Christians. Could you be wrong?

[Mister Agenda]

Yes, what is the point here? Please elucidate. Because currently the only conclusion that we can draw from, what, 21 pages, is that people don't fully know the mechanisms behind the efficacy of the placebo effect. You know, that conclusion that anyone even remotely aware of the placebo effect can draw.

The point was to get a gotcha! on Thumpy.

---

As an atheist I am willing to admit that I could be wrong. God may exist. Your Bible may be 100% accurate. All I need is evidence.

Is there anything that could convince you that the God of the Bible may not exist?

If a Christian believed this they would be an agnostic. You either believe or you don't. Believers operate on faith and wishful thinking. They do not do well with actual fact. They must turn a blind eye to fact.

When your in a religion you believe the dogma even if it is ridiculous. The only ones that can be objective are those outside the religion. It does not matter to the Christians that none of the writers of the bible ever met Jesus. They need the fantasy to get though life.

Yes, but they could be an agnostic Christian: admit that they don't know but they believe in Christianity anyway.

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However, one doesn't have faith in a medical placebo, as you have the evidence of, oh, I dunno, the entire history of modern medicine to demonstrate that doctors are quite adept at curing things.

You really are trying for the false equivocation double reacharound here, aren't you? First you attempt to equate faith healing in the religious sense with the placebo effect, and then in order to make that comparison at all functional you're attempting to equate reasonable expectations of success based on evidence, with blind religious faith.

Don't you ever feel bad, that the only way you can defend your belief in god is to devalue the meaning of other words? Isn't that a tacit admission that the terms of your religion can't stand on their own, without other terms being handicapped?

Of course one doesn't have faith in a placebo, the point is for them not to know it's a placebo, but are told it is a revolutionary procedure, That is what they have faith in.

As it was stated in the article I posted: a man is dying of cancer of the lymph nodes, has difficulty breathing, and is bedridden. He receives injections of a new anticancer drug called Krebiozen (a placebo). Within days the tumors shrink by half and he is eventually released from the hospital. After he finds out he was given a placebo, he dies days later.

Since you say faith has nothing to do with it, why don't you try explaining how this phenomena works?

It might be better to explain how equivocation works. When a word, such as faith, has multiple senses, it is important not to switch senses during the conversation because it can be misleading or cause inadvertent confusion: A balloon that contains enough hydrogen to float is light, therefore it cannot be dark.

Faith has multiple senses: religious faith through 'spiritual apprehension' and confident trust in something. It's inherently confusing to use the word in both senses in a discussion regarding religion, such as citing 'the need to have faith in God' in one post, and bringing up 'the faith it takes to believe your car will take you to your destination' in another. Better to stick to using the word 'faith' in the religious sense, and use 'belief' or 'trust' or 'confidence' regarding nondivine matters.

In ordinary use, when someone says 'faith healing' they don't mean 'placebo effect', they mean healing achieved by divine intervention, the faith involved being faith in God, not 'being misinformed that faith in God is effective in healing and therefore providing conditions conducive to the placebo effect'.

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The great thing about a relationship with Jesus, it's not based on fallible opinions. It's based on the Word of God and the Revelation of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:16
"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children."

The Bible is the claim, not the evidence. Why is it that Jews and Hindus usually seem to get that quoting their scriptures before doing the legwork to convince people those scriptures are true in the first place is counter-productive, but Christians and Muslims so often don't?

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Cyberman]

Yes, but they could be an agnostic Christian: admit that they don't know but they believe in Christianity anyway.

I'm not sure it's possible to be an agnostic xtian. Agnostic theist, yes; but a xtian is deemed to have all that revelation crap, so they are meant to know in the true gnostic sense.

[Esquilax]

Yes, but they could be an agnostic Christian: admit that they don't know but they believe in Christianity anyway.

I'm not sure it's possible to be an agnostic xtian. Agnostic theist, yes; but a xtian is deemed to have all that revelation crap, so they are meant to know in the true gnostic sense.

... Unless all that revelation, "knowing in your heart" nonsense is just a metaphor, according to the agnostic christian's personal interpretation.

Never underestimate a theist's ability to twist their inerrant holy book to precisely fit their own opinions.

[Undeceived]

[Esquilax]

[Undeceived]

[Esquilax]

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Oh, not to mention the claim that no archaeological find has ever contradicted the biblical record. Evidently these websites have never had a look at, say, Egyptian history. Or all those civilizations that don't notice being wiped out by a flood at all. Or those agricultural, religious societies that are older than the earth is supposed to be, biblically.

A preliminary question: How is an absence of information considered the same as a contradiction?

The contradiction is that the bible's flood story is just flat out wrong.

Not just wrong, demonstrably false. It's a load of tosh.

[Thackerie]