Religious experience anyone?

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Ruveyn, for crying out loud, read the whole thread. I'm not pestering anyone. MCalavera challenged ME, not the other way around.

EDIT: I might add that I just looked through every post he made in this thread, and don't see anywhere that he actually flatly stated that he doesn't believe God exists. Do I strongly suspect he doesn't? Of course, but at least he's said he's willing to consider the possibility.

Last edited by MrXxx on 08 Dec 2012, 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, you read the whole thread again. You came up with a question for atheists/unbelievers to answer. And I responded accordingly.

And for the first few posts you made, you did not address it, but challenged my beliefs. You did not respond accordingly at all until I stated it again, succinctly, a few posts later.

I've read the entire thread. Maybe you ought to as well. I think you missed the point I made in the very first post I made here. "I have no need to prove anything to anyone but me." (paraphrased)

Don't play these mind games with me, dude.

I addressed it by first trying to get you to explain why your explanation is good enough when there are more parsimonious explanations that you reject in favor of your God. Then the next time you asked, I made it clear to you and in explicit terms what I meant. And you still accused me of dodging after that.

Is it wrong to have your beliefs challenged by the way?

Of course it's possible. Extremely unlikely, but possible. It's still useless as a scientific hypothesis unless we can figure out a way in which a universe designed and created by an intelligent creator would necessarily testably differ from one that was not.

I'm going to ignore your condescending tone.

You didn't address it until your FIFTH post. And it was so buried in surrounding irrelevance, I didn't see it.

I've been trying to address the fact that I missed your answer to the question. But you're insisting on spamming the thread with arguments that have nothing to do with the thread topic.

As a moderator, I'm asking you to please stop derailing the thread.

As a MEMBER, here's my reply to your reply to the actual question I asked:



Oh! So you did! Well, you have my apologies. I did not see it. Perhaps because it was buried deep in the midst of many other words, when all I asked for was a one word answer. Sorry.

So you do accept that it's possible. Then it is possible to discuss further. Can't at the moment, because RL calls, but hopefully later.

Keep in mind though, that you've asked me to defend what I believe. I haven't asked you to, so I won't argue other theories. One theory at at time please. Tossing every theory under the sun only clouds and confuses issues. I don't play with smoke and mirrors.

If though, you really are already convinced that God does not exist, and are only saying you're willing to consider the possibility, and are simply poised to shoot down everything I say or ask, but not really consider any of it as plausible, please don't waste my time or yours.

Useless to whom? Very subjective viewpoint. You're entitled to it, but you are not entitled to determine for others which are useless questions, and which are not.

If you believe it is a useless question, by all means, don't consider it. I have, and I will, and will with anyone else who wishes to. It is not for you or anyone else to squelch that discussion should others want it to take place.

I didn't say it was a useless question (personally I feel that it is but, as you said, that's not for me to say). I said it was useless as a scientific hypothesis. The core of the scientific method is in the discrimination amongst possibilities through the use of empirical evidence. If there is no way to gather empirical evidence for or against a hypothesis then there is no way to test it scientifically, and therefore it falls outside of the purview of science.

Yes, I read that, and understood it. I disagree. To me, it is not useless as a scientific hypothesis, and to ignore it is contrary to scientific principles. Even science creates hypotheses for which there is no physical evidence. If it didn't, Einstein himself wouldn't be taken seriously.

The difference is in that the hypotheses are not accepted until such evidence is found. No such evidence can be found if the hypothesis isn't considered in the first place.

^^^ To move from hypothesis to Theory requires testability. To move from theory to principle requires repeatability.

Somewhere in there, falsification becomes important.

...

The only 'religious' experiences I've had involved humiliation and embarrassment.

The only 'spiritual' experiences I've had were not repeated, and are thus untestable.

Like I said, if you (or anyone else) can figure out a way in which the universe would be testably different based on whether or not an intelligent designer created it, great. The thing with Einstein's hypotheses was that even before there was evidence for them, one could imagine what evidence one would be expected to find if they were true, and likewise what sort of evidence one might be likely to see if they weren't.

Agreed.

Part of the difficulty with any discussion like this, is that science, as seen and understood by the many, seems to be required to stick to certain rules established by somebody, somewhere, at some point in time. As applied personally however, science can be applied to slightly different rules. For example, one's personal experiences can count as verifiable evidence, so long as one trusts one's own perceptions and mind. One cannot prove one's personal experiences to anyone but oneself.

There, to most thinking, is where the line between science and "spirituality" starts to blur. Since I can't verify or trust your experiences, I can't allow them into my arsenal of evidence. Since I can't prove to you my own personal experiences, you can't include them in yours. So we toss out all personal experience, and move on to the physical realm that both you and I can see, hear and touch and nothing else counts.

If however, two or more can agree that personal experiences can be included, and come to some agreement on how to qualify those experiences as either valid and "countable," or invalid, and not worth considering, a sort of "agreeable method" emerges accepted by the group. Such a method requires trust, which traditional science doesn't like, but if that trust exists between interested parties, who is to say the conclusions they may arrive at through shared experiences is any less valid than examining the physical universe?

With this kind of examination, preponderance of evidence, and repeatability is crucial.

This is what i submit that can and has led many to believe in things seemingly too fantastic and even preposterous to those who don't believe in them. Repeated experiences so numerous that statistically coincidence simply cannot explain them.

Is it possible that there is an intelligent creator behind the universe?

This is a lawyer question if I ever heard one. It's shifting the burden of proof - if I say no, I need to back up my answer, and we both know this is impossible. But if I say yes, it will be interpreted as admission of God's existence. And that's one hell of a big jump, because "God" is not the same thing as "intelligent creator". It's just as likely that the intelligent creator behind the universe is Bugs Bunny. We have more evidence for Bugs Bunny. We can agree on what he looks like, for a start.

I put it to you, Mr Xxx, that there IS an intelligent creator behind the universe and that this creator is Bugs Bunny. Will you admit that this is possible?

First of all, you are wrong. If you say no, you do not need to back up your answer, because the answer is what it is. If you do not believe it is possible, that is what you believe. There is no refuting or need to back the answer up, and the discussion would end there.

The simple fact that you've compared the possibility with a preposterous postulate demonstrates clearly that you're answer is no.

If your answer is no, it isn't possible, which you have already clearly indicated, there's no point in continuing the discussion, because you've already made up your mind.

Further I put this question to you:

Is it possible that you are mocking what could otherwise be an intelligent discussion?

I'll save you the trouble. It is not only possible, but it doesn't even take an enquiring mind to see that you've planted enough positive evidence in this thread to prove beyond doubt that mocking the discussion is, in fact, exactly what you're doing. Further discussion with you is therefore, no longer worth my time.


Good day to you sir.

The intellectually honest answer for an atheist is 'it's possible, but I don't think so'.

Exactly. Without that answer, any further discussion of creative intelligence is moot and pointless.

It's amazing how much some would rather dance around a direct answer to that question and will do nothing but fire more questions back to the point of the discussion becoming inane.