blood_pardon, your second question is pathetic. You can say "mario jumps high" without believing he's a REAL person.

edited: rephased for clarity : @krazedkat.. In regards to your mario comment, you're supposing thatit's right to assume something could exist when evaluating it and describing it. You're supposing that whether or not we believe in Mario is a moot point just like if I said "whether we believe in santa is pointless if I ask you what color santa's suit is" . In another thread and other places I've tried this similar approach (ie. whether you think the soul is either eternal or finite) without believing it's real? I've met with overwhelming resistance to the creativity necessary to imagine something you don't believe in or postulate a description on something you don't undersand. Here you are doing the same thing(a an atheist) as I (as a theist) was. Not you specifically because I'm not sure if you answered or not, but a lot of atheists here don't think that's rational so for an atheist to ask a theist to do the same is a little hypocritical. Again, not you specifically just a comment.

Edit.. yes I did sorry your avatar confuses me and hope that's a little clearer.

Do you mean me?

(September 16, 2010 at 9:54 am)tackattack Wrote: @krazedkat.. well hate to go on a side note, you can say that about mario but you can't say whether yoou think the soul is either eternal or finite without believing it's real? Not you specifically because I'm not sure if you answered or not, but a lot of atheists here don't think that's rational so for an atheist to ask a theist to do the same is a little hypocritical. Again, not you specifically just a comment.

Edit.. yes I did sorry your avatar confuses me

Tack, I've read your post 5 times now and I can't figure out what you are saying.

Could you rephrase?

edited.

Well that's a little better I suppose.

What colour the coat of Santa clause is we can speculate by the pictures portrayed by a certain Cola company.

We could guesstimate the wingspan of Pegasus if we take the size and weight of an average horse and calculate how much lift it would need to produce to fly.

How one would measure the lifespan of a soul, I would not even know where to begin.

That was actually the point of the excercise, to get people to evaluate their presupposition on a soul, to internally define that soul and use experience, logic, or some form of dogma to lend creedence to their definition. I can see where it would be difficult without any base opinions on the matter to go off of, but usually people have some sort of opinion (even atheists who were once theists) that they use to formulate what's real and not real. If you saw a ghostly apparition in front of you, you would either assume it was a real, or b unreal. Then you could determine it's origins, etc. but before you can even decide a or b subconsciously, you have identified and defined what is in front of you and named it a ghost which is at least some basis for comparision of beliefs.

Quote:If you saw a ghostly apparition in front of you, you would either assume it was a real, or b unreal.

I think my reaction would be "what the fuck is that?" and let the real or unreal question lie until I figure out what I'm seeing exactly. I'm fairly certain I would not just come to a "ghost" conclusion.

Quote: Then you could determine it's origins, etc. but before you can even decide a or b subconsciously, you have identified and defined what is in front of you and named it a ghost which is at least some basis for comparision of beliefs.

It still does nothing to define a soul though. I haven't answered your question in that other thread because something like a soul is so ill defined that speculation regarding its properties is meaningless.

If you say ghost, I think:


If you say leprechaun I think:


If you say soul I think:

(September 16, 2010 at 2:29 am)AngelThMan Wrote: But I have felt God was with me in several situations, especially when I've been in some trouble and I have prayed.

Maybe you felt something. Just like people feel something when they take a placebo.

Quote:How do I know it was God that I felt? I will answer you. I've confirmed that it was indeed God not only through my own experiences, but through the experiences of others.

You've "confirmed it was God", huh? I don't see how this is possible.

Quote:I'll give you some examples...

Here we go! This should be good!

Quote:A few weeks ago my sister, her husband, her son and a pastor were traveling through a remote mountain. It started to rain and their car slid. It fell off a cliff and spun three times. All in the car were devout Christians, and they all prayed as the car spun down the cliff. All survived with no injuries.

So three people survived a car accident and you want to credit the fact that they're "devout Christians" and that "they all prayed as the car spun down the cliff".

Seriously?

Then why did "God" allow the car to spin off the road in the first place? And how do you explain accidents where devout people die? I've read about accidents where church groups have their bus crash and people die. And explain to me why "God" saved everyone in your sister's car, but he took no action to save Dottie Rambo http://christianmusic.about.com/od/music...boobit.htm

Your sister, her husband and the pastor were LUCKY! Nothing more.

Next.

Quote:I was watching Aftermath with William Shatner, and Jessica Lynch was his guest. In Iraq, she was in a Humvee with 11 other people when she got ambushed. During the skirmish, she was the only one that prayed for God to spare her life, and she was the only one out of 12 to survive.

Are we to believe that Jessica Lynch was the only devout Christian in that group of 12 people? Because I'm sure there were others. And how do you (or Jessica, or ANYONE) know that none of the others weren't praying during the ambush for their life to be spared? A person can pray silently to themselves. Trying to say that Jessica was the only person praying is to assume something for which there is no evidence. And if what you assert is true, we should just tell our soldiers to pray for their life to be spared whenever they're in combat. Then we should have zero casualties! Right?

Again, Jessica Lynch was LUCKY! Nothing more.

Next.

Quote:A woman at my mother's church received a terrible back injury and was unable to walk. CAT scans revealed that disks were misaligned, and she could only walk with surgery. The entire church prayed for her, and the woman's condition improved greatly. She was able to walk, and surgery was no longer needed.

Obviously, the prayers were responsible for this woman's improvement!

There is way too little information here to make that kind of hasty judgement. Was the woman seeing a doctor for her condition? (I'll bet she was!) Was she receiving some sort of treatment? What did the doctors say when her condition improved? Did they have an explanation? And why do you suppose "God" answered prayers to fix this woman's back but he ignores all the prayers asking him to help children dying from cancer?

Quote:I don't know about you guys, but I can't ignore things like these.

There is nothing to ignore! A couple of instances where people got lucky and a story about a woman's back improving. Nothing convincing here. And if you think prayer truly works, please explain the results of this study: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

Quote:I haven't experienced anything as severe as the examples above, but I've been in situations in which I have felt that my prayers have made a difference. And that's how I know it was God.

And I can find numerous instances where prayers make no difference. If you think prayers make a difference, try praying for all the children suffering from Down's Syndrome to be cured and see what happens.

I'll tell you what would happen.... nothing.

@leo-rcc: Maybe that is because your knowledge and udnerstanding of what a soul is supposed to be is severely lacking as of now? As opposed to a soul itself being ill defined.

@downbeatplumb:

(September 15, 2010 at 1:20 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is your objection to my use of long(ish) words when looking at your previous post you yourself used: misconception and mutually exclusive. Both reasonably long words/ phrases conveying complex meaning, or where you flaunting your college level english?

I have no objection to use of long words. And I only 'flaunted' my college level understanding of English in response to what you said. I'm glad it botehred you so much that you felt the need to respond very thoroughly, though.

downbeatplumb Wrote:As for Xenu, seems he was an 'intergalactic dictator' which does seem like gods job description to me.

Then you have a very poor understanding of God.