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Abrosz
Guest
Your ultimata are not interesting.
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Freddy
Guest
The op wasn’t concerned with whether one could accept the existence of a spiritual realm. It was concerned with how one could show how it interacted with the physical realm. Which it obviously does.o_mlly:
That doesn’t mean attempts shouldn’t be made. Even if the person cannot ever fully grasp the reality we should still do our best to try to explain it.
Gorgias thought it was impossible because the interaction could never be predicted. So Zeitoun was brought up as one that could be predicted (within a reasonable time frame). And the suggested method of obtaining evidence was…take a piccie.
Consider me underwhelmed by the methodology. Maybe you have something a little more impressive.
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Gorgias
Guest
LOL!
I think my position has been honed as the thread has progressed. It’s helped me gain clarity on my position, which currently sits as I expressed it above.
Physical, empirical evidence. On the other hand, the evidence that can be provided (i.e., eyewitness evidence) is disregarded a priori, seemingly only because what it says is counter to one’s beliefs. (Oh, sure, the response is “we can’t trust these eyewitnesses’ testimony” or “the testimony was recorded too far in the past to be useful”… but that’s spurious, since it makes the claim that truth has an expiration date.)
Fine. Then what evidence would you consider reasonable? We’re back at that point. After all, why should we waste our time helping you collect evidence you’ll reject?
I think a commonly-held definition of ‘magic’ would be helpful here. I suspect you’re using it merely as a term of condescension. From a theological perspective, ‘magic’ is an attempt to control natural forces over which one generally has no control. On the other hand, in the context you named – God’s act of creation – there’s no “magic”, since God actually does control the forces which He creates! OK… back to the snark…
Perfect! And… why do you think it must be so inclined – and even better, inclined to do it in the way that you personally demand?
Wrong. If you’re alleging that we influence God, then that’s one thing. The Catholic Church doesn’t make that claim. It’d be intellectually honest of you to stop making a claim that you have been informed is false. Thanks.
We really don’t. But thanks for whipping out your red herring again. It’s really entertaining…
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Gorgias
Guest
I’m still a bit confused why you think that believers are beholden to collect data regarding events they already accept? Isn’t that what skeptics should be doing? So, shouldn’t they be the ones developing procedures and standards for measurements which they want to see taken?
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BT3241
Guest
One thing I was thinking about is I was looking at a picture of myself from 15 years ago and I realized that every atom in my body in the picture is no longer part of my body all have been replaced - so my body is not me or I would be different because every part of me in the picture no longer exists. Could you say that that is proof of the soul ? - I am not my body its my interface to this world and is constantly changing but I am not I am still me. Crazy stuff.
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JimG
Guest
The body/soul interaction is of course in Catholic thought the most common, ordinary, everyday interaction of the physical and spiritual. The body is matter. The soul is spirit. Yet we are not really dualists because the union of body and soul is considered to be so intimate as to be a single substance.
Without the soul, a body is a corpse. Without a body the soul is incomplete, and without sensory (name removed by moderator)ut. The body has all the sensory faculties necessary to receive information from the outside world, and those sensory (name removed by moderator)uts are organized into a coherent experience by the brain. But the soul has the faculties of intellect and will, by which we can abstract from the individual to the universal, form ideas, make decisions, self reflect on our own consciousness, and be aware of our own identity as a subject, not just an object.
Without the soul, a body is a corpse. Without a body the soul is incomplete, and without sensory (name removed by moderator)ut. The body has all the sensory faculties necessary to receive information from the outside world, and those sensory (name removed by moderator)uts are organized into a coherent experience by the brain. But the soul has the faculties of intellect and will, by which we can abstract from the individual to the universal, form ideas, make decisions, self reflect on our own consciousness, and be aware of our own identity as a subject, not just an object.
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Mmarco
Guest
I strongly disagree.
I am a physicist and I think that a rational analysis of our scientific knowledges provides a strong and convincent argument supporting the existence of a personal intelligent God, i.e. a Spiritual Being. In fact, all what science shows about the universe is that it manifests itself to us as a realization of some specific abstract mathematical models (what we call “the laws of physics”); in fact, the subatomic components of matters (quantum particles and fields) are actually only abtract mathematical concepts. On the other hand, mathematical models are only constructions of the rational thought and a mathematical model can exist only as a thought in a thinking mind conceiving it; therefore the existence of this mathematically structured universe implies the existence of an intelligent God, conceiving if as a mathematrical model. In other words, the universe can be only the manifestation of a mathematical theory existing in the mind of an intelligent and conscious God, i.e. a personal God.
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Abrosz
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I think you confuse order and design. Order doe not require and orderer, though design would require a designer. The fact that the laws of physics are mathematical models of reality doe not lead to the concept that the model existed first, imagined by a personal God, who then filled up this model with particles.
Just a simple example to illustrate this fact. Take 3 equal size twigs on the beach. The waves and the wind just happen to arrange them so we can see an equilateral triangle. There is order there, for sure. But there is no designer, who first dreamed up a model of a triangle, and then “filled it up” with the twigs.
One can look at the twigs and image the “designer”, but there is absolutely no reason to assume one.
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Mmarco
Guest
No, I don’t. In fact I am not speaking about order, but about the intrinsic definition of the reality itself, as it is described by modern physics. What you call matter, light, etc, are indeed quantum fields, and quantum fields are intrinsically abstract mathematical models. The fact that all the physical reality is made of quantum fields, which means that it has an intrinsic abstract and conceptual nature, is a very good reason to assume the existence of an intelligent and conscious God as the necessary cause for the existence of such mathematically structured universe.
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Abrosz
Guest
Read again the three twigs on the beach. There is no need for a designer for them to form a triangle.
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Mmarco
Guest
Your example has nothing to do with my argument. You are using straw man.Mmarco:
Read again the three twigs on the beach. There is no need for a designer for them to form a triangle.
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Abrosz
Guest
If you don’t understand it, that is no my problem.
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Gorgias
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JimG
Guest
That’s correct. Angels are purely spirit. They have no bodies and no sensory (name removed by moderator)ut. Their mode of knowing is not the same as humans. Human knowledge originates in the senses, is integrated in the brain, abstracted by the intellect into non-material form. Humans are composites of matter and spirit.
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mythbuster1
Guest
What you demand is that God perform miracles on demand. This violates the commandment, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” Yet, there have been miracles that were promised in advance: The Miracle of the Sun at Fatima was promised months ahead of time, and thousands of witnesses gathered in anticipation, some out of devotion, some to mock. The miracle occurred exactly as predicted, and was witnessed by many skeptics who testified that they had seen a miracle.
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Abrosz
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That would help, but I would like to have is a conversation. Nothing more.
Sorry this and other commandments carry no weight for atheists. God is being put to the test millions of times every day, when the believers utter a supplicative of intercessory prayer. And there is no positive correlation - much less a causative relationship between the prayers and the reality.
As for the Fatima, it is just a legend.
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mythbuster1
Guest
What makes you say that Fatima is just a legend? Have you any evidence that the testimony of the many skeptics present was a hoax? Or are you simply moving the goalposts again, that confronted with a miracle occurring as predicted at a specific time and place, you still do not accept it?
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Abrosz
Guest
Because there is no evidence for it, and because the described events can be explained as meteorological phenomena. I have seen a double Sun once due to some meteorological circumstances.
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Freddy
Guest
You are gradually being replaced. Except for brain cells. They last a lifetime. So we can’t use that as an indication that there might be a soul.
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mythbuster1
Guest
What meteorological circumstances cause mud to dry in minutes after protracted rain? Why do you take the atheists who witnessed this event for fools, unable to tell the difference between weather and a miracle?
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