The Problem with Christians

[AJW333]

So, concrete question: Provide your extraordinary evidence for the supernatural. And no, someone's second cousin taking a shit on the lawn of someone who just talked about the supernatural, doesn't count.

I think the example I gave of the identical dreams predicting a future event counts.

[Silver]

I think the example I gave of the identical dreams predicting a future event counts.

I think it counts for you because you are susceptible enough to believe it.

For the rest of us, however, we need more than that.

[AJW333]

I've not seen an explanation for it. I imagine I would have if one existed.

In terms of speculating on explanations we haven't thought of, isn't that like saying, "what if there is a proof of God's existence that we haven't thought of?"

The point is that by declaring that there are no natural explanations, "in principle," you're claiming to rule out ALL possible explanations, including ones we may know nothing about at this time.  That's a claim you can't possibly support, as you don't know what remains to be discovered.  What if next year they discovered a process which could explain the beginning of life.  Would you at that time say, "Well it's not supernatural now, but it was supernatural last year"?  How does that make any sense that something can be declared supernatural, AND THEN a natural explanation for it could be found?  It doesn't make sense, and it points to the fact that you are making an argument from ignorance, that if we don't understand something today, then it cannot be understood EVER.

I had some difficulty explaining my position with Robvalue as he was insisting that I was making an argument from ignorance, which I don't believe I am. I accept that there are processes in nature and the cosmos that we don't understand now, and that explanations may yet arise. I think it's important to confine the definition of "supernatural" to those events that violate natural law, eg a man levitating with no assistance, thus violating the laws of gravity. This removes all "yet to be understood" natural processes from the conversation.

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.

[Silver]

*headdesk*

[AJW333]

I think the example I gave of the identical dreams predicting a future event counts.

I think it counts for you because you are susceptible enough to believe it.

For the rest of us, however, we need more than that.

It has nothing to do with susceptibility but probabilities. What would be the statistical chances of two individuals having the same dream about the same person concerning a future event that then transpires? fifty fifty? two to one? A million to one? A billion to one?

If we look at the fact that there are multiple factors that have to happen, the numbers would be astronomically high against this occurring by random chance. If you want to ignore the numbers, that is your prerogative but I regard them as significant. Each to his own.

[robvalue]

Please do

I explain all this there. I'll post it again in case you missed it.

http://youtu.be/J5u5-Bg2ENQ

OK, I am up to speed. You seem reluctant to acknowledge "laws" and prefer to talk about "models" just in case the law should suddenly up and change itself. I'm not sure whether you believe there are any concrete laws of nature at all. Do you think there are?

Considering gravity, if I was to observe a heavy rock just float off into the sky, would that be a violation of the law of gravity or would we have to change our "model" of how gravity works?

Thanks for watching the video.

In what way am I reluctant to say they are laws? Did you ignore everything I said about the difference between the actual law and our models? You are equivocating, and it's hard to know whether this is deliberate or accidental. The more times this is explained to you, the more likely it is you're simply being dishonest.

Reality/nature works a certain way. However it works, those are the laws. It appears, so far, that many of those laws stay the same and can be usefully modelled. There is still no guarantee they will always stay the way they are, or that we haven't missed some detail which we will find out later.

Again, you're assuming our current models are perfect. You give science way too much credit.

If you saw a heavy rock float away, that would potentially be evidence that our theory of gravity needs refining. Of course, some guy just saying they have seen it is not evidence it has actually happened. It would need to be reproduced in order to be useful. In general, the reliance on anecdotes that can't be tested betrays the desperation of theists to sneak in conclusions. But they are "only cheating themself". They don't need to convince me, after all. You're trying to imply it happens just one time, and that's supernatural. What it would be in that case is an unexplained event that doesn't fit our current models. Again, trying to call it supernatural is the argument from ignorance.

But to save you some time, I don't give a flying fuck if there is supernatural stuff, or a god, or the Christian God. Makes no difference to me, outside of scientific curiosity. If you want to label things "supernatural", then we are not stopping you. I'm just trying to explain how it's not useful to do so, and why we don't follow suit. Trying to do it with abiogenesis is particularly flawed, because there isn't even a theory in place yet. So to say it doesn't fit our theory makes no sense. You're trying to sneak God in, and intellectually you're only cheating yourself.

[Silver]

If you want to ignore the numbers, that is your prerogative but I regard them as significant. Each to his own.

It seems to me you are choosing numbers over substance.

[Pat Mustard]

... you funny. Read what Pocaracas said to answer that. Bold added by me. 
I had a dream once that I would meet a dude in a trench coat, then I did. I also had a dream that I fell off a rhino. Never happened. That was precise, though. Grandfather had heart problems? Spent a lot of time in his yard? Was he sick? Very old? Recent talk about it? etc, etc, etc.

You think two people having the identical dream about a precise event in a specific location that actually happened is guessing or mere coincidence? I would look at the probabilities against that happening as being mind-mindbogglingly high.

If your wife knew her grandfathervhad heart troubles and if it was worrying her, she would be thinking "what if he has a heart attack?"and out in the yard is a bad place to have it, away from view and away from stuff like phones if he were conscious. It's not that big of a jump to start dreaming about one's grandfather dying of a heart attack.

I wouldn't be suprised if you wife had other dreams about her grandfather dying and this is the only one your remember because of its seeming predictiveness. I remember having a dream once about moving into a house and meeting one of my fellow tennants who was a jockey and said he recently won a race. Imagine my suprise when I moved house a few days later when I did move house ant the conversation happened like I imagined. This wasn't god speaking however, I read the sports news and the race was high enough profile that it was written about, I had received some information from my mother's friend who had put me in the know about the room to rent, and the jockey's name is James, very common. Just a bunch of details I had that my subconscoiusness threw together into a lucky coincidence.

[robvalue]

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.

[Pat Mustard]

Clarify. Stone cold evidence for god foretelling what is happening now will do. And no, cryptic gobbledigock, up for any kind of interpretation won't.

Isaiah11:11 In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. 12  He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth."

The nation of Israel was destroyed in 586 BC and regathered 70 years later. It was destroyed a second time by the Romans 2000 years ago and the Jews were dispersed to the four corners of the earth. For all this time, the nation of Israel ceased to exist. Then in 1948 God fulfilled his promise to regather the Jews and to restore their nation.

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".