Upvote upvote upvote! Love the man.

*quality *doublepromote

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by gwiz665.

Double-Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Saturday, June 16th, 2012 1:27pm PDT - doublepromote requested by gwiz665.

Yuv it.

Just had a deep psychological revelation: Feynman = Mr. Rogers for grown ups.

I'm gonna walk around my apartment in a daze thinking on that for a little while...

It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it. To say you prefer uncertainty is to say you enjoy the freedom of imagining that the answer is something else, because you don't like it. We aren't uncertain about everything. We have to be certain of some things, like the fact that we exist. Do we say that those who believe they exist embrace this answer because they are afraid of not existing? Clearly, certainty is useful.

If you want say that theists embrace God because they don't want to die, you could also say that atheists reject God because they don't want Him to exist. Take these scientists, for example:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.

Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97

No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.

Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182

To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.

To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

Shiny, why do you post stuff?

If you are posting to try to persuade people that your God is the one true God, you are being counter-productive. You are pushing people away from your belief. Whether or not your posts have any merit, whether or not you are right, people see your posts and think that Christians are a tiresome bunch of self-righteous bores.

It doesn't even come down to how convincing your arguments are any more - you are putting people off God. You are diminishing the sum total of Earth's belief in your God. I imagine you watch videos like this with the same impotent anger that I feel when I watch a video about a "gay" 4 year old being killed but ask yourself - is harming your religion really what you want to be spending your time doing? What will you say to St. Peter at the Gates, "I tried but I actually put people off. Sorry 'bout that."?

This is actually sorta a dupe of http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Feynman-Human-gods-are-too-provincial, but the one above is longer.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it. To say you prefer uncertainty is to say you enjoy the freedom of imagining that the answer is something else, because you don't like it. We aren't uncertain about everything. We have to be certain of some things, like the fact that we exist. Do we say that those who believe they exist embrace this answer because they are afraid of not existing? Clearly, certainty is useful.
If you want say that theists embrace God because they don't want to die, you could also say that atheists reject God because they don't want Him to exist. Take these scientists, for example:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.
Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97
No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.
Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it.

You make a good point. In our daily life we are certain about a lot of things, or rather we accept things for granted without any thoroughly investigated evidence. We assume that we exist, because that's needed for us to assume it. We assume we have free will, because it feels like we have free will.

I also live as if there is no God, because of the "path of least resistance" - it is easier to assume there is no god, than to assume there is, and since it has no difference to me, the easiest solution is fine. I think for many theists, it least resistance to assume that there is a god, and live as if he exists, be it because of social pressure, mindset or what have you - in any case, their path of least resistance is to assume he exists. If you think about all the shit an outed atheist go through in some states, I can't really blame them for that too much.

It is a different deal when you get into the science of it, because in science we deal with what is real and what is not. The good thing about science is that it doesn't care. It doesn't care about your feelings, it doesn't care that lots of people like a thing, it only exist to show the truth and to show nature for what it really is.

Materialism is absolute in that it's really there, like Feynman says so excellent in his video about the electro-magnetic spectrum. It may not have much of an effect in your everyday life how light moves in waves and how it's similar to how water makes waves, but that doesn't make it any less true. You can assume that they are unrelated if you want, and if that makes you sleep better at night, but it's just not how nature works.

If you take the issue of God under the microscope, you find that there's not much evidence backing it up when you really look. The social pressure is there, and the cultural ramifications are there, but there's no evidence backing up the actual existence. The hypothesis "it was all made up" has equal merit, because you can find just as many traces of this than you can of it actually being real.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it. To say you prefer uncertainty is to say you enjoy the freedom of imagining that the answer is something else, because you don't like it. We aren't uncertain about everything. We have to be certain of some things, like the fact that we exist. Do we say that those who believe they exist embrace this answer because they are afraid of not existing? Clearly, certainty is useful.
If you want say that theists embrace God because they don't want to die, you could also say that atheists reject God because they don't want Him to exist. Take these scientists, for example:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.
Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97
No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.
Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

Sadly, it seems even something as straightforward as this logical, personal talk is *controversial.

Adding video to channels (Controversy) - requested by messenger.

"The answer"? Not sure what part of Feynman's interview response you're alluding to or what exactly "the question" was, but the best you personally can say is that you have "an answer", and one which may or may not be true, and which is both unfalsifiable and unprovable. Commenting all over the Sift like you know "the answer" and as if the rest of us are too stupid to just accept it is why people call you arrogant, FYI.>> ^shinyblurry:
It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it.

>> ^Quboid:

Shiny, why do you post stuff?
If you are posting to try to persuade people that your God is the one true God, you are being counter-productive. You are pushing people away from your belief. Whether or not your posts have any merit, whether or not you are right, people see your posts and think that Christians are a tiresome bunch of self-righteous bores.
It doesn't even come down to how convincing your arguments are any more - you are putting people off God. You are diminishing the sum total of Earth's belief in your God. I imagine you watch videos like this with the same impotent anger that I feel when I watch a video about a "gay" 4 year old being killed but ask yourself - is harming your religion really what you want to be spending your time doing? What will you say to St. Peter at the Gates, "I tried but I actually put people off. Sorry 'bout that."?


I don't think he understands that/how he is putting people off. I suspect he's been raised or taught by an almost old-fashioned zealot type; nonbelievers deserve to live in shame and scorn, that kind of thing. I imagine someone who looks like kenneth from 30 rock but instead of being super nice, he's super religious, walking around quoting the bible at people.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^Quboid:
Shiny, why do you post stuff?

I suspect he's been raised or taught by an almost old-fashioned zealot type...


If you believe Shiny, he says he's a self-created "born again." But either way you're right: at least one of his Fathers is an old fashioned type.

>> ^Jinx:
We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it.
To me, this is a compelling qualitative argument against most organized religions (though perhaps not against theism explicitly).


"Science" in general is willing to discard and reject what was once believed "true" when presented with consistent contradictory evidence. We know the picture is incomplete, so we're prepared to refine and correct it as we learn.
Most organized religions are predicated on some form of infallibility. Some indisputable, irrefutable, unquestionable "truth". There is no room for new understanding. We are not allowed to refine or correct the message as knowledge is accumulated. (Which is doubly frustrating when in many cases what is and is not a part of that "truth" was established by committee hundreds or thousands of years ago.)

I'd say the hypothesis "it was all made up" has infinitely more merit than the hypothesis "god is real". The former has actual evidence you can use to prove it. The latter has none.>> ^gwiz665:

The hypothesis "it was all made up" has equal merit, because you can find just as many traces of this than you can of it actually being real.
>> ^shinyblurry:
It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it. To say you prefer uncertainty is to say you enjoy the freedom of imagining that the answer is something else, because you don't like it. We aren't uncertain about everything. We have to be certain of some things, like the fact that we exist. Do we say that those who believe they exist embrace this answer because they are afraid of not existing? Clearly, certainty is useful.
If you want say that theists embrace God because they don't want to die, you could also say that atheists reject God because they don't want Him to exist. Take these scientists, for example:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the unitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door.
Richard Lewontin, Harvard
New York Review of Books 1/9/97
No evidence would be sufficient to create a change in mind; that it is not a commitment to evidence, but a commitment to naturalism. ...Because there are no alternatives, we would almost have to accept natural selection as the explanation of life on this planet even if there were no evidence for it.
Steven Pinker MIT
How the mind works p.182
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

I saw the video topic... saw that it had 16 comments, thought to myself "I bet shiny has posted on this"

And Lo! I was correct. Am I a messiah or something?




_{No, I'm a very naughty boy}

>> ^shinyblurry:
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?


Feynman is not saying that god can't touch something on the scale of the universe. Feynman is saying how self centered, naive and provincial your silly little bible is to only focus on our tiny little insignificant corner of the universe.

Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?

Also, what I want to know is, what makes your understanding of a creator more correct than other religions? Why not follow Islam? I hear they have the direct word from god himself, far superior than your collection of mere stories.

>> ^mentality:
Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?
I believe L. Ron Hubbard has some works that may be relevant to this line of inquiry.



As for the other, why wouldn't God's word to the humans be tailored to their perspective? "Chicken Soup for the Terran Soul", right?

How do you drive a group of militant anti-theists further away from God? You either want to know the truth or you're running away from it. That's the only dichotomy in this equation.

I post for a number of reasons, depending on the topic. I generally only post in videos which deal with God, Christianity, or social issues involving biblical morality, because those are the subjects that interest me. Not only am I qualified to comment on these topics, but as these kind of videos generally present an anti-christian worldview, it is only natural for me to respond to the subject matter and present my own viewpoint.

Videos like this don't make me angry. Like I've said before a few times, I used to think this way. I used to be as liberal and skeptical about the supernatural as most of you are. It is no mystery to me why you think the way you do. I am not baffled by your reasoning, nor does it threaten mine. What I felt was sorrow for Richard because he may never have come to know God before he died.

>> ^Quboid

If you don't know, how would you know what I know?

>> ^Jinx:

We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it.

You have said to me that you attempt to give me the benefit of the doubt, which I appreciate, however most of those here tell me I am wrong, so is that somehow less arrogant in your eyes? In any case, it is both falsifiable and provable. You could find Jesus' grave for instance. It is also provable in that God does reveal Himself, as billions of people today, and billions more throughout history have found out. Whether you believe that or not is beside the point. The point is, if you demand evidence, tell me how we should find it. How would you test for God? If God exists, the entire Universe is evidence for God. How would you tell if you were in a Universe created by God or one created by random chance?

>> ^messenger:

"The answer"? Not sure what part of Feynman's interview response you're alluding to or what exactly "the question" was, but the best you personally can say is that you have "an answer", and one which may or may not be true, and which is both unfalsifiable and unprovable. Commenting all over the Sift like you know "the answer" and as if the rest of us are too stupid to just accept it is why people call you arrogant, FYI.>> ^shinyblurry:
It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it.

Are you saying there is no infallible knowledge; ie, no truth?

>> ^ReverendTed:

>> ^Jinx:
We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it.
To me, this is a compelling qualitative argument against most organized religions (though perhaps not against theism explicitly).

"Science" in general is willing to discard and reject what was once believed "true" when presented with consistent contradictory evidence. We know the picture is incomplete, so we're prepared to refine and correct it as we learn.
Most organized religions are predicated on some form of infallibility. Some indisputable, irrefutable, unquestionable "truth". There is no room for new understanding. We are not allowed to refine or correct the message as knowledge is accumulated. (Which is doubly frustrating when in many cases what is and is not a part of that "truth" was established by committee hundreds or thousands of years ago.)

The size of the Universe does not determine our relative significance in it. Why should Gods letter to mankind focus on mankind? Because He wrote the letter to mankind?

If the bible were a collection of mere stories then Islam couldn't be true, since Islam, like mormonism, is derivative of Christianity. Islam is a 6th century cult which claims to have extra-biblical revelation, which is flatly condemned by scripture.


>> ^mentality:

>> ^shinyblurry:
To say God couldn't touch this world because the Universe is so big is a false argument. The Universe may be huge to us, but to God it is very small. If God is omnipresent, He is everywhere at the same time. Size and distance mean nothing in that equation.
To say God created the Universe is not the end of inquiry, it is the beginning of true inquiry and true science. How could you understand the creation without understanding the Creator?

Feynman is not saying that god can't touch something on the scale of the universe. Feynman is saying how self centered, naive and provincial your silly little bible is to only focus on our tiny little insignificant corner of the universe.
Where are the tales of space Jesus who died for the sins of Omecron Persei 8?
Also, what I want to know is, what makes your understanding of a creator more correct than other religions? Why not follow Islam? I hear they have the direct word from god himself, far superior than your collection of mere stories.

I think we have to take certain things for granted because not everything can be proven empirically. There is no way to empirically prove that the Universe is actually real. To say that it is real you have to rely on your senses and reasoning. You can't say those are valid without using viciously circular logic. "My reasoning is valid because my reasoning says so" Without assuming certain things, apriori, the world would be unintelligable. Neither could you do science. To do science you have to assume the uniformity in the nature. How do you prove it? By assuming the future will be like the past. What is the evidence that the future will be like the past? The past. It's the same vicious circularity.

As far as Gods existence goes, I never assumed either way. I knew I didn't have enough information to say either way, so I was agnostic by default. I only changed my mind when I received evidence. I wasn't under any pressure to do so, nor was I even looking to do so.

So, while science has a pitiless indifference to how you feel in regards to what is true, it is not the sole arbitor of what is true. This idea that empiricism is the only way to determine truth cannot be proven empirically, ironically. It is an assumption that materialists make with no actual evidence. The argument seems to be that since we can build a space shuttle, empiricism must the way. Yet, that isn't a logical argument. Empiricism might be useful, but it isn't the only method of inquiry that is useful. Everything has its place, and empiricism has a hard limit to what it can prove.

Yes, there certainly is material out there. Does that we can see and test material means that material causes are the only possible solution? We can't see dark matter, dark energy, other universes, other dimensions, yet scientists have no trouble postulating about what we can't see. So why not postulate that the Universe has a non-material causation? Why not an intelligent causation? I would say the evidence is a lot more convincing for intelligent design than other Universes, yet science only considers one to be plausible. Don't you think that is irrational?

I'll ask you the same question I ask messenger..how would you tell the difference between a random chance Universe and one that God designed? What test could you conduct to find out which one you were in? When you can come up with a test to determine that, then you can tell me that there is no evidence. Logically, if there is a God, the entire Universe is evidence. Isn't it possible that you are staring at something divinely ordered but don't realize it?

>> ^gwiz665:

You make a good point. In our daily life we are certain about a lot of things, or rather we accept things for granted without any thoroughly investigated evidence. We assume that we exist, because that's needed for us to assume it. We assume we have free will, because it feels like we have free will.
I also live as if there is no God, because of the "path of least resistance" - it is easier to assume there is no god, than to assume there is, and since it has no difference to me, the easiest solution is fine. I think for many theists, it least resistance to assume that there is a god, and live as if he exists, be it because of social pressure, mindset or what have you - in any case, their path of least resistance is to assume he exists. If you think about all the shit an outed atheist go through in some states, I can't really blame them for that too much.
It is a different deal when you get into the science of it, because in science we deal with what is real and what is not. The good thing about science is that it doesn't care. It doesn't care about your feelings, it doesn't care that lots of people like a thing, it only exist to show the truth and to show nature for what it really is.
Materialism is absolute in that it's really there, like Feynman says so excellent in his video about the electro-magnetic spectrum. It may not have much of an effect in your everyday life how light moves in waves and how it's similar to how water makes waves, but that doesn't make it any less true. You can assume that they are unrelated if you want, and if that makes you sleep better at night, but it's just not how nature works.
If you take the issue of God under the microscope, you find that there's not much evidence backing it up when you really look. The social pressure is there, and the cultural ramifications are there, but there's no evidence backing up the actual existence. The hypothesis "it was all made up" has equal merit, because you can find just as many traces of this than you can of it actually being real.

I'll ask you the same question I ask messenger..how would you tell the difference between a random chance Universe and one that God designed? What test could you conduct to find out which one you were in? When you can come up with a test to determine that, then you can tell me that there is no evidence. Logically, if there is a God, the entire Universe is evidence.


There are infinite possibilities all perfectly compatible with my experience of the universe. But that doesn't mean that I can't take a stab at ordering those possibilities in some way. It makes sense to choose explanations that involve fewer and simpler arbitrary assumptions. This doesn't give you any guarantee you'll get anything right (and certainly not everything right) - but it's all anyone can possibly do (including you - you just, apparently, have a different set of inputs including some sort of personal revelation).

Isn't it possible that you are staring at something divinely ordered but don't realize it?


Of course it is. For your part, do you accept it's possible that you're being deceived by a demon who can mess with your thoughts?

I know you are, but what am I?>> ^shinyblurry:

If you don't know, how would you know what I know?
>> ^Jinx:

We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it.

How dare you accuse me of being a militant anti-theist after the discussions i've had with you? Do you have no conscience about lying or something? You had to swallow your pride and apologise to me once for being a jerk (when i came to you as an inquirer) and yet you bandy around terms like "militant anti-theists?"

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. God is watching; shame on you.
>> ^shinyblurry:

How do you drive a group of militant anti-theists further away from God? You either want to know the truth or you're running away from it. That's the only dichotomy in this equation.
I post for a number of reasons, depending on the topic. I generally only post in videos which deal with God, Christianity, or social issues involving biblical morality, because those are the subjects that interest me. Not only am I qualified to comment on these topics, but as these kind of videos generally present an anti-christian worldview, it is only natural for me to respond to the subject matter and present my own viewpoint.
Videos like this don't make me angry. Like I've said before a few times, I used to think this way. I used to be as liberal and skeptical about the supernatural as most of you are. It is no mystery to me why you think the way you do. I am not baffled by your reasoning, nor does it threaten mine. What I felt was sorrow for Richard because he may never have come to know God before he died.
>> ^Quboid

>> ^shinyblurry:

How do you drive a group of militant anti-theists further away from God? You either want to know the truth or you're running away from it. That's the only dichotomy in this equation.
I post for a number of reasons, depending on the topic. I generally only post in videos which deal with God, Christianity, or social issues involving biblical morality, because those are the subjects that interest me. Not only am I qualified to comment on these topics, but as these kind of videos generally present an anti-christian worldview, it is only natural for me to respond to the subject matter and present my own viewpoint.
Videos like this don't make me angry. Like I've said before a few times, I used to think this way. I used to be as liberal and skeptical about the supernatural as most of you are. It is no mystery to me why you think the way you do. I am not baffled by your reasoning, nor does it threaten mine. What I felt was sorrow for Richard because he may never have come to know God before he died.
>> ^Quboid


You're not going to push me any further away, that's true. But presumably there are more on-the-fence readers who are smart enough not to get embroiled, and are fed up of seeing you banging away at your favourite drum.

Besides intelligent design and random chance, what other alternatives are there?

For your part, do you accept it's possible that you're being deceived by a demon who can mess with your thoughts

Do you believe God can make Himself known in such a way as you could be certain about it?

>> ^jmzero

>> ^dannym3141:

How dare you accuse me of being a militant anti-theist after the discussions i've had with you? Do you have no conscience about lying or something? You had to swallow your pride and apologise to me once for being a jerk (when i came to you as an inquirer) and yet you bandy around terms like "militant anti-theists?"
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. God is watching; shame on you.
>> ^shinyblurry:
How do you drive a group of militant anti-theists further away from God? You either want to know the truth or you're running away from it. That's the only dichotomy in this equation.
I post for a number of reasons, depending on the topic. I generally only post in videos which deal with God, Christianity, or social issues involving biblical morality, because those are the subjects that interest me. Not only am I qualified to comment on these topics, but as these kind of videos generally present an anti-christian worldview, it is only natural for me to respond to the subject matter and present my own viewpoint.
Videos like this don't make me angry. Like I've said before a few times, I used to think this way. I used to be as liberal and skeptical about the supernatural as most of you are. It is no mystery to me why you think the way you do. I am not baffled by your reasoning, nor does it threaten mine. What I felt was sorrow for Richard because he may never have come to know God before he died.
>> ^Quboid



I don't regard you as a militant anti-theist. However, the sift has many *proud* militant anti-theists and so I generalized. I didn't mean everyone.

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^shinyblurry:
How do you drive a group of militant anti-theists further away from God? You either want to know the truth or you're running away from it. That's the only dichotomy in this equation.
I post for a number of reasons, depending on the topic. I generally only post in videos which deal with God, Christianity, or social issues involving biblical morality, because those are the subjects that interest me. Not only am I qualified to comment on these topics, but as these kind of videos generally present an anti-christian worldview, it is only natural for me to respond to the subject matter and present my own viewpoint.
Videos like this don't make me angry. Like I've said before a few times, I used to think this way. I used to be as liberal and skeptical about the supernatural as most of you are. It is no mystery to me why you think the way you do. I am not baffled by your reasoning, nor does it threaten mine. What I felt was sorrow for Richard because he may never have come to know God before he died.
>> ^Quboid

You're not going to push me any further away, that's true. But presumably there are more on-the-fence readers who are smart enough not to get embroiled, and are fed up of seeing you banging away at your favourite drum.


His sheep hear His voice. I am a human being prone to failure, and again, I can't lead anyone to salvation. It is God leading through His Holy Spirit that changes someones heart.

I'm probably not a sheep then.

I am ignorant of much, but what I do know is that humans are prone to believe what they want to be real, I know that humans fear the unknown, that we look for patterns and that we'll invent them when they aren't there. I don't know that there is no God, I don't know that you aren't gifted with some divine knowledge that I am not privy too, but I do know what is probable and what is not. Thats how rational humans make decisions, we accept that our knowledge is imperfect and we make a best guess. Science is best guess. Thats all we have, thats all we've ever had and like it or not, thats all you have. Certainty is your own deception.

Do you believe God can make Himself known in such a way as you could be certain about it?


Of course. A theoretical omnipotent God could obviously convince me that He exists. That's tautological - He could do anything. He could 100% perfectly convince me that I'm a helicopter - whether or not that's true (right now I don't think I'm a helicopter, but I certainly could be).

It's also quite possible that - devoid of the presence of God - I could become very convinced of His (or Her's, or Its) presence by a stroke, a trolling demon, an advanced machine that could rewrite things in my brain, a misconception/bias that I don't see, or even just a very vivid dream.

Going further, there could be a God who believes himself omnipotent - and uses that power to convince people to worship him. But unbeknownst to Him he's actually the child of a Sun rabbit, the rabbit in turn having been born in an explosion at a fireworks warehouse (which was itself made by the rabbit, created backwards in time). The rabbit doesn't interfere and allows God to conduct business in just the way you think he does; you see, the rabbit thinks all the ginger spirits in heaven look like delicious, bobbing carrots and he thus lets God carry on with his business.

Besides intelligent design and random chance, what other alternatives are there?


That is a very odd question - it doesn't take a great imagination to come up with possibilities, once we depart the realm of "seems to be likely". Time could be an illusion - the universe could be completely static, arbitrarily existing in its current form throughout all eternity. Ahead of you (none of us exist... oops!) is a soap bubble that looks like whatever you're seeing right now - behind you is an endless velvet Elvis painting. To be very clear: I don't know this isn't the case (and even if God or mescaline made me 100% convinced that this was or wasn't the case, I still would have no actual way of knowing - I'd just have a brain that's been messed with and thought it knew things it didn't).

Anyways - I'll repeat my previous question. Do you accept it's possible that you're being deceived by a demon who can mess with your thoughts? This is a fairly simple question; I've answered your questions, and I don't think it's unfair for me to expect a yes or no answer.

"Only a mile away from the shepherd and his flock was a goatherd and his herd. The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.

For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led."
-- Terry Pratchett

For once, shiny, we are in total agreement.
>> ^shinyblurry:

His sheep hear His voice.

>> ^Jinx:

I'm probably not a sheep then.
I am ignorant of much, but what I do know is that humans are prone to believe what they want to be real, I know that humans fear the unknown, that we look for patterns and that we'll invent them when they aren't there. I don't know that there is no God, I don't know that you aren't gifted with some divine knowledge that I am not privy too, but I do know what is probable and what is not. Thats how rational humans make decisions, we accept that our knowledge is imperfect and we make a best guess. Science is best guess. Thats all we have, thats all we've ever had and like it or not, thats all you have. Certainty is your own deception.


Yet, science has nothing to say about the existence of God, so how do you say this factors into probabilities? Again, you say you're fairly certain about my uncertainty..but I say that is because you are uncertain. Certainly, God could let you know. Do you want to know?

Besides intelligent design and random chance, what other alternatives are there?

That is a very odd question - it doesn't take a great imagination to come up with possibilities, once we depart the realm of "seems to be likely". Time could be an illusion - the universe could be completely static, arbitrarily existing in its current form throughout all eternity. Ahead of you (none of us exist... oops!) is a soap bubble that looks like whatever you're seeing right now - behind you is an endless velvet Elvis painting. To be very clear: I don't know this isn't the case (and even if God or mescaline made me 100% convinced that this was or wasn't the case, I still would have no actual way of knowing - I'd just have a brain that's been messed with and thought it knew things it didn't).

You can make it as convoluted as you like..in the end, it is all either the product of design or chance. If you disagree, come up with an alternative.

Anyways - I'll repeat my previous question. Do you accept it's possible that you're being deceived by a demon who can mess with your thoughts? This is a fairly simple question; I've answered your questions, and I don't think it's unfair for me to expect a yes or no answer.

No, because God has given me sufficient evidence that I can be certain of it. A person receiving absolute confirmation of Gods existence has a justified true belief in God, regardless of what someone who has no such revelation perceives as reasonable. Indeed, a person on the outside of this revelation is irrational and incapable of determining what truth is.

>> ^jmzero

>> ^ChaosEngine:

"Only a mile away from the shepherd and his flock was a goatherd and his herd. The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.
For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led."
-- Terry Pratchett
For once, shiny, we are in total agreement.
>> ^shinyblurry:
His sheep hear His voice.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8335465/Sheep-are-far-smarter-than-previously-thought.html

You can make it as convoluted as you like..in the end, it is all either the product of design or chance. If you disagree, come up with an alternative.


I apparently haven't been clear in what I'm trying to say.

The existence of "anything" isn't design or chance or anything like that - those are the wrong kinds of concepts for answering the fundamental question. Design and chance and other "ways to summarize operations" (see also: decay or evolution) can get moving once we've instantiated "something" - but to start with our options are "arbitrary", "arbitrary" or "more arbitrary". If there's always been an eternal God, that's arbitrary. If the universe is some cycle of foam and explosions then that's arbitrary.

Maybe a simpler example: the universe could have sprung into existence in 2011 at that current state. I can't imagine evidence to the contrary. What is the reason I don't believe that? Because it's more arbitrary than other possibilities. That's part of why someone might accept evolution; it seems very arbitrary that all these animals should just happen to exist - it requires less arbitrariness if somehow all of these creatures could have come from a smaller set of simple ones.

Similarly, having a God reduces the number of things we have to start with. All you need is one thing: God. Then, by his desires and actions, you get all the other stuff for free, without having to assume in more things. God is a better explanation than having all things start at their 2011 state, partially because it requires far fewer arbitrary assumptions (just one big one).

I'll also say that you're putting way too much stock in "chance". Science currently sees a certain amount of true randomness in the operation of physics, but the gross physical mechanisms involved in, for example, evolution are not precluded by a fully deterministic universe. The world (or a world very similar to ours) could be explained by an arbitrary start state and arbitrary deterministic rules without chance being involved at all. Again, I don't think "chance" is a terribly useful concept for this discussion.

And to be doubly clear, there is no fundamental dichotomy between "chance" and "design". Chance needn't exist for a God or Godless universe, and "design" (as a vague concept, not specific theory) seems to exist either way too (though it could be illusory). I believe that I design things - so as an explanation for "how things are", most people are going to invoke design as a mechanism either way.

No, because God has given me sufficient evidence that I can be certain of it. A person receiving absolute confirmation of Gods existence has a justified true belief in God, regardless of what someone who has no such revelation perceives as reasonable. Indeed, a person on the outside of this revelation is irrational and incapable of determining what truth is.


I was using the term "possible" to mean "not absolutely impossible". I think perhaps you're using the word "certain" in a less absolute way.

For example, I'm certain about my phone number. I'm more certain that, for example, I have been alive for longer than a day. But I can't absolutely certain. We can imagine a universe that is intent on tricking me about this fact - and I have no way to rule out that universe based on my experience or logic.

Similarly, my choice of question for you wasn't random or intended to be silly. Imagine a universe with more than one powerful supernatural agent (I called one a demon), some of whom were intent on deceiving humans. Their actual motivations are completely inscrutable, but for whatever reason they take some joy in tricking you into believing in God.

I'm not saying this universe is in any way likely or that it should compete with your current understanding of the world. So to clarify: my question to you is "do you agree it's not absolutely impossible that is the case". If you're leaving your answer to this clarified question as "no", what possible evidence could you have to rule this situation out? What evidence or experience couldn't be falsified by a devious supernatural agent? What if they could mess with your very process of reason (and I see no reason why they couldn't - again just as hypothetical)?

(@shinyblurry)

The researcher says about sheep: "They have a reputation for being extremely dim and their flock behaviour backs that up as they are very silly animals when in a group – if there is a hole they will fall into it, if there is something to knock over, then they will knock it over."

Amen sistah! Testify!

I wouldn't ordinarily take an animal analogy to such lengths, but you brought it up twice as if it means something.

@ChaosEngine too>> ^shinyblurry:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s
cience-news/8335465/Sheep-are-far-smarter-than-previously-thought.html

>> ^messenger:

The researcher says about sheep: "They have a reputation for being extremely dim and their flock behaviour backs that up as they are very silly animals when in a group – if there is a hole they will fall into it, if there is something to knock over, then they will knock it over."
Amen sistah! Testify!
I wouldn't ordinarily take an animal analogy to such lengths, but you brought it up twice as if it means something.
@ChaosEngine too>> ^shinyblurry:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/s
cience-news/8335465/Sheep-are-far-smarter-than-previously-thought.html



Sheep need a good shepherd.

And to be doubly clear, there is no fundamental dichotomy between "chance" and "design". Chance needn't exist for a God or Godless universe, and "design" (as a vague concept, not specific theory) seems to exist either way too (though it could be illusory). I believe that I design things - so as an explanation for "how things are", most people are going to invoke design as a mechanism either way.

Of course there is a fundamental dichotomy between chance and design. Let's look at the definitions:

Chance

: something that happens unpredictably without discernible human intention or observable cause
b : the assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings : luck -an outcome decided by chance-

c : the fortuitous or incalculable element in existence

1
: to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan : devise, contrive
2
a : to conceive and plan out in the mind -he designed the perfect crime- b : to have as a purpose : intend -she designed to excel in her studies- c : to devise for a specific function or end -a book designed primarily as a college textbook-

A design was deliberately caused by a mind, whereas chance just happens. Either existence as we know it was deliberately caused by a mind, or it wasn't. Whether the Universe is deterministic and things had to happen this way has no bearing, because that says nothing for the reason of the original configuration, or how it got that way. Either there is no particular reason and it just happened to be that way, or it was set into motion by an intelligence. Design is planned and chance is unplanned, and that is the dichotomy.

If you want to speak about what is arbitrary, then you have to consider that everything is equally unlikely from the standpoint of one who is unsure about everything. You may suspect there is a truth, because things appear to happen for a reason, but be unable to grasp it. This is like a black hole for the mind, and there is no escape from uncertainty.

You have to make a couple of assumptions to even begin to reason. The first is that you are real. The second is that the Universe is not inherently deceptive. The first, because you cannot reason without assuming you exist, and so assuming the contrary will only lead to absurdity. The second, because again, if you cannot trust anything then you cannot trust your own thoughts either. Therefore, you have no route to reason and again it leads to absurdity.

This isn't to say you couldn't be deceived about the Universe. It is to say that there is always some route to the truth. Therefore, the truth is something tangible and can be grasped. However, you are still in the quandary of being a subjective being with limited knowledge. There may be a route to the truth, but it requires you to be omnipotent. This is where most people stop and say, well, we just can't ever know what the truth is, but this isn't true. Even if you are not omnipotent, an omnipotent being could tell you what the truth is. That's my claim.

God is also the simplest explanation for everything, which can account for absolutely everything we see, feel, or experience, and that is precisely why some people don't like it. They don't want an ultimate answer like God because He interferes with their personal autonomy. They want to be free to imagine that it could be any number of things, so therefore they have the ultimate freedom to live however they please. To say there is any particular answer, especially a personal one, restricts their personal freedom and makes them accountable to specific outcomes.

I'm not saying this universe is in any way likely or that it should compete with your current understanding of the world. So to clarify: my question to you is "do you agree it's not absolutely impossible that is the case". If you're leaving your answer to this clarified question as "no", what possible evidence could you have to rule this situation out? What evidence or experience couldn't be falsified by a devious supernatural agent? What if they could mess with your very process of reason (and I see no reason why they couldn't - again just as hypothetical)?

Well, you've agreed with me that God could reveal Himself to someone in such a way as they could be absolutely certain about it. Such a person could justifiably consider all other outcomes to be absolutely impossible, and be absolutely certain about that. That's my claim. Can I prove that I am that person, even to myself? Not entirely, but I have faith that it is true. This is not a blind faith, it is faith based on my personal relationship with God, which is experiential. Faith is the *substance* of things hoped for, because although I do not see God with my eyes, His Spirit dwells within me.

I do believe there is another supernatural power in this world, a kingdom of darkness which is a lesser power, but powerful enough to deceive human beings. Satan does want you to believe in God; the wrong God. Satan actually doesn't care what you believe, so long as it isn't in the Lord Jesus Christ. Another reason is that I have personal experience with demons; I have been around demon possessed people, and I have spoken to them when they manifested themselves in those people. They are professional liars (actors), the like you have not imagined.

It comes back to the Universe being inherently deceptive. You can't reason that way; you have to believe there is a route to truth. Neither can Satan completely deceive you; God gives everyone the opportunity to know the truth and to break free of their slavery to sin.


>> ^jmzero

@shinyblurry

Fair enough - it sounds like you're certain in every practical sense, but you don't believe you have "absolute knowledge". That was really the main distinction I was trying to make. Certainly I agree that you can't reason in any meaningful way without writing off certain kinds of extreme possibilities.

Of course there is a fundamental dichotomy between chance and design.


I understand the contrast here, and I think I understand now what you're trying to get at better - I just don't think this contrast is fundamental to the question I'm interested in (which is different, I think, than the one you're interested in). To me the intermediary steps are fungible - it's the start states that are interesting to me, and to me they all require arbitrary stuff that I don't like, but that seem necessary.

I think this difference in focus may come down to our varying perceptions of those intermediary steps. For me, the general big bang model, ideas of how stars and planets coalesced, natural abiogenesis, and evolution are reasonably credible as they stand and I expect those theories to develop and become more credible. You see those things very differently. I think that naturally leads to a different focus.

God is also the simplest explanation for everything, which can account for absolutely everything we see, feel, or experience, and that is precisely why some people don't like it.


I agree with this as well - to an extent. Having a unique God makes for a simple explanation in general (although it gets a bit complicated in practice for how we ended up precisely "here"). For the general problem of "how did this all get here", your recipe is very simple if it starts with God. On the flip side, God is a very big thing to assume. I think a case can be made for belief in a general God on something like this basis. Though I don't personally find it a convincing case at this time, that could change.

Perhaps another question: for you personally, would you describe your situation as more like "God provided me with special evidence, and I reason that He must exist because of this evidence" or more like "God produced a change in me directly, such that I now believe (unmediated by your own reason)"? (Or, obviously, something in between or different altogether). I think this would clarify your situation for me.

About your perceived arrogance. I'm not judging anybody on the Sift. You alone are the one who came here with a single-purpose account to try and convert people to your faith. I'm telling you how you come off and how it's affecting your goal. Your spamming of what I consider nonsense into the middle of what I consider rational discussions and your indifference to the fact you're irritating people, in my mind, gives me licence to be blunt. You could accept it as honest criticism and go from there.

About evidence. You and your religion are the ones showing up uninvited and making incredible claims. If you're making the claim, it's to you to provide a way to prove it. The only way a claim has any meaning is if there's some way to falsify it. But your claim is designed in such a way that it is literally impossible to falsify it. That's the weakness that inspired the spoof deities like FSM and the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and Bertrand Russell's Teapot: in practice, one is exactly as falsifiable as the other. In theory, your faith has seemingly falsifiable statements, but in practice, every time one of them is falsified, theologians and apologists work endlessly to somehow "make" it still hold true, sometimes by changing the meaning of words retroactively, or claiming retroactively it was just a metaphor or whatever. Sometimes it's a legitimate save, but usually it's intellectually dishonest. When someone points that out, you come up with some other intellectually dishonest way of getting out of that too.

Here's an example of what I mean: You make the claim that God is all-loving. To me, if words have meaning, "all-loving" that means God will only do loving things. But he commits mass murder several times. Now, any human that even once had ever beat somebody up, even in the heat of passion, would be disqualified from the category of "all-loving". But for God, there's always an apologist loophole because you'd decided beforehand that God was all-loving and will stop at nothing to make sure that label sticks.

Or the claim of intercessory prayer. Of the rigorous studies that have been done, all have said there is no correlation between prayer and positive health effects, even when religious groups sponsor the study. To anybody using reason, this proves that prayer doesn't work. But you need so badly for it to be true that you ignore the statistical evidence, and rely instead on anecdotes or the studies (however rigorous) that showed a positive effect, or you dismiss all the studies because they are science, and science is a false religion, or whatever. Regardless, as the result, "Prayer doesn't work" is unacceptable, any results by any method you will invent fault with, even if you agreed to the method beforehand.

If you disagree that you're being intellectually dishonest, find a definition of the term that you agree with, and I'll show you what I mean.>> ^shinyblurry:

You have said to me that you attempt to give me the benefit of the doubt, which I appreciate, however most of those here tell me I am wrong, so is that somehow less arrogant in your eyes? In any case, it is both falsifiable and provable. You could find Jesus' grave for instance. It is also provable in that God does reveal Himself, as billions of people today, and billions more throughout history have found out. Whether you believe that or not is beside the point. The point is, if you demand evidence, tell me how we should find it. How would you test for God? If God exists, the entire Universe is evidence for God. How would you tell if you were in a Universe created by God or one created by random chance?>> ^messenger:
"The answer"? Not sure what part of Feynman's interview response you're alluding to or what exactly "the question" was, but the best you personally can say is that you have "an answer", and one which may or may not be true, and which is both unfalsifiable and unprovable. Commenting all over the Sift like you know "the answer" and as if the rest of us are too stupid to just accept it is why people call you arrogant, FYI.>> ^shinyblurry:
It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it.

Fair enough - it sounds like you're certain in every practical sense, but you don't believe you have "absolute knowledge". That was really the main distinction I was trying to make. Certainly I agree that you can't reason in any meaningful way without writing off certain kinds of extreme possibilities.

I think absolute knowledge is possible even from our subjective standpoint. For instance, it is absolutely true that "something" exists. Any argument against this is actually proof that it is true.

In any case, I am making a claim to absolute knowledge, because divine revelation could only ever be absolute knowledge. A person receiving such revelation would have a justified true belief in God. That's my claim. It's not something I could prove..only God could prove it, but neither am I unjustified in believing it.

I understand the contrast here, and I think I understand now what you're trying to get at better - I just don't think this contrast is fundamental to the question I'm interested in (which is different, I think, than the one you're interested in). To me the intermediary steps are fungible - it's the start states that are interesting to me, and to me they all require arbitrary stuff that I don't like, but that seem necessary.

Well, originally you were responding to this question:

"I'll ask you the same question I ask messenger..how would you tell the difference between a random chance Universe and one that God designed? What test could you conduct to find out which one you were in? When you can come up with a test to determine that, then you can tell me that there is no evidence. Logically, if there is a God, the entire Universe is evidence."

If we can boil all of the possibilities down to design and chance, how could you tell which Universe you were in? What test could you conduct that would tell you the difference? Atheists often demand some kind of empirical proof of God, yet they are never forthcoming on the details of what that proof would consist of. That is really the impetus behind this question..

I think this difference in focus may come down to our varying perceptions of those intermediary steps. For me, the general big bang model, ideas of how stars and planets coalesced, natural abiogenesis, and evolution are reasonably credible as they stand and I expect those theories to develop and become more credible. You see those things very differently. I think that naturally leads to a different focus.

The reason I don't see them as credible is because of a lack of evidence. For instance, there is absolutely no evidence of abiogenesis, at all. In fact, louis pasteur proved that it is most likely impossible. Life has never once been observed coming from non-life. Yet, it is assumed to be true because "there must be a naturalistic origin to life". It's a just-so story and it isn't at all credible. I've heard the odds of it happening are far greater than the number of atoms in the Universe.

People tell me that Creation sounds like a fairy tale, but then they tell me their own story that begins with "once upon a time a frog became a prince", and this somehow sounds plausible when you throw in billions of years.

time is in fact the hero of the plot. the impossible becomes possible..time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald
Harvard
Nobel laureate

I agree with this as well - to an extent. Having a unique God makes for a simple explanation in general (although it gets a bit complicated in practice for how we ended up precisely "here"). For the general problem of "how did this all get here", your recipe is very simple if it starts with God. On the flip side, God is a very big thing to assume. I think a case can be made for belief in a general God on something like this basis. Though I don't personally find it a convincing case at this time, that could change.

I think you'll have to admit that God is a much better theory than "I don't know". Yet, people bandy about "I don't know" as if this is the superior position. You have to wonder why to even think that the Universe was designed is subject to so much ridicule and derision, when it is actually a perfectly reasonable theory that is supported by evidence. As far as assuming God goes, you don't need to explain God to postulate Him as a possibility. What matters is whether the idea has explanatory power. The question always is, is God a better explanation for the evidence?

It isn't always an evidential argument, either. There many logical arguments to assume there is a God:

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

Perhaps another question: for you personally, would you describe your situation as more like "God provided me with special evidence, and I reason that He must exist because of this evidence" or more like "God produced a change in me directly, such that I now believe (unmediated by your own reason)"? (Or, obviously, something in between or different altogether). I think this would clarify your situation for me.

I received evidence in a number of different ways. One, is that God fundamentally changed me. In the blink of an eye, where I was broken, I was now healed. Where there was addiction, there was self-control. Where there was hate, there was now love and forgiveness. Where there was darkness, there was now light. It was instantaneous and it certainty had nothing to do with me. I would have stayed the way I was, left to my own devices. It was a supernatural transformation of my inner being.

Another thing is that God has demonstrated to me, beyond all reasonable doubt, that He is in absolute control of everything. To the extent that I no longer include the word coincidence in my vocabulary. In short, He has used my internal and external experiences to give me evidence of His existence, and this is ongoing. I always experience the presence of God because His Spirit lives within me.

There are other ways that I cannot quite put into words. The peace of God transcends all understanding. His love surpasses all expectation and every height; it is a deep and wondrous mystery. He is my Father, and I am his (adopted) son. My relationship with God is a personal one that has changed my entire life in every conceivable way, beyond anything I could ever imagine or hope for.

>> ^jmzero

About your perceived arrogance. I'm not judging anybody on the Sift. You alone are the one who came here with a single-purpose account to try and convert people to your faith. I'm telling you how you come off and how it's affecting your goal. Your spamming of what I consider nonsense into the middle of what I consider rational discussions and your indifference to the fact you're irritating people, in my mind, gives me licence to be blunt. You could accept it as honest criticism and go from there.

I think you, and many other people here, see me through a fun-house mirror made up of your preconceived notions about God and Christians in general. The reasons I am here are not so cut and dry, but I certainly feel that God wants me to talk to people here.

About evidence. You and your religion are the ones showing up uninvited and making incredible claims. If you're making the claim, it's to you to provide a way to prove it. The only way a claim has any meaning is if there's some way to falsify it. But your claim is designed in such a way that it is literally impossible to falsify it. That's the weakness that inspired the spoof deities like FSM and the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and Bertrand Russell's Teapot: in practice, one is exactly as falsifiable as the other. In theory, your faith has seemingly falsifiable statements, but in practice, every time one of them is falsified, theologians and apologists work endlessly to somehow "make" it still hold true, sometimes by changing the meaning of words retroactively, or claiming retroactively it was just a metaphor or whatever. Sometimes it's a legitimate save, but usually it's intellectually dishonest. When someone points that out, you come up with some other intellectually dishonest way of getting out of that too.

This website is open to the public, is it not? If so, then in what sense am I uninvited?

My claim isn't "designed", it is simply the fact of what I believe. I don't modify it to escape someones inquiry. You like to make some bold claims about what it is, or isn't, but you never happen to back them up with evidence. As I told you earlier, it is falsifiable. You could prove it to be logically inconsistent. You could find the body of Jesus. You could disprove the major facts of the bible. You cannot claim it is unfalsifiable. The problem with your spoof deities is that they have no explanatory power. A flying teapot explains exactly nothing..

Here's an example of what I mean: You make the claim that God is all-loving. To me, if words have meaning, "all-loving" that means God will only do loving things. But he commits mass murder several times. Now, any human that even once had ever beat somebody up, even in the heat of passion, would be disqualified from the category of "all-loving". But for God, there's always an apologist loophole because you'd decided beforehand that God was all-loving and will stop at nothing to make sure that label sticks.

What the scripture says is that God is love. Not that He is loving, but that He is love itself. Yes, it is true that God took the lives of thousands of people in the Old Testament because of disobedience. That is indisputable. What you're claiming is that this was "mass murder". The fundamental question being posed here is, does God have the right to take a life? If He does, then there is nothing unjust about what He did, and therefore it is not inconsistent with His love.

Now, God is the author and sustainer of life. Meaning, that life is a gift and a privilege for human beings. There is no fundamental right to be alive. Neither is there anything we can do to continue our life a second longer than God ordains. When we are born and when we die is entirely in His hands. He is the one who is causing our lungs to receive breathe, who is maintaining the coherence in our atomic structure. So what life we do have is a tender mercy from God, especially considering the fact that all of us abuse His creation and spit in His face on a constant basis.

Further, God has ordained that the punishment for sin is death. The people you speak of in scripture were all sinners, and most of them grievous sinners at that. Why is God unjust for enforcing His law? What is wrong with God enforcing His law at His prerogative?

Considering that we live because of God, and that it is a gift which can be revoked at any time because of sin, why is it unjust for God to do so? If you're going to say I am being intellectually dishonest, then prove it and explain why. Where is the flaw in my reasoning here?

Or the claim of intercessory prayer. Of the rigorous studies that have been done, all have said there is no correlation between prayer and positive health effects, even when religious groups sponsor the study. To anybody using reason, this proves that prayer doesn't work. But you need so badly for it to be true that you ignore the statistical evidence, and rely instead on anecdotes or the studies (however rigorous) that showed a positive effect, or you dismiss all the studies because they are science, and science is a false religion, or whatever. Regardless, as the result, "Prayer doesn't work" is unacceptable, any results by any method you will invent fault with, even if you agreed to the method beforehand.

Some Christians may feel that way, but only because they don't understand scripture:

Luke 4:12

And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

The Lord doesn't perform on camera for skeptics because He isn't a guinea pig subject to our experiments. Those who test the Lord will not get any results.

Hebrews 11:6

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

>> ^messenger

If we can boil all of the possibilities down to design and chance, how could you tell which Universe you were in?


I kind of abandoned this part because I don't think our differences on this matter are terribly interesting. But I'll come back to it for a second to clarify. To me, there is no important difference between these two things you're talking about.

I don't see myself as terribly different than a falling rock. While it's useful in many situations to think of myself as designing something, in absolute terms me building a house is no different than water eroding through a rock - they're just things that happen following from the state and rules of the universe. What you're calling "design" and "chance" are both, to me, just parts of "the rules for moving from one state to another" and I don't see a big philosophical difference between them (I also don't think there's any important philosophical reality to "free will", if that helps you understand my position).

If we have a start state with a certain kind of benevolent God, the rest of the stuff flows from that through state change rules of some sort - and I don't find it terribly interesting what sorts of rules and processes are involved to get from that start state to the current one (or, at least, only to the extent that those rules and processes may imply more or less arbitrariness in the start state).

Similarly, we can instantiate in enough physical rules to get the "chance" universe you describe going, and its rules could get it to the current state either determinalistically or with some element of randomness. I guess I understand how you're using "chance" here... but I don't know that it's terribly useful. Why should "what humans can predict" be of any relevance philosophically? And if we're using it that way, couldn't we similarly describe God's actions as chance? I mean, surely humans (or angels) can't predict everything he's going to do. Chance seems like a pejorative when applied to God.. and to me it seems like a pejorative when applied to the operations of the universe (except where, again, that operation is actually random).

However, again, I don't think this difference is terribly important. I think I understand what you're getting at, I just see things very differently.

Yet, it is assumed to be true because "there must be a naturalistic origin to life".


I don't think you're phrasing this in a terribly fair way. Yes, many people assume there's a natural explanation for abiogenesis. This is partly because having another explanation introduces arbitrariness into the system. Say I'm a geologist and I discover Devil's Tower. It's really weird, but my inclination from the very start is that it was formed by similar processes to ones that have explained weird things in the past. Even if I can't postulate even a guess as to why it has those weird columns, I'm not crazy to guess that eventually we'll figure out an explanation that doesn't involve, say, new physical laws or aliens. (And it's certainly not helpful to say "maybe it was made in the flood").

Abiogenesis is a bigger problem and it's also one that's "lost to time" a bit. It almost certainly requires a mechanism we have yet to identify (or a mechanism someone has guessed at, but hasn't provided good details or evidence for). But, like Devil's Tower, there's no reason to expect that mechanism won't be identified - or that it will require significant changes to our understanding of the rest of science. Again, there's plausible ideas already floating around, and I think we'll probably recreate the process (though likely not with the same actual process) within the next 30 years or so.

I think you'll have to admit that God is a much better theory than "I don't know".


No... that, I think, is probably our strongest point of disagreement. I'm very much OK with "I don't know", and literally everything I believe has a bit of "I don't know" attached (kind of similar to how everything you believe in has a bit of God attached).

I'm not worshipping ignorance or something - knowing IS better than not knowing. But I'm also not scared of not knowing things - and I'm certainly not just going to pick something and believe in it because I don't like having some of my answer pages blank.

For you, is Scientology better than "I don't know"?

Edit:
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.


Also, thanks for using the big boy version of the Bible. I quite like the Bible artistically, but I can't stand some of the new translations (despite whatever benefits some parts may have in terms of clarity).

Similarly, we can instantiate in enough physical rules to get the "chance" universe you describe going, and its rules could get it to the current state either determinalistically or with some element of randomness. I guess I understand how you're using "chance" here... but I don't know that it's terribly useful. Why should "what humans can predict" be of any relevance philosophically? And if we're using it that way, couldn't we similarly describe God's actions as chance? I mean, surely humans (or angels) can't predict everything he's going to do. Chance seems like a pejorative when applied to God.. and to me it seems like a pejorative when applied to the operations of the universe (except where, again, that operation is actually random).

However, again, I don't think this difference is terribly important. I think I understand what you're getting at, I just see things very differently.

The difference between chance and design is the most important distinction there is. If you don't like the word chance, I will use the word "unplanned", or "mindless". An unplanned Universe has no actual purpose; it is just happenstance. Meaning, your life is just a product of mindless processes, and concepts like morality, justice, and truth have no essential meaning. It means you are just some blip on a grid and there is no rhyme or reason to anything. It also means you will never find out what happened or why it happened because no one knows what is going on or ever will. This will *always* lead you to nihilism.

A designed Universe, on the other hand, does have a purpose. A purposeful Universe means that life was created for a reason. It means that there is a truth, a truth that only the Creator knows. Which means that all lines of inquiry will lead to the Creators doorstep, and that trying to understand the Universe without the Creator is completely futile. It is like looking at a painting with three marks on it..you could endlessly speculate on what the painter was thinking when he painted it. However, no matter how clever you were, you don't have enough information to be sure about anything. To refuse to seek the Creator would be to stare at that painting your whole life trying to figure it out when you have the painters business card with his phone number on it in your pocket.

I don't think you're phrasing this in a terribly fair way. Yes, many people assume there's a natural explanation for abiogenesis. This is partly because having another explanation introduces arbitrariness into the system. Say I'm a geologist and I discover Devil's Tower. It's really weird, but my inclination from the very start is that it was formed by similar processes to ones that have explained weird things in the past. Even if I can't postulate even a guess as to why it has those weird columns, I'm not crazy to guess that eventually we'll figure out an explanation that doesn't involve, say, new physical laws or aliens. (And it's certainly not helpful to say "maybe it was made in the flood").

The whole thing is arbitrary to begin with. Naturalistic explanations are assumed apriori, and then the evidence is interpreted through the conclusion. That isn't how science works. You come to the conclusion because of the evidence, not the other way around. I would also note that you would never accept this kind of reasoning from a creationist. Neither does a mountain of circumstantial evidence prove anything.

Abiogenesis is a bigger problem and it's also one that's "lost to time" a bit. It almost certainly requires a mechanism we have yet to identify (or a mechanism someone has guessed at, but hasn't provided good details or evidence for). But, like Devil's Tower, there's no reason to expect that mechanism won't be identified - or that it will require significant changes to our understanding of the rest of science. Again, there's plausible ideas already floating around, and I think we'll probably recreate the process (though likely not with the same actual process) within the next 30 years or so.

Anything sounds plausible, apparently, when you have billions of years to play with. As the earlier quote said, time itself performs the miracles for you. How do you know that the mechanism hasn't already been identified but you have rejected it?

http://creation.com/devils-tower-explained

No... that, I think, is probably our strongest point of disagreement. I'm very much OK with "I don't know", and literally everything I believe has a bit of "I don't know" attached (kind of similar to how everything you believe in has a bit of God attached).

I'm not worshipping ignorance or something - knowing IS better than not knowing. But I'm also not scared of not knowing things - and I'm certainly not just going to pick something and believe in it because I don't like having some of my answer pages blank.

For you, is Scientology better than "I don't know"?

The point I'm trying to make is, I don't know isn't a theory. What most atheists mean when they say "I don't know" is "I know it isn't the Christian God, but otherwise I don't know". The next thing they say is, you believe in God because you're afraid. That I "chose" God because I am scared of death, or because the Universe is too big and scary for my mind to handle the uncertainty of not knowing.

I have to say that this idea of a bunch of hokey. The Christians I know believe in God because they have a personal relationship with Him. It has nothing to do with making a choice..God chose us. He would chose you too, if you were open to Him.

Neither was I afraid of death when I was an agnostic, and I wasn't afraid of saying I don't know (that's why I was an agnostic, because I didn't know). I believe in God because He revealed Himself to me, and that is the only reason. If He hadn't, I would still be an agnostic.

It is credible to believe that the Universe was designed and created by God. We can see that whomever made the Universe is unimaginably powerful, intelligent, exists outside of space and time, etc. Scientology isn't credible and explains nothing. God can explain everything.

Also, thanks for using the big boy version of the Bible. I quite like the Bible artistically, but I can't stand some of the new translations (despite whatever benefits some parts may have in terms of clarity).

Most of the new translations butcher the scriptures. They remove entire verses, words, water down meanings, or just flat out mislead. I can't stand them either. The KJV is the best word for word translation that we have, and although the language is archaic, it is comprehensible with a little research.

>> ^jmzero

i like taters

It is credible to believe that the Universe was designed and created by God.


This is something I should have clarified before - my use of the word "universe" includes any sort of God (who would, then, have created the rest of it - presumably). This term gets used a lot of different ways in different contexts, and I don't think the way I'm using it is, in any way, more correct and my use of the term over different conversations is likely inconsistent. Anyways, how we're using the term certainly has a huge impact on the discussion. So, to be clear, when I say universe I mean absolutely everything: God (or Gods or whatever), laws, matter, and anything else that can be said to be. So it makes no sense for me to say "God created the Universe", but it certainly makes sense to say "God created everything else in the Universe" or (if you see things a different way) "Everything in the Universe is part of God" (or some variation). Hopefully that clarifies my position.

Anyways, if you have a universe that includes a God with certain properties, that God goes ahead and designs and creates a bunch of other stuff and you end up "here". The minimum we need for this kind of universe to proceed is one being, with certain properties.

The minimum we need for a Godless universe to get to "here" is a certain set of arbitrary physical laws, and possibly some matter (matter may be optional - but, to be clear, "nothing" is not an option - the universe at very least would need physical laws to get going.. and that is very much something, and it's something that's unavoidably arbitrary).

The point I'm trying to make is, I don't know isn't a theory. What most atheists mean when they say "I don't know" is "I know it isn't the Christian God, but otherwise I don't know". The next thing they say is, you believe in God because you're afraid. That I "chose" God because I am scared of death, or because the Universe is too big and scary for my mind to handle the uncertainty of not knowing.


Well.. I, for one, don't know it isn't the Christian God. I just don't have any real reason to believe that right now. And I didn't mean to suggest YOU accepted an idea because you're "scared" - rather, what I meant to say (and didn't say clearly) is that it wouldn't be a good idea to accept something just because "something" is better than "I don't know". I prefer no explanation to accepting one that I don't have reasons to accept (and, again, I'm not saying you don't have reasons - I'm saying I don't have them).

And to be clear: I wasn't saying Devil's Tower is a current mystery (one of sufficient import) or that it wasn't caused by water action (I was making a little crack at old timey semi-scientists that explained lots of stuff away by referencing the Biblical flood).

Rather, I was suggesting a hypothetical wherein I had discovered Devil's Tower and didn't have any ideas about it's cause (which is not incomparable with where we're at with abiogenesis). In both cases, my point is that even without a real candidate theory it's not crazy to assume the explanation will be similar to other explanations we've accepted, and to guess that the explanation will not introduce large new assumptions.

For a geologic feature, you'd expect to be able to explain the feature through known mechanisms - erosion, glaciation, deposition, tectonic activity, geothermal weirdness, etc.. and you'd try to find an explanation using those sorts of things before you'd look further afield. You certainly couldn't guarantee the explanation isn't something more extraordinary, but your incoming bias against that possibility is not irrational - it's just following a reasonable search pattern.

@shinyblurry

Humour me and try and read this comment in your head in the voice of someone who wants to help you.

[me:]About your perceived arrogance. I'm not judging anybody on the Sift…. I'm telling you how you come off and how it's affecting your goal. Your spamming of what I consider nonsense into the middle of what I consider rational discussions and your indifference to the fact you're irritating people, in my mind, gives me licence to be blunt. You could accept it as honest criticism and go from there.

[you:]I think you, and many other people here, see me through a fun-house mirror made up of your preconceived notions about God and Christians in general. The reasons I am here are not so cut and dry, but I certainly feel that God wants me to talk to people here.

I cut out the words you don’t entirely agree with. The rest of my comment is all about our perception of you. That should be important to you if you think God wants you to talk to us and, one assumes, help us learn something. Right? Is that a consideration for you at all?

If I decided it was my civic duty to start showing up at a certain church and talk atheism to the parishioners, I would expect resistance, of course. I would pay very strong attention to how people were reacting to me and what topics or phrases or types of argument were setting people against me, and see if I could understand their perspective and adjust the way I spoke to help them understand me more. In that scenario, my goals for being at the church are different from the parishioners' goals, and since their goals for being there could be fulfilled (perhaps better) by ignoring me and by my being quiet, I’m the one who has to make the effort if I want to engage them.

That’s what I meant by "uninvited". It doesn’t mean anyone requires an invitation to join the Sift, or that anybody expects you to leave. It means nobody asked you to come and explain the "truth" of things to us. Our goal here is to kill time, follow political stories, discuss topics of interest to us and generally enjoy ourselves. Your goal here, however vague, is different from our goals, and often in conflict with them. I was enjoying thinking about Feynman’s points, then you come in with your arrogant opener, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it." Read it again to yourself. How would you react? Take @Quboid’s initial comments seriously too. Don’t nitpick phraseology like "pushing people away from your belief." Look past what you disagree with and address the real content. It's respectfully written and a valid question.

And I'm actually saying this selfishly because I do want to understand what you’re saying.

And FWIW, everyone sees everyone through a funhouse mirror, especially types we don’t have a lot of contact with and don’t understand. For us, yep, that’s you.

@shinyblurry


My claim isn't "designed", it is simply the fact of what I believe. I don't modify it to escape someones inquiry. You like to make some bold claims about what it is, or isn't, but you never happen to back them up with evidence. As I told you earlier, it is falsifiable. You could prove it to be logically inconsistent. You could find the body of Jesus. You could disprove the major facts of the bible. You cannot claim it is unfalsifiable. The problem with your spoof deities is that they have no explanatory power. A flying teapot explains exactly nothing.

I can provide evidence for any claim I make, if you ask for it. Find the body of Jesus? Don't be ridiculous. How could we? And if someone found the body of Jesus, you'd use bogus science to claim we hadn't proven it to be his, just like you still use bogus science to claim the universe is less than 10,000 years old or that macroevolution is a myth. I routinely claim the Bible is falsifiable on its face, but every time someone falsifies it, you change the meaning of the words, claim it's a metaphor, or do some other dodge, like how you handled the discrepancy between an omniscient God and a God who is surprised to discover that Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit.

OK. Here's the most clear-cut contradiction I’ve come across in the Bible. The topic seems so petty it's almost embarrassing to use it, but compare Matthew 1:8-9 with 1Chronicles 3:10-13. They give incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham.

You pulled this out of thin air. Are your answers here divinely inspired?

We can scientifically test for, find and measure the efficacy of self-prayer. It's only prayer for others that consistently has no measurable effect. Science can and does test and prove some prayer effective, so you can't hold that God will not be tested. I've just disproven that.

So I'll ask you again: considering that we can reliably measure the effectiveness of self-prayer, why can't we measure any effects from intercessory prayer on behalf of others?>> ^shinyblurry:
The Lord doesn't perform on camera for skeptics because He isn't a guinea pig subject to our experiments. Those who test the Lord will not get any results.

I cut out the words you don’t entirely agree with. The rest of my comment is all about our perception of you. That should be important to you if you think God wants you to talk to us and, one assumes, help us learn something. Right? Is that a consideration for you at all?

Sure, and I fully admit I have turned a blind eye to this in the past. I should have been more sensitive to peoples concerns than I have been. I'm sure I've wasted many opportunities with people here as Satan hoped I would. It's been a process of growth and maturity in my walk with Christ, and this will continue until the day I die.

If I decided it was my civic duty to start showing up at a certain church and talk atheism to the parishioners, I would expect resistance, of course. I would pay very strong attention to how people were reacting to me and what topics or phrases or types of argument were setting people against me, and see if I could understand their perspective and adjust the way I spoke to help them understand me more. In that scenario, my goals for being at the church are different from the parishioners' goals, and since their goals for being there could be fulfilled (perhaps better) by ignoring me and by my being quiet, I’m the one who has to make the effort if I want to engage them.

I agree with you here.

That’s what I meant by "uninvited". It doesn’t mean anyone requires an invitation to join the Sift, or that anybody expects you to leave. It means nobody asked you to come and explain the "truth" of things to us. Our goal here is to kill time, follow political stories, discuss topics of interest to us and generally enjoy ourselves. Your goal here, however vague, is different from our goals, and often in conflict with them. I was enjoying thinking about Feynman’s points, then you come in with your arrogant opener, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it." Read it again to yourself. How would you react? Take @Quboid’s initial comments seriously too. Don’t nitpick phraseology like "pushing people away from your belief." Look past what you disagree with and address the real content. It's respectfully written and a valid question.

Well, the difference here on the sift is that it is not by default a place for atheists to hang out. It's a place for anyone to hang out and share their videos and opinions. It just so happens it has attracted a lot more atheists than theists and so everything done on the sift is bent towards their worldview, including the videos and conversations. You're right that nobody asked me to come, but I didn't need an invitation either. If you look at any video on religion here, people feel free to speak their mind about Christianity and Christians but for some reason they take exception when I do the same. I understand what your argument is about and what you're saying, which I appreciate and recognize as being essentially valid, but your comment about being uninvited doesn't apply. Atheists run the sift but the sift wasn't created for them.

And I'm actually saying this selfishly because I do want to understand what you’re saying.

And FWIW, everyone sees everyone through a funhouse mirror, especially types we don’t have a lot of contact with and don’t understand. For us, yep, that’s you.

Yes, I see people through my presuppositions. My worldview is the biblical worldview. I do understand you because I used to be in your shoes. I'm sure some of you will say the same thing.

I can provide evidence for any claim I make, if you ask for it. Find the body of Jesus? Don't be ridiculous. How could we? And if someone found the body of Jesus, you'd use bogus science to claim we hadn't proven it to be his, just like you still use bogus science to claim the universe is less than 10,000 years old or that macroevolution is a myth. I routinely claim the Bible is falsifiable on its face, but every time someone falsifies it, you change the meaning of the words, claim it's a metaphor, or do some other dodge, like how you handled the discrepancy between an omniscient God and a God who is surprised to discover that Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit.

Now you're just using fallacious arguments. Why don't you present your very best argument as to what you think falsifies the bible and let's see if it holds any water?

In the example of God being surprised, it is you who are assuming God was surprised. The text doesn't say He was surprised, it only says He asked Adam and Eve what they did. Why do you think that means that God didn't know what they did? How many parents have you heard asking their children whether they did such and such knowing full well that they did do it? That's exactly what God was doing.

OK. Here's the most clear-cut contradiction I’ve come across in the Bible. The topic seems so petty it's almost embarrassing to use it, but compare Matthew 1:8-9 with 1Chronicles 3:10-13. They give incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham.

The genealogy in Matthew 1:8-9 isn't meant to be a complete record. It is actually a style of writing in Hebrew which is more concerned with symmetry than accuracy. That is why there are 3 groups of exactly 14 generations. Matthew would have assumed that his audience would know the details he left out for the sake of symmetry.

You pulled this out of thin air. Are your answers here divinely inspired?

We can scientifically test for, find and measure the efficacy of self-prayer. It's only prayer for others that consistently has no measurable effect. Science can and does test and prove some prayer effective, so you can't hold that God will not be tested. I've just disproven that.

So I'll ask you again: considering that we can reliably measure the effectiveness of self-prayer, why can't we measure any effects from intercessory prayer on behalf of others?

I didn't pull it out of thin air. Scripture says do not test the Lord thy God. You haven't proven anything. God will not let you test Him with personal prayer any more than He will let you test Him through the prayers of others. Scripture says God doesn't answer prayers that aren't prayed in faith, so when you are praying just to test Him, you aren't going to get proof He is there. Although there is one test I think God will accept. If you prayed this prayer I think He would answer it:

"God....if Jesus is your Son and He really is the way....and if He really is everything the Bible says about Him....then I will follow Him"

>> ^messenger:
stuff

@shinyblurry

Well, the difference here on the sift is that it is not by default a place for atheists to hang out … If you look at any video on religion here, people feel free to speak their mind about Christianity and Christians but for some reason they take exception when I do the same. I understand what your argument is about and what you're saying, which I appreciate and recognize as being essentially valid, but your comment about being uninvited doesn't apply.

What attracted you into conversation here is that the Sift is a de facto place for atheists to hang out. When you "speak your mind" about religion and atheism, there's two problems. The first is that since we are overwhelmingly non-believers, opinions against atheism and pro-religion are going to irritate a greater number of people, and so get the most attention. Our opinions against religion only offend you and maybe one or two other people ever, that I've seen. It's a numbers thing. Don't take it personally. The second is that, as I've mentioned already in this thread, you do come off supremely arrogant in your beliefs. Just saying, from our perspective. I'll turn it around to your perspective for a second. Consider these two sentences, a) "I consider the Bible to be fairy tales, and I don't understand why Christians people believe it's true." and b) "It's better to question the world rather than blindly accept a book of fairy tales." After which of these two sentences are you more likely to be able to continue reading for several more paragraphs, presumably all written in the same tone, with an open, clear, unangry mind? For most people —even atheists— the tone of the first sentence is preferable and more conducive to communication.

I'll turn it back to the non-theist's perspective now. After listening to a cogent talk from Feynman explaining quite clearly why he would prefer to have no answer rather than possibly have a wrong answer, your first pitch over the plate was, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it", and then all rest of the stuff that followed that shows you didn't hear what he said at all. Feynman clearly doesn't prefer to "imagine that the answer is something else, because he doesn't like it." Then you used that as a launch pad for an assault on scientists in general through quotemining. I didn't read past the first paragraph. I moved straight down to see the reaction to your tone, and sure enough, it had started in earnest. I'd call that a failure in communication, unless you just wanted to vent, and maybe that day that's all the satisfaction you wanted. OK, but there you are. And you do this often enough, and people will see your avatar at the head of a comment somewhere else, and immediately their minds will shift into attack/defense mode, and your chances of communicating directly to their minds is almost zero – and they haven't even read a word yet.

You're one of the only people here placing a high priority on communicating anything, let alone representing a specific point of view. The rest of us are just here for fun, and there is no success or failure except inasmuch as we enjoy ourselves. So when jinx says, "We're both ignorant. Only one of us knows it", jinx doesn't care how to take it, or how you feel the next time you see the handle. If you're here to represent something, you should really think about the effect you think your message and tone will have every time you hit the "submit" button.

And to your comment about being invited. This place wasn't primarily designed for people to communicate opinions. It was designed for people to enjoy themselves while they procrastinate, feel a part of something, get some pseudo-community feelings going. There's no rule against giving any opinions here, nor against coming in large part to represent a certain opinion, but doing so runs against the main purpose of the place, organically defined by the intent of the people who come. This isn't an ideas discussion/debates forum with focus on arguing points to a conclusion. You can do that, but that's not the main purpose. What you tend to do here makes it more difficult for others to achieve their main purpose here, which is kicking up and not really thinking for an hour or two. And uh-oh, there's a comment from sb, killing the buzz. We could ignore it, but we just can't help reading what it says even though we already know it's almost certain to infuriate us with a relentless brand of reasoning that we do not understand.

@shinyblurry

Now you're just using fallacious arguments. Why don't you present your very best argument as to what you think falsifies the Bible and let's see if it holds any water?

Fallacious arguments? Every time I point out a mistake, you invent a convenient new rule for understanding the Bible (or more likely you copy-paste what it says on some apologia clearinghouse website). I could literally find a quote that says, "oranges are black" and you'd justify it somehow. I just found a passage that gives two incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham. And in a book that's supposed to be completely true, you excuse it by telling me the writers are taking artistic licence? WTF????? This isn't a poetry slam! It's the bloody word of God! If you claim everything in it is true, so much so that you've given up sex, condemn gay people, etc., then everything else in it *must* be literally true or you have no foundation for giving up sex or condemning gay people. Those could be metaphorical warnings about the lure of great pleasures in general. Either one of those things about Joram and Joatham written in the Bible is false, or anyone can point to any passage and call it optional, or poetry, or a style of writing, or just a metaphor. You can't have it both ways.

I didn't pull it out of thin air. Scripture says do not test the Lord thy God. You haven't proven anything. God will not let you test Him with personal prayer any more than He will let you test Him through the prayers of others.

And from the other thread:

Or perhaps He had sovereignly arranged for only insincere prayers or prayers outside of His will to be prayed for at that time which would give the results of the test the appearance of randomness.

First, I'm saying the effects of personal prayer *can* be scientifically measured, so either your contention that God will not be tested is bunk, or self-prayer is really just meditation. You also didn't understand the set-up of the prayer-for-other test. In that scenario, there were real ill people in the hospitals, and they compared the outcomes for patients who had had others sincerely praying for them from a distance versus those who didn't. IOW, the sincere prayer happened. There has never been any measured health benefit for the ill people. They died off and recovered in equal numbers.

You keep saying that my position is one of cognitive dissonance. Look at yourself. You twist your mind into any shape you need for your dogma to hold true, never once truly considering the possibility that it's all in your head. You've said the words that you might be wrong, but you've never shown it's more than lip service. I've never seen you take a critical eye to your position on God and the Bible, despite the numerous opportunities I and others have given to you.

And this is exactly what Feynman's talking about when he says the scientific approach starts from the position that all hypotheses are wrong, then goes about trying to prove it through observation. Anything that's still standing afterwards is good scientific theory. Religion, on the other hand, starts from the assuming the conclusion that God and the Bible are real, and any observational facts that don't line up must themselves be wrong facts, no matter how well documented they are. And when those facts can no longer be denied, then the Bible passages in question are suddenly no longer considered to have literal meaning, and now have only a "metaphorical" meaning, or must be understood from a different perspective.

If every word in the Bible is subject to this convenient wishy-washy fanciful method of interpretation, then it's a lousy foundation for a system of faith. You cannot follow anything that you can change the meaning of by arbitrarily saying, "That part is meant to be understood non-literally." The Bible, as it stands now, is either a 100% true book that we humans are incapable of understanding; OR a book that we are meant to learn from that also has lots of loopholes in it. It cannot be both, not as it stands now. The whole Bible should be re-written such that what's left in it is literal unmistakable unfudgeable truth. I think it would be a very, very short book, or, a much longer book filled with qualifications, something along these lines:

"In the beginning (the beginning of time as we know it in the universe) God created the heavens and the earth (meaning the whole universe, and not necessarily that quickly—there could be a gap of several billion years all of which could still be considered "the beginning"; the "days" that pass are metaphorical, and do not represent normal days as we know them, nor did those things necessarily happen in that order). 2 Now the earth was formless (in the sense that it hadn't been defined yet as separate from the heavens) and empty (in the sense that it didn't have anything living on it, though it did have mass, including water and dirt supporting it), darkness was over the surface of the deep (the deep of the ocean; there was already light somewhere else, but there was still darkness in that location), and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (this is not to be interpreted as God only being present in one place; this is a metaphor for a protective watcher)."

Otherwise, as you seem to fear about secular morality, the Bible itself could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything by anyone at any time, if they thought hard enough about it.

Militant otter voice: "HAIL SCIENCE!! INFIDELS!! A GOOD CRACK ON A ROCK AND YOUR DELICIOUS CONSTITUENTS SHALL BE DEVOURED UPON MY TUMMMMAAE!".....TIMMMAAAY!

What attracted you into conversation here is that the Sift is a de facto place for atheists to hang out. When you "speak your mind" about religion and atheism, there's two problems. The first is that since we are overwhelmingly non-believers, opinions against atheism and pro-religion are going to irritate a greater number of people, and so get the most attention. Our opinions against religion only offend you and maybe one or two other people ever, that I've seen. It's a numbers thing. Don't take it personally. The second is that, as I've mentioned already in this thread, you do come off supremely arrogant in your beliefs. Just saying, from our perspective. I'll turn it around to your perspective for a second. Consider these two sentences, a) "I consider the Bible to be fairy tales, and I don't understand why Christians people believe it's true." and b) "It's better to question the world rather than blindly accept a book of fairy tales." After which of these two sentences are you more likely to be able to continue reading for several more paragraphs, presumably all written in the same tone, with an open, clear, unangry mind? For most people —even atheists— the tone of the first sentence is preferable and more conducive to communication.

I'm not offended by your conversation, or your videos. In the past, I may have overreacted to insults, but they don't really bother me any longer. I am not sitting here enraged because some atheist suggested that God doesn't exist. I have heard just about every nasty thing anyone could possibly say about God, and then some. People have called me every sort of name that you could call someone. Even you can't resist putting in a dart here and there. That's just the way it is. If I let that bother me then I wouldn't be able to talk to anyone here.

If I've come off as arrogant, then that is unfortunate, because I don't feel superior to anyone here. I apologize to anyone who thinks that is the case. I am usually very direct in what I say, and I don't beat around the bush, and perhaps that has ruffled a few feathers. However, I always try to temper my speech with compassion and understanding. I don't think that is a fair characterization, and I think you are also ignoring the hyper sensitivity people have about their beliefs.

I've been using the sift since 06 or 07; the reason I finally signed up is because of the antitheistic bent the site had taken. Perhaps it was always there and I didn't really notice it. In any case, as a long time visitor here, I felt the site no longer represented me and I felt compelled to speak up for the other side of the argument. So I was not drawn to the sift because of atheism; I had already been using the sift for a long time.

I'll turn it back to the non-theist's perspective now. After listening to a cogent talk from Feynman explaining quite clearly why he would prefer to have no answer rather than possibly have a wrong answer, your first pitch over the plate was, "It's better to know the answer than remain ignorant of it", and then all rest of the stuff that followed that shows you didn't hear what he said at all. Feynman clearly doesn't prefer to "imagine that the answer is something else, because he doesn't like it." Then you used that as a launch pad for an assault on scientists in general through quotemining. I didn't read past the first paragraph. I moved straight down to see the reaction to your tone, and sure enough, it had started in earnest. I'd call that a failure in communication, unless you just wanted to vent, and maybe that day that's all the satisfaction you wanted. OK, but there you are. And you do this often enough, and people will see your avatar at the head of a comment somewhere else, and immediately their minds will shift into attack/defense mode, and your chances of communicating directly to their minds is almost zero – and they haven't even read a word yet.

Yet, someone who usually criticizes me agreed with me and said I had a good point. You say I didn't understand what Richard said, but apparently I understood it well enough to make a coherent point in opposition to what he said. What you're guilty of here is cherry picking. That sentence was part of an overall point and wasn't mean to be taken by itself.

In any case you say I failed, and perhaps I did in some ways, but not in the way you have asserted. You're right and you are wrong about what you've said here, but I get your overall point.

The fact is, since I've been here, this is the way people here have reacted to me. I don't get this reaction everywhere I go. Some of this is my fault, and some of it isn't. Either way I am not complaining. It is what it is. There is always room for improvement.

And to your comment about being invited. This place wasn't primarily designed for people to communicate opinions. It was designed for people to enjoy themselves while they procrastinate, feel a part of something, get some pseudo-community feelings going. There's no rule against giving any opinions here, nor against coming in large part to represent a certain opinion, but doing so runs against the main purpose of the place, organically defined by the intent of the people who come. This isn't an ideas discussion/debates forum with focus on arguing points to a conclusion. You can do that, but that's not the main purpose. What you tend to do here makes it more difficult for others to achieve their main purpose here, which is kicking up and not really thinking for an hour or two. And uh-oh, there's a comment from sb, killing the buzz. We could ignore it, but we just can't help reading what it says even though we already know it's almost certain to infuriate us with a relentless brand of reasoning that we do not understand.

Come on. People are not just here to relax, they are also here to promote their political, philosophical and (anti)religious ideologies. The sift loves red meat. People here love to express their opinions about what they love and what they hate, and they love to argue when anyone disagrees with them.

I get what you're saying. I could be more sensitive to how my comments will be perceived, and try to say things in a different way. I agree with you here. I'll keep it in mind.

In the end, however, the main purpose of this site is whatever the site operator purposes. What the site operator has said is that I am a valuable member of this community.

Fallacious arguments? Every time I point out a mistake, you invent a convenient new rule for understanding the Bible (or more likely you copy-paste what it says on some apologia clearinghouse website). I could literally find a quote that says, "oranges are black" and you'd justify it somehow. I just found a passage that gives two incompatible lineages from Joram to Joatham. And in a book that's supposed to be completely true, you excuse it by telling me the writers are taking artistic licence? WTF????? This isn't a poetry slam! It's the bloody word of God! If you claim everything in it is true, so much so that you've given up sex, condemn gay people, etc., then everything else in it *must* be literally true or you have no foundation for giving up sex or condemning gay people. Those could be metaphorical warnings about the lure of great pleasures in general. Either one of those things about Joram and Joatham written in the Bible is false, or anyone can point to any passage and call it optional, or poetry, or a style of writing, or just a metaphor. You can't have it both ways.

Now this is simply your ignorance talking. When I gave you my answer about the lineage in Matthew, I wasn't just pulling something out of a hat. Apparently you haven't heard of Chiastic structure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure

It's not false, it is simply a writing style employed by Matthew to emphasize the lineage in a particular way. This is not some kind of desperate analysis to cover up a mistake, but is a well known style used in ancient literature. I'm not making excuses, or putting off something to metaphor; Matthew was definitely using Chiastic structure, and that is why that verse is symmetrical.

First, I'm saying the effects of personal prayer *can* be scientifically measured, so either your contention that God will not be tested is bunk, or self-prayer is really just meditation. You also didn't understand the set-up of the prayer-for-other test. In that scenario, there were real ill people in the hospitals, and they compared the outcomes for patients who had had others sincerely praying for them from a distance versus those who didn't. IOW, the sincere prayer happened. There has never been any measured health benefit for the ill people. They died off and recovered in equal numbers.

No, they can't be scientifically measured. You would never know during your test whether God was simply feeding you a certain kind of result. Think about it. God knows the entire time that you're trying to test for His existence outside of what He ordained (faith in Jesus Christ). His choice is either to give you results that will prove His existence outside of Christ or results that will make it ambiguous. What do you think He is going to do?

You keep saying that my position is one of cognitive dissonance. Look at yourself. You twist your mind into any shape you need for your dogma to hold true, never once truly considering the possibility that it's all in your head. You've said the words that you might be wrong, but you've never shown it's more than lip service. I've never seen you take a critical eye to your position on God and the Bible, despite the numerous opportunities I and others have given to you.

And this is exactly what Feynman's talking about when he says the scientific approach starts from the position that all hypotheses are wrong, then goes about trying to prove it through observation. Anything that's still standing afterwards is good scientific theory.

You're acting is if I have no evidence for my beliefs. If it was just a matter of believing the bible was true because I wanted to believe it, you might have a point. The reason I believe the bible is true because of personal revelation. I experience the presence of God in my daily life. It would be illogical for me to deny the existence of God based on the evidence I have received. I do not "twist my mind into any shape" to believe what I read in the bible. My worldview is internally consistent, and it is also rational. You may find it irrational because of your presuppositions, but that is because you reject the evidence I have receive apriori. To you there must always be some other explanation, and that is the way you interpret everything I say. You've already come to the conclusion that I am deluding myself, and everything I say you filter through that conclusion. Rather than letting the evidence interpret the conclusion, you are interpreting the evidence through the conclusion.

Religion, on the other hand, starts from the assuming the conclusion that God and the Bible are real, and any observational facts that don't line up must themselves be wrong facts, no matter how well documented they are. And when those facts can no longer be denied, then the Bible passages in question are suddenly no longer considered to have literal meaning, and now have only a "metaphorical" meaning, or must be understood from a different perspective.

If every word in the Bible is subject to this convenient wishy-washy fanciful method of interpretation, then it's a lousy foundation for a system of faith. You cannot follow anything that you can change the meaning of by arbitrarily saying, "That part is meant to be understood non-literally." The Bible, as it stands now, is either a 100% true book that we humans are incapable of understanding; OR a book that we are meant to learn from that also has lots of loopholes in it. It cannot be both, not as it stands now. The whole Bible should be re-written such that what's left in it is literal unmistakable unfudgeable truth. I think it would be a very, very short book, or, a much longer book filled with qualifications, something along these lines:

I'm well aware that many Christians have compromised with the world and reinterpreted the bible to reflect worldly wisdom, but I'm not one of them. Though not everything in the bible (like the song of solomon for instance) could, or should be taken literally, I believe it contains the literal history of planet Earth. As I've explained in other threads, I didn't always believe that. I assumed where science said it was right, the bible was wrong. It was only when I questioned that and investigated the evidence that I found it was the other way around. I believe the bible is true not only because of revelation, but because of the evidence, not in spite of it. You have unfairly mischaracterized me, because I am the last person you will talk to who will turn the bible into a metaphor to avoid the facts.

Otherwise, as you seem to fear about secular morality, the Bible itself could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything by anyone at any time, if they thought hard enough about it.

I don't fear that, I know that. You're absolutely right, you could make the bible say anything you want to. People do it all the time. It's only a literal reading that makes any sense. Even atheists know that:

destroy adam and eve and original sin and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God and take away the meaning of His death

-american atheist association

>> ^messenger:

stuff

@shinyblurry

[me:] … invited … yadda yadda. [you:]I get your overall point.

That's all that matters. And I'll add that I too think you're a valuable member. I've even taken to defending you around the place, if you can believe that.

Now on to the other topics.

Apparently you haven't heard of Chiastic structure:

You're right, I hadn't heard of it. That's neat stuff. But it doesn't change the fact that Matthew's choice to use that structure created *an error in the text*.

No, they can't be scientifically measured. You would never know during your test whether God was simply feeding you a certain kind of result. Think about it. God knows the entire time that you're trying to test for His existence outside of what He ordained (faith in Jesus Christ). His choice is either to give you results that will prove His existence outside of Christ or results that will make it ambiguous. What do you think He is going to do?

As far as I can tell, either you don't understand science or my mind is incapable of understanding how all the things you're saying about God can be true at once. This is going nowhere. I'm dropping this prayer/science topic.

You're acting is if I have no evidence for my beliefs.

No. I'm acting as if you are not giving appropriate weight to the evidence on both sides. All evidence against your beliefs, you massage into being compatible with some very, very loose rules, to the point now where words in the Bible don't even count as words anymore. Yet any mote of evidence against my beliefs (even things that aren't evidence at all, such as lack of an answer --which is entirely consistent with a world without a God) you throw around like it's absolute proof not only that I'm wrong, but further that you're right. You even tell me that I'm suffering cognitive dissonance—not that you *think* I might be, but that I am. Basic statements of humility elude you, like, "Humans are far too complicated even for humans to understand, and therefore any argument from complexity/arrogance/hubris applies to belief in the existence of God just as much as it applies to belief that humans invented God." And even after you say something like that (I believe you did acknowledge in another thread that it's technically possible you're wrong), you continue to speak like you're right and I’m wrong. In a nutshell, I come to the table with my beliefs, I acknowledge they are my beliefs, and I act towards you as if they are only beliefs, not absolute fact. And that's the basic humility I'm asking for in return, and which frankly I require to have a real conversation about the existence of God.

My worldview is internally consistent, and it is also rational.

I disagree that it's rational, for the fact that you hold it to be absolutely true, bar nothing. From where I stand, it's irrational for a mere human to hold that they are absolutely correct about their interpretation of anything as complex, critical and subjective as the things you claim about God and the Bible.

you reject the evidence I have receive apriori.

As a rational actor, I must be sceptical of your subjective evidence. To accept it OR dismiss it would be irrational of me.

To you there must always be some other explanation … You've already come to the conclusion that … Rather than letting the evidence interpret the conclusion, you are interpreting the evidence through the conclusion.

Anybody willing to look can see that there are internally consistent plausible alternatives to your beliefs. I say again and again only that there are alternative possibilities. I have come to no "conclusions" about anything. As a scientific-minded person, I simply cannot think so rigidly, ever, especially not about something as important as the nature of the universe. I mostly see how the evidence could fit in your worldview. Sometimes I don't, and that's OK. I suggest that there are other possibilities with words like, "could", "maybe", "I think," "From where I stand," and so forth. And nearly every time you treat me like I'm claiming atheism is absolutely 100% correct, end of conversation. The only thing I believe I'm 100% correct about is *that I have proposed* internally consistent plausible alternatives to the existence of God. That's all I'm ever saying: other things could be possible. Read all my messages again; I'm pretty consistent. So I'll ask you again, please read my words literally, not with some defensive filter like every sentence of mine is a skewer.

It was only when I questioned that and investigated the evidence that I found [the Bible was right and science was wrong].

What evidence do you have that science is wrong? I'm not saying science is perfect (it's human), but you're no expert to claim that what you've read is scientifically valid. To be frank, you've got a reputation on the Sift for quotemining and have been caught at least once on the Steven Pinker quote. People with insignificant scientific backgrounds and/or clear non-scientific primary agendas don't count.

It's only a literal reading [of the Bible] that makes any sense.

A literal reading of the Bible gives two different accounts of the same genealogy. That doesn't make sense.

Even atheists know that:

You mean, "at least one atheist once thought that, maybe". A quick out of context copy-paste from christianforums.com of a vague quote from a 1978 periodical by a group that neither speaks for nor represents atheists. Why bother? You can do better.