(January 22, 2015 at 2:49 pm)schizo pantheist Wrote: James Randi offers $1,000,000 for proof of the paranormal (with the catch being lab tactics that don’t work with the sacred). I won’t confront Randi due to the fact that I have no control over what Deity does. Basically, if God/Goddess wants to give me a telepathic or clairvoyant experience at random that is up to It’s discretion, I have nothing to do with it, no free will in the picture at all. The gifts are given not taken. As Jesus says don’t be a thief about it, get it offered freely.By "lab tactics that don't work with the sacred" I assume you are referring to the tactic known as "observe and record." If you are the only one who ever experiences these events, and if for some reason they never occur when others are there to observe and/or record, why would it surprise you that people are skeptical?
This is something we see here from a number of theists of various stripes: that they experience things that cannot be verified to/by anyone else because 'god doesn't perform on demand' or some other reason, and we have no choice but to take their word for it. Well... no. I don't have to take anyone's word for it. No one does, until god or zeus or the ghost of your aunt Matilda decides to make a public appearance and settle the issue.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
