I'm Atheist for the record, I was ONCE Mormon, nearly 28 years ago! That is what shiny feels so compelled to mention.

Yes, I MAY mention it in what I write, but he ALWAYS writes this back to me and it is this that makes me SO angry, "I'm sorry, you were a Mormon, the Mormon religion is a cult, I'm sorry you belonged to a cult; you can't understand a Christian God because you belonged to a Cult, *I'll tell him an unrelated comment*, well that may have had to do with your Mormon upbringing, etc...

And it goes on and on in that type of vein and I'm sure others have had their fair share of these types of attacks to discredit them. Because, it really is to hard to go after the core facts or logic, they are so conclusive it's scary to some. So shiny has finally made me *ignore him, I will no longer hear what he has to say to me or this community as i think it's being abused. Even after what he said to me, he continued to ask ridiculous questions some of which I ALREADY ANSWERED IN MY LONG-POST! If you don't understand general and special relativity don't keep talking like you do! Read up on it and come back! There is a very good reason why changing the speed of light won't change the value of the age of the Universe... Go find out in the first place what makes the Universe the age it is, it has NOTHING to do with the speed of light, only the state of the energy of the photons we see returning to us.

If you changed the speed of light to something else like 10 ft/s/s then things of course would look awfully weird, but how a human measures "one second" is an imaginary concept, but beyond that due to relativity energy would be conserved, we would move FAR slower and we would still be literally interacting with each other at the same "framerate" we do right now. you could say that there is something special about our view of time as it is, but everything we've tested for shows time to be a imaginary concept. It all revolves around the speed of light, literally. It may be the only thing that determines how fast we are "using" time, if we were close to the speed of light stars would begin to live their lives FAR faster than normal, BUT you will always see one second as that.

So changing the speed of light is rather pointless, again I've made this case, to hopefully explain some of general and special relativity's little quandaries. Once again, light always travels the same speed in the same frame of reference (including its mediums). THIS has to do with CONSERVATION of energy, it is due to the law of thermodynamics, and you can take it farther than even this as well! People responding are coming off as ones that do not know much of what they are saying, maybe I've screwed up a sentence or two, I may admit (I didn't proofread and won't, I'm doing this fast). I hope that this is sufficient.

#shinyblurry I'm sorry I blew up, but you should NEVER use people's old life as a way to attempt to disarm them of their ability to argue. Atheism is to me "SOMETHING", AS MUCH as is the end of a pencil eraser: I've erased my belief in God and it is gone; I may be Atheist in wording BUT I'm not an atheist in any form or manner with BELIEFS, CONVICTION, POWER, HOLDINGS, JUDGMENT, or THOUGHT! IT'S a damned word! Nothing more.

Two as for being Mormon, sure I might agree with you in many respects about what it is and WHAT it isn't, but I might also agree yours IS nothing but the same. DO NOT think that this is because I'm an "Atheist" holding this against you. This is a MAN holding it against YOU! Religion has it's own shames to answer for in every color and theater.

And now I'm done.

If we're using terms like "tangible evidence", then I assume we're talking in scientific terms. If we're talking scientifically, then you need phenomena, a theory to explain them, and ways of testing that theory. "I would say..." isn't a scientific statement. What qualifies as "tangible evidence" has to be easily understood and agreed upon by everyone. If people don't agree that something is evidence of something, then it's meaningless. Like, if I suggest that graphite pencils are electric insulators, and you say that's bollocks, we can create an electric curcuit with a light bulb. We both agree that if the light bulb turns on when the electric circuit passes through a graphite pencil, then it's definitely not an insulator, regardless of our initial positions. So if the world at large doesn't agree that NDEs are necessarily evidence of God, then it's a meaningless argument. When you theorize God, it doesn't flow logically that when people are near death that they will necessarily see God. You can look at evidence and say, "This fits in with a theory of God." That's fair, but calling it evidence is not scientific. NDEs also fit with my theory that people seek ultimate authority the the worse and worse their living conditions are. I don't claim that it's evidence that I'm right, just that it supports or "fits" my theory. In other words, it proves nothing at all.

I said NDEs do provide tangible evidence of a spirit, not God. Having a spirit is tangible evidence of God. Not all NDEs provide such evidence, but as I mentioned, some people come back to life with information they shouldn't, or couldn't have.

I confess I didn't watch the whole thing (I guessed where it was going once it trailed away from logical enquiry, and so far I haven't heard any surprises -- if there's anything new and interesting in this particular story, lemme know where and I'll watch).

That's fairly typical, I have to say. I don't know if it an atheist thing, or a generational thing and I am speaking to a lot of young atheists, but very often people will refuse to even look at certain kinds of information and testimony, based on their preconceived notions, and their own self-confidence that they've "predicted" what is coming. This is of course a perfect shield for their own ignorance, the censoring of anything which could possibly change their mind, by discounting it in advance. Many atheists have outright told me that if it's longer than a paragraph or two they won't even read it.

The testimony in this video is unique and very interesting, nothing short of incredible actually, and no you couldn't possibly predict what was going to happen. You didn't even make it to him getting into the ambulance.

About the mother praying at that moment. It's possible that there is some connection between mother and child that hasn't been properly measured, that only occurs when children are under extreme stress, and even then, only in rare cases (most mothers don't report "knowing" their children were suffering or dying when they hear the news later). That doesn't require Yahweh, or even any God. It's just a phenomenon that we don't know about. And again, "We can't explain it," isn't evidence of God any more than fully explaining the phenomenon is proof that God is fake.

God told her to pray at that moment, and Ian heard the words of her prayer. You need to watch the video if we're going to have a meaningful conversation about this.

If you cannot provide a test whose conclusion we both agree on for God's existence, then by scientific definition, you have no theory at all. When I press you, the only test you provide is me givnig myself fully to God, and the proof will be that he will contact me eventually if I do it well enough. There's so many loopholes in that to begin with, that no matter how long I did it without result, you'd be able to say why it didn't work. Also, even if it did have a result, I wouldn't agree that the result is proof of God. My theory is that if someone wants to believe something hard enough, and if they bend their will to believing it, they can come to beleive anything they want. It's widely dismissed as "self-delusion" or "choosing to live in a fantasy world" if you're talking about anything other than religoius faith. Some, including myself, also include religious faith in that category. No matter how real it seems, if you convinced yourself of it, that's a good reason to believe you might be deluded. Bottom line, there's no test that we generally agree on, so there's no theory, just your faith that it's true.

You are still operating under the faulty premise that you could suss God out by pointing an instrument at Him. Does that seem logical to you, that you could test for God? That if you just had the right test, suddenly God will appear and say "I guess you got me." The very notion is absurd, yet here you are demanding empirical proof for Gods existence.

What I told you is that only God can provide you revelation of His existence. He has given you a way to know Him, through His Son Jesus Christ. Yet, you refuse to do the one thing which would yield any results. You could pray this prayer, for instance:

"God, I don't know if you're there or not. If you are there, I want to know you. Please let me know you are real and I will give my life to you. Please come into my life as Lord and Savior."

Could you pray that prayer and mean it? Are you interested in the truth?

I'm not sure why, but to people of faith, there seems to be a fear that everything unexplained, if not explained by their God, is somehow a strike against him. That's not at all how science or logic work. There is no phenomenon that requires God to be responsible for it, except the ones he is specifically described as having done himself in the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that says people's experiences when suffering extreme mental trauma must be caused by God. If they're explained some other way, your theory of God stands just as strong as before. It's when you go attributing everything that YOU don't understand to God's hand that you get yourself into trouble because when those things are later objectively explained another way then you have to change your story. Better to think critically from the begining, and say with authority what God definitely is and isn't, and what God definitely is and isn't responsible for. Then, if any single one of those things is disproven, then you can simply agree that your description of God is wrong.

Again, I said that NDEs evidence of a spirit and not necessary God.

You missed my comment above about God and patience. You've said elsewhere that God lives outside time, and looks at the history of the universe like a movie that he can browse and interfere in at will. But then you also say that he has "patience" which can "wear out". "Patience", by definition, means being forced to wait, and "wearing out" means eroding in time, both of which require living in time. These two ideas of God both living outside of time and having patience which wears out, if words have meaning, are incompatible. They cannot both be true. If you continue to hold to both of those claims about your God, then that's proof that he doesn't exist as you describe him

That isn't how I described it. That was your interpretation of my comment, that God peruses the Universe like a movie. God necessarily exists outside of time and space because He created them. Since He is eternal He is not bound by time. However, that isn't to say that what is happening "now" isn't real. God is the reason we have time, and that things are happening in this moment. The future has not happened yet, there is only now. God operates in this moment, and He isn't limited by time. That is how He can be everywhere at the same time, doing an infinite number of things at the same time. God can also step into time, as His Son did.

>> ^messenger:

Very well written, but I'm afraid entirely wasted on your intended audience.
In reply to this comment by messenger:
If we're using terms like "tangible evidence", then I assume we're talking in scientific terms. If we're talking scientifically, then you need phenomena, a theory to explain them, and ways of testing that theory. "I would say..." isn't a scientific statement. What qualifies as "tangible evidence" has to be easily understood and agreed upon by everyone. If people don't agree that something is evidence of something, then it's meaningless. Like, if I suggest that graphite pencils are electric insulators, and you say that's bollocks, we can create an electric curcuit with a light bulb. We both agree that if the light bulb turns on when the electric circuit passes through a graphite pencil, then it's definitely not an insulator, regardless of our initial positions. So if the world at large doesn't agree that NDEs are necessarily evidence of God, then it's a meaningless argument. When you theorize God, it doesn't flow logically that when people are near death that they will necessarily see God. You can look at evidence and say, "This fits in with a theory of God." That's fair, but calling it evidence is not scientific. NDEs also fit with my theory that people seek ultimate authority the the worse and worse their living conditions are. I don't claim that it's evidence that I'm right, just that it supports or "fits" my theory. In other words, it proves nothing at all.

I confess I didn't watch the whole thing (I guessed where it was going once it trailed away from logical enquiry, and so far I haven't heard any surprises -- if there's anything new and interesting in this particular story, lemme know where and I'll watch).

About the mother praying at that moment. It's possible that there is some connection between mother and child that hasn't been properly measured, that only occurs when children are under extreme stress, and even then, only in rare cases (most mothers don't report "knowing" their children were suffering or dying when they hear the news later). That doesn't require Yahweh, or even any God. It's just a phenomenon that we don't know about. And again, "We can't explain it," isn't evidence of God any more than fully explaining the phenomenon is proof that God is fake.

If you cannot provide a test whose conclusion we both agree on for God's existence, then by scientific definition, you have no theory at all. When I press you, the only test you provide is me givnig myself fully to God, and the proof will be that he will contact me eventually if I do it well enough. There's so many loopholes in that to begin with, that no matter how long I did it without result, you'd be able to say why it didn't work. Also, even if it did have a result, I wouldn't agree that the result is proof of God. My theory is that if someone wants to believe something hard enough, and if they bend their will to believing it, they can come to beleive anything they want. It's widely dismissed as "self-delusion" or "choosing to live in a fantasy world" if you're talking about anything other than religoius faith. Some, including myself, also include religious faith in that category. No matter how real it seems, if you convinced yourself of it, that's a good reason to believe you might be deluded. Bottom line, there's no test that we generally agree on, so there's no theory, just your faith that it's true.

About the mother again. All of that could have been wishful thinking/guilty conscience. Mothers often feel guilty when horrible things happen to their children, and one way of "making up for it" in their own minds (or socially) is to tell themselves (or others) that they were suffering too at the same time, and even at a distance were praying for God to intercede.

So I can't explain what happened, but I can provide two decent theories that don't require God.

I'm not sure why, but to people of faith, there seems to be a fear that everything unexplained, if not explained by their God, is somehow a strike against him. That's not at all how science or logic work. There is no phenomenon that requires God to be responsible for it, except the ones he is specifically described as having done himself in the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that says people's experiences when suffering extreme mental trauma must be caused by God. If they're explained some other way, your theory of God stands just as strong as before. It's when you go attributing everything that YOU don't understand to God's hand that you get yourself into trouble because when those things are later objectively explained another way then you have to change your story. Better to think critically from the begining, and say with authority what God definitely is and isn't, and what God definitely is and isn't responsible for. Then, if any single one of those things is disproven, then you can simply agree that your description of God is wrong.

You missed my comment above about God and patience. You've said elsewhere that God lives outside time, and looks at the history of the universe like a movie that he can browse and interfere in at will. But then you also say that he has "patience" which can "wear out". "Patience", by definition, means being forced to wait, and "wearing out" means eroding in time, both of which requrie living in time. These two ideas of God both living outside of time and having patience which wears out, if words have meaning, are incompatible. They cannot both be true. If you continue to hold to both of those claims about your God, then that's proof that he doesn't exist as you describe him.

If we're using terms like "tangible evidence", then I assume we're talking in scientific terms. If we're talking scientifically, then you need phenomena, a theory to explain them, and ways of testing that theory. "I would say..." isn't a scientific statement. What qualifies as "tangible evidence" has to be easily understood and agreed upon by everyone. If people don't agree that something is evidence of something, then it's meaningless. Like, if I suggest that graphite pencils are electric insulators, and you say that's bollocks, we can create an electric curcuit with a light bulb. We both agree that if the light bulb turns on when the electric circuit passes through a graphite pencil, then it's definitely not an insulator, regardless of our initial positions. So if the world at large doesn't agree that NDEs are necessarily evidence of God, then it's a meaningless argument. When you theorize God, it doesn't flow logically that when people are near death that they will necessarily see God. You can look at evidence and say, "This fits in with a theory of God." That's fair, but calling it evidence is not scientific. NDEs also fit with my theory that people seek ultimate authority the the worse and worse their living conditions are. I don't claim that it's evidence that I'm right, just that it supports or "fits" my theory. In other words, it proves nothing at all.

I confess I didn't watch the whole thing (I guessed where it was going once it trailed away from logical enquiry, and so far I haven't heard any surprises -- if there's anything new and interesting in this particular story, lemme know where and I'll watch).

About the mother praying at that moment. It's possible that there is some connection between mother and child that hasn't been properly measured, that only occurs when children are under extreme stress, and even then, only in rare cases (most mothers don't report "knowing" their children were suffering or dying when they hear the news later). That doesn't require Yahweh, or even any God. It's just a phenomenon that we don't know about. And again, "We can't explain it," isn't evidence of God any more than fully explaining the phenomenon is proof that God is fake.

If you cannot provide a test whose conclusion we both agree on for God's existence, then by scientific definition, you have no theory at all. When I press you, the only test you provide is me givnig myself fully to God, and the proof will be that he will contact me eventually if I do it well enough. There's so many loopholes in that to begin with, that no matter how long I did it without result, you'd be able to say why it didn't work. Also, even if it did have a result, I wouldn't agree that the result is proof of God. My theory is that if someone wants to believe something hard enough, and if they bend their will to believing it, they can come to beleive anything they want. It's widely dismissed as "self-delusion" or "choosing to live in a fantasy world" if you're talking about anything other than religoius faith. Some, including myself, also include religious faith in that category. No matter how real it seems, if you convinced yourself of it, that's a good reason to believe you might be deluded. Bottom line, there's no test that we generally agree on, so there's no theory, just your faith that it's true.

About the mother again. All of that could have been wishful thinking/guilty conscience. Mothers often feel guilty when horrible things happen to their children, and one way of "making up for it" in their own minds (or socially) is to tell themselves (or others) that they were suffering too at the same time, and even at a distance were praying for God to intercede.

So I can't explain what happened, but I can provide two decent theories that don't require God.

I'm not sure why, but to people of faith, there seems to be a fear that everything unexplained, if not explained by their God, is somehow a strike against him. That's not at all how science or logic work. There is no phenomenon that requires God to be responsible for it, except the ones he is specifically described as having done himself in the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that says people's experiences when suffering extreme mental trauma must be caused by God. If they're explained some other way, your theory of God stands just as strong as before. It's when you go attributing everything that YOU don't understand to God's hand that you get yourself into trouble because when those things are later objectively explained another way then you have to change your story. Better to think critically from the begining, and say with authority what God definitely is and isn't, and what God definitely is and isn't responsible for. Then, if any single one of those things is disproven, then you can simply agree that your description of God is wrong.

You missed my comment above about God and patience. You've said elsewhere that God lives outside time, and looks at the history of the universe like a movie that he can browse and interfere in at will. But then you also say that he has "patience" which can "wear out". "Patience", by definition, means being forced to wait, and "wearing out" means eroding in time, both of which requrie living in time. These two ideas of God both living outside of time and having patience which wears out, if words have meaning, are incompatible. They cannot both be true. If you continue to hold to both of those claims about your God, then that's proof that he doesn't exist as you describe him.>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^messenger:
Yet another example of a numinous experience caused by severe mental trauma. This is exactly what I theorise happened to you, as I mentioned in one of our previous conversations. This lends some support to it. We are genetically predisposed to seek guidance from authority figures, and the worse our condition, the more we seek it out. Being at death's door is the weakest condition possible, and add to that mental trauma, and the brain makes up whatever idea it needs to survive at that moment, and it seems real.
Also, if God wants us to know him so bad, why does he have to attack us with jellyfish first? He can either let us know outright he's there, or leave us a few clues and hope we put the pieces together ourselves. There's no need for torture.

If it's a numinous experience, how do you explain his mother interceding for him in prayer at the exact moment all of this is taking place?
God doesn't have to attack you with jellyfish, but he will use some means like that to get your attention if you continue to fail to respond to the 100 other ways He tried to reach you. Most often, men are so prideful and stubborn that it takes a full realization of their mortality, or a hitting of rock bottom, for them to realize how much they need God. When you're young and healthy, you feel so strong and self-assured, but it's an illusion..you are at the mercy of forces you don't understand each and every moment of each and every day. Life is fragile, but arrogance lends a false sense of security. They think they don't need Him, that they're getting along just fine on their own. It's only because they don't realize they are a heartbeat away from deaths door, and its only His mercy that keeps them there.

Sorry, but I think that was pure unadulterated *quality sarcastic shtick!

Pretty damned sad when a movie about a purely sarcastic, comedy, and parody born Dictator completely agrees with current U.S. actions, foreign policy, lawmakers, and "-->you name it!" and people just giggle and laugh about it...

Sure it's funny, but damn you should for once in your life almost be silent and abysmally sad that this IS SO true!!! So what the hell are WE going to do about it!?!??! Vote Mitt!?! Of course Mitt voters never saw this film which entirely negates my point...

Great revelations using comedy work wonderfully, but again they ARE AIMED at the wrong people almost EVERY SINGLE TIME (Are people realizing this yet, at all??!)--YOU MUST AIM THEM at the people that are doing all this stupidity in the FIRST PLACE!!! Someone, please, get that down with a pencil and a pad!!!

Anyway, I do want to see the movie finally. I think it'll keep me entertained or feeling like I've committed genocide enough...

I see more than pencils. Pens, markers, etc.

In reply to this comment by legacy0100:
AWESOME

*promote

YOU are awesome! Thanks so much for the promote!

>> ^TheFreak:

How does a fifteen year old get ahold of carbon nano tubes and mesothelin antibodies?


Down at Walgreens, Aisle 4, next to the Anthrax.

The nanotubes he probably made out of pencils, using his microwave and the incredible power of win.

There's something about the humming and the floating and the heat that had me expecting shit to fly completely off the rails at any moment.

When the pencil came in I was fully expecting to hear a loud crack and see molten metal everywhere.

Anybody else was thinking "Put the goddam pencil in the middle of that molten metal already!!" ?

HOLY CRAP LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT PENCIL!!!

#2 pencils use GRAPHITE, not LEAD, geniuses. *roll eyes*

>> ^Sagemind:

Psst.., That's called graphite, not lead (in pencils)


hah, you know your right. infact our pencils never used lead.. it was implied in TV shows and movies at the time for comedic value but yea, its always been graphite huh. Where was the history channel when I was 10.

Psst.., That's called graphite, not lead (in pencils)

>> ^jmd:

Frax, youmusta been a peach at school. "ZOMG! YOUR ALL USING STICKS OF DEATH!" "No of course I didn't do my homework... does it look like I wan't lead poisoning?" "Test that require number 2 pencils is the gov trying to kill off the 99%!!"

>> ^jmd:

Frax, youmusta been a peach at school. "ZOMG! YOUR ALL USING STICKS OF DEATH!" "No of course I didn't do my homework... does it look like I wan't lead poisoning?" "Test that require number 2 pencils is the gov trying to kill off the 99%!!"


Please tell me this is a bad attempt at a troll...

re: Frax's comment, oh come off it, the amount of leaching would be minimal, and then people (or animals) would need to ingest a large volume of the sand to get the lead in to them. You'd get more direct exposure handling lead sinkers for fishing lines.