The Problem with Christians

[LadyForCamus]

Let me address this "are they all lying" point.

Lying is not the issue, when it comes to anecdotes. Someone can fully believe what they are saying is the truth. However:

1) Memory is notoriously unreliable and warps over time; false memories can even be created

2) Even if the memory is more or less correct, it doesn't mean the person correctly identified what was happening

3) No one has the authority to categorise things that have not as-yet been demonstrated to be real

For example, my wife tells me stories about ghosts. I believe she is being sincere. I believe she really believes she saw ghostly activity. What I don't believe is that she has correctly evaluated her experience.

From my position, there is nothing to test. I can have no opinion of it, other than it is an extroidanary claim. So until such time as there is evidence to examine, I don't believe her conclusion. I don't have to say her conclusion is false; although weighing up the probability, it's reasonable to say it is probably false.

If you just believe conclusions people make about mysterious phenomena based on anecdotes, you are gullible. The filter you apply is likely to be the same as your own beliefs. If you already thinks ghosts are real, you'll probably believe ghost stories. But if you also don't believe in vampires, you'll likely reject vampire stories.

 I simply look at the statistical probability that this all happened through random chance. I believe that it takes more faith to believe it was random than to accept that it was deliberate.

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If god was something real, you wouldn't need all this sneaking around, switching terms, trying to create "reasonable doubt" as if you're OJ's lawyer, and then saying "just maybe it was god..."

This is how someone makes themselves feel better about something they already believe, for other reasons. Because I can't believe for one second anyone believes because of this nonsense. Even if there was something supernatural, you're no closer to finding out what it is, you still have an uncrossable chasm to correlate it with a storybook.

And then you have to explain why I should care, even if you're right.

Because truth matters - doesn't it?

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None of what you quoted in isiah happened. None of the countries mentioned existed in 1948, there literally no corners to the Earth, being an oblate spheroid (and yes the bible writing goat fuckers did literally believe the world was flat and square). And finally there was no act of god involved in tthe creation of Israel, just the Balfour declaration, the holocaust and its aftermath, western latent anti-semitism and terrorist groups like the Stern Gang. In fact Isiah is most likely an after the fact "prophesy" about the end of the Babylonian captivity where it was written in that yhwh said he would return the jews to judea after they were returned to judea by the Babylonians (the Torah was mostly written at the end of and just after this period a combination of old oral legends [hence the henotheistic nature of the pentateuch] and post hoc aggrandising of the jewish people from a powerless random Canaanite tribe into great conquerors who were brung low by evil "false gods")


And this isn't even going into stuff like the fact that the majority of the iron age jewish tribes' descendants probably stayed in Palestine, converted, and are now the people being oppressed by Israel for being the "wrong race and religion".

I doubt that the Jews believed that the earth was flat since the same guy that used the four corners idiom (Isaiah), said  it was round.

Is 40:21 "Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth."

What makes you think it was random? Or, why do you think that if something did NOT occur randomly that it automatically means the cause had to be a supernatural God? Apologies if this has been discussed; I'm jumping in at the end here.

[IATIA]

 I simply look at the statistical probability that this all happened through random chance. I believe that it takes more faith to believe it was random than to accept that it was deliberate.

It took 13.8 billion years. (or maybe more)

[LadyForCamus]

Oh no, is it too late for me to back out of this? Lol

[The Grand Nudger]

 if I saw something supernatural happen, would my testimony not carry weight since I do have a degree in science?

Um, no?  Your testimony alone is no better or worse than the testimony of Billy Bob who claims to have been abducted by aliens and anally probed on a dark country road last night around happy hour.   What you would need is evidence, and seeing as you "have a degree in science" you should probably know that.....assuming you aren't another faceless rando in a long line of liars for christ.

[Cyberman]

This is so ridiculous. This is what he's trying to say:

"If reality doesn't fit our current models of it, which are perfect, then nature isn't what we think it is. There must be other things... supernatural things!

No. That is unbelievably ignorant.

If reality doesn't fit our current models, our models are wrong.

You haven't addressed the critical issue here. That is, we have a dictionary definition that I am using.

If something violates natural law, that is the dictionary definition of supernatural - not mine, it is the dictionary's, don't get mad at me.

Great - now demonstrate something that does violate natural law.

[robvalue]

Wait... I was explaining the difference between the actual laws of nature and our scientific models of them to a guy with a science degree? And he still doesn't get it?

Something's fishy here.

We observe, and we model. It appears many laws of nature stay relatively constant. They may suddenly change for a period of time, or perhaps permanently. They don't need our permission. I don't know what's so hard to understand about this. If they did change, we'd need to alter our models accordingly.

This is all just a desparate attempt to shoehorn woo language into science, and any scientist worth their salt would know better.

[abaris]

Wait... I was explaining the difference between the actual laws of nature and our scientific models of them to a guy with a science degree? And he still doesn't get it?

Something's fishy here.

Assuming he's American, I guess, degree as in christian college. Which, as we already established by admission of that other user (AAA or something), doesn't encourage the concept of peer review.

All I can say is, good luck in the real world. Prepare for some stiff wind heading your way.

[robvalue]

Yeah. Maybe they come free in packets of cereal.

[Angrboda]

So using the above definition of "supernatural," abiogenesis qualifies because it violates the laws of nature which, without exception require all life to come from life. Abiogenesis violates this natural law.

There is no such natural law. Now you're just making up question begging material.

[IATIA]

I would say that every atheist here who says that there is no such thing as the supernatural is automatically ruling out the possibility of there being a God, since God is synonymous with the supernatural.

I am not most atheists. I have no qualms in stating with an authority of certainty that god does not exist.

Ditto!

Supernatural does not exist (nor god).  Some things may be unexplained (for now), but still natural.  Even if you want to invoke the 'god thing', god would be natural and anything it did would be natural, albeit not necessarily common. No god would be capable of violating their own rules of existence.