Well, why?

[GreggAlvarez]

AntiTheist: I see you have trouble detecting sarcasm. Go look at those things and please tell me what the chances are in quantum indeterminacy for anything like that to happen. Those ARE evidence is what I was saying. Poking fun at my diction hardly does anything against my previous post. I realize that on all levels for me those are more than sufficient evidence. It is all sufficient evidence of something transcendent and supernatural. You fail to recognize it ONLY because of atheism and it is hard for any atheist to at least admit that it is possible and try to investigate it. My sarcasm was dedicated to stubborn atheists such as every atheist. I was one and was more stubborn than even you. Read a book and throw all the punches at me that you wish. I study apologetics and martial arts for that very reason. If you at least want to search for Truth, there are many ways to do it. Giving punches and being defended against those punches is a start. If saying we are irrational is your only argument, you will be surprised.

And Inocente scrutinized irrationally just as you did and commanded. I would not expect anything more from anticatholic people anyway. Once again, he nor you succeed at a rational argument against our Faith (or even me for that matter). He needs to read “Catholicism and Fundamentalism” by Karl Keating. He should not be allowed on this website until he reads it. You sir need to read Peter Kreeft’s “Fundamentals of the Faith”. But I know you will not. www.peterkreeft.com also has some stuff from that book for simplicity. Prove us wrong.

 

[Luke_K]

AntiTheist, here’s a short example of an analysis of the evidence and context for a miraculous healing by the Roman emperor Vespasian, compared to Jesus: triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/06/alleged-miracles-of-vespasian.html

Like I said, I’m not a student of history, but for an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the historicity of Jesus’ miracles, there’s this site: christian-thinktank.com/mqx.html In any case, I think it’s unfair to criticize us believers as having zero evidence for our faith.

 

[GreggAlvarez]

Inocente: Have you ever wondered WHY atheism does not work? By the way, You should learn about Baptist beliefs before you try to debate.

Read my sentence again on the Big Bang THEORY. I am not advocating that it is true. If it is, then the if-then statement would apply. If not, the clearly it does not. The fact that I mentioned it, proves nothing. And the anthropic principle (I know this one too well, because of Tim Feller’s "The Coming of Age in the Milky Way) is only to avoid discussions like this. I will let you ponder that one. That is like saying we eat because we eat.

About the arguments, it is clear you have no idea what they even are. Your first pastor seems like he has no idea why he believes. Tell me: Why do you believe in God? Everybody has a reason for believing or disbelieving.

The Socrates deal is to prove that a priori evidence is immediately available.

Have you ever asked anyone personally if they wanted to pray with you? Be sincere.

Good luck worshipping the shopping mall. Or is it, Shopping Mall? If it were not for those early martyrs, Christianity (including Protestants) may not even be here. But they did.

Understand Catholic belief, my brother. It is clear you have not done any studying. Jimmy Swaggart hardly counts. You might be surprised about the simplicity of Catholic Christianity. I really hope you at least look into orthodox Catholic sites, books, magazines, etc… Another thing, next time give at least one reason for or against anything. Send it to me privately if you so wish.

 

[AntiTheist]

Inocente,

Great work doing your best AntiTheist impression. You get a gold star. I’ll make a few comments where I feel it’s necessary:

It’s not that odd. Atheism doesn’t work as well and so tends to die out naturally. Perhaps if we were all atheists, there would be a lot fewer of us.

Well, right off the bat, atheism isn’t something that can “work” well or not so well – it’s not a social idea; it’s a position on a single question.

Nearly all societies started out based in primitive forms of belief in the supernatural because they were – surprise, surprise – primitive. They didn’t know very much about the world, and they followed the natural human tendency to respond to “I don’t know” with “a god did it!” Just like people continue to do today…

Such beliefs became codified into social structures that simply became part of everyday life, regardless of the truth of their claims.

Can’t really comment [on some miralce], as I’m a Baptist and would have to make a snap judgment from Wikipedia.

Well, I can comment. Show us some evidence that it’s really a miracle. For example, conduct an experiment where water from Lourdes is used on one group of cancer patients and plain tap water is used on another group. Tell them all that they’re either getting magical healing water or plain tap water. Measure the results. Does the group that receives the magic water show remission rates much higher than those expected by chance? Higher than those expected by the placebo effect?

If you could demonstrate that this miracle stuff really has a demonstrable, detectable effect – which you obviously could, if it really does have an effect – then you’d really have something. It wouldn’t automatically prove all by itself that your religion is true, but that would be some heck of a start. You’d have a nobel prize, a ton of grant money, and a zillion scientists who would want to run tests on other Catholic miracles.

If other miracles started having demonstrable, measurable results – and only Catholic miracles – then that would absolutely tell us that something is special about this particular religion, and it would make looking into its claims quite viable.

What do you want to bet that such experiments are going to reveal no statistically significant results?

The Anthropic principle states that we’re here because we’re here – if the universe wasn’t the way it is, and the particular age that it is, we would not be around to discuss it, and so we can’t use that type of fact (of which there are thousands) for very much at all. But cheer up, the fact you mentioned means we are all made of stardust.

Cute last sentence there.

But yeah, good response. I sometimes call this argument, “the argument from misunderstanding probability.” In the first place, in the absence of even a vague knowledge of what the heck went on before the Big Bang, it’s impossible to calculate probability and claim that it was “unlikely.”

But even if the universal constants could have been set at any values, and they all happened to be set at the exact combination of values that we need for life, and we can say that it was unlikely to happen…any other combination would have been equally improbable.

In the game bridge, the odds of being dealt a perfect hand (ace through king, all of the same suit) are astronomical…somewhere in the ballpark of a few billion to one. But here’s the thing: any other combination of cards is equally improbable. You can’t start by pretending that the combination we got was some sort of intended result (which, by the way, already assumes the thing you’re trying to prove) and work back from that.

My first pastor tried to use these kinds of argument on me, but gave up when both of us kept grinning at each other. He was just testing where my faith was.

Yes, it’s neat that Jesus was rational and consistent.

Yeah. These two were “argument from random assertion that I’m right” and “argument from internal consistency.” What a load of you-know-what.

We here are privileged to be able to spend time debating, but put us in slum housing with a drug habit and a baby to support. Who’s going to redeem you, Christ or no-god?

First of all, it’s irrelevant to the truth of the claim.

Second of all, I assert that people who make a difference in their lives do so by themselves. Often, they are aided by crutches of various types – and often these crutches come in the form of belief in the supernatural (and not just religion…psychics, fortunetellers, “magick spells,” etc.). The fact that a particular crutch gave a person the confidence to make a change in his or her life is not evidence that the crutch is true.

Furthermore, I assert that there are many other forms of support possible that are not supernatural: friends, family, community, and more – forms of support that provide tangible aid in the quest for making a difference in one’s life.

I have not read your private message yet. I will do so and respond to it either tonight or tomorrow, depending on how much time I have.

 

[AntiTheist]

It’s more like, you don’t seem to hold all of your beliefs to the same burden of evidence, and you hold Christian beliefs to the highest burden of evidence of all.

Because not all claims have the same burden of evidence. There’s a difference – a huge, wide difference – between a rational assumption that allows a person basic functionality (like assuming that my senses actually connect me to a world outside of myself) and a fact claim made about the world revealed by our senses (regardless of whether it’s actually real).

You say that you’re not trying to argue “not all your beliefs have evidence, so I can believe anything I want without evidence!” but that’s exactly the logical extension of the position you’re advancing here. Your argument makes it seem like evidence isn’t all that important, but when we’re talking about claims we make about the world revealed by our senses – whether or not it’s the Matrix – evidence is all we have to go on to determine whether or not a claim is likely to be true.

You believe that subjective experiences are incapable of revealing truth about the outside world, yet all experience is ultimately subjective.

We’ve been over this. What I’m calling “subjective experiences” – like daydreams and feelings, which are subjective in the sense that they can only be observed by one individual, me – are a subset of the phenomenon called experience, which indeed I can only experience as the individual I am. I’m contrasting these “subjective experiences” --like daydreams and feelings – with “objective experiences,” like conducting a survey and comparing data points, experiences that beings which I am labeling as “others” can also observe.

It doesn’t matter whether the world revealed by my senses is “really real” or whether it’s “all a part of the Matrix.” It makes no difference because either way, when we’re talking about the world revealed by our senses, you can’t use the stuff we label “subjective experience” to support claims about stuff we label “objective claims.”

Here’s a test for you: if “all experience is subjective,” and your subjective intuition tells you that if you jump off a tall building you’ll be able to fly, then does that subjective experience justify the claim? Why not?

See what I mean about special pleading? People invent this silly Matrix stuff because they want to use them to justify one or two pet claims that they really, really wish were true.

it seems so obvious to me that there’s an intelligent design behind the workings of the universe

There’s actually a technical term for what I just did on my end: “faceplam.”

Appearance of design is not evidence of design. Arguments from analogy fail because they assume the thing you want to demonstrate. And arguments from “it’s obvious!” fail because obviously it’s not obvious, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

This is not an appeal to ignorance as to how it all happens.

It’s an argument from incredulity: “I can’t believe that this could happen any other way!” That’s not a valid argument.

It’s an appeal to your intuition

And you know, it’s funny. Once you start using Matrix-type arguments to devalue actual evidence, things like intuition start seeming like reliable ways of knowing things. It’s not.

 

[inocente]

He should not be allowed on this website until he reads it.

I got up your nose, sorry. :imsorry: I realized that my reply to AntiTheist was one-sided but my wife/manager became most impatient and I had to leave for the mall. The mall bit was a dig at AntiTheist by the way, because everyone worships something if not someone. We seem to be made that way.

I’m not anti-Catholic. Most of my friends are Catholic (this is Spain) but I don’t know of any that debate the rationale for their faith, as we are doing here. They just believe, and yes we’ve prayed together when one of us has a problem. I chose that song because the lyrics give a very clear reason why many people believe. AntiTheist calling it a crutch doesn’t embarrass me AT ALL (caps for his benefit).

Understand Catholic belief, my brother. It is clear you have not done any studying. Jimmy Swaggart hardly counts. You might be surprised about the simplicity of Catholic Christianity.

Agreed, none of my friends make it at all complicated. But look around some threads in the news and moral sections, and you might be surprised at how complicated some people try to make it.

And who is this Jimmy Swaggart you speak of? I mean, genuinely, I don’t get American TV. I typed the name into YouTube, but only found sentimental twaddle. Maybe I missed the good bits, but do people really listen to that stuff?

 

[inocente]

Another thing, next time give at least one reason for or against anything.

Heh . I finally thought of a way to sum up my real argument without, hopefully, offending anyone by breaking Romans 14. AntiTheist doesn’t get it but see if anyone else does.

We are in a period of change from the post-colonial view that we are vastly superior to all those peoples like the Hopi that we once labeled savages, and from the post-Enlightenment belief that we are the pinnacle of all civilizations in the best of all possible worlds. That view was epitomized by Star Trek, a show that never considered the possibility that any other way of life could improve on our total wondrousness.

But that is gradually changing, ironically partly due to science. We are beginning to see that there is no point in deconstructing ourselves as if we were anything but human. We are starting to understand ourselves once again as members of a tribe. We are rediscovering that there are many forms of truth.

A short story to try to make my point even unto AntiTheist. My wife and I go over to Morocco every so often and drive south because something interesting happens every day. Once we were driving down a track, saw a village and parked close to the little mosque, which is on a small hill. We saw through the open door a teacher and some kids sat on rugs. Women came out of their houses to look at this pair of exotic Westerners. The teacher/imam finished his lesson and talked to us with our broken French. The three of us ended up sitting on the ground against the wall of the mosque. A guy milked a goat and we drank the body-temperature milk because we were the guests. Half a dozen other guys came over, and some women brought mint tea for us all. Now, they all knew we were infidels just as we knew they were wrong, but no one mentioned that. After the teacher finished interpreting Berber pleasantries and questions, we all sat in silence for twenty minutes looking at the village and the fields beyond. Not a pregnant silence, as it might be if we were all Westerners. No words had to be said. Just a little tribe hanging out together.

Are we just specks on a lump of rock orbiting a star in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars that is one of trillions of galaxies?

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:37-39 NIV

 

[Luke_K]

You say that you’re not trying to argue “not all your beliefs have evidence, so I can believe anything I want without evidence!” but that’s exactly the logical extension of the position you’re advancing here. Your argument makes it seem like evidence isn’t all that important, but when we’re talking about claims we make about the world revealed by our senses – whether or not it’s the Matrix – evidence is all we have to go on to determine whether or not a claim is likely to be true.

No, it’s not the logical extension of the position I’m advancing. Of course we need some sort of indication that a claim is true in order for us to rationally believe it. The point is that not all truths about reality are going to have the same quality or kinds of evidence going for them. Sometimes we just need to take the evidence we can get, because it’s all we can get. You seem to think that Christian historical and miracle claims, and the claim that a transcendent creator exists, require the same physical observation and testing that present-day physical claims require. The historicity of Christian claims can only be compared to other historical claims, and then we can judge the available evidence going for them as compared to other potential historical truths.

Present-day Christian miracles aren’t going to hold up to the standards required by natural phenomena, because they aren’t natural phenomena. Just as scientists can perform experiments incorrectly and not get the results that other scientists claimed, so can people pray vainly and without trust, such that their prayer for God’s intercession is more about fulfilling their will and material desires than in submitting themselves to God’s holy will. Prayers depend on the wills of the person and of God, which are not subject to predictable laws. It is free will.

The existence of God cannot be determined by physical measurements because he is transcendent. He doesn’t emit photons or have mass or velocity. As such, the probability of his existence compared to that of other transcendent beings is best determined through metaphysics and philosophy. An invisible, undetectable flying spaghetti monster immediately fails because you’ve given it physical properties based on our material world, and as such would be subject to them and not transcendental.

So I guess I was wrong about you not holding all claims to the same burden of evidence. What it does seem like is that you think non-present-day, non-physical claims must be examined in the same manner as present-day physical claims. Yes, we must still use our senses and reason to research truth about the past and the transcendent, but the evidence need not be modeled by mathematical functions or physical laws because by its very nature it cannot.

What I’m calling “subjective experiences” – like daydreams and feelings, which are subjective in the sense that they can only be observed by one individual, me – are a subset of the phenomenon called experience, which indeed I can only experience as the individual I am. I’m contrasting these “subjective experiences” --like daydreams and feelings – with “objective experiences,” like conducting a survey and comparing data points, experiences that beings which I am labeling as “others” can also observe.

The thing that’s confusing me about your position is that you think that your subjective experiences don’t reveal truth about reality. When you’re hungry, doesn’t that mean there’s no food in your stomach? When you’re sleepy, doesn’t that mean you haven’t been getting enough sleep lately? When you’re lonely, doesn’t that mean you’re not getting the social interaction and attention you want? These are all truths about the outside world that are revealed by your subjective, personal experience.

Now that I think about it, your distinction between subjective and objective experiences isn’t making any sense to me. What it personal for you, is external for someone else, isn’t it? Since your body and brain are a part of the real world, how are your senses of them not objective observations?

People invent this silly Matrix stuff because they want to use them to justify one or two pet claims that they really, really wish were true.

That seems to be what you’re doing now. You think your personal experiences are entirely subjective and don’t reveal truth about reality. You’ve also stated a few times that you believe certain things because they are useful to you, not because there is any evidence for them.

Do other people than yourself have self-consciousness? Does past success with the scientific method indicate future success with it? Do your senses reveal accurate truth about reality? You have yet to provide evidence of these claims. You have only said that you believe in them because they are useful, or in other words, because you want to.

Appearance of design is not evidence of design.

So if you walked into a car factory you would consider it equally likely that it “just happened” as if something intelligent created it?

It’s an argument from incredulity: “I can’t believe that this could happen any other way!” That’s not a valid argument.

If it’s an argument from incredulity in the way you describe, then so is every other physical theory. “From what I’ve observed I can’t believe that this physical phenomena could happen any other way!” You wouldn’t accuse that scientist of having a lack of imagination, now would you? I know and can believe that life happened naturally, because it did. But even though a computer happened naturally, it required intelligence to organize the materials into that form.

 

[Luke_K]

Heh . I finally thought of a way to sum up my real argument without, hopefully, offending anyone by breaking Romans 14. AntiTheist doesn’t get it but see if anyone else does.

We are in a period of change from the post-colonial view that we are vastly superior to all those peoples like the Hopi that we once labeled savages, and from the post-Enlightenment belief that we are the pinnacle of all civilizations in the best of all possible worlds. That view was epitomized by Star Trek, a show that never considered the possibility that any other way of life could improve on our total wondrousness.

But that is gradually changing, ironically partly due to science. We are beginning to see that there is no point in deconstructing ourselves as if we were anything but human. We are starting to understand ourselves once again as members of a tribe. We are rediscovering that there are many forms of truth.

A short story to try to make my point even unto AntiTheist. My wife and I go over to Morocco every so often and drive south because something interesting happens every day. Once we were driving down a track, saw a village and parked close to the little mosque, which is on a small hill. We saw through the open door a teacher and some kids sat on rugs. Women came out of their houses to look at this pair of exotic Westerners. The teacher/imam finished his lesson and talked to us with our broken French. The three of us ended up sitting on the ground against the wall of the mosque. A guy milked a goat and we drank the body-temperature milk because we were the guests. Half a dozen other guys came over, and some women brought mint tea for us all. Now, they all knew we were infidels just as we knew they were wrong, but no one mentioned that. After the teacher finished interpreting Berber pleasantries and questions, we all sat in silence for twenty minutes looking at the village and the fields beyond. Not a pregnant silence, as it might be if we were all Westerners. No words had to be said. Just a little tribe hanging out together.

Are we just specks on a lump of rock orbiting a star in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars that is one of trillions of galaxies?

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:37-39 NIV

Well said. Either God “just is” and we all have our purpose from Him, or the universe “just is” and we all make our own purpose. In the end, it’s all about whether God is God or we are our own god. “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will certainly not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.’” -Genesis 3:4-5

AntiTheist, I’m glad that you are at least not lukewarm towards God. The conversion of a soul that doesn’t care about God either way is the hardest of all. You remind me of a reflection of Jesus from the Divine Mercy Novena:

“Today bring to Me those who do not believe in God and those who do not know Me,
I was thinking also of them during My bitter Passion, and their future zeal comforted My Heart. Immerse them in the ocean of My mercy.”

 

[Marc_Anthony]

The discussion has become fascinating. I like stephendaniel’s response. I think Luke K is doing a fairly good job at least presenting his case. And I must confess that the Fatima apparitions are a big factor in stopping from converting to atheism once upon a time. Some people aren’t convinced by them. That’s fine. I am.

I would like to add, my “proof” I proposed earlier is one I never thought of as a proof. It was more like, 'Well, we exist. Something had to make us."

Anybody think there’s any significance in the fact that nature tends to do things in patterns?

 

[Windfish]

The discussion has become fascinating. I like stephendaniel’s response. I think Luke K is doing a fairly good job at least presenting his case. ** And I must confess that the Fatima apparitions are a big factor in stopping from converting to atheism once upon a time. Some people aren’t convinced by them. That’s fine. I am.**

I would like to add, my “proof” I proposed earlier is one I never thought of as a proof. It was more like, 'Well, we exist. Something had to make us."

Anybody think there’s any significance in the fact that nature tends to do things in patterns?

I have noticed that interest in Our Lady of Fatima has increased. I have been researching the history for several months and have bought and read six books on the subject. I want to buy more if I can learn to read Portuguese (many of the documents remain untranslated).

Needless to say, the evidence is vast and beyond all doubt. And remember, the events at Fatima, Portugal in 1917 are among many such cases in the history of the Church.

By contrast, what does the atheist have? Absolutely nothing. Why, then, should any of us abandon Our Lord? Why should we abandon the beauty and truth of the Church when the alternative is absurd?

We can discuss the evidence until we are all sick to our stomachs, but it is another thing entirely to have faith in God. Faith is a fire and a passion in you that doesn’t come about in a demonstration of the intellect. In the final analysis, the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the single greatest and most important and most sublime man in the history of the world, is what will light that fire in you.
Jesus Among Other Gods:

Napoleon expressed the following thoughts while he was exiled on the rock of St. Helena. There, the conqueror of civilized Europe had time to reflect on the measure of his accomplishments. He called Count Montholon to his side and asked him, “Can you tell me who Jesus Christ was?” The count declined to respond. Napoleon countered:

“Well then, I will tell you. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded great empires; but upon what did these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this very day millions will die for Him. . . . I think I understand something of human nature; and I tell you, all these were men, and I am a man; none else is like Him: Jesus Christ was more than a man. . . . I have inspired multitudes with such an enthusiastic devotion that they would have died for me . . . but to do this is was necessary that I should be visibly present with the electric influence of my looks, my words, of my voice. When I saw men and spoke to them, I lightened up the flame of self-devotion in their hearts. . . . Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man toward the unseen, that it becomes insensible to the barriers of time and space. Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful! In defiance of time and space, the soul of man, with all its powers and faculties, becomes an annexation to the empire of Christ. All who sincerely believe in Him, experience that remarkable, supernatural love toward Him. This phenomenon is unaccountable; it is altogether beyond the scope of man’s creative powers. Time, the great destroyer, is powerless to extinguish this sacred flame; time can neither exhaust its strength nor put a limit to its range. This is it, which strikes me most; I have often thought of it. This it is which proves to me quite convincingly the Divinity of Jesus Christ.”

:yyeess:

 

[AntiTheist]

Are we just specks on a lump of rock orbiting a star in a galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars that is one of trillions of galaxies?

Yes, we are.

Where the heck is your argument? You told a quaint little story, and then asked a rhetorical question about a known fact – that we are specks in a vast universe.

Please present your argument. Use a syllogism, if possible.

 

[AntiTheist]

The existence of God cannot be determined by physical measurements because he is transcendent.

How do you know this?

He doesn’t emit photons or have mass or velocity.

Or manifest in any detectable way. How exactly is your god distinguished from an imaginary being?

As such, the probability of his existence compared to that of other transcendent beings is best determined through metaphysics and philosophy.

And what is the philosophical and metaphysical evidence? You seem unable to articulate what evidence leads you to believe that a god exists.

The thing that’s confusing me about your position is that you think that your subjective experiences don’t reveal truth about reality. When you’re hungry, doesn’t that mean there’s no food in your stomach? When you’re sleepy, doesn’t that mean you haven’t been getting enough sleep lately? When you’re lonely, doesn’t that mean you’re not getting the social interaction and attention you want? These are all truths about the outside world that are revealed by your subjective, personal experience.

You are misunderstanding. When I’m talking about “claims about the objective world,” I am talking about claims about the world that is external and independent of you – I mean, of course, the world that appears to be external and independent of you, oh Matrix-seeker.

We’re talking about claims made about that world, whatever its “ultimate reality” is and whether or not it’s the Matrix.

In the examples you’ve given, they’re all truths about you – not about beings external to you, which is what we’re bloody talking about here. [Ok, beings that **appear to be external to you, whether or not we’re in the Matrix…can I stop qualifying my statements with these absurdities?]

If you were to claim that “People are involved in a conspiracy against me,” you could not support this claim with your daydreams and feelings about this.

Now look, I totally agree that if you are having daydreams of a god speaking to you, it means that your brain is working to assemble a daydream and present it to you.

But daydreams about a god speaking to you – I’m really sorry to break this to you – are not sufficient evidence that there’s a disembodied intelligence that intervenes in nature.

Do you dispute this? Do you actually think that daydreams about a god can be evidence of a being external to you? How about feelings? Do you think that feelings can determine that a disembodied intelligence exists? Do you think that your intuition can tell you that a disembodied intelligence exists?

If so, you and I have nothing more to discuss on this thread because your position is literally insane.

So if you walked into a car factory you would consider it equally likely that it “just happened” as if something intelligent created it?

We know that cars are designed because we only have examples of cars being designed – they don’t evolve from smaller cars, and they don’t grow out of the ground. If they did, we would have evidence that some cars aren’t designed after all — at least some of them would be…the opposite of designed, which is “naturally occurring.”

In order for you to figure out that something is designed, you have to have an opposite term (in this case, “naturally occurring”) to contrast the term “designed” with. So you can’t take something naturally occurring and say that it’s “designed” – at the very best, you’re arguing from a clumsy analogy that already presumes that your claim is correct.

Marc Anthony:

And I must confess that the Fatima apparitions are a big factor in stopping from converting to atheism once upon a time. Some people aren’t convinced by them. That’s fine. I am.

Well, I’ve been through the “argument from ghost stories” earlier in this thread.

Perhaps you can explain what you find convincing about this particular ghost story?

I would like to add, my “proof” I proposed earlier is one I never thought of as a proof. It was more like, 'Well, we exist. Something had to make us."

Er, well, that’s a clumsy way of saying, “The existence of the universe requires an explanation.”

I agree. However, I don’t agree that the explanation is that a disembodied intelligence made it happen. What evidence do you have for the claim that this “something” was intelligent or even a god? Why not some pre-universe law that we haven’t discovered yet? Why not a Buddhist cosmic principle that has produced the illusion of the universe? Why not some other supernatural being?

Say, weren’t you the guy who claimed to have read “refutations of the refutations of the existence of god”? How about using some of that knowledge to explain exactly where I’m going wrong?

Anybody think there’s any significance in the fact that nature tends to do things in patterns?

What significance do you see there?

Windfish:

Faith is a fire and a passion in you that doesn’t come about in a demonstration of the intellect.

Exactly what I’ve been saying: faith is the permission slip we give ourselves to believe things unjustified by evidence and reason.

 

[AntiTheist]

Now that all arguments for the existence of god have fallen flat on their faces – in many cases multiple times – people are resorting to embarrassing appeals to emotion. I will remind everyone to stay on topic: what empirical evidence is there to believe that a disembodied intelligence that intervenes in human affairs exists?

If you want to concede that there is no empirical evidence and that you just believe because it gives you the warm and fuzzies when you’re drinking your goat milk at night, then fine. But just come right out and say it: “I have absolutely no evidence; it just makes me feel good, like a linus blanket.”

But if you actually think that you’ve got evidence and reasons that justify your belief – and make it so that other people should believe as well – then let’s hear it.

 

[Windfish]

Windfish: Exactly what I’ve been saying: faith is the permission slip we give ourselves to believe things unjustified by evidence and reason.

I was trying to be poetic. The Catholic notion of faith involves trust, not belief, in God. And this trust is based on a knowledge of God, which in, turn, is based on evidence. So by all means, let us discuss the evidence.

AntiTheist:

Now that all arguments for the existence of god have fallen flat on their faces – in many cases multiple times – people are resorting to embarrassing appeals to emotion.

I have not read through of all this thread, but I sincerely doubt that “all [the] arguments for the existence of god have fallen flat on their faces.” I have no doubt that you think that, but that’s something else entirely. For example, you shrug off Fatima as a “ghost story,” even though the evidence incontrovertibly proves the supernatural and the truth of Christianity!

So what’s the use in trying to argue with you if you’re being so ridiculous?

 

[AntiTheist]

Fatima …] incontrovertibly proves the supernatural and the truth of Christianity!

So what’s the use in trying to argue with you if you’re being so ridiculous?

I think my irony meter just exploded.

 

[Windfish]

I think my irony meter just exploded.

There’s no irony there, AntiTheist, if you’re acquainted with the facts of the events. They’re indisputable, for you to say otherwise is to have an unreasonable and idiotic commitment to atheism. You want proof of the truth of Christianity? There it is.

 

[AntiTheist]

Reposted from earlier in the thread – refuting the argument from ghost stories:

First of all, the fact that “something happened that we can’t explain” doesn’t mean that “therefore, it was a supernatural event.” People – even, believe it or not, groups of them – can be wrong about things that they see. For example, there are a number of stories of group UFO-abductions and group ghost sightings reported by people who in most cases honestly believe that these things happened to them. These stories are also consistent…do you think we should seriously go around and start believing that UFO abductions and ghosts are real?

Which is more probable: that a bunch of people were mistaken or that a major astronomical event happened that was only seen in one specific location on the planet and left absolutely no trace of its effects in terms of gravity or planetary movement (which it surely would have, were it real)?

It’s special pleading: the only reason that you consider these claims of supernatural events plausible while discounting other claims of supernatural events is that you want these particular claims to be true. And the evidence that it’s special pleading is that you don’t believe in every other single claim of supernatural events (unless, of course, you’re the most gullible person ever).

Of course, even if you took the ridiculous approach of taking all of these stories at face value – and, by the way, it’s already special pleading to take the magical stories of your religion seriously and not those of other religions…look up the Hindu living saints, for example, who have supposedly worked magic in front of crowds – there’s nothing that suggests that they are evidence of your particular supernatural explanation. Perhaps these “apparitions” are actually ghosts of the dead – working off their karma between Buddhist incarnations, maybe – who assume forms that onlookers would recognize; perhaps they are illusions created by wandering leprechauns who want to play tricks on mortals by making them think that their religion’s legends are true; maybe Hinduism is the one true religion and these “apparitions” are Rakshasas (evil spirits) assuming these forms to lead you away from the one, true faith…and so on and so on

 

[Windfish]

You’re probability argument is a joke, and THAT’S special pleading, since you could always use that kind of an argument to wriggle your way out. But who says I don’t take the miraculous claims of other religions seriously? As Catholics, we recognize that other traditions have aspects of the truth and have a share in its benefits. So let’s see the evidence for them. Same for UFO abductions. I doubt any of them have as much evidence as Fatima does.

As for this particular miracle, the FACTS ARE INDISPUTABLE. For you to say otherwise is, again, to have an idiotic commitment to skepticism which goes AGAINST the facts. Instead of following the facts and the evidence, like you say you want to do, you come up with some peripheral non-factual BS about probability. Or maybe you’re just not familiar with the facts, which, again, are incontrovertible. This is why I talked about the futility of evidence with some non-believers, because they wouldn’t accept it no matter how compelling, because what they need is that “fire” I spoke of.

 

[inocente]

Please present your argument. Use a syllogism, if possible.

AntiTheist - end of term report

Most students think of God as separate from the cosmos, or inhabiting all of the cosmos, or of there being no God.

In debates on metaphysics, AntiTheist comprehends that none of these positions can be supported by absolute evidence and yet insists that they should be, failing to understand how downright silly that is.

He compounds this by treating his own position differently, preferring instead to appeal to the “world outside our heads”, as if.

No one in the school who takes the same side in debate appears willing to go along with his lop-sided logic, and this possibly includes all students ever. Instead of drawing the obvious lesson that he might be wrong, he takes from this that he is the messiah of the one true faith.

While thoughtful and courteous in debate, this blind faith that he is the only one to ever see is wearing on others.

Possibly taking him to a Jamaican Pentecostal church and having him watch people dance up and down the aisles for a few hours may reveal some important truths about humanity. Another option would be for him to sit on the south rim of Grand Canyon from dawn to dusk, but take care not to let him try to fly across, as sometimes happens with those given to flights of fancy.