying at a greater rate, to, therefore god exists. But at least there would a there, there to at least study.

And the lack of a naturalistic explanation, does not in itself, give any more credence to a supernatural explanation.

As of now, there is zero statistical results to look at, that are anything special. Where is the evidence that Christians or Catholics have spontaneous remissions, or 'miracle healings' at a greater rate than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or non believers?

That at least would be interesting.

(October 4, 2019 at 3:40 pm)Simon Moon Wrote:

(October 4, 2019 at 2:25 pm)Grandizer Wrote: A much better way to demonstrate God's [probable] existence would perhaps be:

Having a significantly large number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur immediately after praying to God for healing AND comparatively small number of cases whereby spontaneous remissions for MS occur but not after praying to God (sample size of attempts is large enough, of course) AND scientists aren't able to come up with any plausible naturalistic explanations

Well, I am not sure how one would get from; spontaneous remissions after praying at a greater rate, to, therefore god exists. But at least there would a there, there to at least study.

And the lack of a naturalistic explanation, does not in itself, give any more credence to a supernatural explanation.

As of now, there is zero statistical results to look at, that are anything special. Where is the evidence that Christians or Catholics have spontaneous remissions, or 'miracle healings' at a greater rate than Jews, Muslims, Hindus or non believers?

That at least would be interesting.

Yeah I agree with you it would still not conclusive evidence but it's a start.

I understand your perspective as an ex believer, but it is mistaken.

It is hard to show you from the outside. You have to reflect about it yourself.

The thing with sick people visiting Lourdes and other holy shrines for healing is that the numbers work against them. For instance, in this video religious claim is that out of all the millions of people visiting Lourdes for many years there has been 66 "confirmed healings", which, let's face it, doesn't make any positive impression at all.

66 isn't bad actually, when you consider that he's got a hell of a lot on his plate. Running a universe can't be easy, so he must be prioritising the way he uses his magic powers.
I mean.. Look at all the natural disasters that we didn't know were going to occur but didn't. You can't even put a number on the amount of lives saved there..
The number 66 will also be symbolic in some way to someone. As is 67 just in case someone's ingrowing toe nails get better.