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raymond phule
climber
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Blight, whatever you say. It is impossibly to arguee anyting with you because you dont understand logic and becuase you think it is the other people fault when they dont understand something or is sceptical. It is like you are saying 2+2=5 and people dont belive you. They read and look and all their sourses claim that you are incorrect but you still claim that you are correct and that they just dont look hard enough. It is their fault that they cant understand that 2+2=5. You cant understand that people can get to a other result than you given the same sourses and that you might be wrong.
I might have wrong when I thought that christians dont questions though. I take that back.
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Blight
Social climber
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It is impossibly to arguee anyting with you because you dont understand logic and becuase you think it is the other people fault when they dont understand something or is sceptical.
So you think that I don't understand logic, and that must be my fault? But when you don't understand it, that's my fault too?
From that alone, it would seem that it's not me who has problems with logic and understanding.
You have the same simple problem as Juan. Of course you don't understand religion or God. You've refused point blank for the whole thread to go and learn about them for yourself. If a child refuses to go to school, is it the school's fault that he can't read or write?
To put it bluntly, if you refuse to study, you will remain ignorant. It's that simple.
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raymond phule
climber
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"So you think that I don't understand logic, and that must be my fault?"
You said that argument of concensous was a valid argument for example. I also gave a link and tried to explained it. What more can I do? You also doesn't seem to have a clue about who that is responsible to prove a claim. You never provide any evidence.
"But when you don't understand it, that's my fault too?"
A person claiming that it exist thousands of proofs is the person that should provide the proofs. A scientist that claim something should provide proof for the claim. This should also be obvious.
"From that alone, it would seem that it's not me who has problems with logic and understanding."
You clearly show once again that you doesn't understand logic and understanding.
"You have the same simple problem as Juan. Of course you don't understand religion or God. You've refused point blank for the whole thread to go and learn about them for yourself. If a child refuses to go to school, is it the school's fault that he can't read or write?"
Whos fault is it if the school just tell the children: Your homework is to learn to read and write. The students ask how I am I going to learn? It is up to you. It is not my job to teach you or explain how you are going to learn to read and write.
Ok, I do some research.
did a search for proof of god.
http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/Mansproof.html
"The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning."
This is a strawman and is not true for all atheist. Thus all arguments follows doesn't prove that atheists are wrong.
"The atheist's assertion that the universe is uncaused and selfexisting is also incorrect The Bible's assertion that there was a beginning which was caused is supported strongly by the available scientific evidence."
That science cant prove something doesn't prove that God exist.
I simple not by this kind of proof. I dont by all proof or evidence given by christians. Is that so difficult to understand?
"To put it bluntly, if you refuse to study, you will remain ignorant. It's that simple."
I have studied I just simply didn't get to the same conclusion as you.
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Blight
Social climber
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Whos fault is it if the school just tell the children: Your homework is to learn to read and write. The students ask how I am I going to learn? It is up to you. It is not my job to teach you or explain how you are going to learn to read and write.
I've told you where the school is. Get this through your thick head: I AM NOT YOUR TEACHER. THIS IS NOT A SCHOOL. I'm not teaching you because I don't want to, not because I can't.
If you want to learn, go to a place of learning. This is not it. Quit pretending that it must be impossible for you to learn because you spend your time bugging someone who's not a teacher in a place which isn't a school.
I have studied I just simply didn't get to the same conclusion as you.
That's not study. That's just petty nitpicking. Now if you were to take that article to a teacher, disuss it and learn from it, that would be study.
Oh and the idea that atheists believe there was no beginning is not a strawman, it's a inductive fallacy of generalisation. And Although that's a mistake, that doesn't make it completely wrong, let alone everything that follows it.
That science cant prove something doesn't prove that God exist.
Yes; thinking that's the case is called the "God of the gaps fallacy". However, if science didn't have such huge gaps, that fallacy wouldn't exist, would it?
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raymond phule
climber
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Richard, I definitely belive that you have done a lot of thinking :-) What are your area of philosophy by the way?
My view:
The first problem is the question of what can we actually know about the world. This is a very old philosphical question and my opinion is that we cant know anything at all. It is possibly that we live in a dream or in a computer program (like in the matrix movie). A pretty bad start for a researcher... but I dont belive that it is possibly to prove that we cant be fooled by are senses.
On the positive side is that the world seems to pretty consistent and seems to be governed by rules. The sun rise every day for example.
Thus we have problem with truth. Lets assume that we can trust our senses. Nothing really make sense if we cant.
When I look at the world I see no reason to belive that it exists a God. Not everyting is explained but most things are. Things that dont follows the rule of physics don't seems to happen (or atleast most of them dont seem to survive a scrutiny).
I see no reason to include a God in my view of the world. You and other say that you get a more consistent world if God exist. I belive that the difference in opinion might be because we have postulated different truths and that we want different results. For example you probably belive in some kind of soul, I dont.
Thus some people need an answer (often a nice answer) to questions like, what is the soul, what happens after death and is it a higher meaning of life. These questions might be easier to answer with a God if you want a "nice" answer but a God is not necessary if you dont care about those questions.
I have also read a couple of Dawkings books. The difference between how we read him seems to be that you belive that it exist something methaphysical about brain/consious. Dawking doesn't belive this and thus doesn't answer your questions about how the consious evolved. You doesn't seem to by his arguments because you want him to give an explaination of phenomena that not necessary exist.
I have a hard time to understand how questions on the foundations of knoweledge could be better explained by invoking a religion with metaphysical concepts like life after death.
A theory is not more true because the result is easier to take. It would be better if we would have a life after death but this cant be a argument for that it actually exist.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Healyje, I'm sympathetic to what you (and, I guess, Juan) are looking for in the way of evidence. I'll get to that in just a minute.
First, though, I'm disturbed by your idea that thinking carefully about a subject is "philosophical hocus-pocus." You cast the alternative as "common sense." But "common sense" tells us that the sun revolves around the Earth. "Common sense" tells us that when you put a pencil in a glass of water, it bends. And so on.
Your likely reply is that "common sense" in my two examples must include what we know about how the universe works. But wait! That sort of thinking is already way past "common sense." At that point, you're into theorizing about astronomy and refractive properties of light. While such "facts" have become "common knowledge," coming to believe in such "facts" are NOT "common sense," and they require significant education (indoctrination) to believe.
So, I submit that we all do a lot of "philosophical hocus-pocus" at all times as we try to decide how to interact with the world and what we shall believe about the phenomena that present themselves. The only question is how "deep" of "hocus-pocus" is needed to provide a sufficient explanation of observed phenomena.
You SAY that faith would have to rest upon evidences that are quite simple. But, you also sweepingly dismiss my lengthy and very careful intellectual journey, which dismissal can only serve to call into question my intellectual honesty. Perhaps I ended back up as a SDA because that belief system makes the most sense when you consider enough facets of enough world views. It is actually pretty amazing that I'm an SDA now, given how hard I resisted going back there, because I had the same suspicions of myself that you now have of me. But, honestly, the weight of evidence was convincing to me, and I did look at a lot of it.
However, I don't expect my journey to be compelling to you; I only shared it to dismiss this ongoing notion that one has to be simple-minded or have blind faith to be a Christian or theist. I am far from alone in my philosophical theism, and in fact many of the top philosophers on this planet are theists for similar reasons that I am: the cumulative case arguments in favor of it overwhelm the alternatives.
But, you don't want to hear about all that "hocus-pocus," so here's a "simple" evidence. I predict, however, that despite its simple force, you will find many reasons to dismiss it as well, which goes to make my point that "simple" evidences are not actually so simple after all. Well, here goes....
When I was ten or eleven, my family went to visit my Grandma. The cousins, my two sisters, and I were playing tag in the front yard. My youngest sister, who was about six or seven, was running away from "it." She was running with her mouth open, laughing, looking back over her shoulder, and she turned to look where she was running just as she ran straight into a large yucca plant.
One of the stiff spines drove entirely through her tongue and pierced the back of her throat. She stood there screaming, and then started gasping for air. My cousin and I pulled her back off the spine, as the others ran to report the accident.
We bent my sister forward to keep the blood from pouring down her throat, and stumbled to the house.
The entire family gathered around, and my mom ran to my sister. My mom, I, and my sister made it into the bathroom, leaving pools of blood as we went. In the bathroom, my mom got a washcloth wet with cold water and pressed it hard against my sister's tongue, trying to slow the bleeding before we drove to the hospital.
The extended family crowded around in the hallway talking in horrified whispers, and most of them could see into the bathroom to watch what was happening. Most of them had seen the fact that my sister's tongue was virtually cleaved in two.
Mom began to pray out loud that God would help my sister to be strong and that He would make the upcoming hospital (stiching)experience as little traumatic as possible. Then she pulled the washcloth away from my sister's tongue to check the bleeding.
The wound was completely gone. My sister brightened and said, "It doesn't hurt any more."
The extended family was amazed. I was amazed. I mean, I was standing right next to her, and I was looking right into her mouth when my mom pulled the washcloth away.
Mom decided to take her to the hospital anyway, fearing how much blood she had swallowed and wanting her to be checked out.
I was there during the examination, and the doctor reported that he could find no evidence of the wound we described, except for a small, round scar in the back of my sister's throat. She had that scar into adulthood, and she might still have it today. I don't know.
Now, hearing this story you have lots of alternatives. You might say that my memory isn't serving me well, since I was just a kid when I saw all this. Maybe I'm embellishing, you might say. Ok, well, there's "embellishing" and then there's outright lying. Even if you conclude that I might not have every detail right, you should use some "common sense" to decide a few things: 1) I'm not just outright lying, because, given my belief system, I wouldn't risk my eternal life over such a lie; 2) it would be insane for me to lie in an effort to convince you of the truth of a belief system that I knew was based upon a lie; 3) I did witness a horrible injury, and that injury was enough like I remember it that it left a scar in the back of my sister's throat; 3) I did witness my mom pray, and I did witness that the horrible wound was healed immediately after that prayer; 4) I did witness the doctor state that he could find no damage to my sister's tongue when he examined her.
Other alternatives. You can say, "Well, ok, I'll grant that something unusual happened, but surely there's a scientific explanation for it." Fine, but now you are NOT after "simple" evidence after all. If you take this tack, you have officially abandoned "common sense" and are already deep in the realm of "philosophical hocus-pocus." In such a case, I could give you tons of reasons (a lengthy project) why a purely naturalistic paradigm fails, but, again, this begs the question against "common sense." And such investigation, if you are honestly interested in the truth, is easy to conduct on your own; there are carefully written volumes by extremely credible thinkers against a purely naturalistic paradigm.
You might say, "Fine, some sort of apparently supernatural 'god' or 'power' helped your sister, but why think that 'god' is anything like the Judeo-Christian God?" Ahh, yes, and here we note again how impossible it is for ANY "simple" evidence to get the job done. The more "simple" an evidence is, the more questions it leaves unanswered! Of course, "common sense" would say, "Well, duh! His mom prayed to the Judeo-Christian God, by name, and He answered. How much more 'simple' does it need to get?" But, I suspect that at this point you will reinterpret what counts as "common sense."
You might say, "Ok, if the Judeo-Christian God healed your sister, then why does He allow so MANY other horrors to take place? It makes no sense and isn't fair that He would answer your mom's prayer and not the prayers of so many others!" Again, though, such a statement is WAY outside the realm of the "simple" or the "common sense." Answering such an objection just IS the realm of "philosophical hocus-pocus." Yet, in your sweepingly dismissive way, you have disallowed the very sorts of arguments that could provide the account your objection begs for. How convenient! By your definition of the rules of the game, you have ruled out the very sort of discussion that could address this issue. And, again, the point is clear that even an event as startling as the story I have told isn't sufficient to provide "simple" evidence.
You might say, "Now I see why YOU have some good reason to believe, but the event happened to YOU. I'm waiting for something like that sort of evidence to happen to ME! If I saw something like that first-hand, then I would believe too!"
Probably not. I say that because of observing how my extended family reacted over time. A few of them became believers for a short while and even attended church weekly. But the old lifestyle of smoking, drinking, gambling, etc. quickly pulled them back in, and the effect of the event was swallowed up in the old lifestyle. Just before my Grandma died, I asked her if she remembered the event. She said that she did, but it seemed distant, like a story she had heard, like it was almost a family myth; and the myth had lost its force.
I can't avoid spewing a bit of "philosophical hocus-pocus" here, because the fact that so many witnesses to the event came to ignore it reveals a few things about how faith works.
God does not reveal Himself more startlingly to most people because He values free will above all things in the universe. Let's say that He came down in glory and power, stood right before you, performed astounding miracles, and proclaimed, "I am God, the Creator, the God of the Bible." Would THAT be sufficient evidence to convince you? Would THAT be simple enough?
Well, it shouldn't be! How do you know that this being is really God rather than just some very powerful alien? There is nothing about such a display that can (or should) convince you of the truth of the propositional content of His claim. Instead, such a display would be a blatant attempt to manipulate you, to cow you into submission, to COMPEL you to believe. And yet, even such a forceful display, as manipulative as it would be, SHOULD not convince you because there are so many other alternatives.
God is a gentleman when it comes to approaching His free-thinking creatures. He DOES provide ample evidence to those who are honestly seeking Him, although He is careful to not compel on any level. He says, "You will find me when you seek for me with your whole heart," and that is because He will not stoop to manipulative tactics, nor will He stoop to begging you with demonstrations.
So, why did He answer my mom's prayer, when He could answer so many other prayers and thereby "prove" Himself? First, He doesn't usually answer prayers to "prove" anything. We already believed, and He simply honored that belief with His answer. My extended family were disinclined to believe, and they soon found ways to distance themselves from the event so that it lost its impact on their lives. We didn't view the event as a reason TO believe, and my extended family didn't find the event sufficient to produce faith.
In the vast majority of cases, even first-hand witnessing of a miracle isn't sufficient to arouse genuine faith! Instead, praying for that sort of "proof" merely attempts to get God to come to you, hat in hand, and beg you with more and more impressible displays: "Is THIS enough? No? Ok, how about THIS?"
The evidence is there, although it is neither "simple" nor "common sense" to recognize it. Faith requires searching with an entire and honest heart. If you do engage in such a search, I am confident that God will hear and answer THOSE prayers.
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raymond phule
climber
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"I don't want to, not because I can't."
Sure... that argument works well in the real world.
"If you want to learn, go to a place of learning. This is not it. Quit pretending that it must be impossible for you to learn because you spend your time bugging someone who's not a teacher in a place which isn't a school."
Everything you say assume that you and your faith is true. I cant do something or learn something until I get to the same conclusion as you. It doesn't matter how god my arguments are and how many references to people that agree with me that I show. I am still dont get it before I agree with you.
""I have studied I just simply didn't get to the same conclusion as you."
That's not study. That's just petty nitpicking. Now if you were to take that article to a teacher, disuss it and learn from it, that would be study."
Se above.
"Oh and the idea that atheists believe there was no beginning is not a strawman, it's a inductive fallacy of generalisation."
The article made and killed a strawman. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html
"And Although that's a mistake, that doesn't make it completely wrong, let alone everything that follows it. "
They killed a strawman. Not everything is wrong but most conclusions are. The also dont understand evolution.
"However, if science didn't have such huge gaps, that fallacy wouldn't exist, would it?"
yes, why not? It is enough that people belive that it is gaps in science to invoke it. Most people arguing that evolution didn't happen have no clue about evolution theory.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Raymond, thank you for your post. I appreciated it.
I should set the record straight, though. I don't have faith because I need answers to issues like souls, eternal life, and other religious trappings like that.
The things that I think need accounts are things like abstract objects, self-consciousness (which is not a phenomenon that cannot be "explained" by in effect denying it, as Dennett does; and reductive/eliminative materialism is a dismal failure), objective moral facts, the existence of natural languages, and so on. Unlike "souls" or "eternal life" or such things, the things that I'm interested in are common currency. We encounter these things every day, and they are part of our shared world view. It's our ACCOUNTS of them that differ.
You are right to note the skeptical problem introduced by matrix-like scenarios. But I believe that the response to such scenarios is not properly an appeal to God, who makes everything turn out ok for us so we don't get too deceived. Instead, I am very Kantian in my response to skepticism (but that's too vast a topic to discuss in this venue); I only mention Kant to point people to a line of fruitful research. One of my undergraduate professors was/is an internationally known scholar (and an atheist), and she said, "Much of the thrutching around in philosophy today results from people not understanding Kant. So they keep attempting to address issues that he laid to rest already." I think she was largely right about that.
Anyway, it seems that you're still looking at all the evidence, and that's all any philosopher could hope for. I hope for it for myself on an ongoing basis too. May we someday meet somewhere close to the truth!
edit: and you are certainly correct about most people not actually understanding evolutionary theory!
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Blight
Social climber
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Sure... that argument works well in the real world.
This IS the real world you twit.
Everything you say assume that you and your faith is true.
Uh, no Raymond, I believe that my faith is true because I've been and am going through the learning process. You need to make your own decision by learning too. But you haven't and won't go through it, instead substituting shouting at a passer-by - me - that they are WRONG WRONG WRONG because they won't give you knowledge on a plate.
The article made and killed a strawman.
*sigh*
No it didn't. The article said, "The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning". Some atheists have always maintained that. Therefore it is not a straw man, which sets up an argument your opponent has never used then attacks it. It's just a generalisation which is largely but not completely incorrect.
The also dont understand evolution.
The article doesn't mention evolution. Not once. So your attack on the author's understanding of it really is a strawman.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2006 - 09:41am PT
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Blight,
Why? Still no good evidence?
JDF
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Blight
Social climber
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Juan, why what?
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raymond phule
climber
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""The also dont understand evolution."
"The article doesn't mention evolution. Not once. So your attack on the author's understanding of it really is a strawman."
The section named design is clearly about evolution.
Whatever, I think that the article is crap due to many logical errors. You probably think it is a good article and you are going to call me a twit until I think it is a good article.
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Blight
Social climber
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The section named design is clearly about evolution.
Uh no, the setion named "design" is clearly about design.
And no, I don't particularly rate the article. But then again I didn't bring it up. If I had, I'd have taken a little time to attack the eproblems that are in it instead of making up new ones.
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raymond phule
climber
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""The section named design is clearly about evolution."
Uh no, the setion named "design" is clearly about design."
Whatever you say. The word evolution didn't exist in the article, not the word inteligent design either. So it cant be pro ID and against evolution. No, it cant. That would assume that the reader had some reading comprehension.
"The atheist, on the other hand, will try to convince us that we are the product of chance"
Cant have something to do with evolution... No it cant be a statement based on a missunderstanding of evolution that ID people use all the time because the word evolution is not in the sentence.
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Blight
Social climber
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Cant have something to do with evolution... No it cant be a statement based on a missunderstanding of evolution that ID people use all the time because the word evolution is not in the sentence.
Looks like you're reading your own prejudices into it. It doesn't say ID and it doesn't say evolution. You might see similar content, but anything else is just a straw man.
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Clarke Brogger
Mountain climber
Laguna Beach, Ca
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oooohhh Corpdog, so profound.
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Tao Climber
climber
Milky Way
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OK ENOUGH IS ENOUGH......THIS IS A FRIGGING CLIMBING FORUM NOT A METAPHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL OR PHILOSOPHICAL ONE....UNLESS OF COURSE WERE TALKING ABOUT CLIMBING ETHICS, STYLES ETC. ALSO....THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL FORUM. I AM SO SICK OF SIFTING THROUGH FIVE FORUMS TO FIND ONE THAT HAS ANYTHING REMOTELY TO DO WITH CLIMBING.......I KNOW THIS FALLS ON DEAF EARS, BUT FOR GOD SAKES SPARE ME ALL THIS GOD TALK ON A CLIMBING FORUM.....................AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Madbolter1,
I don't dismiss exercises in logic or the result of philisophical explorations. I simply find them unsatisfactory in that they [typically] bypass the simple and the obvious with deliberate intent. If they did not do so I would be far more inclined to accept them at face value. Where you and others so inclined paint all such "simple" and "obvious" answers no differently than the perceptions of a mob attempting to fish the moon out of a pond with pitchforks is where we part company.
Now that you claim [anecdotably] to have experienced the full measure of a road from "simple" and "obvious" to intellectual rigor is to your credit. But your story is still anecdotal, personal, and unverifiable in a way that a layer of rotting loaves and fishes fifty feet deep in every Walmart parking lot in America would not be. And why wouldn't we still be able to exercise free will in the presence of clear, simple, and obvious "proof" that an anthropomorphic theistic diety existed? Religious fundamentalists are claiming one does and we still manage to operate with free wills - I don't get what's the inherent problem with a simple verification on a generationally periodic basis?
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pyro
Social climber
I'm not telling,
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more like lets work on good manners. this poetry is B.S. people become the best, "Tape recorders" when they want attention, soo stupid are your ethics.
keep it real+ don't steal, don't lie, don't hit, don't hate, etc. were all working toward an excellent society. Instead we act like a cast away on some dried up island.
faith will make you the beliver in any God, but mind who watches you. Keep the poetry authentic.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Walla Walla, WA
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Healyje, the observation of some buried leaves or fishes is exactly the same sort of observation as the observation of the event of my sister's tongue being healed: empirical. The issue at hand is interpretation.
You seem to want to distinguish between "facts" (like a fish being buried in a certain layer of sediment) and "events" (like my sister's tongue being healed, or my personal intellectual journey). If I understand you correctly, on your model the former are "verifiable," while the latter are "personal... unverifiable."
I do want to clarify that I never intended my intellectual journey to be "verifiable" or to act as evidence. My only point in mentioning it was to respond to the notion that all Christians are ignorant, stupid, or blind in their faith. So, I would prefer to address your distinction in terms of the contrast between buried fishes and miracles.
For our purposes, though, this is a distinction without a difference. In the exact same way that everybody who OBSERVES a buried fish can say, "There's a buried fish," everybody who OBSERVES a healing can say, "There's no wound where a second ago there was one." BOTH are "facts" in that both are features of reality that can be observed. Again, the issue is in how these observed facts are interpreted.
Earlier, you or Juan (I don't remember which) asked for something simple and obvious, like a burning bush. My point is that what we MAKE of buried fishes, burning bushes, or healing events is where the rubber meets the road. There are no "facts" in a vacuum. All observation is loaded with the baggage of theory and interpretation. So, I'm honestly baffled about what sort of "simple" or "obvious" evidence you expect.
For more fruitful future discussion, I need to get clear on two points: 1) What do you make of a miracle story like I told? 2) Can you give a particular simple or obvious evidence that would be sufficient to indicate God's existence?
Thank you in advance.
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