Dr. Craig is a liar.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

He didn't refer to the dude as "some dude". He said "the dude ". Don't pretend that the sleight of hand misquoting wasn't an attempt at marginalising Rocket's position.

I didn't quibble about the exact quotation because I think he was trying to emphasize that my use of "dude" implied this guy was just any old Nobody, when in fact he was Professor Doctor T. Expert, PhD.

It was true: my folks are both holders of Doctorates, and I have known enough Piled Higher and Deepers to know that many of them get so involved in their own pet ideas that they "go off the deep end" and start to fall outside the mainstream of thinking on any number of topics, including their own field. They will sometimes cling to outdated, disproved, and bypassed ideas, after spending so long defending them. That is why it is useless to quote any one expert, unless the person's general perspective on information is within the mainstream to the degree that it could stand in for the consensus. That is why it is an examination of methodology, considering all the literature as a whole, and seeking a consensus opinion that matters.

In the words of Carl Sagan:

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." - Carl Sagan

[Cyberman]

It was his use of the "some" qualifier that he was balking against, insinuating that you were dismissing the guy's credentials. You were being strawmanned.

[Edwardo Piet]

William Lane Craig is the epitome of an annoying apologist.

[Mister Agenda]

Re-read my post. I was very clear about which sense of the word is a contradiction and which was not. By using the word as a synonym for 'eternal', you're having a completely different conversation from the rest of us. We're talking about William Lane Craig's interpretations and expansion on the Kalam Cosmological Argument. In that argument, 'timeless' is used in the sense of 'there being no time'. If there's no contradiction, then you're off topic.

We wouldn't need to be arguing semantics if you were using the term consistently with what's actually being discussed.

I'm sorry webster jr. but it's not up to YOU to define the word timeless how ever you see fit, I gave you the dictionary definition.

Time does not exist for an eternal being, because is has no beginning or end, so at what point are you going to measure time? As I have constantly been trying to explain to you guys, time is relative, it can only be measured in relation to something else, hence why we measure it by the rotation / revolution of the earth in relation to the sun, but that measurement is only unique to the earth.

Since there is no time for an eternal being, trying to make a distinction between "eternal" and "there being no time" IS ARGUING SEMANTICS.

No time, no eternity.

[Time Traveler]

My point is that the bible has been saying that faith can heal long before science termed the "placebo effect".

But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. - Luke 8:50

Yes, but what if they didn't believe? What if, instead... And they laughed him [Jesus] to scorn, knowing that she was dead. - Luke 8:53

They clearly didn't believe Jesus could heal the girl, and yet... magic!

I'm sure you have some special pleading as to why this case worked absent belief.

What I really want to know is, can faith healing alone regrow an amputee's limb? Is the photon God/Jesus you believe in powerful enough to bring back the dead today? If yes, cite the clinical trials. If not, why not? Why are studies done on the efficacy of prayer only attempted in cases where there is significant ambiguity as to whether or not any successes were caused by a natural placebo effect or a supernatural agent?

I want prayer studies for those who A) Received medical treatment for severe heart attacks/strokes but were not prayed for, vs. B) Those who received NO medical treatment for heart attacks/strokes but people prayed their assess off in any manner YOU choose. Are you willing to bet on the statistical successes from those two study groups? (My bet's on medical science - you get prayers and faith.) I want prayer studies on amputees. How about prayer studies to completely restore someone whose brains were blown out of their skull with a shotgun, bringing them back to life? Sorry, Huggy, you and I both know that your "all powerful God" isn't powerful enough - no matter how many true believers pray - to accomplish anything of this significance in trial settings. 

And you also never addressed the valid points LadyForCamus made regarding 1) Why God would save people only if prayed for, 2) What are the precise number of prayers necessary to jumpstart God into action, and 3) Why does God change his "Grand Plan" if enough people pray?

---

So...god only helped those people because a randomized group of strangers chosen for a research study were assigned to pray for them?  Otherwise, what?  He would have let them die of heart attacks or strokes?  Was there a threshold?  Like, was God sitting up in heaven saying, "if they reach 100,000 prayers I'll save the guy.  99,000 just isn't going to cut it.  

Not to mention, the insinuation that we can change people's fates (down to their very life or death) with prayer flies in the face of the notion that God has a divine and personalized plan for each and every one of us.  I was meant to die at 50 of a stroke leaving my entire family alone and penniless, but thankfully enough people from experimental group B prayed for me so God changed his mind!  'Absurd' doesn't even come close.

---

[Huggy Bear]

But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. - Luke 8:50

Yes, but what if they didn't believe? What if, instead... And they laughed him [Jesus] to scorn, knowing that she was dead. - Luke 8:53

They clearly didn't believe Jesus could heal the girl, and yet... magic!

I'm sure you have some special pleading as to why this case worked absent belief.

Did you not read the rest of it where it clearly states that he kicked them all out of the house?

Luke 8
53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.
54 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.

Matthew 13
57 And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
58 And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

*emphasis mine*

[Huggy Bear]

Fair enough. I've been dealing with another asshole with a PhD all day, in debunking the bullshit of an anti-trans, anti-gay activist who uses his former position at Johns Hopkins to peddle debunked, old psychological ideas which conservatives gobble up because they suit their prejudices.

The point remains, however, that no matter how well credentialed an individual writing an opinion piece is, that they're still just "some dude" with a single opinion. Unless that opinion is accompanied by references and represents the consensus of scientific understanding of the subject, then it's just some dude, no matter his position or title. (I'd also like to add, here: Oh, NOW you want to lean heavily on a PhD's opinion as definitive on a subject, after ignoring the literally hundreds of thousands of evolutionary biologists out there?)

whether or not someone has a PhD matters not to me, but to you guys. Are you saying you'd accept the opinion of someone with less? I think not.

What I find interesting is that your were quick to give YOUR opinion on the mechanics of the placebo effect (despite how is works being unknown)while providing no references, yet when confront with the opinion of actual experts, you dismiss THEM out of hand, pretty hypocritical don't you think?

And I quote:

The Placebo Effect is what happens when a person thinks they're getting medicine, but in reality nothing is happening.

However, due to their brain's reaction to the "good news" of the cure they're getting, they produce fewer stress hormones and their immune system's reaction improves. They are thus "cured" (or improved) by absolutely nothing other than their own natural processes.

There is zero evidence that it is faith in a magical being that is causing the healing. If you would have actually read the NIH article I cited, it goes on for pages about the various possibilities, what we do and don't know about them, and so on. The NIH article cites multiple major studies that have been done in an attempt to understand the various phenomena, and represents the scientific consensus on the subject... not the opinion of any one human being.

More importantly, you are positing a magical causation to what is undoubtedly a natural phenomenon. You say it is irrelevant how it happens, but I think the exact opposite is true. It is undoubtedly a natural occurrence because it can be replicated by known, non-magical means. You dismiss that by calling it irrelevant, as if your magical hypothesis is proved, but the dominant idea at the moment is that our endocrine system is boosted in certain circumstances that have to do with our mental state, resulting in higher immune response. There is a high biological cost in maintaining a hyped-up immune system at all times, and there are psychological conditions (such as depression) which are shown to reduce the immune response, so things which help overcome the mental states that produce the chemical levels related to depression (and other conditions that do the same, for example high stress, in which the body puts its resources into short-term survival) are undoubtedly going to be helpful, as your quotation of Dr. Woollacott's work suggests.

Faith traditions seem to provide measurable benefits to one's sense of wellness, especially in overcoming loneliness and depression (indeed, religions specifically target such people for recruitment), by giving a sense of community and belonging, which to a species which evolved in small tribal societies is almost as strong a biological imperative as eating and breathing. That does NOT mean that magic is involved. And if having faith is really no different from eating a sugar pill that I'm told will cure me (the Placebo Effect), then it's not supportive of the claims you're trying to make, or imply at least, here.

The Biblical claim to which you refer is talking about magic. Literal magic. Not the Placebo Effect. We're the ones claiming that any "cures" out there are the result of the Placebo Effect-- nothing is happening except for a couple of natural phenomena triggered by certain states of mind, and the related reaction of the endocrine and immune systems.

So you've got nothing, and you've made our case for us. Thanks!

So because YOU don't understand how something works it must be magic? Even the bible doesn't attribute faith to "magic":

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1

What that scripture is saying, is that there are things at work which you cannot see, that is to say not readily apparent to the 5 senses.

Just because you can't see, taste, smell, hear, or feel something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, the senses are just tools to enable you to contact the physical world around you. Interesting enough even the world around you which you perceive as solid is 99.999999999999% empty space, and that the worlds population could be condensed into the size of a sugar cube if you removed all the empty space?

What if by chance that just maybe that space isn't so empty and that things exist (whether in a different dimension on on a different frequency) that we just cannot detect?

One day you guys, just may realize that everything simply cannot be known

[account_inactive]

I've never even heard of him lol

Me neither.

[Simon Moon]

Fair enough. I've been dealing with another asshole with a PhD all day, in debunking the bullshit of an anti-trans, anti-gay activist who uses his former position at Johns Hopkins to peddle debunked, old psychological ideas which conservatives gobble up because they suit their prejudices.

The point remains, however, that no matter how well credentialed an individual writing an opinion piece is, that they're still just "some dude" with a single opinion. Unless that opinion is accompanied by references and represents the consensus of scientific understanding of the subject, then it's just some dude, no matter his position or title. (I'd also like to add, here: Oh, NOW you want to lean heavily on a PhD's opinion as definitive on a subject, after ignoring the literally hundreds of thousands of evolutionary biologists out there?)

whether or not someone has a PhD matters not to me, but to you guys. Are you saying you'd accept the opinion of someone with less? I think not.

What I find interesting is that your were quick to give YOUR opinion on the mechanics of the placebo effect (despite how is works being unknown)while providing no references, yet when confront with the opinion of actual experts, you dismiss THEM out of hand, pretty hypocritical don't you think?

And I quote:

The Placebo Effect is what happens when a person thinks they're getting medicine, but in reality nothing is happening.

However, due to their brain's reaction to the "good news" of the cure they're getting, they produce fewer stress hormones and their immune system's reaction improves. They are thus "cured" (or improved) by absolutely nothing other than their own natural processes.

There is zero evidence that it is faith in a magical being that is causing the healing. If you would have actually read the NIH article I cited, it goes on for pages about the various possibilities, what we do and don't know about them, and so on. The NIH article cites multiple major studies that have been done in an attempt to understand the various phenomena, and represents the scientific consensus on the subject... not the opinion of any one human being.

More importantly, you are positing a magical causation to what is undoubtedly a natural phenomenon. You say it is irrelevant how it happens, but I think the exact opposite is true. It is undoubtedly a natural occurrence because it can be replicated by known, non-magical means. You dismiss that by calling it irrelevant, as if your magical hypothesis is proved, but the dominant idea at the moment is that our endocrine system is boosted in certain circumstances that have to do with our mental state, resulting in higher immune response. There is a high biological cost in maintaining a hyped-up immune system at all times, and there are psychological conditions (such as depression) which are shown to reduce the immune response, so things which help overcome the mental states that produce the chemical levels related to depression (and other conditions that do the same, for example high stress, in which the body puts its resources into short-term survival) are undoubtedly going to be helpful, as your quotation of Dr. Woollacott's work suggests.

Faith traditions seem to provide measurable benefits to one's sense of wellness, especially in overcoming loneliness and depression (indeed, religions specifically target such people for recruitment), by giving a sense of community and belonging, which to a species which evolved in small tribal societies is almost as strong a biological imperative as eating and breathing. That does NOT mean that magic is involved. And if having faith is really no different from eating a sugar pill that I'm told will cure me (the Placebo Effect), then it's not supportive of the claims you're trying to make, or imply at least, here.

The Biblical claim to which you refer is talking about magic. Literal magic. Not the Placebo Effect. We're the ones claiming that any "cures" out there are the result of the Placebo Effect-- nothing is happening except for a couple of natural phenomena triggered by certain states of mind, and the related reaction of the endocrine and immune systems.

So you've got nothing, and you've made our case for us. Thanks!

So because YOU don't understand how something works it must be magic? Even the bible doesn't attribute faith to "magic":

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1

What that scripture is saying, is that there are things at work which you cannot see, that is to say not readily apparent to the 5 senses.

So, in effect, that passage is telling you to believe something for bad reasons. 

That sounds a lot like gullibility to me. 

Just because you can't see, taste, smell, hear, or feel something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, the senses are just tools to enable you to contact the physical world around you. Interesting enough even the world around you which you perceive as solid is 99.999999999999% empty space, and that the worlds population could be condensed into the size of a sugar cube if you removed all the empty space?

Not true.

There are plenty of things we believe that are not detectable by our 5 senses. But they are demonstrable using science, math, etc.

Atoms for example.

What if by chance that just maybe that space isn't so empty and that things exist (whether in a different dimension on on a different frequency) that we just cannot detect?

If that is the case, then what is my justification be to believe in them NOW?

I'm not saying that just because something is indectable, it does not exist. Only that there is no reason to believe it does exist. 

One day you guys, just may realize that everything simply cannot be known

I'll bet that there is not a single atheist here that believes everything can me known.

But just because there are things that we don't yet know, or may never know, does not mean it is rational to stick your god in the unknown.


[/quote]

[TheRocketSurgeon]

whether or not someone has a PhD matters not to me, but to you guys. Are you saying you'd accept the opinion of someone with less? I think not.

What I find interesting is that your were quick to give YOUR opinion on the mechanics of the placebo effect (despite how is works being unknown)while providing no references, yet when confront with the opinion of actual experts, you dismiss THEM out of hand, pretty hypocritical don't you think?

And I quote:

The Placebo Effect is what happens when a person thinks they're getting medicine, but in reality nothing is happening.

However, due to their brain's reaction to the "good news" of the cure they're getting, they produce fewer stress hormones and their immune system's reaction improves. They are thus "cured" (or improved) by absolutely nothing other than their own natural processes.

No, I summarized most of what I've read from the papers demonstrating the consensus ideas about how this works; for additional guidance, I linked you to the most definitive source of scientific information on that topic I could think of, the NIH's excellent database. What would be hypocritical would be to keep demanding references after a literal database of such references was just provided to you. That paper from the NIH contains quite literally hundreds of references, in a pages-long article, giving the most-full definition I could imagine outside of a technical journal for professionals in the field!

What I did not provide was a single Authority Figure, telling us "how it is", and it is to that, not to the presence (or absence) of a PhD, to which I objected. And continue to object. Your failure to figure out the difference is not my fault or my problem.

So because YOU don't understand how something works it must be magic? Even the bible doesn't attribute faith to "magic":

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1

What that scripture is saying, is that there are things at work which you cannot see, that is to say not readily apparent to the 5 senses.

Just because you can't see, taste, smell, hear, or feel something, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, the senses are just tools to enable you to contact the physical world around you. Interesting enough even the world around you which you perceive as solid is 99.999999999999% empty space, and that the worlds population could be condensed into the size of a sugar cube if you removed all the empty space?

What if by chance that just maybe that space isn't so empty and that things exist (whether in a different dimension on on a different frequency) that we just cannot detect?

One day you guys, just may realize that everything simply cannot be known

We don't claim to know everything. No one does or can, and likely no one ever will. But neither will we deny what we do know, nor will we accept as true assertions which have no basis in anything other than the human imagination. I believe that people who say "we don't know everything, so I can insert my own imagination in here" or "we don't know everything, so that means we know nothing" are detriments to society.

You can quibble over the definition of faith if you like, but you're still proposing magic. I'm sorry you don't like that term, but when you're talking about supernatural powers, especially ones that can be wielded by human thought (such as prayer), and especially ones that have measurable effects on this world, you're talking about magic.

Yer a wizard, Huggy.

Sugar-pill coating it (geddit?) doesn't change the Placebo Effect into a magical effect, and it certainly doesn't mean that faith is a real power, even if it is capable of inducing humans to a placebo-like effect. Well, except for the kind of power we mean in a song by Huey Lewis and the News, "That's the POWER OF LOOOVE!"