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At 5/12/10 02:15 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: Imperator, Avie, were you attempting to disprove God with that exchange CacheHelper posted?

No.
Besides, as often pointed out, I cannot "disprove" God......anymore than I can "disprove" the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

At 5/12/10 05:02 PM, JohnnyWang wrote: Well, the point of the arc debate wasn't as much to disprove god, but to disprove the literalist interpretation of the bible, which is practised by some Christian sects.

We have a winner. The arc of the covenant, Noah's Ark, holy grail, etc. These things are typically "found" by people looking for evidence to support a literal interpretation of the bible, or those who believe the bible either as inerrant or infallible (word of God).

Which is sorta silly, since finding such artifacts doesn't actually lead to the conclusions they think it would......Finding the ark doesn't actually prove a Young Earth theory.

Although, I think the point could be expanded over the idea of religion and supernatural belief as a social (ie, man-made) construct. In other words, religion exists because society developed a need for it. Likewise, the numerous and critical similarities between religions suggest belief in god(s) is equally a social construct.

Thus, god didn't create Man, but Man created god(s).

Atheists just tend to be the ones most cvocally critical of litarlist interpretation of the bible.

I have a more practical reason for being critical of a literal interpretation of the Bible.....

.....I've read it.

At 5/12/10 05:29 PM, Imperator wrote: I have a more practical reason for being critical of a literal interpretation of the Bible.....

.....I've read it.

Same here, summer of 2004, two weeks at church summmer camp, plus reading religious debates here. I can actually attribute my atheism party to the NG BBS :P

At 5/12/10 03:03 PM, The-universe wrote: If you disprove a particular interpretation using it's own scripture, you have debunked that individual god because the text doesn't work.

That doesn't rule out the idea of God though. Just one book, one interpritation of God.
All religions could be wrong and God could still exist.

This old peice of wood and the origins of the 'flood story' mean nothing.

At 5/12/10 06:52 PM, CacheHelper wrote: That doesn't rule out the idea of God though. [...]

You just said exactly what The-universe was saying. Meanwhile you completely ignored everything else everyone has been saying to you, including one of the authors of the post you quoted as being indicative of some case against a god.

What are you holding against who? Make up your mind.

At 5/12/10 05:02 PM, JohnnyWang wrote:

At 5/12/10 04:07 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: (I won't don't know if any strange event and feature has been individually proven wrong)

Psychics, faith healers, and other similar charlatans are often exposed as frauds. Miracle healings at holy sites are few and far between, and they're minor things that can be attributed to natural healing.

In all honesty, if one day you look at the sky and the clouds spell "Hey, it's me, God, you bitches" there's always a chance that that formation is a random natural occurrence.

At 5/12/10 02:09 PM, CacheHelper wrote: The ark is relevant in that other religions have similar stories of floods.

I'm not arguing relevance, when I say something like that I'm pointing out that there are other potential (and perhaps better) interpretations of that story then "it's absolutely true that this is a historical event".

My point, it doesn't matter. Saying there is no God because page 23 of [religious text] is wrong is like saying atoms don't exist because page 23 of a Harry Potter book is full of lies. The two could be related... or not... but what man says and puts down on paper does not change the reality of the world that we live in.

I get where you're going but let's back up and consider this: Religious texts are written and promulgated as ABSOLUTE TRUTH, The Bible is promulgated as the Word Of God. A text of truth. If someone can prove that page 23 is wrong it DOES cast quite doubt on the whole thing because if you conclusively prove something in it is wrong, then the whole fabric of it's claim as being absolutely truthful and factual unravels. If you start to unravel the religious text, then you start to unravel the religion, and in this case if you start to unravel The Bible, then you start to unravel the specific God it posits. True there still COULD be A creator, but as for that SPECIFIC creator? Well, it becomes a bit more doubtful.

The bible could be a collection of fairy-tales... but that doesn't mean God/Gods doesn't exist. It just simply means one, or a few, books are wrong.

Or all the books are wrong and the creator/creators never contacted anybody. If you start mounting evidence against a specific deity (like how I don't think there's a person alive that believes Zeus or Thor are still around mucking with things) then you have two options: one, atheism and chuck all deities, or a more general theism where you can hold to the divine but not any specific definition of the divine.

This goes both ways of course. This very well could be the Ark... it doesn't prove God exists either.

It would be huge for the credibility of the Judeo-Christian Bible and it's God though...too bad the evidence in the plus column for it being the Ark is about as good as every other time this has been claimed.

At 5/12/10 09:24 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: In all honesty, if one day you look at the sky and the clouds spell "Hey, it's me, God, you bitches" there's always a chance that that formation is a random natural occurrence.

Reducio Ad Absurdum. You can't compare rather unambbiguous physical manifestation to claims of miracles that take place as people's broken ankles fixing a few days before they were predicted to heal.

The religious logic is, that the 1% of time a rather commmon occurance happens, because you prayed for it is proof of gods existance, the 99% of time it doesn't, well, it's god's will.

For the record, research doesn't indicate that praying for patients helps their recovery. It does work as a painkiller placebo, but there are many other ways to achieve the effect, such as yoga mantras, hypnotism, etc. etc. It's all in the mind.

At 5/13/10 02:20 AM, JohnnyWang wrote:

At 5/12/10 09:24 PM, RubberTrucky wrote: In all honesty, if one day you look at the sky and the clouds spell "Hey, it's me, God, you bitches" there's always a chance that that formation is a random natural occurrence.

Reducio Ad Absurdum. You can't compare rather unambbiguous physical manifestation to claims of miracles that take place as people's broken ankles fixing a few days before they were predicted to heal.

I worded it strongly, but what I want to say is that any event that baffles scientists can be considered scientifically explainable on a later date. Hence their are no miracles, only things we can't (scientific) logically explain yet. Taking this attitude you do cheat people out of having possible evidence..

For the record, research doesn't indicate that praying for patients helps their recovery. It does work as a painkiller placebo, but there are many other ways to achieve the effect, such as yoga mantras, hypnotism, etc. etc. It's all in the mind.

I don't want to claim that because of miracles there must be a Christian God. It can be very well something else pseudo-scientific. For instance, the law of attraction is something some people believe in, which supposedly gets things done just by willing it. So you can cure from any disease by just wanting it to be cured enough. They even claim they've proven that physical laws can be broken that way.

I don't want to say they are right, but maybe there is something more than science. And miracles can indicate this.

At 5/12/10 05:48 PM, JohnnyWang wrote:
Same here, summer of 2004, two weeks at church summmer camp, plus reading religious debates here. I can actually attribute my atheism party to the NG BBS :P

Not what I was getting at.

I'm talking about the original, the Greek. Not taking some random translation and discussing the passage, looking at the actual manuscript and having to deduce the most accurate translation, and think about how a translation will be interpreted.

I'm saying I've read it, studied it, worked on it, with all the academic scrutiny I could muster.
I'm saying it's easy for me to be critical of "literal text" because I've actually SEEN the mistakes.

Shit, read back a couple pages, I even pointed one out. Thunder and his ridiculous TR argument. I pointed out an obvious and glaring mistake in the KJV translation, one that a 1st semester student of Greek wouldn't make.

And this is what irritates me most about people who believe the Bible.
I've been taught by distinguished faculty at a prestigious university on these things, but when I correct a Christian's translation/interpretation of the Bible, they just presume I'm wrong.

I've read it. Read it better than most Christians. Read the original.
I'm by no means an expert, but fuck....I DO know what I'm talking about.

But I could never convince someone who believes in the Bible literally or an inerrant Bible of those things....because their FAITH overrides their brains....

It's not my atheism that makes me critical of the Bible, it's the Ph.D holders who have said "here's a list of errors in the Bible and translation issues" that have made me critical over the idea that the Bible is the word of God.

end sidetrack rant.

Well, I'd also hear about all the errors in the bible. Sure enough, I didn't go through the trouble of double-cjhecking each one, but to me, just seein the full text of the bible, not just the family-friendly version the church teaches people opened my eyes. The text is not relevant to the modern age in any way -- taking it literally is ridiculous, ommiting large parts is intellectually dishonest.

@CacheHelper: Look, just because you keep moving the goalposts doesn't prove your point. Attributing things science can't yet explain to the supernatural is like saying any card in a card deck that isn't turned around is a joker.

At 5/12/10 04:07 PM, RubberTrucky wrote:

At 5/12/10 03:03 PM, The-universe wrote:
But baring in mind god has never been independently documented with verifiable, repeatable, observable or testable equipment. Scripture is all anyone has.

And philosophy and maybe some miraculous events. (I won't don't know if any strange event and feature has been individually proven wrong)

Define "miraculous".

The problem with the supernatural is when it's put under the same scrutiny and observations as things we know as factual, it fails.

At 5/12/10 06:52 PM, CacheHelper wrote: That doesn't rule out the idea of God though. Just one book, one interpritation of God.
All religions could be wrong and God could still exist.

You somewhat missed my point.

My point was, yes you can show a God doesn't exist, but you can't with the concept.

However, you failed to take into account the rest of my post.

If you managed to disprove all religiously orientated texts, then what else would you have to base a god off of? All you'd have left is the concept of a god.

Therefore your statement means it's just a possibility. So are leprechauns, fairies, pixies, FSM, tiny pink elephants etc. Just realising the possibility of something doesn't give it any weight whatsoever.

This old peice of wood and the origins of the 'flood story' mean nothing.

Never said it did.

At 5/15/10 07:29 AM, The-universe wrote: Define "miraculous".

The problem with the supernatural is when it's put under the same scrutiny and observations as things we know as factual, it fails.

Wait, how exactly would putting miracles under scientific observations even define it as being miraculous? If you had something that you claimed was a miracle, let us say that you studied this in a labrotary and used the scientific method to find out exactly how it works. If you found out that it did indeed work, then whatever you just studied would be a part of science as it was studied using the scientific method. Wouldn't that thing no longer be miraculous, because it would have laws and limits as can any other thing that can be studied using the scientific method.

If anything can be studied using the scientific method and confirmed to exist because of it, then it is a part of science, even if it is miraculous.

At 5/15/10 10:11 AM, Ericho wrote:

Wait, how exactly would putting miracles under scientific observations even define it as being miraculous? If you had something that you claimed was a miracle, let us say that you studied this in a labrotary and used the scientific method to find out exactly how it works.

See people don't so much want to see HOW a miracle works as much as they want to SEE ONE WORKS AT ALL.

So far, 0 miracles / magic powers have actually been observed properly. Every time there was a trick to it. A stupid one usually.

At 5/15/10 10:11 AM, Ericho wrote: If anything can be studied using the scientific method and confirmed to exist because of it, then it is a part of science, even if it is miraculous.

Just quoting this bit because I don't think I'm using enough characters.

I never said putting it under observations would define what it is.

At 5/15/10 10:11 AM, Ericho wrote: If anything can be studied using the scientific method and confirmed to exist because of it, then it is a part of science, [ and no longer ] miraculous.

Are you implying that you can't scientifically scrutinize a miracle?

At 5/15/10 02:04 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 5/15/10 10:11 AM, Ericho wrote: If anything can be studied using the scientific method and confirmed to exist because of it, then it is a part of science, [ and no longer ] miraculous.

Are you implying that you can't scientifically scrutinize a miracle?

Well, scientists (the motherfuckers) are lying, and getting me pissed.

At 5/15/10 02:04 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: Are you implying that you can't scientifically scrutinize a miracle?

Technically, you can not because it depends on how you would define a "miracle". If by "miracle" you mean something out of the ordinary as in something that is not a part of science, if anything can be studied and confirmed to exist using the scientific method then it is a part of science and in its broadest sense, not out of the ordinary. If someone did find scientific proof of a miracle, it would not necessairly cause people to become religious. To a scientist, that is just another natural occurence that can be brought into a labrotory and replicated.

Whoa, I was wondering if there actually WAS a thread like this. As much as I hate "God VS no god" arguments, at least this might save thousands of pointless threads made each day.

On a second thought, I think not. Nobody knows how to use the search bar.

At 5/16/10 04:57 PM, mrty wrote: Whoa, I was wondering if there actually WAS a thread like this. As much as I hate "God VS no god" arguments, at least this might save thousands of pointless threads made each day.

On a second thought, I think not. Nobody knows how to use the search bar.

Fortunately there's pricks like me to help them :)

At 5/16/10 04:13 PM, Ericho wrote: Technically,

Technically, no.

A miracle as something supernatural and is generally caused by this asshole.

If it was just something out of the ordinary, then millions of things can be miracles.

At 5/16/10 04:13 PM, Ericho wrote: Technically [...]

So... how exactly are we suppose to determine whether something is scientifically explainable or not?

At 5/17/10 03:28 PM, Bacchanalian wrote:

At 5/16/10 04:13 PM, Ericho wrote: Technically [...]

So... how exactly are we suppose to determine whether something is scientifically explainable or not?

By trying to explain it, if we can figure out why or how it happened then it's not really a miracle.

At 5/17/10 03:44 PM, MrHero17 wrote: By trying to explain it

And this hits exactly the sideways argument taking place here. In fact, I was hoping my original question would. I was hoping my quote would... but I'll be clearer about it now...

This was the initial argument: The problem with the supernatural is when it's put under the same scrutiny and observations as things we know as factual, it fails.

It was argued against initially via: how exactly would putting miracles under scientific observations even define it as being miraculous?

It then quickly transformed into this: If anything can be studied using the scientific method and confirmed to exist because of it, then it is a part of science, [ and no longer ] miraculous.

Did you guys catch it? It's sneaky.

Where once there was only inquiry, now they is inquiry and confirmation - as if it's the same argument.

At 5/17/10 03:55 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: Did you guys catch it? It's sneaky.

Why do you think I never bothered to address the point and just replied by saying I never said putting it under observation would define it?

So how about those self-righeous agnostics? Who else is pissed at them? "Ner ner, you can't be 100% sure so claiming that there is no god is just like religion".

At 5/18/10 05:44 PM, JohnnyWang wrote: So how about those self-righeous agnostics? Who else is pissed at them? "Ner ner, you can't be 100% sure so claiming that there is no god is just like religion".

I should forward you the pm conversation I had with racistbassist. The amount of double talk is rather... intimidating.

Here's a gem.

He said, "anything that happened before us is simply impossible to prove with any certainty." I asked if he meant, "anything that happened before us is simply impossible to prove without uncertainty." He told me, "You do realize that syntax wise that means the exact same thing?"

At 5/18/10 06:04 PM, Bacchanalian wrote: I should forward you the pm conversation I had with racistbassist. The amount of double talk is rather... intimidating.

Here's a gem.

I once posted him a link to the talkorigins site when he made a thread asking for evidence of evolution and he dismissed all of the information on the site after skimming a couple of paragraphs apparently.

At 4/26/10 11:31 AM, pr0ded wrote: ..which is all based on prejudice against a 'druggie'

Stop exploiting your faux-image. You sound like the guy who keeps yelling 'It's cause I'm black!

the one i was responding said put down the pipe, others say "are you high" try being a black man then you'll know the justification for making those claims

those are the perceptions of grouping illegal substances into one umbrella term called 'drugs' while excluding other drugs

Different is not inherently better.

it's different because you perceive better. are more sensitive

things are described as "more realer" like in this government document
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD604802

they did research during MKULTRA and psyops things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_
management

no wonder a perception altering substance is banned

but skimming through posts by this user indicates that they still regard it as an "hallucination" even though these experiences never bring true hallucinations

Better is not inherently objective/perfect/the best.

maybe look back at what i was talking about, i never said this, maybe more objective because you'll never get the full picture of reality

So... Where/when did you respond, and to what explicit question?

just look back, there was only one question, this is just a replay of before, where i had to point out something i've linked many times... do you not read on top of not knowing what you're talking about?

and i didn't mean the object/etc is better but the apparatus for perceiving it is better off
i guess better edge detection isn't better, getting rid of negative imprinting etc or all the other changes i've listed before.

At 5/20/10 04:26 PM, pr0ded wrote: the one i was responding said put down the pipe, others say "are you high" try being a black man then you'll know the justification for making those claims

If the black man is breaking the window to a store front it's not cause he's black. People are tossing snide comments about drug use your way because they're having trouble understanding your particular brand of rhetoric, and the fact that you're a drug proponent sets up the insult.

those are the perceptions of grouping illegal substances into one umbrella term called 'drugs' while excluding other drugs

Which is a tangent all its own. You exploited the situation to launch into it.

it's different because you perceive better. are more sensitive

things are described as "more realer" like in this government document
http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/AD604802

they did research during MKULTRA and psyops things

Being more sensitive doesn't mean you perceive better. You said it yourself, perceiving the billion(s) of the signals you receive would be chaotic.

For instance... "I was seized by a peculiar sensation of vertigo and restlessness. Objects, as well as the sahpe of my associates in the laboratory, appeared to undergo optical changes. I was unable to concentrate on my work. In a dream-like state, I left for home ... I fell into a peculiar state of drunkenness characterized by an exaggerated imagination. With my eyes closed, fantastic pictures of extraordinary plasticity and intensive color seemed to surge towards me."

For instance... "This unusually wide interest was largely stimulated by hopes of producing a reversible, model psychosis which would be helpful in the stufy of the normally occurring mental illnesses. The fact that extremely small quantities of LSD may produce psychotic-like hallucinations, plus the additional finding that it was a strong inhibitor or serotonin, one of the neuro-regulatory substances in the central nervous system, led to new hopes for the discovery of a chemical bases for psychosis.

For instance... "There is general agreement among experimenters that certain physical and perceptual changes frequently occur; however, there is much less agreement on the occurrence f some of the more profound mental experiences. Some of the early investigators were impressed with the high frequency of paranoid reactions to LSD. Subjects became highly suspicious that carious diabolical tricks were being perpetrated on them. Other experimenters have worked with large samples of subjects and reported very few paranoid reactions. Some workers have indicated that the recall and re-experiencing of previously repressed childhood incidents is quite common, while others have found such experiences considerably less frequent. Several investigators have observed that those subjects who have religious or mystical experiences under LSD also report a high incidence of lasting beneficial effects; however, the percentage of subjects attaining such states varies quite widely among experimenters."

And remember, testimonials are anecdotal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_
management

no wonder a perception altering substance is banned

I'm not following this tangent.

maybe look back at what i was talking about, i never said this, maybe more objective because you'll never get the full picture of reality

You were making the case the the objective exists outside the nervous system, and thus the more objective view point would be one under the influence of delysid, allowing us to perceive more completely.

Interpreting everything you perceive under the influence as the truth, or closer to it, gets you far closer to naive realism than anything I've ever heard a scientist say about perception. Actually, I'm under the impression that most scientists acknowledge the existence of a veil of perception.

Meanwhile all findings via drug use are anecdotal until they are corroborated with empirical data.

And this reminds me. What about my 'theories' are 'common sense'? What about my 'theories' are extremist? And what is blankism?

just look back, there was only one question

Type it. Type out the question. There's only one. I assume it's roughly a sentence long. You can do it.