I am an atheist thread 2

[_A]

A believer’s faith, in God, or lack thereof, should never be swayed by emotions (in your example, a hallucination).

I never offered hallucination as an emotion. I would agree that one could hallucinate an emotion, but that is complex. As an example, pain is (sort of) an emotion.
If I pinched your finger, you would ‘feel pain’ (as we say).
If you hallucinated that I pinched your finger, you would ‘feel pain’ (as we say)

In both cases, you would really, honestly feel real pain.

I think in both real and hallucinated ‘Yahweh experiences’, you would feel real, honest faith.

I don’t know if I am explaining myself well, but the thing about hallucinations is that they are so convincing.

As we are told, we have to walk by faith and NOT by sight.

Would you care to demonstrate that? I would like to find a safe way to test this, because this is the kind of claim that can be checked in this here ‘real world’.

We have faith because the Bible, as well as secular historians, record the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

Well, many would also record the vanishing of the Statue of Liberty. This proves nothing. Even a skeptic recording the ‘walking on water’, or other magic tricks performed by this Jesus fellow would not be proof of anything but the fact that the skeptic was convinced.

This website alone has several tracts from the early Church fathers who attest to the divinity and deity of Christ.

How would someones testimony from thousands of years ago be more important or worthy of study than your own?
I think those reports are about as reliable as yours on the matter.

For example: If you wanted to know about your Great-grandfather, and you asked your Grandfather who knew him, would you believe your grandfather?

No, I would not. Not without reservation. Have you ever witheld information from someone about your own father because you wanted to protect his reputation? Many do, even if you don’t, and also memories are tricky…it is not always a simple matter to discern a memory from a memory of a memory. This is why legal testimony sometimes changes after witnesses have discussed an event among themselves.

My point is that Christ and his divinity are supported by unbiased observers (secular historians) as well as by those who knew the men whom Christ taught (early fathers and the reality of Christ).
is this getting at your question?

The evidence in favour of one god over another is scant - and not the point here.
What I am asking is, how do YOU tell the difference between a feeling of Yahwehs’ presence, and an hallucination of the same?
If you can’t say, then how can I trust the words of a man who also didn’t know how, thousands of years ago (and likely decades after the death of this Jesus you speak of).

 

[zerinus]

I disagree. If we compare details of everyones supposed hallucination, and find some details that ‘match up’, and that could not have been encouraged (say by bible stories), then I think this would be compelling evidence that there was a little more than simple hallucination going on.

That is a very vague statement that doesn’t make much sense to me, and I don’t think it does to anybody. Can you give some concrete example that illustrates what you are talking about? Some people’s personal experiences with God may be genuine, and some of them may not be. You have no way of knowing which is which. I am sure if you compared many personal experiences, you may find some details that match up, and some that don’t. How do you plan to categorize them, and decide which is significant and which is not? And what makes you so sure that God must reveal Himself to everyone identically, so that their “details” must “match up”? One person may be visited by an angel. Another person may see a vision of God Himself. Another person may receive a witness of the Holy Spirit, in an infinite variety of ways. Some peoples’ experiences may be so sacred that they may not want to describe it to anybody, beyond stating that they have a personal experience of God. The truth is that your theory does not hold up. You have NO way of knowing if someone’s personal experience of God is genuine or not. The only thing you can do is to try to obtain that experience yourself. If you succeed, you have your “proof”. If you don’t, you remain in the dark. You will not know.

I think you are forgetting that your Uncle’s existence could be independently verified by unbiased observers.

How? Be precise please. The story of my uncle was an analogy; but one that describes very precisely the meaning that I am trying to convey to you.

Religious experiences are not open to this kind of scrutiny, because there is little reality associated with them. It is all personal feelings.

You make wild and unsubstantiated assertions. There is plenty of “reality” associated with my experience of God. It is not “feelings”.

I am questioning how you discern between a real internal experience (your belief in Yahweh) and an hallucination.

For me, my personal experience of God is as real as my experience of my living uncle. I am no more convinced that my uncle exists than I am that God exists. Be assured that your “skepticism” does not destroy that reality for me.

You made up a story about a 140 year old relative to muddy the waters, but you have not succeeded.

Really? I did make up that story, but as an analogy that perfectly describes the experience at hand. It does not “muddy the waters,” nor was it intended to do so.

Your ancient relative is quite easy to prove or disprove - by independent observation.

Again, please be precise, and give examples. How would you go about “proving” my ancient relative by “independent observation”? Suppose he is a recluse, and does not see anybody except his immediate relatives and trusted friends. How are you going to “prove by independent observation” that he exists?

I still would like to know how you tell the difference, when you know full well that your senses are not trustworthy.

I told you before, in the same way that I know that my uncle exists. My experience of God is no less real to me than my experience of my uncle. Hard to believe? Too bad! You thought that I cared, that you find that hard to believe?

zerinus

 

[kenmd]

How do I know that God exists and that Jesus was his Son who has given me eternal life? It’s called FAITH

You know, “A”, atheism requires exponentially more faith than any form of deism, so quit trying to pretend as though you do not have any.

 

[_A]

That is a very vague statement that doesn’t make much sense to me, and I don’t think it does to anybody. Can you give some concrete example that illustrates what you are talking about? Some people’s personal experiences with God may be genuine, and some of them may not be. You have no way of knowing which is which.

What I am saying is that the person experiencing it also has no way of knowing if it is true or not - I am not suggesting that people are lying about their experiences. I am saying that the experience itself has no value as evidence.
Even if it is me having the experience.

I am sure if you compared many personal experiences, you may find some details that match up, and some that don’t.

Except that in the world of science, where individual observations are compared and collected, we have end results like the theory of falling bodies, which yields quite useful information for things like airplanes, and escalators.

How do you plan to categorize them, and decide which is significant and which is not?

That is indeed a really tough question. I think I would start with some cognitive science studies, and see where that leads. Have you got any ideas on how to sort the wheat from the chaff? Can your ideas work if there is no wheat at all?

And what makes you so sure that God must reveal Himself to everyone identically, so that their “details” must “match up”?

There are no guarantees. If you read that bible of yours, though, you will see that old Yahweh has several times stated which characteristics he has (i.e.-I am a jealous god) and also stated that he is unchanging. That should give us a starting point. If someone said that the god they experienced was advising them to worship other gods and covet his neighbour, we can be fairly sure that it isn’t Yahweh (or Yahweh is making a joke).

The truth is that your theory does not hold up. You have NO way of knowing if someone’s personal experience of God is genuine or not.

That is exactly what I am saying. I am further suggesting that with the human ‘hallucination habit’, it is impossible to be sure if I am feeling Yahweh in me, or hallucinating that I feel him.

The only thing you can do is to try to obtain that experience yourself. If you succeed, you have your “proof”. If you don’t, you remain in the dark. You will not know.

If I experience it, I still have no proof. I still don’t know how to tell if it is only hallucination, or wishful thinking.

How? Be precise please. The story of my uncle was an analogy; but one that describes very precisely the meaning that I am trying to convey to you.

Well, for starters you could have him present himself for inspection. If he wont, it suggests he has something to hide…like his true age…

You make wild and unsubstantiated assertions. There is plenty of “reality” associated with my experience of God. It is not “feelings”.

So far all we have is your ‘feeling’ that you are correct.

Really? I did make up that story, but as an analogy that perfectly describes the experience at hand. It does not “muddy the waters,” nor was it intended to do so.

If you are making a wild assertion (such as a 140 year old relative) then it is up to you to provide some wild evidence (or risk having most people guess that you invented a story about your 140 year old relative).

 

[water]

OK, all the reports of flying saucers have been hallucinations. Alien abductions - same thing.
Why do you ask?

Do you have a report where hundreds of people got abducted by the same “alien” and all these people came back home?

Do you have a proof of reports where the flying saucers had seen by hundred of people at once and are these reports have been approved that these same hundred of people saw it for real?

You said that it is all about hallucination. Therefore, I am asking you to find a fact where hallucination had happened to hundred of people at the same time and at the same place. [trick on shows is not a valid example]

 

[EB4304]

In a dream you don’t possess all of your faculties of thought. That’s why, after waking and coming to your senses, you realize a dream was a dream without any doubt. In dreams, you are not wholly yourself - you cannot reason as usual, or you are not free in your actions, etc. etc.

When you’re awake, you don’t need to have a prolonged conversation with yourself in order to know that your dream wasn’t real - you intuit it almost immediately.

Hallucinations are a bit different from dreaming. But I trust the apostles and their first sightings of the risen Christ; it is impossible for that to have been an hallucination. Hallucinations do not eat and cannot be touched, especially not by several independent people. The likelihood of a dozen people having a simultaneously consistent hallucination is nil.

One can argue that they merely played off each other’s hysteria and what not, but that’s a different issue, and equally untenable. (still doesn’t account for what happened to the body!)

 

[_A]

How do I know that God exists and that Jesus was his Son who has given me eternal life? It’s called FAITH

You know, “A”, atheism requires exponentially more faith than any form of deism, so quit trying to pretend as though you do not have any.

I don’t have faith. I have some observed facts and some skepticism. I hope with enough of the latter, I can gain more of the former.
I do not believe.
I would not have thought that such a simple statement would be so hard for some to accept.

 

[_A]

Do you have a report where hundreds of people got abducted by the same “alien” and all these people came back home?

Well, Wikipedia refers to an interesting study on this page.
Here is a quote from the page…
"wikipedia:

The Roper Poll

In 1991, Hopkins, Jacobs and sociologist Dr. Ron Westrum commissioned a Roper Poll in order to determine how many Americans might have experienced the abduction phenomenon. Of nearly 6,000 Americans, 119 answered in a way that Hopkins et al interpreted as supporting their ET interpretation of the abduction phenomenon. Based on this figure, Hopkins et al estimated that nearly four million Americans might have been abducted by extraterrestrials. The poll results are available at this external link: The Roper Poll: UFOs & Extraterrestrial Life, Americans’ Beliefs and Personal Experiences

I don’t believe that alien’s are abducting people either, by the way. This just goes to show you that hundreds of people do indeed believe that they have been abducted. Some others, while not having been abducted themselves, firmly believe that humans are being regularly abducted by aliens.
All this proves is that people can be quite convinced of something that is really incorrect. False.

Do you have a proof of reports where the flying saucers had seen by hundred of people at once and are these reports have been approved that these same hundred of people saw it for real?

Look around that site. Go visit their forums. You will find many believers.

You said that it is all about hallucination. Therefore, I am asking you to find a fact where hallucination had happened to hundred of people at the same time and at the same place. [trick on shows is not a valid example]

The alien abduction example should be plenty of example. Of course, you could always move those goalposts a bit

 

[water]

I think you misunderstood or I didn’t make it clear that I need a fact where hundred of people got hallucinated at the same time at the same place, not a collection of events.

 

[_A]

In a dream you don’t possess all of your faculties of thought. That’s why, after waking and coming to your senses, you realize a dream was a dream without any doubt. In dreams, you are not wholly yourself - you cannot reason as usual, or you are not free in your actions, etc. etc.

They are quite convincing while you are having them. So are many things which could be considered hallucinating. How about optical illusions? You can tell yourself over and over about the facts, but the eye is still tricked. The brain still arrives at incorrect conclusions - that’s usually how illusions work.

When you’re awake, you don’t need to have a prolonged conversation with yourself in order to know that your dream wasn’t real - you intuit it almost immediately.

Usually. To be honest, sometimes it is not immediate…sometimes many long seconds pass before my heart begins to slow.

Hallucinations are a bit different from dreaming. But I trust the apostles and their first sightings of the risen Christ; it is impossible for that to have been an hallucination. Hallucinations do not eat and cannot be touched, especially not by several independent people. The likelihood of a dozen people having a simultaneously consistent hallucination is nil.

How can we be sure about what someone believed hundreds of years ago? We can’t even be really sure about what we see now with our own eyes and lucid brains.
This wonderful optical illusion demonstrates the point nicely. Also, you can download it, print it, cut it out and see it in person. Fun stuff!
You don’t have to, though, you can just watch the video.

 

[_A]

I think you misunderstood or I didn’t make it clear that I need a fact where hundred of people got hallucinated at the same time at the same place, not a collection of events.

For what? I am merely establishing that all people are prone to this hallucination, or mis-seeing, or imagining, or whatever you want to call it.
That means me, you, those thousands-of year old witnesses, and anyone else using eyes, ears and smell to understand the world.
All of us are susceptable, and I have offered several examples (I will bring more, I like this stuff!) of common instances.

 

[EB4304]

You may have misunderstood. I wasn’t talking about hallucinations at all (until I mentioned the apostles). I was saying that dreams, as real as they are, are definitively called dreams sometime after waking because you regain all of your faculties of thought and realize they couldn’t be real.

Also, optical illusion and other odd physical phenomena are far different from claiming that you have seen a man who has triumphantly risen from the dead and then basing your entire life on that fact (and dying a tortuous death for it as well).

With regards to not knowing what happened so long ago, the New Testament is the most highly attested book in all of ancient history, dwarfing texts that are considered almost unanimously to be historical. (if you don’t believe check out comparative manuscript evidence for the New Testament). So if you want to believe that there was a real man named Socrates who was innocent or that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, you at least have to accept the historical fact that a group of men believed with all of their heart soul and will that their teacher had risen from the grave. Even Antony Flew readily admitted that when he was a staunch atheist and decried anyone who doubted it as foolish and ahistorical. He’s on video record saying that to Christian apologist Gary Habermas, in case you were wondering.

 

[_A]

You may have misunderstood. I wasn’t talking about hallucinations at all (until I mentioned the apostles). I was saying that dreams, as real as they are, are definitively called dreams sometime after waking because you regain all of your faculties of thought and realize they couldn’t be real.

There are dreams which seem so real while having them, that your heart races in fear, or you break out in a sweat. The fact that you later see a dream for what it is is not relevant. If you are still decieved by your ‘dream state’, you have not yet seen the truth (see the earlier comments about victims of alien abduction, and you will see what I mean.

Also, optical illusion and other odd physical phenomena are far different from claiming that you have seen a man who has triumphantly risen from the dead and then basing your entire life on that fact (and dying a tortuous death for it as well).

Just how is it different? Being convinced that something is when it isn’t is the point I made. You are saying here that just because I can offer many examples of people being deceived (or deceiving themselves) in different ways, it isn’t the same as the way that faith is perceived. What about those who, in the name of faith, murdered women on behalf of the catholic church? Were they, all of them, just evil? Do you think that it is possible that many were quite firm in their belief, and quite wrong?
Can you tell us a little about Pope Innocent IV and his papal thingy entitled ad extirpanda , which authorized the use of torture by inquisitors? Was he evil, or was he believing things that were not true? It is generally accepted now, by the way, that torturing people is not good.

With regards to not knowing what happened so long ago, the New Testament is the most highly attested book in all of ancient history,

Which version? I have seen many available, there are a few books which are quite highly attested which advocate scientology, too. I don’t see a lot of difference.

So if you want to believe that there was a real man named Socrates who was innocent or that Caesar crossed the Rubicon, you at least have to accept the historical fact that a group of men believed with all of their heart soul and will that their teacher had risen from the grave.

I don’t believe either. I can accept that they all believed quite firmly. I still don’t accept that they witnessed miracles. They believe that they did, but that is not much of a fact.
Let’s try not to wander too far off this subject, if you please. I still have been offered no reliable way to tell if an experience I had is ‘Yahweh’, or an hallucination of Yahweh.
I know for a fact that my senses can be tricked (intentionally or otherwise), and if I had such an experience, I would not be convinced *because * personal testimony is not a very reliable form of evidence.

 

[justinthemartyr]

A

is murder of another human being wrong?

 

[justinthemartyr]

a

you stated something about “seeing truth”

what is truth?

does that mean there are absolutes?

 

[water]

For what? I am merely establishing that all people are prone to this hallucination, or mis-seeing, or imagining, or whatever you want to call it.
That means me, you, those thousands-of year old witnesses, and anyone else using eyes, ears and smell to understand the world.
All of us are susceptable, and I have offered several examples (I will bring more, I like this stuff!) of common instances.

You are confused. I am asking you to give me one single example - that is one real fact being reported - where few hundred people seeing the same thing.

You keep on giving “common instances”.

Perhaps you are puzzled why I kept on asking for this single event?

 

[_A]

A

is murder of another human being wrong?

It would really depend on the circumstances, wouldn’t you say?

 

[_A]

a

you stated something about “seeing truth”

what is truth?

does that mean there are absolutes?

There may be.

 

[_A]

You are confused. I am asking you to give me one single example - that is one real fact being reported - where few hundred people seeing the same thing.

You keep on giving “common instances”.

Perhaps you are puzzled why I kept on asking for this single event?

I gave you one, the magic show at the statue of liberty. The crowd there knew making it disappear would be impossible, then they saw it anyway.

 

[zerinus]

What I am saying is that the person experiencing it also has no way of knowing if it is true or not . . . . Even if it is me having the experience.

And what I am saying is that you don’t know what you are talking about. My experience with God is as real as my experience with my uncle. You should learn to speak for yourself, not for other people. I don’t need a spokesman to tell me what my feelings are and what they are not.

• I am not suggesting that people are lying about their experiences. I am saying that the experience itself has no value as evidence.

I never said that it has any value as evidence to you (unless you trust me enough to take my word for what I say). But it does have great value as evidence to me. Again, you should learn to speak for yourself, not for other people. I am quite good at speaking for myself, thank you. I don’t need someone else to do it for me.

Except that in the world of science, where individual observations are compared and collected, we have end results like the theory of falling bodies, which yields quite useful information for things like airplanes, and escalators.

God is not a falling body. He can decide whether He wants to fall down or go up. You can’t devise an experiment to test Him.

Well, for starters you could have him present himself for inspection. If he wont, it suggests he has something to hide…like his true age…

My hypothetical great uncle only shows himself to people on his own terms. He doesn’t care whether people believe in him or not otherwise. I told him that I have an atheist friend who wants to see him, in order to convince himself that he exists. He replied that he doesn’t talk to atheists. He also said that he didn’t care whether atheists believed in him or not.

zerinus