From YouTube:

These are some highlights of Mission Police Departments Finest!
This is Mission, Kansas PD to be clear.
UPDATE 7/8/2013 - The lead prosecutor for Mission, Kansas, has communicated to our late criminal defense attorney that he would like me to remove my YouTube video of the officers arresting my wife. Should I choose not to remove it, Martin states he has the ability to get a judge to sign a protective order that would force me to take it down. Martin also mentioned some type of diversion if my wife would be willing to release The Mission PD of any liability as they were only responding to the Postal workers call. When all this is over I'm moving. I don't want to even live near Mission Kansas.

After nearly two months of being told repeatedly by the Mission police that there was no dash-cam video, here it is! It's a MIRACLE we even got it. The officers in the video are Michelle Pierce & Officer Tim Gift. Special appearance by the bald-headed officer who is NOT named nor even mentioned as being on the scene in the police reports. This officer is the one who was threatening my wife with having CPS take our two youngest daughters away. This could happen to YOUR wife & daughters next if these officers are allowed to get away with this!

-HOW WE GOT THE VIDEO-
We had to have an attorney subpoena the videos of all three officers on the scene. We ALSO had our attorney request of the Post Office in writing AND in person for any video footage. We kept getting the same answer. "There is NO video!" FINALLY, My wife called the courthouse to ask about the videos. The courthouse transferred her to a woman named Suzanna at the Mission PD. My wife asked Suzanna if she had gotten a subpoena for video evidence. The woman instantly said "IS THIS ABOUT THE POST OFFICE INCIDENT?" My wife said "Yes", shocked that this woman already knew what the phone call was about before my wife could even explain... The woman quickly said, "There are NO videos." My wife then told Suzanna, "That's a LIE. I KNOW there is a video because I was THERE when Officer Pierce walked in & asked Officer Gift if his cam was on & he said yes. Officer Pierce then asked for Officer Gift's dash-cam password which he gave her in front of me!" The woman on the phone got very quiet. She then asked my wife, "So you were THERE-- IN the building?" My wife said "Yes! I was sitting RIGHT THERE!" The woman on the other end got quiet again & my wife then hung up. THE VERY NEXT DAY, our criminal defense attorney called & said he had good news. To his surprise, Officer Gift had a dash- cam video & they sent it to our attorney! Wow-- What a coincidence! =/
It's a shame we only got one video, but it's better than nothing.

As a non-american, I never had the pleasure of watching his show as a kid (or as an adult to be honest), but everything I read or watch about him, just makes me feel real nice he once existed.
He seemed to be what you would expect a saint to be (minus the miracles of course). And this coming from an atheist.

The world is FAR more fascinating and awe inspiring without miracles.

I didn't say it was true. That was your inference. I was just quoting a mystic. Funny how atheists can look all around them and not see a single miracle. Sad.

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one. This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

Your argument eats itself. If there aren't any absolute laws of logic (including that one), then there are no rules period, and thus no logic. If there is no such thing as logic then I could say "The cucumber faints west in the umbrage" and it would be an entirely valid response to anything you say. Yet you continue to make absolute statements like:

"All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction."

"This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications"

"you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective"

The sea cucumber faints west in the umbrage, my friend.

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)

No, I can't 100 percent prove I am not actually a circus peanut dreaming I'm a man, but it doesn't matter what I can prove to you. What matters is what is true. You have absolute freedom to live in total denial of reality if you want to, but reality isn't what we dictate it is. Just because you have no way of figuring it out doesn't mean no one does. The one who does have it figured out is God, because He created it. Because He is God He can make us absolutely certain of who He is and what He wants from us, transcending all physical or mental rationale.

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

If everything is permitted then it is equally valid not to permit, which means you have no argument. Your way isn't better than any other way according to your logic so all that you can argue is that you prefer it.

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

I can't prove God exists to you, but He can. God isn't hiding from you; He has been knocking on your door your entire life. It's your choice whether you want to open the door, but you are going to meet Him one day regardless of what you choose.

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

I was created before I had a mind. The Universe has a beginning, it was created, and the Creator is the judge.

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.),

The Catholics borrowed those from the Pagans..you won't find those in the bible.

the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

Sources?

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which..

Let's see some sources..

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))

I know exactly what it is and I am very familar with it.

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)

Abraham is the father of the Jewish people and he worshiped the LORD.

I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)

Because I know Him personally and His Spirit lives within me.

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?

To be a Christian is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore there is no Christianity without Him. He is the only way to know God:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He wasn't pointing to Himself, He was pointing to God.

This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.

This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

You do realize that the word son and the word sun, in hebrew or in egyptian, aren't even remotely similar don't you? The word Christ does mean the anointed one, that is what the Messiah is. Jesus *is* the Christ. In regards to Horus being Christ, and a lot of other things you said, please take a look at this:

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#horus

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.

Read the gospel of John and pray to God and ask Him to help you understand it.

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment.

John the baptist said he wasn't the Messiah and Simon was outdone by Philip.

I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).

The missing part of this theory is the explanation for the empty tomb.

Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

The quran isn't accurate, but if you read the Old Testament without humanistic glasses on, you'll find it was the humans who were malevolent and God was who long suffering with them.

@ shinyblurry

This had already turned into an essay and I didn't want to take up even more room by quoting you verbatim so I've tried to break it down to save space.



1. "Except that?"

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one.
This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

2. "Is that absolutely true?"

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)


3. "Including not permitting..which means you have no further argument against Christianity."

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

As for the other bits

A. "The earliest records of Mithraism bear no similarity to Christianity at all....."

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.), the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which............

Pagan & Gnostic traditions are deeply intertwined to the point where one could consider many examples to be one and the same. Mithraism would be one such example. Pagan just means many Gods/worship of nature & archetypes in the human psyche. Mithraism fulfils this definition but it also fulfils the Gnostic one i.e. it teaches that one finds god of and within oneself, not as an external force, or indeed a force which is separate from oneself.

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))


B. "Actually, they came from a progressive revelation of Judiasm which preceeded all of that."

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)


C. "What Jesus did not teach that came from Judiasm was wholly His and entirely unique, and they came from the mouth of God Himself."


I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)


D. "The difference is Jesus Himself. You could take buddha out of buddhism, or zoroaster out of zoroastrianism and you would still have something. Without Jesus there is no Christianity."

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?
This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.
This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.


E. "The Jesus myth theory isn't taken seriously by even skeptical bible scholars. There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ than for Alexander the Great."

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment. I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).
Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

(I hope that made sense towards the end, getting very late & tired here...)

I have an apology to make
I'm afraid I've made a big mistake
I turned my face away from you, Lord

I was too blind to see the light
I was too meek to feel Your might
I closed my eyes; I couldn't see the truth, Lord

But then like Saul on the Damascus road,
You sent a messenger to me, and so
Now I've have had the truth revealed to me
Please forgive me all those things I said
I'll no longer betray you, Lord
I will pray to you instead

And I will say thank you, thank you
Thank you, God
Thank you, thank you
Thank you, God...

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I had no idea, but it's suddenly so clear now
I feel such a cynic, how could I have been so dumb?
Thank you for displaying how praying works:
A particular prayer in a particular church
Thank you Sam for the chance to acknowledge this
Omnipotent ophthalmologist

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I didn't realize that it was so simple
But you've shown a great example of just how it can be done
You only need to pray in a particular spot
To a particular version of a particular god,
And if you pull that off without a hitch,
He will fix one eye of one middle-class white bitch

I know in the past my outlook has been limited
I couldn't see examples of where life had been definitive
But I can admit it when the evidence is clear,
As clear as Sam's mum's new cornea
(And that's extremely clear! )

Thank you, God, for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum
I have to admit that in the past I have been skeptical
But Sam described this miracle and I am overcome!
How fitting that the sighting of a sight-based intervention
Should open my eyes to this exciting new dimension
It's like someone put an eye chart up in front of me
And the top five letters say: I C, G O D

Thank you, Sam, for showing how my point of view has been so flawed
I assumed there was no God at all but now I see that's cynical
It's simply that his interests aren't particularly broad
He's largely undiverted by the starving masses,
Or the inequality between the various classes
He gives you strictly limited passes,
Redeemable for surgery or two-for-one glasses

I feel so shocking for historically mocking
Your interests are clearly confined to the ocular
I bet given the chance, you'd eschew the divine
And start a little business selling contacts online

Fuck me Sam, what are the odds
That of history's endless parade of gods
That the God you just happened to be taught to believe in
Is the actual one and he digs on healing,
But not the AIDS-ridden African nations
Nor the victims of the plague, nor the flood-addled Asians,
But healthy, privately-insured Australians
With common and curable corneal degeneration

This story of Sam's has but a single explanation:
A surgical God who digs on magic operations
No, it couldn't be mistaken attribution of causation
Born of a coincidental temporal correlation
Exacerbated by a general lack of education
Vis-a-vis physics in Sam's parish congregation
And it couldn't be that all these pious people are liars
It couldn't be an artefact of confirmation bias
A product of groupthink,
A mass delusion,
An Emperor's New Clothes-style fear of exclusion

No, it's more likely to be an all-powerful magician
Than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition,
Or one of many cases of spontaneous remission,
Or a record-keeping glitch by the local physician

No, the only explanation for Sam's mum's seeing:
They prayed to an all-knowing superbeing,
To the omnipresent master of the universe,
And he quite liked the sound of their muttered verse.

So for a bit of a change from his usual stunt
Of being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt
He popped down to Dandenong and just like that
Used his powers to heal the cataracts of Sam's mum
Of Sam's mum

Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam's mum!
I didn't realize that it was such a simple thing
I feel such a dingaling, what ignorant scum!

Now I understand how prayer can work:
A particular prayer in a particular church
In a particular style with a particular stuff
And for particular problems that aren't particularly tough,
And for particular people, preferably white
And for particular senses, preferably sight
A particular prayer in a particular spot
To a particular version of a particular god

And if you get that right, he just might
Take a break from giving babies malaria
And pop down to your local area
To fix the cataracts of your mum!

Hmm... funny, a couple posts ago, you were arguing against Empiricism... and yet, you can't offer up anything that isn't Empiricist, or suffer from the same logical problems that Empiricism has.

I argued against empiricism being the only route to truth, but I didn't say that you couldn't find any truth through empirical means. You would however have no way to confirm it except through God.

"Truth" isn't a democracy... it doesn't matter how many people do or don't believe in a God. (Though I argue that in this country, the demonization of the non-religious scares people into continuing to go to church, despite their belief... though I say that through self experience, as it's hard to poll about that). The "truth" is that you'll never be able to use Science or Philosophy argue for or against the very abstract idea of whether there is a God or not.

I apologize if you were demonized. I love you and God loves you. It doesn't anger me that you're an atheist; I hope that you come to know who God is, and my heart aches for you, but it's your choice.

There are only two ways you can know truth: Either you are omnipotent or an omnipotent being reveals it to you.

One can, certainly, use logic to determine that the bible is self-contradictory, and biblical scholars (and believers) have determined that not a single book in the bible is the "original"... they've all been modified well after it had already been proclaimed to be the "Word of God". There is utterly no logic as to how a perfect being could have such a shoddy and terrible track record with his followers. It certainly doesn't make sense that he could create wars where his followers kill each other (see any and all European Wars.).

The bible is the most well attested book in ancient history. There is manuscript evidence goes back to the late 1st century, and the manuscripts agree with eachother 99.5 percent of the time. It hasn't been modified.

The bible never claims Christians will be perfect; it really says the opposite. Jesus predicts in Matthew 24 that Christians will fall into a massive apostasy and that there will be many wars, especially in the last days.

The truth is that all science and philosophy points to Christianity being bullshit. And you've already pointed out the holes in the only possible philosophical arguments that could allow you to maintain belief while being truthful to yourself.

Only God can prove Himself to anyone, and faith is a gift from God. What I've pointed out, really, is that atheists have no possible route to the truth.



God works by personal revelation; I couldn't prove He exists to you. You could hopefully see the evidence of His existence working in my life, but it takes His Spirit changing your heart and opening your eyes for you to realize that He is there.

And honestly, if you think that someone praying, and then seeing a piece of Toast with Jesus' image on it, or some mold in their bathroom in HIS image is proof enough to devote your life to that sham... well, you really don't have any sort of a grasp on what philosophy is about.

Philosophy is about a search for the truth, and when I searched for the truth, God revealed Himself to me.

But unlike you, I have truly examined the logic of my situation. I know exactly what would convince me of a super-natural power... it's exactly what would convince me of Aliens or Telepathy. A personal experience that can be independently verified by people I trust, and cannot be explained by hallucinations, slight-of-hand or illusions.

That is ALL it takes. It should be the smallest of things for an omnipotent being... after all, he certainly was never shy with appearances or miracles, according to the bible...

But alas, there remains nothing, no shred of evidence... for Jesus or for Telepathy, or for Aliens.... though I imagine that the Aliens at least have a good reason for not making their presence known.

It's no secret what God can do. If you really wanted to know Him, you would know Him already. The reason people don't come to God is because they don't want to change their life and live for Him. Would you lay down everything in your life to know God? If not, it explains why you don't know Him yet.

Hmm... funny, a couple posts ago, you were arguing against Empiricism... and yet, you can't offer up anything that isn't Empiricist, or suffer from the same logical problems that Empiricism has.

"Truth" isn't a democracy... it doesn't matter how many people do or don't believe in a God. (Though I argue that in this country, the demonization of the non-religious scares people into continuing to go to church, despite their belief... though I say that through self experience, as it's hard to poll about that). The "truth" is that you'll never be able to use Science or Philosophy argue for or against the very abstract idea of whether there is a God or not.

One can, certainly, use logic to determine that the bible is self-contradictory, and biblical scholars (and believers) have determined that not a single book in the bible is the "original"... they've all been modified well after it had already been proclaimed to be the "Word of God". There is utterly no logic as to how a perfect being could have such a shoddy and terrible track record with his followers. It certainly doesn't make sense that he could create wars where his followers kill each other (see any and all European Wars.).

The truth is that all science and philosophy points to Christianity being bullshit. And you've already pointed out the holes in the only possible philosophical arguments that could allow you to maintain belief while being truthful to yourself.


And honestly, if you think that someone praying, and then seeing a piece of Toast with Jesus' image on it, or some mold in their bathroom in HIS image is proof enough to devote your life to that sham... well, you really don't have any sort of a grasp on what philosophy is about.

You have no "proof" but one book written by hundreds of people over hundreds of years, translated into so many different versions... and despite the revisions, it's not possible to get through the first chapter without having MAJOR inconsistencies.

But unlike you, I have truly examined the logic of my situation. I know exactly what would convince me of a super-natural power... it's exactly what would convince me of Aliens or Telepathy. A personal experience that can be independently verified by people I trust, and cannot be explained by hallucinations, slight-of-hand or illusions.

That is ALL it takes. It should be the smallest of things for an omnipotent being... after all, he certainly was never shy with appearances or miracles, according to the bible...

But alas, there remains nothing, no shred of evidence... for Jesus or for Telepathy, or for Aliens.... though I imagine that the Aliens at least have a good reason for not making their presence known.

Eric Idle rewrites Monty Python’s “Galaxy Song” to celebrate the wonders of biology
Lauren Davis

To market the BBC Two series Wonders of Life, hosted by Brian Cox, the BBC got none other than Eric Idle to write and sing new lyrics to "The Galaxy Song" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. But instead of singing about the massive scale of the universe and humanity's insignificance in it, this time Idle sings about the miracle—and weirdness—of life on Earth.

http://io9.com/5971938/eric-idle-rewrites-monty-pythons-galaxy-song-to-celebrate-the-wonders-of-biology

No, they are not the same thing, and they are not creationist terms.

Yes, they are in fact the same thing, and yes, I know creationists didnt come up with the terms, predictably, since they have never come up with a single useful term or idea in the history of everything. They can be useful terms to describe the short-term and long-term effect of evolution, but creationist use the term to shield themselves from admitting that they deny reality. Lets just take one example: genetic variation, according to creationists then, genetic variation is real and actually happens, your genes are slightly different from other human genes, ie: there is variations within a species.

But this is the same kind of variation there is BETWEEN species, its the SAME FREAKING THING, but when the difference is large enough, individual organism can no longer breed to produce fertile offspring. That is in fact the definition of "species". Conceptually, there is no difference between the genetic difference between you and me and the genetic difference between you and a tomato, its just MORE difference.

I honestly dont know how to respond to this time=miracle nonsense, the point is that because there is variation and mutations, speciation will happen over long stretches of time, now you might say "biologists sure needs lots of time for evolution to work" but the thing is that other, unrelated fields of study, like chemistry, physics and cosmology have independently reached conclusions about how old the universe is, and its billions of years old. We KNOW that, not from inventing a number large enough to allow evolution to work its "miracles", but because its the only logical conclusion based the available evidence.

The correlating data you are looking at is a hall of mirrors. Radiometric data is based on uniformitarian assumptions. The light travel time is based on similar assumptions. Embedded in all of the estimations of an old age are unprovable assumptions that have no empirical evidence to prove they are true. They are in fact unknowable.

Everything in that paragraph is wrong. These things are NOT based on assumptions, but empirical evidence, calculations and experiments. In fact, the knowledge has not only been confirmed by experiments and evidence, and as I tried to explain earlier, YOU ARE RELYING ON TECHNOLOGY BASED ON THAT KNOWLEGDE TO READ THIS SENTENCE. It is literally being proved right in front of your eyes.

No, they are not the same thing, and they are not creationist terms. If you didn't know that then you need to do a lot more research. Find out what the actual empirical evidence is, and not just agree with the conclusions. Yes, I know that time is the secular miracle worker:

However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once....Time is in fact the hero of the plot.

Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald, Nobel Laureate, Harvard
Physics and Chemistry of Life p.12

For the rest of you, here's some quotes from shinyblurry from another thread, just so you know where he's coming from.

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shinyblurry says...

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..

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whenever I see new advances in prosthetic technology I can only say this:

How many documented miracles are there in which a person's limb was instantly and magically regrown by mythological beings?

Gods can't make your lost limbs grow again. Science and technology are certainly doing their part though.