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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 20, 2013 07:43 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:10, 20 Jul 2013.
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Actually, I can know Allah is not real because I know my God is real. With all the satellites I think we'd have photographed some dragons by now if they were real.
That is just demagogy. A muslim will say the same thing about your God and his claim will be as sincere as yours. It's a pretty simple concept, don't embarrass yourself by objecting to it.
And no, we have no way of knowing what lives or not in distant galaxies, if you're seriously taking the example literally.
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The universe creating itself out of a steady state of absolute noting would violate the laws of thermodynamics. The material needs a cause. God is not material, he is immaterial, one of the qualities needed to be the first cause. Yep, atheism is an irrational religion.
I encourage you to take your red pen and correct the modern theories of astrophysicists then. Surely, this Stephen Hawking guy never heard of thermodynamics before! You can make up, of course, anything. God is immaterial, god is timeless etc etc. As long as you don't have to prove it, anything is claimable.
And for something to be called a religion, you need a metaphysical explanation of the universe and people having common rituals. Atheism don't have those, even theism by itself can not be called a religion. But since you even think of philosophies as some kind of religion, I don't expect you to see the difference.
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I've never said God is beyond reason and in fact have show why belief in God is reasonable and your belief in "not God" is unreasonable.
God is beyond nature. Obviously the first cause had to be beyond nature because nature did not exist, only a steady state of absolute nothing, materially speaking. The first cause had to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, seal-existent, powerful, intelligent, and wise. God.
Again self-fulfilling prophicies. There was no "before" if the dimension of time didn't exist. And yes, you indicated many times that God can not be experienced with only intellect, hence he is beyond reason.
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Sadly, but not surprising, you continue your insults. Atheism simply has nothing rational to advance.
Although you continue to imply religious people are mentally ill it is atheists who are more prone to mental illness and suicide than theists are AND thiests tend to be more physically healthy as well. Atheism is bad for individuals and bad for society.
And as always, your lack of religious and scientific knowledge shows.
No, what's not surprising is your habit of twisting my words. I said people who hear voices are considered mentally ill, I encourage you to go to a doctor and try telling him you literally hear voices and listen to his diagnosis.
You neither have the formation nor the objectivity to even judge if a high-school student has enough knowledge about religion(s) or science.
And about your clicky:
After more than four years of observing and interviewing Vineyard members, and participating in prayer groups, Bible study and weekly worship, Luhrmann arrived at a simple but arresting hypothesis: Evangelicals believe in an intimate God who talks to them personally because their churches coach them in a new theory of mind. In these communities, religious belief is “more like learning to do something than to think something. . . . People train the mind in such a way that they experience part of their mind as the presence of God.”
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You being able to change your mind in no way implies God can't know what you will change your mind to.
Elodin if it's not predestined it can not be foreseen, only guessed.
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You continue to repeat that over and over but the study I quoted says you are wrong.
No,I read the "study" (it's an article btw) and all it talks about is small scale miracle healings and no wonder the ratio of believers is so high among people who can die or lose a loved one. Also, notice how all the stuff you link uses a language such as "you thought they were crazy right?" Even this shows, that the regular reader (the norm) is considered to be secular and skeptic of these stuff, which was MY POINT to begin with.
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Eyewitness testimoy is a person giving their account of want happened. There are numerous examples of that in the Bible.
No, the Biblical texts were written many years after the events they describe. They are hear-say. Not first hand testimony. We don't have an original text that Noah himself wrote for example.
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First, anti-theists have consistently proved on these boards that they do no grasp even basic Christian dogma and that indeed they have no desire to grasp those principles. Second, spiritual things are SPIRITUALLY discerned. An anti-theist is quite incapable of understanding anything beyond simple surface meanings of the words of the Bible because he does not have the Spirit of God.
Third, anti-theists are quite the opposite of objective persons when it comes to religion.
You object when I say
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Your definition of "really knowing" the faith can actually be achieved only by believing it so what you're declaring here is a tautology.
Yet, you so obviously do it again. What on earth are you even objecting to?
You're the only person here who thinks of you as the objective one , I'm sure that's because your objectivity is beyond us an we can't simply grasp you. Next time you chat with the big guy, ask him how it turns out this way.
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted July 21, 2013 09:06 AM |
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My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
- Adolf Hitler
I don't think Jesus wants us to fight against Jews though, anti-Semitism is pretty stupid, but they had to fight against someone to not fight against themselves. Stupid....
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted July 21, 2013 11:09 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 20:36, 21 Jul 2013.
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A muslim will say the same thing about your God and his claim will be as sincere as yours.
Putting aside the fact that Allah and Yahweh are both local deities who became global, from what I know the Christians and the Muslims agree that they worship the same God. Their main difference is about the prophets.
MOD EDIT:
Zenofex: I have removed the insult you felt compelled to tack onto your post. There are no insults permitted on this forum. This is your second warning.
1) NO insults, abuse, racism or sexism.
Insult is a remark that undermines another person. A simple way to avoid insulting people is to discuss their actions and opinions rather than their personality. For example: instead of saying who they are ("you suck" or "you are an idiot") say what you think about their opinions/actions and why ("Your post about me is wrong because I never said that heroes 4 is a bad game" or "I disagree with your opinion because centaurs have more hit points than gnolls"). This simple rephrasing strategy can resolve many conflicts and fights before they even happen, both online and in life.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 21, 2013 12:31 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 20:42, 21 Jul 2013.
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Zenofex said:
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A muslim will say the same thing about your God and his claim will be as sincere as yours.
Putting aside the fact that Allah and Yahweh are both local deities who became global, from what I know the Christians and the Muslims agree that they worship the same God. Their main difference is about the prophets.
Well, if you remember it was me who emphasized that Abrahamic religions belong to the same mythological set, Yahew to Allah is indeed like Zeus to Jupiter, but if you talk about "experiencing" the God a Christian and a Muslim will both deny the authenticity of each other's experience. Christian will think the other is worshiping a false prophet and Muslim will think Christian is treating a prophet as God himself and committing a great sin. Mythological continuity does not bring theological compatibility.
MOD EDIT: Zenofex's insult edited out of the quotation, as well as your unnecessary response to it. This is not a place to discuss the posting behavior of other users. Stick to HCM if you want to do that.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted July 21, 2013 12:58 PM |
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Drakon-Deus said:
I don't think Jesus wants us to fight against Jews though, anti-Semitism is pretty stupid, but they had to fight against someone to not fight against themselves. Stupid....
Good grief man, why bother with that excrement? Hitler was a hateful man that was blind as a bat. Yeah, Jesus wanted mammon out of Church (my words) but every Christian has to learn that lesson; it never was nor ever will be a one group, ethnic/race thing. He and his cronies had an agenda, and used Religion because it's was an old and very effective...cover, blanket, wrap, shawl, cloak, robe, jacket, slicker, London-fog-coat. (artu and his English!...I'm corrupted again )
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted July 21, 2013 07:43 PM |
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Because the world is full of people who think like Hitler did, only they don't have power. And I don't think the world needs extremists in power.
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Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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markkur
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Once upon a time
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posted July 22, 2013 04:18 PM |
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Ok. Well, since you're at that era in history, then take a good look at the Nazi-opposition of D. Bonhoeffer; his cousin or sister was interviewed in the World at War doc. <imo> His story merits review just like what Eisenhower said of WWII in general; "what happened should never be forgotten"
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 23, 2013 02:55 AM |
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Edited by Elodin at 02:57, 23 Jul 2013.
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artu said:
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Actually, I can know Allah is not real because I know my God is real. With all the satellites I think we'd have photographed some dragons by now if they were real.
That is just demagogy. A muslim will say the same thing about your God and his claim will be as sincere as yours. It's a pretty simple concept, don't embarrass yourself by objecting to it.
LOL!!!!!! I know God exists because I have a personal relationship with him. What is embarrassing for me is to see someone continually make the claim "There is no God" while condemning and insulting everyone who claims they know God. I'm not sure why you think I should be embarrassed for saying "I know God," when I have my personal experiences and other evidence for God and yet you unabashedly preach your dogma here every day that "God does not exist" without any evidence at all for your claims. In my opinion it is you who should be embarrassed.
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The universe creating itself out of a steady state of absolute noting would violate the laws of thermodynamics. The material needs a cause. God is not material, he is immaterial, one of the qualities needed to be the first cause. Yep, atheism is an irrational religion.
I encourage you to take your red pen and correct the modern theories of astrophysicists then. Surely, this Stephen Hawking guy never heard of thermodynamics before! You can make up, of course, anything. God is immaterial, god is timeless etc etc. As long as you don't have to prove it, anything is claimable.
Sadly Hawkins became influenced by an anti-theist, whom he wrote his book with. Nah, it is not possible for a steady state of absolute nothing to produce anything by itself. Here is an hour long discussion of the book Hawkins wrote.
Clicky
I'll just make a brief observation.
Hawkins said in The Grand Design “The universe can create itself out of nothing,” “and God is no longer necessary.” He claims gravity created the universe. But if a steady state of absolute nothing existed gravity did not exist. Hawkin's arguments appear to be those of a person driven by emotion rather than rationality, typical of anti-theism. Gravity can't exist apart from the universe. Gravity can't predate the universe to create the universe. The idea the universe "pulled itself up by its own bootstraps" is utter, absolute, and complete nonsense. His bootstrap idea is not a scientific idea and indeed, if such a thing were possible the discipline of science would not be possible.
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I've never said God is beyond reason and in fact have show why belief in God is reasonable and your belief in "not God" is unreasonable.
God is beyond nature. Obviously the first cause had to be beyond nature because nature did not exist, only a steady state of absolute nothing, materially speaking. The first cause had to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, seal-existent, powerful, intelligent, and wise. God.
Again self-fulfilling prophicies.
You continually use words like demagogy and self-fulfilling prophecies that have no meaning at all when applied to anything I have said.
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There was no "before" if the dimension of time didn't exist.
Matter can't be eternal and can't create itself out of a steady steady state of absolute nothing.
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And yes, you indicated many times that God can not be experienced with only intellect, hence he is beyond reason.
God is not beyond reason. "There is no God" is beyond rationality.
With your intellect you can't kick down the doors of Heaven and rush the throne of God. One can rationally deduce that God exists by his intellect if he is an honest, diligent seeker of truth. One can even deduce many of the qualities of God from the universe. But one can't know God by intellect alone, just as one can't know any human person from intellect alone. God is a Spirit. Man's experience of God using only his physical senses can be only a rather limited experience. The spirit of man is able to more fully interact with God. Man is spirit, soul, and body.
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No, what's not surprising is your habit of twisting my words. I said people who hear voices are considered mentally ill, I encourage you to go to a doctor and try telling him you literally hear voices and listen to his diagnosis.
And yet I quoted an article by a psychologist that says otherwise.
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You neither have the formation nor the objectivity to even judge if a high-school student has enough knowledge about religion(s) or science.
Sure I do. If a person continually makes false statements about Christianity, for example, and does not even understand very fundamental teachings of the New Testament I can safely say the person does not have enough knowledge about Christianity to speak with intelligence about it.
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After more than four years of observing and interviewing Vineyard members, and participating in prayer groups, Bible study and weekly worship, Luhrmann arrived at a simple but arresting hypothesis: Evangelicals believe in an intimate God who talks to them personally because their churches coach them in a new theory of mind. In these communities, religious belief is “more like learning to do something than to think something. . . . People train the mind in such a way that they experience part of their mind as the presence of God.”
I'm not sure where your quote came from but it was not from the article I quoted. And Luhrmann in that article said it is common for people to have such experiences and such experiences are not an evidence of a mental disorder. Also, Luhrmann said, "Science cannot tell us whether God generated the voice that Abraham or Augustine heard. But it can tell us that many of these events are normal, part of the fabric of human perception."
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You being able to change your mind in no way implies God can't know what you will change your mind to.
Elodin if it's not predestined it can not be foreseen, only guessed.
What you mean is that you, as a limited human being who lives only in the present and has an extremely small knowledge of what is going on even around him, can't know what is in the future. God does not share your human limitations. He exists in every point in the space-time continuum and transcends it. God's knowledge of your choices in no way implies you don't make your own choices.
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You continue to repeat that over and over but the study I quoted says you are wrong.
No,I read the "study" (it's an article btw) and all it talks about is small scale miracle healings and no wonder the ratio of believers is so high among people who can die or lose a loved one.
No, it does not. It says hundreds of millions of people currently alive have experienced miracles and says nothing about "small scale" miracles. My sister was healed of scholoisis, something beyond medical science's ability.
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Also, notice how all the stuff you link uses a language such as "you thought they were crazy right?" Even this shows, that the regular reader (the norm) is considered to be secular and skeptic of these stuff, which was MY POINT to begin with.
Except that the polls shows most people believe in miracles. All you do is repeat, "Nope" over and over again. "Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous."
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Eyewitness testimoy is a person giving their account of want happened. There are numerous examples of that in the Bible.
No, the Biblical texts were written many years after the events they describe.
Many writers such as Moses, Ezekiel, Isaiah, John, Peter, Mark, and Paul relate their own personal experiences.
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Your definition of "really knowing" the faith can actually be achieved only by believing it so what you're declaring here is a tautology.
Yet, you so obviously do it again. What on earth are you even objecting to?
Sadly you appear unwilling or incapable of understanding my plain statements about faith so I'll move on.
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You're the only person here who thinks of you as the objective one , I'm sure that's because your objectivity is beyond us an we can't simply grasp you. Next time you chat with the big guy, ask him how it turns out this way.
If you mean the anti-theists all dogmatically state that they alone hold the truth I agree that that is what they contend. But "God does not exist and religious people are delusional" is not an objective stance.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 23, 2013 03:26 AM |
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My sister was healed of scholoisis, something beyond medical science's ability.
I'm glad your sister was healed of scholoisis, which I'm assuming is your attempt at spelling scoliosis. However this is not something that's beyond medical science's ability to improve, which even a brief stroll to Wikipedia can demonstrate. Of course, I don't know the state of your sister's disease - scoliosis has a number of potential causes and degrees of severity - but the general assertion that scoliosis is beyond medical science's ability to heal (in part or in full) is patently false.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 23, 2013 03:54 AM |
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Edited by artu at 04:07, 23 Jul 2013.
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Elodin, I won't even respond to the things about science since anybody with even high-school knowledge today knows science does not indicate God. The rest of your claims about dogma are so out of proportion, responding to them will violate CoC. (Have you noticed all 4 warnings in the OSM announcement thread are responses to you. Looks like your "christianly love" somehow drives, otherwise calm people, mad somehow). You don't know the meaning of some words or deliberately twist them. Just use the logic a 10 year-old can use: Great number of scientists, the majority, and I'm not talking about lab techs, I'm talking about the ones that produce the theories, are atheists. How would that be even possible if you were right. Stop the BS and prevent yourself from further embarrassment. Or as I mentioned earlier, you can write a letter to Stephen Hawking or many others just like him and correct their mistakes about gravity and universe. And the world will talk about the Texan ex-cop who has shaken the scientific community and made them realize how foolishly they've been deceived by anti-theists. We'll read it in the papers and you'll tell me "hah,I told you so."
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I know God exists because I have a personal relationship with him. What is embarrassing for me is to see someone continually make the claim "There is no God" while condemning and insulting everyone who claims they know God.
No, what is embarrassing is, you being unable to see that the authenticity check applies to both sides and since they both can't be true or tested, your earlier statement on the subject is indeed demagogy.
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What you mean is that you, as a limited human being who lives only in the present and has an extremely small knowledge of what is going on even around him, can't know what is in the future. God does not share your human limitations. He exists in every point in the space-time continuum and transcends it. God's knowledge of your choices in no way implies you don't make your own choices.
No what I mean is, for something to be called a decision, it must be open to change, let's say there's a red button and I will press it or not, if I have free will, I can change my mind until the last second, there are two possible futures before the last second, it is yet undetermined. If God knows the result even 5 years ago, I'm not really making a decision am I? I just have the illusion of it.
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No, it does not. It says hundreds of millions of people currently alive have experienced miracles and says nothing about "small scale" miracles. My sister was healed of scholoisis, something beyond medical science's ability.
I'm tired of repeating this. Let us see God grow a leg. All those cases can be explained else way, if studied by impartial investigators. There are many stories about and believers in psychics but there is not one documented crime case legally solved by them. And to repeat myself again, even the language of your links support my point, the norm in today's world is disbelief in contemporary miracles.
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You continually use words like demagogy and self-fulfilling prophecies that have no meaning at all when applied to anything I have said.
The first cause had to be timeless, spaceless, immaterial, seal-existent, powerful, intelligent, and wise. God./ The spirit of man is able to more fully interact with God. Man is spirit, soul, and body./Matter can't be eternal and can't create itself out of a steady steady state of absolute nothing.
These all fit the description. Keep making them up if it makes you happy.
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Many writers such as Moses, Ezekiel, Isaiah, John, Peter, Mark, and Paul relate their own personal experiences.
By the early 3rd century, Christian theologians like Origen of Alexandria may have been using—or at least were familiar with—the same 27 books found in modern New Testament editions, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of some of the writings (see also Antilegomena).[20] Likewise by 200, the Muratorian fragment shows that there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them.[21] Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century.[22]
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And yet I quoted an article by a psychologist that says otherwise.
The psychologist YOU linked defines your situation as this, again I quote, her own words:
Evangelicals believe in an intimate God who talks to them personally because their churches coach them in a new theory of mind. In these communities, religious belief is “more like learning to do something than to think something. . . . People train the mind in such a way that they experience part of their mind as the presence of God.”
The quote is from a review of her book, your linked article mentioned. It's her own words, the review ends in a diagnosis that describes you perfectly, and please notice how the word proof is quotation marked for ironical purposes:
Luhrmann has helped to explain something else: why the carefully reasoned arguments that the “new atheist” writers mount against religion often fall flat. The most convincing “proof” of religion is not scientific but psychological. There is no way to undo the conviction of believers that God himself told them he is real and his story is true.
Now, I repeat, the scientist YOU linked defines your very situation as a mind trick, not psychosis yes but a harmless delusion to say the least. If you don't feel the need to reconsider your certainty on things, even after that, it means that the level of denial you sunk in is beyond any reason's reach.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 23, 2013 05:11 AM |
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Edited by Elodin at 05:12, 23 Jul 2013.
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Corribus said:
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My sister was healed of scholoisis, something beyond medical science's ability.
I'm glad your sister was healed of scholoisis, which I'm assuming is your attempt at spelling scoliosis. However this is not something that's beyond medical science's ability to improve, which even a brief stroll to Wikipedia can demonstrate. Of course, I don't know the state of your sister's disease - scoliosis has a number of potential causes and degrees of severity - but the general assertion that scoliosis is beyond medical science's ability to heal (in part or in full) is patently false.
My sister had a severely curved back and a short leg. She wore an insert in her shoe to help her walk evenly. The doctor told her she would be wearing leg braces for the rest of her life. A pentecostal couple laid hands on her and prayed for her and she was instantly healed. He spine straightened, her leg grew, the pain left her, and she did not have to wear leg braces. She joined the basketball team that week and soon became the starting point guard on the varsity squad.
All anti-theists can say is "Nuh uh, nuh uh!!!! Liar, liar, liar!!!!!" But hundreds of millions of people alive in the US alone have experienced miracles.
From what I've read there can be operations and the spine can be fused and rods implanted, but the condition can't be cured, so your assertion that what I said was "patently false" is patently false,Mr Moderator.
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Elodin, I won't even respond to the things about science since anybody with even high-school knowledge today knows science does not indicate God.
In other words you have no rational retort.
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Looks like your "christianly love" somehow drives, otherwise calm people, mad somehow).
Anti-theists were calling believers delusional freaks before I ever joined the HC. When I first started posting in the OSM I pleaded with the tone it down. I pleaded with moderators to ask them to tone it down. I was told to shut up. But when I started critiquing atheism with the same fervor anti-theists were slamming religion **** rivers of tears began to flow and the quarterly witch hunts began.
I think anti-theists are accustomed to being in attack mode but not accustomed to having to defend their positions with reason and logic.
If you examine the thread the thread basicly consists of atheists launching attacks on religion and the I or another believer defending against the attacks. The thread title "questions about religion" is deceptive. It should be "Bash religion and religious people."
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You don't know the meaning of some words or deliberately twist them.
False. You love attacking my person apparently.
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Stop the BS and prevent yourself from further embarrassment.
Stop the personal attacks please.
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Or as I mentioned earlier, you can write a letter to Stephen Hawking or many others just like him and correct their mistakes about gravity and universe.
Others have formally "put him in his place" publicly by showing how illogical, unreasoned, and unscientific his book is.
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No, what is embarrassing is, you being unable to see that the authenticity check applies to both sides and since they both can't be true or tested, your earlier statement on the subject is indeed demagogy.
I can know God. You can't know "not God."
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No what I mean is, for something to be called a decision, it must be open to change, let's say there's a red button and I will press it or not, if I have free will, I can change my mind until the last second, there are two possible futures before the last second, it is yet undetermined. If God knows the result even 5 years ago, I'm not really making a decision am I? I just have the illusion of it.
Again, knowledge is not causation. You make your decisions. God knows what you will chose.
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And to repeat myself again, even the language of your links support my point, the norm in today's world is disbelief in contemporary miracles.
Sorry, but the specifics of the studies referenced show you are making false statements. It is amazing that though the studies equivalently say 80% of the people in the US believe in miralces you say, "Nuh uh, nuh-uh, nuh-uh!! They do not!!!"
"Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous."
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The psychologist YOU linked defines your situation as this, again I quote, her own words:
Yet you don't link to a source.
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Now, I repeat, the scientist YOU linked defines your very situation as a mind trick, not psychosis yes but a harmless delusion to say the least. If you don't feel the need to reconsider your certainty on things, even after that, it means that the level of denial you sunk in is beyond any reason's reach.
Yet her article says otherwise.
And you are quite certain there is no God and preach incessantly that God does not exist while condemning others for saying he does.
Clicky
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...There’s an old joke: When you talk to God, we call it prayer, but when God talks to you, we call it schizophrenia.
Except that usually it’s not.
Hearing a voice when alone, or seeing something no one else can see, is pretty common. At least one in 10 people will say they’ve had such an experience if you ask them bluntly. About four in 10 say they have unusual perceptual experiences between sleep and awareness if you interview them about their sleeping habits.
And if you ask them in a way that allows them to admit they made a mistake, the rate climbs even higher. By contrast, schizophrenia, the most debilitating of all mental disorders, is pretty rare. Only about one in 100 people can be diagnosed with the disorder.
....
Indeed, in 1999, Gallup reported that 23% of all Americans had heard a voice or seen a vision in response to prayer.
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This is important, because often, when voices are discussed in the media or around the kitchen table, the voices are treated unequivocally as symptoms of madness. And of course, voice-hearing is associated with psychiatric illness.
But not all the time. In fact, not most of the time.
About a third of the people I interviewed carefully at the church where I did research reported an unusual sensory experience they associated with God. While they found these experiences startling, they also found them deeply reassuring.
Science cannot tell us whether God generated the voice that Abraham or Augustine heard. But it can tell us that many of these events are normal, part of the fabric of human perception. History tells us that those experiences enable people to choose paths they should choose, but for various reasons they hesitate to choose.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 23, 2013 06:08 AM |
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Until someone explains me why amputees are never healed, no matter how devout they are, I think I would stick to my previous belief: praying is useless and it delivers only self psychological solace.
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted July 23, 2013 09:32 AM |
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Salamandre said:
I would stick to my previous belief: praying is useless and it delivers only self psychological solace.
Sal,never heard of the proverb that God helps those who help themselves? 
And there are reasons not only in this thread that prayer works.
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2013 09:48 AM |
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Elodin said:
What you mean is that you, as a limited human being who lives only in the present and has an extremely small knowledge of what is going on even around him, can't know what is in the future. God does not share your human limitations. He exists in every point in the space-time continuum and transcends it. God's knowledge of your choices in no way implies you don't make your own choices.
"Every point in the space-time continuum" sounds rather impressive, but I wonder whether you really grasp the consequences of what you are proposing.
If you allow me to digress a moment - if you watch or read SF with time travel involved or clairvoyance (somewhat the same thing), the older versions simply assume that past and future some...time exist and time is a dimension matter can travel through. This will imply an "existence" of "a" or "the" (specific) future.
In more modern versions this is given a broader and more interesting form. Here, when time travelling into the future, the travel is done into a POSSIBLE BUT NOT DEFINITE future: generally it's assumed that it's something like a random probability pick of one out of a myriad of possible futures.
If you can actually visit them, you are still a being from out of a DEFINITE present with a DEFINITE past in a MANIFEST POSSIBLE future.
That in turn would assume, that since the start of said "space-time continuum" every for every increment of time - the Planck time - there will be an infinite number of different futures that MUST BE MANIFEST SOMEHOW (otherwise we couldn't visit them).
Now, in the stories it's always humans that do the travelling - here it is God that supposedly is at every point of the space-time continuum.
However, you basically have two choices now how to play this out.
a) There is only ONE of these. This reduces our reality to a mere movie. It's not we, that walk through an environment that we change, it's not us that make decisions - no, THE ONE AND ONLY FUTURE is manifest somewhere, which means, we are all acting out what has been determined already at the birth of our universe. Our decision are based on free will only because of ... ignorance of what we will decide (Remember: the future must be manifest in the same wav than past and present, otherwise God can't be at every "point" of it - where there is NOTHING, even God can't be.)
b) It's not ONE space-time continuum, it's a myriad of a myriad of a myriad ones. Every little decision, random or deliberate made anywhere anyhow creates more universes - the reason is the same: to KNOW them, the complete web of all possible universes must be manifest and God must be in all of them and in every point. This would in fact save his omniscience. Everything possible would happen somewhere, but of course this would mean that somewhere there was a space-time continuum where Eve did NOT pluck the apple, where Jesus did NOT want to die at the cross, where God did not send the flood - because if there was a less than a 100% chance for things to happen, "the other possible things" would have happened as well and created their own manifest futures from there on.
So THIS would mean, that everything POSSIBLE has happened, does happen and will happen, and we are here all following just one of an infinite number of possible futures.
Which means, you can have omniscience AND free will, but I'm not all that sure that you really like option b).
Me, I don't like either of them.
Now, I can't say that I'm myself thrilled about living in such a vast universe. In earlier times some people wanted to reach the world's end, see the borders of their realm, and later others went on to explore a suddenly rounded world, amazed how vast the oceans were.
At this time, I'm not amazed about the vastness of the universe, I'm absolutely flabbergasted. Perplexed. I have no realistic hope to actually understand the general environment my existence takes place in. I actually don't see a good reason for the vastness of the universe. There is an event horizon - for us who have to observe things, there is maximum distance that we will EVER be able to observe, because the universe is expanding: everything moves away from each other, so distances will get always bigger, and what is beyond a certain limit can't EVER reach us - provided things don't contract again.
Why is that? If we consider option b), which would create ENDLESS, INFINITE new universes, what reason can there be to make things bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more and more?
There are interesting ideas in combination with the so-called
Bose-Einstein condensate
To make matters short - and simplified for better understanding - I like the theory that we are "surrounded" (more-than-3-dimensionally) by a BEC. A BEC produces a lot of energy that will cause it to break down - provided it doesn't "get rid" of the energy. This it may do, shedding neutrons - which is where our ever expanding universe come into play, in fact a giant "heat dump". (This would make the big bang basically the start of this specific heat dumb that is constantly expanded by dumping the excessive energy in the form of neutrons.)
The only basic assumption is that Heisenberg was wrong to just "dismiss" the negative solution of Dirac's Wave Equation:
± E = (c2p2 + m2c4)1/2
(all numbers being exponents)
Anyway, what is relevant here, is the BEC with its physically "interesting" (to say the least) properties. God as a BEC? Hmmm.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 23, 2013 09:52 AM |
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ML, never heard. Prayer never works when the only explanation could be god's hand, but only when there may be tens other reasons? No matter how devout you are, you will never get 100$ if you pray for, or get your limbs healed. Never.
But you will believe it worked for some illness, while there could be many other reasons for its cure.
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted July 23, 2013 10:06 AM |
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Sal,I am giving you a small example.
You could pray for a salary raise when you work.
There could be not 10,but 20 other reasons than your prayer for your chef to raise it,but when you receive the 100 $ more than your previous salary,some(I too) may say that prayer helped for it.
You can better try it for your self-pray for a small sum of money.
But I think for you to see the effects,it should be a little more than the salary you receive now.
For example if you pray for extra students to teach music to,you could be given the extra students plus the extra sums of money you would receive from them.
Sal,for more info about how and why prayer works,you could read and learn more about John Kehoe.
____________
"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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Drakon-Deus
Undefeatable Hero
Qapla'
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posted July 23, 2013 10:18 AM |
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Some people will never believe God is real, they'll always find another explanation. That's because God has hidden the truth from them. That's the only explanation.
____________
Horses don't die on a dog's wish.
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Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
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posted July 23, 2013 10:32 AM |
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ML, no way. If your salary is a fixed amount (not private area), you can pray for 10 days, it will never change.
DD, I was asking an explanation from those who believe, not from those who don't. Now tell me why god can heal cancer through prayer but can never restore limbs. Are amputees discriminated by god?
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master_learn
Legendary Hero
walking to the library
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posted July 23, 2013 10:39 AM |
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Sal,then you don't have to pray for something which you don't think will change.
Pray for a reasonable (at the begining small to see it work)sum of money and it will inevitably come in your pocket.
The small size is to not invite greed in the equation.
If you invite greed,you won't be objective anymore.
____________
"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2013 10:46 AM |
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So now there are "rules for successful prayer" now?
#1 DO NOT BE GREEDY
Which would mean, if someone lost a limb, praying for it to regrow would be greedy; instead you should pray for a nice artificial one, not too costly, fitting will and no phantom pains?
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