The real religion?

[robvalue]

If a child came up to me with a story book and claimed that a magical character in the book was real because it was in the book, I'd be seriously concerned. What have its parents been teaching it?

It boggles my mind that I have adults saying this to me. What am I supposed to say to that?

Not only is the (magical) character real, but the adult also thinks it has "a relationship" with it, whatever that is supposed to mean. And it thinks this relationship is having some effect on the real world.

I do understand how people end up in this mindset. It's just so jarring and painful when viewed from the outside.

[Edwardo Piet]

Religion: Organizied socially acceptable psychosis.

[LadyForCamus]

You might not find it convincing, but it certainly objectively evidence for God.

So, if I, and a bunch of other people collected all the accounts and personal experiences with the Mandela Effect from around the world and catalogued them into a book, this book would be objective evidence of people experiencing parallel universe slips. Right? Indisputable evidence of parallel universe slips happening all the time. I mean...if THAT many people INSIST (and they do vehemently insist) they are experiencing parallel universe slips, then it must be true. Yes?

[Crossless2.0]

The stumbling block that I can never get passed with Steve is the fact that the NT is the claim, not the evidence.  It's no more evidence for Jesus/God than the Koran is for Mohammed/Allah.

Steve's just another Protestant apologist who engages in self-serving sophistry. We're unreasonable to hope for good evidence, as it's normally understood, and we're blinded by our alleged prejudices from seeing how the patently bad evidence he wants to serve up is really good evidence. I mean, how can you not read the NT and just understand, deep down how solid it is as evidence for its own claims? Poor, spiritually blind you! How can you know what you know about the myriad ways people deceive themselves but not understand that when a complete stranger claims to have a personal relationship with a being they can't even persuade you exists, that it's your fault they can't present compelling evidence. Ah, wretched sinner! And when will you pull your head out of your ass and simply accept that circular reasoning is reasonable. How can you hurt Jesus so?!?


As for the Koran, well, that doesn't offer us a personal relationship with God. So there, Muslims and atheists!   

I'm quickly growing bored with this one.

[Edwardo Piet]

You might not find it convincing, but it certainly objectively evidence for God.

So, if I, and a bunch of other people collected all the accounts and personal experiences with the Mandela Effect from around the world and catalogued them into a book, this book would be objective evidence of people experiencing parallel universe slips.  Right?  Indisputable evidence of parallel universe slips happening all the time.  I mean...if THAT many people INSIST (and they do vehemently insist) they are experiencing parallel universe slips, then it must be true.  Yes?

Yes.

Or Steve is being an illogical condescending buttface.

[Crossless2.0]

If a child came up to me with a story book and claimed that a magical character in the book was real because it was in the book, I'd be seriously concerned. What have its parents been teaching it?

It boggles my mind that I have adults saying this to me. What am I supposed to say to that?

Not only is the (magical) character real, but the adult also thinks it has "a relationship" with it, whatever that is supposed to mean. And it thinks this relationship is having some effect on the real world.

I do understand how people end up in this mindset. It's just so jarring and painful when viewed from the outside.

Have you ever once met a hard-core believer who was fundamentally honest about his faith? I don't mean earnest (they have that in spades); I mean honest.

[robvalue]

Hum......

Nope. Not that I recall.

[Edwardo Piet]

I don't really see the difference between being earnest and honest.

[robvalue]

Well, I can believe that someone believes their conclusion. I just don't believe the justification they are giving me for it.

The nearest I got is when someone admits they are part of the religion because they were raised that way. But then they go on to declare that they knows it's true anyway. I don't think I've met anyone who can keep their story straight.

I do think that some people genuinely don't know why they believe.

[SteveII]

You did not address how you can examine a supernatural claim with natural science-

I'm sorry; did I need to?  The clear answer is: you can't, because such a proposition is absurd to begin with.  Which is my whole point.  

You put forth an unfalsifiable claim, then offer evidence in support of this claim that you, yourself, admit cannot be scientifically evaluated in any way.  THEN, you turn around and declare we cannot judge the quality of the evidence you provided because the claim is unfalsifiable, and not subject to scientific scrutiny!  Make up your mind already.  If there is no way to evaluate the likelihood of your theory being true, then you can't say you have proof of its cause and effect, lol.

Secondly, what does "supernatural" even mean?  If God really does exist as a pure and eternal entity; the source of all things in existence, wouldn't that make him the embodiment of all things natural?  

Thirdly, I'd still like to know your thoughts on the extraordinary claims of the Mandela Effect.

You are still treating the question as if it was a lab experiment. You probably don't espouse scientism as your worldview so admit there are other methods than science of gaining knowledge. A person's self-reported intuition is one of those other methods.  A billion peoples self-reported intuition is even better. 

Supernatural is not quite simply not natural. Not made of stuff from this universe. 

I don't know anything about the Mandela Effect. 

That is scientism and is a very tenuous (at best) worldview that does not hold up to scrutiny. There are many other truths that science cannot and does not comment one.

And...?  What follows this?

See above about methods of knowledge. 

So, you say we cannot know anything for sure if it is comes from the human mind. I don't think you live that way, you just want to use that in your argument because you don't like the conclusion. This version of the "eyewitnesses aren't reliable" argument against the existence of God has all the same flaws as the original.

Since I am not the one making a positive claim, it is not my duty to provide an "argument against the existence of God."  It is YOUR duty to demonstrate evidence in support of your claim.  I am merely pointing out factual reasons why eye-witness testimony is not reliable evidence; especially for such an extraordinary claim.  If you have something better to show us, I'd be happy to see it.

Scientism is a belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most "authoritative" worldview or the most valuable part of human learning—to the exclusion of other viewpoints. Accordingly, philosopher Tom Sorell provides this definition of scientism: "Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture."[1] It has been defined as "the view that the characteristic inductive methods of the natural sciences are the only source of genuine factual knowledge and, in particular, that they alone can yield true knowledge about man and society". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

=a poor worldview that is self-refuting.

Okay...so...'there is stuff we don't know, may never know, may never be able to know via the scientific method,' somehow magically leads to, 'God exists, and the Christian God is the one true God?'  

*scratches head*

Science has gotten us quite far if you haven't noticed...[emoji53]

That was not the point. Since you obviously cannot claim science is the only source of knowledge you cannot claim something to be false simply because you can't examine it in a lab. Find another reason to say that God does not exist and/or people do not have relationships with God. 

There are thousands (if not more) cases where people become Christians based on reading the NT alone. No convincing there. No outside pressure. No ulterior motives. How do you account for those conversions?

So, other people believe stupid crap for crappy reasons.  So what?  Lots of people are convinced by accounts of the Mandela Effect when they read of it.  This is not evidence of the truth of its claims.  People are gullible.  This shouldn't surprise you.

That's not an argument against a specific belief. You need to provide a specific reason why a billion people's experience is false and not just say 'experiences can be false, therefore this one is false'. 

And who said anything about no evidence. There is plenty of evidence contained in the NT alone. You might not find it convincing or have beliefs about it's truth claims, but it will [u]always be evidence

But, I thought your claim was supernatural, and therefore not subject to examination via natural means?  [emoji848]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

In context, I said that a supernatural claim cannot be measured with science. The NT contained actual events that happened in the natural world that are the evidence that I referred to.