The Glade 4.0

Why is NOW when I find that I do not still have the link to the Onion article where God states that the Jewish people have been re-selected as the chosen people...

_________________
Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

We aren't starting with any such basic assumption. We're starting with the observation that there are varying degrees of evidence for various religions and each person decides which is credible based on their personal evaluation.

Pastafarianism tries to avoid dealing with that evidence by creating an explicitly farcical religion, then claiming that it has the same amount of evidence (none) as every other religions, and therefore is just as credible as any other.

The problem is that its claim that other religions have no evidence is based entirely on the decision of the pastafarian that that evidence is not credible. Essentially, it is an argument that "This conclusion is so obviously outrageous, that any evidence pointing to it can be rejected out of hand. Therefore, there is no such evidence. That means I can make a farcical similar claim that explicitly has no evidence, and claim it is just as credible in order to make the religion I don't like look foolish."

In other words, it is a cute way of rejecting any evidence of any religion based on the conclusion it would lead to if shown to be accurate.

So yes, the argument does hold water.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

For it to hold water there needs to be scientific evaluation and not "personal".

That is not true at all. The existance fo evidence in the first place is not a scientific question. In fact, the insistence on a "scientific" evaluation is in itself an attempt to preclude the conclusion in question, because science is concerned with the workings of the universe, while the supernatural is supposed to exist outside the limits of the universe and its laws.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Perhaps the first step would be to provide evidence that something, anything, can exist separate of our universe.

We alreday have that. People have documented their encounters with the supernatural, and this documentation can be found in the holy books of several religions.

There's no need to provide evidence that what's written in the books is actually evidence. It doesn't constitute proof, and so each person must decide if its credible or not.

The problem is when people who don't find it credible then claim it isn't evidence in the first place. This is patently false, and represents either a failue to grasp the difference between "evidence" and "proof", or a desire to create a situation where no evidence, however convincing could ever be considered valid simply because of the conclusion it was trying to support.

Considering evidence to be fictitious for no better reason than that it happens to be part of the text of a religion you don't subscribe to is simply circular argument "I don't believe this to be true because I don't believe in it." Rejecting it as unconvincing is another matter, and perfectly valid.

If you mean some sort of observational evidence that something exists outside our universe, that would be impossible beyond observing it at times and places where it (for whatever reason) interacts with our universe. Observation is, by its very nature, conducted according to the laws of the universe, and so is limited to the universe. Something with an existence outside the universe could only be observed when it chooses, or otherwise is caused to interact with it, thus revealing itself.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

People discount the EXPLANATION not the encounters themselves. No one suggests so-and-so didn't have an experience. However we differ on the conclusion drawn from the experience.

The phrase "I died and went to heaven and met God and then was resurrected on the table" already has so many conclusions built into it, it cannot be regarded as evidence.

Don't feed the troll, and the troll is not Lex.

All you're doing is taking the people's observations and claiming that they are explainations; this is especially weak since many of the experiences in question were shared by multiple people at the same time.



This is not true at all. You can use this excuse to discount any evidence you want to. You're simply assuming that something else happened, calling the person's relation of their experience a conclusion, and then saying "it isn't evidence" based on nothing more than the nature of the person's description of what happened to them.

By this logic we could never call witnesses in court because any explaination of what happened could be regarded as a "conclusion" and thereby discounted as evidence.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not at all. Evidence can be examined by others. Witness accounts are, by their nature, subjective.

The statement I gave should be phrased:
"My heart stopped and I perceived that I was in a safe place full of warm light. I experienced a feeling over overwhelming well being. In my mind I heard a voice echoing which I felt informed me I was not done with life." --or somesuch.

But one MUST build in that "I perceived" filter, because it simply is not repeatable, cannot be measured, and there are LOTS of other explanations possible.

The fact is that the subject here PERCEIVED something. The conclusion (That it was God) is not a fact.

So what if they aren't repeatable? Crimes generally can't be repeated to test the accuracy of eyewitness accounts either, nor can historical events. We don't claim, for example, that a whole assload of people perceived a bright flash and enormous heat and pressure over Hiroshima, or that a few guys in a plane perceived dropping a device out of it, but that we don't know if there really was a nuclear explosion or not.

Of course, you'll point out that we can measure a lot more physical evidence of that than we can of most accounted supernatural events. That is true, and no one has claimed otherwise. That only speaks to the strength of the evidence overall; No one claims that evidence for anything supernatural even remotely approaches that for relatively recent historical events.

So no, you don't have to build in any "I perceived" filter. duh. of course you perceived it. Whether it can be reproduced or not has nothing to do with it. That does not mean it is somehow "not evidence"; we generally can't reproduce anything we rely on eyewitness evidence to support; hence the usefulness of eyewitness evidence.



You're moving the goalposts. Again, that eyewitness account that they had some sort of supernatural experience after death or near death or whatever it was, is evidence. No one is claiming it is proof. Saying they "perceived something" is simply stating the blindingly obvious in order to make it sound weaker. Each person takes that account, in conjunction with all the other evidence they are aware of, and determines what they believe. That's faith; making up the difference between the evidence, and having actual proof, which no one does.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If someone experienced it, then doesn't it make it natural and not supernatural?

No. Did you totally miss the parts about how we could observe it at times and places where it interacted with the natural universe? Or how in TheRiov's example, it was something that occured to the conciousness at or during death, and thereby could occur at the point where the conciousness (i.e. the soul) passes in whatever fashion into the realm of the supernatural?

All you're doing is trying to create some trap where the supernatural is precluded from interacting with the natural, thereby rendering it unobservable, and rendering anything that is observed necessarily "natural" and thereby subject to scientific examination. Then, of course, it's easy to claim there's no known scientific explaination for the events, so therefore they must not have happened.

This is yet another form of begging the question, by proclaiming that anything that is claimed to have happened must either have a natural explaination or must be a fabrication or error, despite the fact that this is also the conclusion one is trying to reach.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It was just a question... I'm not trying to do anything.

Evidence has a chain of causality. The supernatural events, by their nature are quite literally a Deus ex machina. Even if you have hundreds of witnesses who heard a voice booming out of the heavens, there is no evidence of any of the 'rest' of the story.

Lets take an example of a murder: We can trace a gun from its manufacture, sale, etc. We have a long trail going into the event and a trail going out. Supernatural events on the other hand, seem to never have any.
This of course is internally consistant with the power ascribed to an Abrahamic God, but is utterly unsatisfying (spiritually) for some of us.




But we can duplicate what we think (based on testimony) are the facts of an event and they still remain logically consistant. We can trace all elements into the crime (and hopefully out of, or at least account for where they might have gone)

On the other hand, the supernatural omits this. There is only a pile of salt. Or an unburned bush. Or fish from nowhere. And were you to reconstruct the events, the same thing would not happen again.



No, its actually a key point, oft overlooked by the more credulous. One that often gets omitted by people trying to sell a point.



Which is why I find it so silly that people of faith try to use 'evidence' to justify their faith. Just have faith. TRUE Omnipotence can create/destroy/eliminate/ignore any 'evidence' and in fact time itself, so no amount of proof can disprove an Abrahamic god.

What "rest of the story"? Why exactly is that important? I've already stipulated that you can't observe the supernatural except in circumstances where it allows itself to be heard, so you seem to be simply repeating what I've already stated but in different words in order to imply there's some sort of problem you're not specifying.



What's your point? With the murder, the goal is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. However, some murders never get solved. In the case of faith, most people realize that they cannot prove/solve the question of whether God exists; they simply take what evidence there is, and decide it is enough to have faith that there is a God.

I realize that's unsatisfying, but the fact that it's unsatisfying to some people does not make the evidence go away, or invalidate it as evidence. That makes you no different than a juror who votes "not guilty" because he has a reasonable doubt. The fact that the juror sees doubt does not mean the existing evidence disappears.



I'm not sure how you think you are "duplicating the facts of the event" in a court of law any more than people who read the Bible or the Koran are doing the same thing. Oh sure, the evidence is generally a lot more recent and complete, but it's also describing a far more limited scope of events.

As for "remaining logically consistent", the events that are supposed to have happened as a result of supernatural intervention are only "logically inconsistent" when we assume they must conform to the laws of this universe. Again, this is a way of trying to use your conclusion that there is nothing supernatural as a premise in showing that it doesn't exist, or at least to try to impeach the evidence for it. I don't see why it's so hard to understand that it is a major error to in any way approach the question with any sort of attack that uses has as its underlying assumption that the supernatural must conform to the laws of the universe or it cannot exist.



In the first sentence above you're simply pointing out that the majority of the evidence is testimonial, while physical evidence is sparse. As for "reconstructing the events", so what? You're just pointing out that we cannot interact with the supernatural unless it chooses to allow this. That is not, in any way, a weakness for the case; it's the nature of the thing in question. Trying to use that nature to impeach it is yet another form of begging the question.



I have no idea why you think it's a "key point" or even how what you said pertains to what you responded to.



People use evidence to justify their faith primarily in order to have some idea of what faith to have, as well as to combat the silliness of people who need to make up things like the Flying Spaghetti Monster in order justify their own petty resentment of beliefs they don't share. If there were no evidence, no one would beleive in much of anything because no one would have the foggiest idea what to beleive in. You'll note that "joke" religions like Scientology and the FSM appeared well after religions based on observation (regardless of how flawed those observations might be" appeared.

As for "True" omnipotence, yes it could do those, but if it did, then its doing so would be more evidence of it since clearly you are not claiming the universe itself would spontaneously cause such to appear or disappear. Your "just have faith" comment is simply a desire for believers to make it more convenient for you to make Flying Spaghetti Monster claims by just rolling over and not annoying you further by pointing out that there is, in fact, evidence for beliefs other than your own.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Just because a man made a famous quote does not make it insightful. The man's basic contention is idiotic, and his second sentence is simply a resttement of the obvious. The fact that he does not see the evidence as I or anyone else sees it in no way impeaches anyone else's evaluation of it. He is simply begging the question; he assumes that because he sees all religions as equally unbelieveable means they must necessarily be that way. The person he is speaking to may or may not have an accurate belief, and the same is true of anyone else.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I contend we are both sophists, I just use less specious arguments than you do. When you understand why you dismiss everyone else's arguments, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

_________________
"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Lydiaa, what is scientist? Is that Scientology?

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Pretty sure that just means that education trumps religion to her.

What Lenas said. I can't believe in anything that can not be proved scientifically. Personally I can't stand scientologist just cause... well they are annoying and block the roads in the city with their silly tests.
Part of my wants to believe, but I'm functionally unable to do so with out scientifically provable evidence.

If I had to pick a religion, I'd like to believe in the pink unicorn in Talya's closet. =P

I made up a religion one drunken night (30ish years ago) as a way to pick up girls. The buddy I was with, sadly, still practices the religion, claiming to be a religious sex monk. His church is in the bar, his altar is any surface she'll agree to. I asked him to stop using my name in vain.

He's never married, being a monk.

Sometimes I wonder if he actually believes it.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones