quote: What you are implying is that delusion is common place. I see no reason to accept that postulate. I see no evidence that such is the case.
Fully 70% of Americans believe they have communicated with God. I think some level of self-delusion is VERY common, and even to be expected.
quote: If atheists and religious already have the same goals of building family and community, then perhaps everyone can put their guns down and work together.
Except that what I consider family and community-building, many religious people would not.
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Furthermore, "God" often seems to spend a great deal of time in various religious writings telling people they *are* delusional. So I don't think belief in God inherently contradicts the "delusional" bit.
quote: I think delusion is commonplace on just about every topic under the sun. It has nothing to do with god.
In order for a person to be delusional a reference is required. There must be some solid bit of reality which clearly refutes their delusion. If the majority of people are delusional, who will supply the solid reference?
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quote: I think delusion is commonplace on just about every topic under the sun. It has nothing to do with god.
In order for a person to be delusional a reference is required. There must be some solid bit of reality which clearly refutes their delusion. If the majority of people are delusional, who will supply the solid reference?
or *what* will supply the reference
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I understand that prayer has been shown to have a statistically measurably effect on events such as the recovery of individuals in hospitals.
I was told in my science classes of long ago that energy never simply "dissipates", but only changes form. From this alone I find it difficult to imagine something as remarkably complex as the human soul (or consciousness, if you prefer) simply being destroyed at the end of the body's lifespan.
As to the myraid strains that make up human belief, I do not know if any single one is "right" or if all are simply flawed attempts to make sense of something which may ultimately be beyond human comprehension. I _do_ think it is worth trying to understand, and that if a Creator exists, then reason was a gift and we should use it to its fullest.
I have faith in the existence of God, but I feel I have some evidence, if not of God, then at least of Something More.
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quote:I understand that prayer has been shown to have a statistically measurably effect on events such as the recovery of individuals in hospitals.
Wrong. The effect is only significant if you insist on picking out one result from hundreds; in other words, you'd expect there to be one sample where this happened anyway, just from sheer randomness. In fact, the study looked at several hundred factors that might be influenced by prayer, and (as you would expect from random factors) found some factors where the control (non-prayed-for) group did better than the experimental group. In other words, prayer made things worse for some groups of patients.
As for your energy argument, the human mind doesn't consist of energy, it consists of ordered matter. (If you can't measure it in Joules, it ain't energy, whatever the New Agers may say to the contrary.) Bet your teachers never told you that organisation can't disappear. In fact, if they did, they were lying, since that's what entropy is all about : Energy (and matter) take more disorganised forms as time goes on.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Specifically, many people on this site alone believe they have had direct experience of one sort or another with God, and consequently believe. This is perfectly rational, but not independently verifiable.
sorry to bring it back to the whole "rational" thing, but i felt a comment here was necessary. To say that someone who has had a suposedly "supernatural" or "transcendental" experience is using reason when they conclude that this means God exists is to totally ignore Occam's Razor. It had the same logical force as saying that a flying yellow cow caused the experience. If i *believed" that i had a "direct experience of some sort or another" with a flying yellow cow, would that justify a belief in the cow, and would that make said belief rational? I doubt it. Unless you are talking about another kind of "experience"?
Here's how i see things. If someone told the most devout christian or LDS that there was a flying yellow cow in the sky, and then pointed to the fact that there is no evidence agaisnt a flying yellow cow, that they had a spiritual experience concerning that cow, and that they had an ancient text describing that cow (and how it had created all of existence out of nothing), as a means of convincing that christian or LDS, do you think it would work? Again, i doubt it. I think that most people in this forum (who are intelligent and articulate and very rational) would dismiss this idea, and think the person who said it was being irrational. Yet, when you replace "flying yellow cow" with "god", alot of people will throw the skepticism they just had out of the window. Now i never said this is a bad thing. Religion doesn't have to be rational to have a good influence on peoples' lives, or to mean something. So why is it so hard to see that we all have certain beliefs (even myself) that we can't explain with reason, or that aren't reasonable (in the traditional sense of logic and all), but that we still believe in, JUST BECAUSE?
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"that cow (and how it had created all of existence out of nothing)"
Then the cow wouldn't be too different from what people usually mean when they say "god", so the cow would be "god", which had chosen to appear to you in the form of a flying yellow cow, which may be the symbol it wants people to use to represent it.
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Jacare, I do not trust most religious experience that I have heard about because it seldom comes in broad daylight to someone with a clear head. Every first Sunday in Fast and Testimony Meeting I would hear countless people relate conversion experiences. Indeed I have heard hundreds of non-LDS relate conversion stories as well. What most of them seem to have in common are from the following: Late at night; after extensive study; after extensive prayer; after much fasting. For some religious it is after hours of repetitive recitation or chanting. For some religious it involves charismatic shaking and group hysteria. For this last bit, I've seen it in both Charismatic Christian Churches, and in Brazilian Macumba spiritualism, the only difference to me being that the latter kept a better beat. A lot of non-specifically-Christian worship involves heavy incense and sometimes drugs.
Nearly all of these techniques used to get one closer to God also very often produce mental states that lead to brainwashing, hallucinations, seeing ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, whatever.
That is why I feel comfortable not trusting "The Spirit", but feel perfectly comfortable trusting the sensation of the keyboard beneath my fingers or the taste of the grape popsicle I just ate.
******
I'd also like to point out that belief, or hope, of some kind of life after death isn't specifically religious. If after the moment of my death I still experience conciousness, I don't think that automatically confirms the existence of a god. I think it is perfectly reasonable to entertain the possibility of passing from this existence into some other existence without necessitating God.
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quote:Originally posted by AC: "that cow (and how it had created all of existence out of nothing)"
Then the cow wouldn't be too different from what people usually mean when they say "god", so the cow would be "god", which had chosen to appear to you in the form of a flying yellow cow, which may be the symbol it wants people to use to represent it.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not...
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quote:In order for a person to be delusional a reference is required. There must be some solid bit of reality which clearly refutes their delusion. If the majority of people are delusional, who will supply the solid reference?
Aye, there's the rub.
See, everyone has bits of reality and bits of delusion. Reality, is what more people have collective bits of, and delusion is what fewer people have bits of, or their bits don't belong to collective. So the majority always holds the reference point.
Doesn't mean we should necessarlly trample on the minority delusion. (as long as they aren't physcially harmful) That's what the constitution is all about. And in another few genrations it could be the other way 'round.
posted
Tom? I'm drunk and I don't know french sober, and Steve's asleep (he used to be fluent)
(It isn't "example for the good of the others" is it?) If so, I've had enough of that today after my boss screwed me royally on my yearly performance review, because he needs to prove me incompetent for his own gain.
posted
Nope. It's Sartre's "hell is other people," which basically says that no one's perception of the universe survives contact with other human beings. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Huh. That's very similar to the classic military axiom that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Nope. It's Sartre's "hell is other people," which basically says that no one's perception of the universe survives contact with other human beings.
Yeah, great play (Huis Clos that is... not sure what the name is in english). I've seen it performed several times, on varying scales, and i always love it (it's a tie between it and "Les Mains Sales" for my favorite Sartre play, oh, and you have to see/read it in french, it's just not the same in english.. seriously. learn french.)
but about "l'enfer c'est les autres"... i'm interested in your reading of its meaning. could you elaborate? aside from the literal interpretation (which lends itself very well to the performed peice), i know there is a ton of existencial hooplaw in there, and i'd love to discuss it!
Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Angiomorphism: If someone told the most devout christian or LDS that there was a flying yellow cow in the sky, and then pointed to the fact that there is no evidence agaisnt a flying yellow cow, that they had a spiritual experience concerning that cow, and that they had an ancient text describing that cow (and how it had created all of existence out of nothing), as a means of convincing that christian or LDS, do you think it would work? Again, i doubt it. I think that most people in this forum (who are intelligent and articulate and very rational) would dismiss this idea, and think the person who said it was being irrational.
Let's replace your flying yellow cow with William Shakespeare. What evidence do we have that Shakespeare actually existed? Evidence points to a lot of other possibilities as to the author of the works credited to Shakespeare. In fact, some people believe the evidence proves that someone else authored Shakespeare's writings. Really, the only real evidence we have is a name scribbled on some writings. Yet, that is enough to rationally conclude that William Shakespeare may in fact have actually written what was attributed to him.
I believe that Newton existed because other people have seen and spoken with him and because of the application of his theories. Yet, belief that Newton existed is not considered irrational even though there is no more proof that he existed than the existence of god.
However, it is interesting to note that Newton was considered an irrational lunatic by his peers. Incidentally, he was being very rational, they just didn't know it at the time. So it seems to me that the measure of a person's rationality is somewhat based on general consenus. Something is logical if the general community believes it to be logical. In the end, Everything we believe in is based on faulty senses, inaccurate memories, and trust in the words of others that we deem credible. It takes a measure of faith to believe in anything, including our own senses. Thus, it seems to me that to discount the possibility of a god just because you can't measure his mass or detect his presence with modern tools seems a bit irrational.
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Uh, camus, we also have abundant records of shakespeare's life, and numerous accounts of his friends of his authorship of the plays. In fact, we don't actually have shakespeare's signature on many (any?) of his plays, though his name is regularly affixed of course.
And no, Newton was considered a genius by his peers, he was a widely respected scientist and mathematician during his time.
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Oh, and as for the existence of doubters of Shakespeare, if you name something, no matter how well grounded, I can point to doubters of it.
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quote:So why is it so hard to see that we all have certain beliefs (even myself) that we can't explain with reason, or that aren't reasonable (in the traditional sense of logic and all), but that we still believe in, JUST BECAUSE?
I don't think you're contradicting him, here.
However, I am more likely to believe in William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton because of my knowledge that human beings exist. I have no such knowledge of god. While I don't think it's wise to dismiss the possibility of god outright, I certainly see no reason to believe.
Added: It's interesting that you're making this argument given your choice of screen name.
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I have not read all 8 pages of this thread, and if this has been brought up already just tell me. If there is no God then how can you explain all of the prophecy in the Bible? And I dont just mean the stuff about Christ, but the things in it about when the Jews will return to Israel, about how they will be attacked on the first day they are a country? The Bible has predicted quite a number of things that have happened in recent history. What other way is there to explain prophecy if it isnt God? is it Aliens? Time travelers? Blind luck?
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I'd go with blind luck. Write a big enough book, something is bound to be right. Especially when most of the passages can be interpreted in more than just one way.
But that's just my uneducated opinion, since I haven't read the whole Bible, or any other major religious book for that matter. Me too, I'd like to hear what others who have read more have to say.
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quote: The Bible has predicted quite a number of things that have happened in recent history.
No, I'm afraid it hasn't. Show me a good prophecy -- and I guarantee you that for every one you can come up with that fits, I can give you a) a prophecy that doesn't appear to have come true and b) another interpretation of that prophecy from the past in which someone else thought it had come true for them.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Thus, it seems to me that to discount the possibility of a god just because you can't measure his mass or detect his presence with modern tools seems a bit irrational.
Which is why, barring direct personal observation of God, most atheists also point out the logical inconsistencies in most descriptions of God as arguments against His existence.
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quote: i'm interested in your reading of its meaning. could you elaborate? aside from the literal interpretation (which lends itself very well to the performed peice), i know there is a ton of existencial hooplaw in there, and i'd love to discuss it!
Sartre's point, as I understand it, is that we can never truly "know" anything outside our own interpretation of our perceptions. Everything we perceive is filtered through our biases and physical limitations, which means that there is no such thing as a "universal," objective truth that can be perceived exactly the same way by everyone. (Consider, for a moment, how you know that what YOU think the color green looks like is how everyone else sees the color green.)
But this isn't normally a problem. Most people have learned to work within their limitations and have come up with both moral frameworks AND perceptive filters that make it possible for them to be quite happy within their own little universes.
Unfortunately, Sartre points out, other people exist. This means that your little universe is bound to bump up against someone else's little universe -- and if you both see the color "green" differently, ONE or BOTH of you probably has to be "officially" wrong. So we come up with standards -- be they logic, measurement, law, etc. -- to make it possible for us to agree on commonalities, but even these standards can seem ridiculously oppressive. (IS a belief in God "rational?" Why should it matter? Why is "rationality" a good thing? And so on.) Sartre argues that most of the angst of existence comes not from other people being unpleasant (which is the common misinterpretation of "hell is other people") but rather from the fact that the majority's perception of the universe will ALWAYS oppress the minority's perception of the universe, and there's often no way to even appeal that kind of subconscious decision.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote: Jacare, I do not trust most religious experience that I have heard about because it seldom comes in broad daylight to someone with a clear head. Every first Sunday in Fast and Testimony Meeting I would hear countless people relate conversion experiences. Indeed I have heard hundreds of non-LDS relate conversion stories as well. What most of them seem to have in common are from the following: Late at night; after extensive study; after extensive prayer; after much fasting. For some religious it is after hours of repetitive recitation or chanting. For some religious it involves charismatic shaking and group hysteria. For this last bit, I've seen it in both Charismatic Christian Churches, and in Brazilian Macumba spiritualism, the only difference to me being that the latter kept a better beat. A lot of non-specifically-Christian worship involves heavy incense and sometimes drugs.
Nearly all of these techniques used to get one closer to God also very often produce mental states that lead to brainwashing, hallucinations, seeing ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, whatever.
That is why I feel comfortable not trusting "The Spirit", but feel perfectly comfortable trusting the sensation of the keyboard beneath my fingers or the taste of the grape popsicle I just ate.
Meh. There are a certain number of wacked out individuals who really are delusional. Doubtless there are a number of individuals who hope and focus their energies on achieving a "spiritual experience" and so they interpret whatever occurs as such an experience. I simply cannot credit the notion that all experiences of (using Tom's stat) 70% of Americans may be relegated to this heap. Indeed, my own anecdotal experiences defy this interpretation. I doubt very much that you and I can come to an agreement on this. My background will automatically color all of my interpretations, and yours will do the same.
Nonetheless, I can understand where you are coming from. I think CS Lewis expressed it well. He said (frome memory) that as a Christian he had days when it seemed that there was nothing more than the world we see and all the rest was just fantasy, while when he was an atheist there were days when he felt certain that all of the old stories were true and that there was certainly a divine power.
That is simply the nature of belief- anyone who is certain he has got it all right is almost guaranteed to be wrong.
quote: Aye, there's the rub.
See, everyone has bits of reality and bits of delusion. Reality, is what more people have collective bits of, and delusion is what fewer people have bits of, or their bits don't belong to collective. So the majority always holds the reference point.
Doesn't mean we should necessarlly trample on the minority delusion. (as long as they aren't physcially harmful) That's what the constitution is all about. And in another few genrations it could be the other way 'round.
I suspect you may be using the term "delusion" here to collectively refer to people who are wrong about something. If that is the case then I can certainly agree. We all interpret the world in different ways, and some of those interpretations (all of them?) are certainly not correct, or are oversimplifications etc. While I suppose that this is a fair definition of delusion, the primary definition is usually associated with a psychosis. I find it difficult to believe that everyone in the world is psychotic, so on this level I disagree with your characterization of everyone as delusional.
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Ok, I figure this prophecy is fitting because I talked about Jewish people returning to Israel.
"In Leviticus 26:3, 7-8, the Bible says that the army of Israel would have a supernatural power to prevail during times of conflict, if the people are obedient to the Lord. This Bible passage says that 5 people would be able to chase away 100 people, and that 100 would be able to chase away 10,000. Is there any proof to this incredible claim? Judge for yourself:
Example 1: Within hours of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Israel. The combined population of those countries was at least 20 million at that time. Israel had fewer than 1 million Jews."
It is the ninth one down on that page. There are many others there too about the creation of Israel, and of course the text can be found in the Bible. And you may be able to give me a prophecy that hasnt come true yet, but not everything is going to happen all at once. So I dont think it is really important that every prophecy hasnt come true yet because it is going to happen, or so the Bible says.
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Promethius, I am a devout and believing Jew, and I don't agree with most of that site's claims. Especially since there are some fairly poor translations and context issues.
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First of all, thank you to those who have welcomed me on hatrack.
Sterling wrote:
quote: I understand that prayer has been shown to have a statistically measurably effect on events such as the recovery of individuals in hospitals.
I have recently lived a similar experience, in the sense that the doctors would give me a 20% chance of recovery for a damaged nerve in a car accident, that had left my thigh and foot paralyzed. I am now almost recovered and the nerve continues to grow and the muscles to become stronger, whereas at first they were atrophied.
I practiced what you would call "prayer". But I would call it "autosugestion", in the sense that I "talked" to my subconscious ( I would say) or to God (would say the religious) and I visualized how I would be able to move my toes and lift my foot. I tried to persuade me and my body to grow the nerve again, neuron by neuron. And this slowly happened.
However, I do not conclude that autosugestion works at any time. In cases when the nerve is cut, not only damaged, the chances of recovery are almost 0. On the other hand, I would prefer to hope that there are inner resources that makes the human body (and its subconscious) stronger than our science currently admits. I even leave a door open at the question: Can a human walk over water? (As Jesus allegedly did). I would guess that with hard (mental)training, as the one done in Asian traditions, one might do that. But it is very unlikely.
Moreover, one could argue that I recovered thanks to the 20% chance.
The statistics that you saw actually lacked "statistics", i.e. a large number of individuals on which the test was performed. Moreover, there are a lot of parameters to take into account, as KoM answered. I would like to see results of studies on a large sample of individuals, studies that would also take into account a lot more variables. For now, the evidence of these experiments is not compelling.
In the end, i.e. for my inner psychological state, (and maybe this is the key in understanding why other people become religious) it does not matter what are the statistics about the effects on prayer. I JUST wanted to be able to be able to WALK again. And I am can walk now. I "bear my testimony" that this is a feeling for which you would be so thankful (to life, or to chance, or to the subconscious, or to God) that one would be strongly tempted to not be rational any more and to extrapolate what happened to himself to every other human. He would thus believe that one has proved that unknown inner resources or God exist.
Sterling again.
quote: I was told in my science classes of long ago that energy never simply "dissipates", but only changes form. From this alone I find it difficult to imagine something as remarkably complex as the human soul (or consciousness, if you prefer) simply being destroyed at the end of the body's lifespan.
You were told right but your conclusion is not compelling. You were told that both matter and energy conserve. Actually, just a combination of both does conserve, as matter transforms in energy and energy in matter. We know that since exactly 100 years thanks to Einstein. I agree that the parts that form "you" do not disappear after your death. Your atoms would continue their cycle in Nature, as well as your energy. (Have you ever thought that you might have within you in this very moment a few atoms that were shared at some point by both Hitler and Julius Caesar?).
You ask then what happens with your "soul" after death. I ask you to define "soul" and say what its physical content is before you use a reasoning of conservation of matter-energy which applies strictly to matter.
A more interesting question would be what happens to my conscious, to my memories, to my personality, to my feelings? In order to answer that, we need to understand first of all how they work while we are alive. In our current (superficial) scientific understanding, all these have chemical and electrical cause in our brain. I conclude that when we die, our body disintegrates, the atoms are taken away from the other, the bonds break. Thus your atom that belonged to Hitler does not make you a mass murderer.
Nevertheless, I leave open the question that maybe our soul is made of something different, as some kind of information in a data base. And this (and this alone) might continue to exist after we are dead. This data base would the equivalent of God (as God is omniscient), but it would be a passive data base. It is not used to create new humans or afterlife. But maybe we, humans living this life on Earth, might reach a technology to discover the data base and then read it. I would imagine a world in which one would read (and not influence) the past, as viewing the film of a battle or admiring Platon meditating. This would surely make an interesting Science Fiction.
In conclusion, your argument that conservation of energy-matter implies the existing of life after death is not compelling. However, if you postulate the conservation of information, you would have a data base that would exist after your death. However, you yourself would not be there to enjoy it and you would not be bothered when others invade your (past) privacy.
Moreover, information is very vaguely used in science, but a lot of scientists feel and hope that it would provide a next language of explaing nature (instead of particles and fields, of forces and energies), one would reason in terms of exchange of information (communication) between systems. Even the universe (thus God) would be a giant computer in these discussions. But that is a whole other possible thread.
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quote: Uh, camus, we also have abundant records of shakespeare's life, and numerous accounts of his friends of his authorship of the plays. In fact, we don't actually have shakespeare's signature on many (any?) of his plays, though his name is regularly affixed of course.
We also have "records" of god's life and his friends/relationships with people. Regarding Shakespeare, based on evidence like Shakespeare's rather uneducated background, the illiteracy of his children, events in his life, and other details that I'll not go into, the logical conclusion is that the evidence actually suggests that it is very unlikely that Shakespeare actually wrote any of his works. However, that does not mean that you are irrational if you do believe that he wrote them.
quote: And no, Newton was considered a genius by his peers, he was a widely respected scientist and mathematician during his time.
My mistake, I meant Galileo who was placed under house arrest because his views regarding the Sun being the center of the solar system contradicted popular opinion.
quote: quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So why is it so hard to see that we all have certain beliefs (even myself) that we can't explain with reason, or that aren't reasonable (in the traditional sense of logic and all), but that we still believe in, JUST BECAUSE? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think you're contradicting him, here.
I wasn't disputing that statment, rather, I was disputing his claim that a belief in god is irrational.
quote: Which is why, barring direct personal observation of God, most atheists also point out the logical inconsistencies in most descriptions of God as arguments against His existence.
descriptions of god are based on perceptions and memories, both of which are highly inaccurate and should not be the grounds for proving/disproving anything. (just like eye witness accounts of a crime are very unreliable)
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: camus, Angio said:
[QUOTE]Added: It's interesting that you're making this argument given your choice of screen name.
yeah, the thing is, i used to be of the opinion that people who believed in god were mislead, or manipulated, or dumb, etc.. but that didn't really work very well with my observations of the many people i am close with who have some sort of belief or another concerning a higher power. I still think that as a general rule, believing in "god" is illogical or irrational (and in my own humble opinion, unecessary), but that the people who hold this belief aren't any of the aforementioned qualities. I know a load of people who are incredibly smart and rational etc. who believe strongly in god, or some form of higher power. from my years of debating and discussing this issue with them, i came to realize (or so it seems to me) that most of these people understand that their beliefs aren't rational in the traditional sense, nor can they prove them by any modern means. However, they still hold them (quite strongly). The reason they do is because they are able to seperate their spiritual beliefs from their sense of logic and reason, and in the same light, they aren't the type of people you would ever hear proclaiming that something is wrong is sinfull because God said so. God (or whatever they belive in) plays a part in their lives, but not when it comes to modern day issues and events, which they deal with with empiricism and logic and reason.
so to set the record strait, *I* am a super dooper atheist, but i'm not the type that frowns upon spirituality as a whole, i just don't personally need it (ok, maybe i get pissed of at organized religion every so often, but ideology and spirituality about the unknown is perfectly fine with me).
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Rivka are there any you do believe in? And as a Jewish person isnt it natural that you are going to disagree with a website based on Christianity? This was a site I stumbled upon a number of months ago that was interesting, I dont think it is flawless but it made some serious claims. I am not a Christian, but if these things are true, then I think they hold some weight in an argument.
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"And as a Jewish person isnt it natural that you are going to disagree with a website based on Christianity?"
If the prophecies are unequivocally true, then it probably ISN'T natural for disagreement to be possible, no.
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quote: And no, Newton was considered a genius by his peers, he was a widely respected scientist and mathematician during his time.
My mistake, I meant Galileo who was placed under house arrest because his views regarding the Sun being the center of the solar system contradicted popular opinion.
galileo was placed under house arrest because his views regarding the coppernican model of the solar system contradicted the *church approved* ptolemic model. At the time, whatever the church said was the right answer, and in fact, the majority of scientists soon came around to Galileo's views. So when yo say "popular opinion", you are really saying "what the church wanted to be popular opinion at the time".
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I don't believe that any of the claims they are making specifically about the Israeli wars of the past 50 years are necessarily connected to those prophecies (except in the most general sense). I am only commenting about prophecies from the MT; I have no comment on those from the NT.
It's not that I don't believe that they either have been fulfilled or will be (mostly the latter). I just don't think it has happened yet.
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Rivka, when looking at the Christian version of the old testament lets say the new international version or one of the other popular versions of the Bible, do you notice consistency with your version? Because I have heard some words in Hebrew are almost impossible to translate correctly into english simply because we do not have words in english that mean exactly what a Hebrew word means. Or are they pretty similar?
"If the prophecies are unequivocally true, then it probably ISN'T natural for disagreement to be possible, no."
Yes, but we know Christians and Jews have some very obvious differences when it comes to many things in the Bible. The most obvious is Christians believe Jesus was the messiah and Jewish people dont. One of these groups is correct. The Bible even talks about how many Jewish people will reject Jesus when he comes.
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quote:galileo was placed under house arrest because his views regarding the coppernican model of the solar system contradicted the *church approved* ptolemic model. At the time, whatever the church said was the right answer, and in fact, the majority of scientists soon came around to Galileo's views. So when yo say "popular opinion", you are really saying "what the church wanted to be popular opinion at the time".
Yes it was the Church that was the problem, but the beliefs of the Church many times do NOT reflect what is stated in the Bible. So instead of Galileo contradicting the Bible, he was instead contradicting those that held power. When I say popular opinion, I mean whatever is fashionable to believe at any given time. Science is in general a pretty reliable basis for belief, but many times science is incorrect. In fact 1/3 of surveyed scientists have admitted to misrepresenting data (either by ignoring errors of peers or passing studies that they knew were incomplete, etc.) for the sake of appeasing sponsors. And there are many instances of when science has come to the wrong conclusion.
Using the example of Newton once again, his theories on gravity were incorrect, it took until Einstein to come along and correct Newton's theories. The reason Newton was wrong was because he didn't have the tools and knowledge necessary to create an accurate model of the universe and gravity. He was limited by the things available at his time. The same is true today. Science will always be limited by the tools that it has available and the limits of human perception and observation. To believe in the possibility of a god does not contradict science, but rather admits the limitations of science. Thus, recognizing those limitations is not a sign of irrationality, but rather is a little bit of honesty.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:"In Leviticus 26:3, 7-8, the Bible says that the army of Israel would have a supernatural power to prevail during times of conflict, if the people are obedient to the Lord. This Bible passage says that 5 people would be able to chase away 100 people, and that 100 would be able to chase away 10,000. Is there any proof to this incredible claim? Judge for yourself:
Example 1: Within hours of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Israel. The combined population of those countries was at least 20 million at that time. Israel had fewer than 1 million Jews."
I promised myself some considerable time ago that I would never discuss the issue here again, and this is as close as I'm willing to dance along that line. Here is why your "prophecy" is essentially meaningless:
1) The actual ratio of combatants in the war was almost certainly not 20:1. Using the populations of the countries rather than trying to find an estimate of the number of combatants on both sides shows pretty clearly that the author merely picked the number that suited him and ignored everything else.
2) There was plenty of fighting going on before Israel's formal declaration of independence. The "War of Independence" was well underway before the declaration, whatever you think about whose fault the whole mess was.
3) The Israeli combatants were not supernaturally gifted -- rather, they'd had the foresight to purchase comparatively high-quality military hardware (from the French, among others). The Arab nations, as shown in 1948 and repeatedly since then (particularly in 1967) didn't know the first thing about modern warfare.
4) Finally, there's the "obedient to the Lord" stipulation, which one presumes was violated by both sides by the riots, gangs, and scattered guerrila warfare in the 1930s and 40s as the conflict started to escalate.
In other words, the actual events don't fit with the prophecy at all. I've read Leviticus, and I saw nothing prophesised in it that has actually come true. Your problem is that you start from a position of belief and then go through history selectively choosing accounts of events -- and, in this particular case, twisting them so that they fit. Square peg, round hole.
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camus:
It is grossly unfair to say that Newton was "wrong." Newtonian mechanics got us to the moon. Newton's model is accurate for a subset of all cases, just like Einstein's model. Your choice of phrasing reveals an underlying absolutism that is incompatible with science.
Further, the Bible talks about the sun as though it revolves around the earth. How else could the sun stand still, or god command the sun not to rise? It doesn't expressly state "the sun revolves around the earth," but someone reading it who doesn't know better would probably come to that conclusion.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: "In Leviticus 26:3, 7-8, the Bible says that the army of Israel would have a supernatural power to prevail during times of conflict, if the people are obedient to the Lord. This Bible passage says that 5 people would be able to chase away 100 people, and that 100 would be able to chase away 10,000. Is there any proof to this incredible claim? Judge for yourself:
Example 1: Within hours of Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded Israel. The combined population of those countries was at least 20 million at that time. Israel had fewer than 1 million Jews."
The physical nation of Israel lost God's favor back when the put Jesus to death. There is now a spiritual nation of Israel out of all tribes, nations, peoples, and tongues. In regards to other prophecies, I do believe in the prophecies in the Bible, however, I don't think they make good points for convincing other people of the authenticity of the Bible. As others have stated, events can be twisted, manipulated, and interpreted in ways to support any prophecy.
quote: camus:
It is grossly unfair to say that Newton was "wrong." Newtonian mechanics got us to the moon. Newton's model is accurate for a subset of all cases, just like Einstein's model. Your choice of phrasing reveals an underlying absolutism that is incompatible with science.
Further, the Bible talks about the sun as though it revolves around the earth. How else could the sun stand still, or god command the sun not to rise? It doesn't expressly state "the sun revolves around the earth," but someone reading it who doesn't know better would probably come to that conclusion.
Newton's theories could produce inaccurate results. It created an inaccurate view of the universe. Obviously it was very useful for certain things, but not in correctly understanding the universe. Had Newton suggested what we know now about space-time, warped time, and singularities, he probably would have been seen as a lunatic, even though a correct one. My point is that ideas of rationality are limited by the general beliefs of the time and community. That is just part of the reason why science has limitations. To dismiss certain beliefs completely on the basis of not thinking it's possible is in complete contrast to the foundations of science. What I'm saying is that science and religion can in some cases complement each other. A religious person does not have to refute science, and science does not have to refute the notion of a superior creature that created us. That is not absolutism. Absolutism is believing that it is impossible for God to exist even though it cannot be proved, or to believe the everything can be explained through science.
Regarding the Bible's terminology, remember that the Bible was written from a human perspective. If God had directly written it, we probably wouldn't be able to comprehend it. To humans, it would have seemed like the Sun stood still. In fact, there is no reason to believe that either the Sun or the earth remained motionless. There may have been other ways that God employed to provide more daylight. God does not have to reveal to us the physics behind his miracles.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Newton's theories could produce inaccurate results.
This is not the same thing as being wrong.
quote: It created an inaccurate view of the universe.
This isn't true either. It was certainly accurate for all cases in Newton's time, and it's still accurate for most earthly cases today. If he was "wrong," then why do we still learn Newtonian mechanics -- but not relativistic mechanics -- in school?
quote: Obviously it was very useful for certain things, but not in correctly understanding the universe. Had Newton suggested what we know now about space-time, warped time, and singularities, he probably would have been seen as a lunatic, even though a correct one.
Considering what you go on to say from here, the fact that you're throwing the word "know" around willy-nilly is telling. Most of the things you mention are theories.
quote:To dismiss certain beliefs completely on the basis of not thinking it's possible is in complete contrast to the foundations of science.
Fine, but nobody's making that claim.
quote: That is not absolutism. Absolutism is believing that it is impossible for God to exist even though it cannot be proved, or to believe the everything can be explained through science.
Then you're arguing against a position you've constructed yoruself, since I don't see anyone claiming those things. And as I've metioned already in this post, you're still using absolutist terms to discuss theories (we "know" this today, we "know" that today, in reference to things that are far from being experimentally proven).
quote:Regarding the Bible's terminology, remember that the Bible was written from a human perspective. If God had directly written it, we probably wouldn't be able to comprehend it. To humans, it would have seemed like the Sun stood still. In fact, there is no reason to believe that either the Sun or the earth remained motionless. There may have been other ways that God employed to provide more daylight. God does not have to reveal to us the physics behind his miracles.
If he did, it might make skeptics more likely to believe.
My point -- and Angiomorphism's, as far as I can tell -- is that there is no rational basis for believing in god. That doesn't mean that god does not exist. You're conflating two entirely separate arguments.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote: I simply cannot credit the notion that all experiences of (using Tom's stat) 70% of Americans may be relegated to this heap. Indeed, my own anecdotal experiences defy this interpretation.
Well, put that way, neither can I. However, I would also postulate that a relatively small percentage of believers have had what you or I would call a "conversion experience" (and here I'm not just talking about LDS believers). In my experience, most people don't really question their beliefs. They accept what they are taught as children. Though your definition of the term "tested" may be more generous that mine, I'd say the majority of people have a faith that hasn't really been tested.
One thing I've noted in my experiences with people is that, in general, the more powerful the spiritual event, the more likely it is tied to a time of stress, often including fasting, intense prayer, etc. It seems suspect to me that God seems to talk most loudly to people when they are most vulnerable to delusion.
Note, I'm not saying that religious experience is delusion. I'm saying that by and large it is indistinguishable from delusion to an outside observer.
If a man loses his only child and in his grief the voices in his head tell him life is worth nothing and he must kill himself, most Americans would probably say he was delusional with grief. If the voices in his head (or heart, if you prefer) tell him that God wanted his son home early and he must be strong for his family, well then he was touched by God. In my view, neither of these situations has a better or worse claim to the term delusion.
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:One thing I've noted in my experiences with people is that, in general, the more powerful the spiritual event, the more likely it is tied to a time of stress, often including fasting, intense prayer, etc.
And in my experience, many (maybe most) claims of spiritual experience involve the loss of a loved one, which is a very stressful event and is very much related to the idea of an afterlife.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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