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Author Topic:   People - I /was/ a Christian
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 190 of 307 (421635)
09-13-2007 1:15 PM
Reply to: Message 183 by Hyroglyphx
09-13-2007 7:29 AM


Re: I know about Faith
Indeed God is very clear that a measure of faith is necessary, even vital. But this must first derive from an informed faith.
So what is faith, then? Or perhaps better - what is the opposite of faith? I've long felt that the opposite of faith was not believing in something until you had ample evidence to.
Is that, in your view, incorrect? What is faith, then? What is its opposite?
I think some skepticism is an important aspect of faith.
So why not be skeptical about the whole God thing, as I am? Why not be skeptical about the supposed divinity of the Bible? Of all religions, and their texts?
If skepticism is so important, why refrain from maintaining it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 183 by Hyroglyphx, posted 09-13-2007 7:29 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 191 of 307 (421637)
09-13-2007 1:20 PM
Reply to: Message 185 by AdminPhat
09-13-2007 8:31 AM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
I think that it is time to slow this team of horses down and allow Mr. Crashfrog to restate his Original Point that he wishes this thread to be about.
Basically, just that you can be an ex-Christian and an ex-believer; that the fact that you are not those things now doesn't invalidate the fact that you were those things, back then.
Also I'm still waiting for all my supposed legions of detractors to pop in and tell me what's wrong with me. It's still an open invitation, and I promise not to bite.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 193 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 09-13-2007 3:11 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 197 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-13-2007 4:06 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 204 by Buzsaw, posted 09-13-2007 9:05 PM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 194 of 307 (421651)
09-13-2007 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 193 by Cold Foreign Object
09-13-2007 3:11 PM


Re: Crashfrog is on the Run
You have ran away.
From what? I'm sorry you got lost in the shuffle, but there's not much in your post worth responding to. Somebody who thinks "you're a loser" doesn't constitute a personal attack has bigger problems than my next post, I assure you.
Intelligent persons with God-sense can see how pathetic they are.
Ah, yes. The mythical "God-sense." Is yours tingling?
Let me cover just a few more of your misunderstandings.
First off, you admit to being a Fundamentalist - they aint real Christians. They are legalists who do not understand the gospel, but superimpose Christ ONTO Mosaic law/code of conduct as the way one walks with Christ.
Actually that's exactly what my church preached - "it's not about legalism." "It's about a personal relationship with Jesus." "But also, if you have sex before you're married, you'll burn in hell, slut." (The last is a paraphrase.)
There's no less legalism in the religion you describe. Legalism is inherent to religion; that's what a lot of people want out of it. "How am I supposed to live?"
Are you blind to the contradiction in this statement? If you had really discovered God or like you say "had genuine communion with God" then we would not be having this conversation, would we?
If there really was a God, then no, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's no contradiction. I had the genuine "God" experience. It's just that - the "genuine" article is
But your next comment admits that you were not and did not have "genuine communion with God":
The genuine communion is the delusion. Don't you see? It's not just my experience of God that's invalid; it's yours, too. Because there's no such thing as God.
That's why, in your cowardice, you have to deny everything I'm saying. Because recognizing that my experience is identical to yours means that yours is delusion, too. And you're scared to death of that.
Thus, the personal attacks. Anything you can do to push my argument away. But it's already inside you, CFO, the doubt. I know you feel it. If even Mother Theresa doubted the existence of God, you can't possibly be immune.
What a beacon of hope I found her letters, hope for mankind. In her struggle was the very struggle for humanity. And if even near-sainthood cannot immunize someone from their own good sense, then I have great hope for humanity waking up from millenia of delusion. I have hope even for you, Ray.
This message is a reply to:
 Message 193 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 09-13-2007 3:11 PM Cold Foreign Object has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 217 of 307 (421802)
09-14-2007 3:02 PM
Reply to: Message 212 by anglagard
09-14-2007 1:27 AM


Re: I know about Faith
At the risk of being off topic, I would like to second what Arachnophilia said in this post.
Could you be more specific?
Sorry Crash, you essentially asked if anyone else has the same opinion and I feel I owe you an honest answer based upon my admittedly fallible nature.
You don't have anything to be sorry for, except perhaps not being as clear as you could be. It's not entirely clear to me what you're seconding. In a spirit of friendship, could you be more specific?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 212 by anglagard, posted 09-14-2007 1:27 AM anglagard has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 220 of 307 (421805)
09-14-2007 3:17 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by macaroniandcheese
09-13-2007 4:06 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
absolutely. but i'd argue that it's also possible to be an ex-atheist and an ex-unbeliever and that the fact that you are not those things now doesn't invalidate the fact that you were those things, back then.
I agree completely. Did I imply otherwise? If I did it was certainly unintended.
and at the same time you scream at them because their experience isn't valuable because they can't understand you and that they are intellectually or spiritually inferior because they fail to be what you are.
I can't be an atheist for just me, Brenn. That doesn't make any sense. God either exists or doesn't. If there's no God, then by definition, any experience of God is inauthentic.
To the extent that I'm rejecting someone else's experience, I'm doing so because there's an objective reality that their experience contradicts. A surgeon who claims to have experienced that the position of the average human spleen is located where it says "lungs" on the anatomy chart is just plain wrong, and it's not wrong for the state medical board to reject his application for licensure because he's intent on denying physical reality.
Believers aren't wrong because I'm an atheist. Believers are wrong for the same reason that I'm an atheist - there is, in all likelihood, no such things as Gods. There's a big difference.
it's an untenable and wretched position, this "i'm right and you suck because you don't agree with me" position, no matter what side it's fought from.
Somebody has to be right. The thing about the existence of God is that there's an excluded middle - God either exists, or doesn't. He can't not-exist for me and exist for you. One of us has to be wrong.
And it's you. There's no such things as Gods. I don't think "you suck" because you're wrong. I don't think any less of you for believing. I don't think knowing one thing that you don't know makes me better than you, or anybody else. I have contempt for religion, but not automatically for its adherents. Of course, some people can't help but take criticism of their religion personally. I can't help that.
And occasionally I am contemptful of individual religious people, but that's as a result of their behavior, not their religion.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 197 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-13-2007 4:06 PM macaroniandcheese has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 222 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-14-2007 3:31 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 230 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 4:51 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 225 of 307 (421817)
09-14-2007 4:19 PM
Reply to: Message 222 by macaroniandcheese
09-14-2007 3:31 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
the sum of your posts on this thread (and throughout the board) express your opinion that anyone with any variety of religious belief or faith is completely delusional or perhaps suffers from some variety of cognitive ddisability.
So what you're saying is, no, I didn't say that.
Look, if you're determined to read my posts hearing dripping contempt for the intellectual capacity of the religious that just isn't there, I can't convince you otherwise. My denials will only increase your certainty. And, of course, you and Arach will feed off each other, reinforcing your shared bias.
in all likelihood is not enough for you to declare them wrong.
Are you saying that, if I don't know everything, I don't know anything? How can you live with that kind of paralyzing fear of uncertainty?
Of course "in all likelihood" is enough certainty for me to know that, almost certainly, you're wrong. It's certainly enough certainty for arriving at any other practical conclusion.
It's just that, some people like you have a kind of intellectual timidity about God, and so you act like he gets different rules. I don't see why that's true. It's more than enough certainty to disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster, why wouldn't it be enough for God?
i'm not so sure.
You're not sure that something has to either exist or not exist? Seriously?
Why aren't you sure?
that claim is not supported by how you respond to believers on this board and specifically in this thread.
No, that claim is not supported by you choosing to read into my posts contempt that isn't usually there. We address arguments on this board, and some arguments are so stupid I'm contemptuous of them. If you're not paying closely enough to tell the difference, then obviously you come to mistaken conclusions about my intent.
My claim [i]is supported by how I treat believers on this board. I've, many times, voiced my respect for NJ as a person. I've both praised and criticized Buzsaw for his fruity ideas about food but his excellent recipes. Schraf and I had a great disagreement once about what "atheism" means, and who agnostics were, but my respect for her as a person couldn't be more obvious. I complimented Faith on numerous occasions for the positive contributions and interesting questions she raised. There's been a whole series of believers who have come and gone who I have showered praise and respect on for the positive qualities that I saw in them. I've complemented people's jokes. I've thanked them for honesty when they shared difficult personal stories.
It's hilariously wrong for you and others to say that I have "respect for nobody" when I've often voiced my respect for my ideological foes. More often that my peers, in fact. Just because someone is making a stupid argument over there doesn't mean we all have to be uncivil in another context.
But, of course, you don't fucking remember any of that. It's just easier to think of Crash as the asshole who never has anything good to say about anybody, because it makes it easier to ignore what I'm saying. Never mind how frustrating it is for me to never, ever be remembered for any good thing I've said about anybody.
I'm sure you think I'm being an asshole now. Well, now I am, because you're the second person to act like I'm some kind of hateful imp, and it's bullshit. It's 100% bullshit. It's just an intellectual cruch the two of you use, and you should get over it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 222 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-14-2007 3:31 PM macaroniandcheese has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 228 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-14-2007 4:31 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 226 of 307 (421819)
09-14-2007 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 223 by Cold Foreign Object
09-14-2007 3:52 PM


Re: Trapped By His Own Argument
The logical flaws are self-evident: he could not have been a "real Christian" if Christ and/or God do not exist?
There's no contradiction. To be a real Christian is to have deluded oneself into belief in God - as opposed to a fake Christian, who proclaims a belief in God he does not feel to fit in with his peers. (I was one of those too, for a while, near the end.)
There's no such thing as a real Christian in real communion with God, because there's no such thing as God.
How does the Bible explain Crashfrog's admitted delusion?
The writers of the Bible weren't stupid. Naturally, they included verses you could use to mentally inoculate yourself from the testimony of ex-believers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 223 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 09-14-2007 3:52 PM Cold Foreign Object has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 249 by Cold Foreign Object, posted 09-15-2007 1:54 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 229 of 307 (421826)
09-14-2007 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 228 by macaroniandcheese
09-14-2007 4:31 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
i said that a lack of positive evidence prevents a positive conclusion.
But it doesn't prevent a strong conclusion. It doesn't prevent a confident conclusion. It only prevents an absolute conclusion, which I'm hardly asserting.
to them, they have every reason to believe that light and color are delusions.
Nonsense. If the color-blind wanted to honestly test if color-perception was actually possible, they might assemble a series of objects, and then, individually, ask color-sighted persons to identify the color.
If everybody who claimed to see color saw the same colors, that would be evidence that color-perception was actually an existing sense that some people had.
On the other hand, with 30,000 different sects of Christianity alone, it's abundantly obvious that everybody who claims to "experience God" experiences something completely different. Some people who pray for God's guidance conclude that homosexuals should not be tolerated. Some conclude that God has no opinion. Some conclude that God expects tolerance of all human beings.
Oddly enough, when people pray to God to guide their attitudes on any subject, they invariably find that God agrees with whatever attitude they already had. Invariably, everybody who hears God speak hears a different voice. That's indicative of delusion, not of a shared objective reality that I'm just not capable of seeing.
i said that you have claimed in this thread that faith and belief are delusions and those who hold them are delusional.
Just the first part. I've never said the second. And it's a violation of forum guidelines to accuse me of statements I haven't made. Belief in God is a delusion, by definition. Like belief that one is Napoleon Buonaparte when one is not.
Does that mean that the religious are delusional? No, I don't think it does. I think that this is a delusion that normal human beings are susceptible to. It's hardly likely that we evolved to be completely resistant to any sort of irrational thinking.
I don't think any less of the religious because I think less of religion. Indeed, I try to follow the only Christian principle I ever particularly liked - "hate the sin, love the sinner." Someone's religion doesn't obviate all the other positive characteristics that they may have.
i've tried very hard to avoid those particular sentiments in my posts
Oh, right Brenna, I forgot. You're the very soul of temperance and patience. I wasn't going to bring it up but come the fuck on - you have to realize how ridiculous it is for you of all people to complain about the contempt that I sometimes show. Is there anybody at all, besides Arach, at this board who you're not dripping with contempt for? You'd never know it from your posts.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 228 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-14-2007 4:31 PM macaroniandcheese has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 231 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 5:15 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 236 by macaroniandcheese, posted 09-14-2007 6:28 PM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 232 of 307 (421831)
09-14-2007 5:20 PM
Reply to: Message 230 by arachnophilia
09-14-2007 4:51 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
so you want, basically, to spread what you feel is the truth?
Arguments that convince myself do me no good if I keep them to myself. It's only in pitting them against others that their weaknesses, if any, are revealed. I talk about atheism because I want to hear the responses, because I'm under the impression that the existence of God and the validity of religion is an issue that's important.
Sometimes it takes me a while to realize I've been convinced. You may yet convince me in the Sodom thread. I'm still thinking about everything you've said - even the stuff you think I haven't read. You convinced me, all those years ago, in the "Gender of Objects" thread, if not completely; it took me a long time to absorb what you had said, and it inculcated an interest in feminist thought that persists to this day. And a wider understanding of the phenomenon of gender.
Of course, doubtless you'll simply interpret these remarks as me being an asshole, yet again. It's beyond possibility, I suspect, that I can ever convince you of anything but the most devious and degenerate intent on my part.
your analogy applies very well to creationists in the geosciences... but not so much to philosophical questions.
I don't think the existence of God is a philosophical question. I think it's every bit as practical a question as any in the geosciences. If an interventionist God exists, that has practical consequences in reality that we can look for - and, suspiciously, have never found.
that's just what brenna said to me earlier this afternoon.
So, what you're saying is, if I had tits, this thread would be 50 messages shorter? (That's a joke.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 230 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 4:51 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 235 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 6:25 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 233 of 307 (421832)
09-14-2007 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 231 by arachnophilia
09-14-2007 5:15 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
i actually had a problem in my color theory class, because i couldn't see a color illusion i was supposed to duplicate. when you make a huge swath of a color, and then put a neutral gray square in it, it's supposed to appear slightly tinted with the compliment of the color of the surrounding, even if it's pure neutral gray. i don't see it, and i'm the only person the professor has ever taught that didn't. where everyone say a slightly blue square in the orange, i saw only gray.
curiously, i knew i was right, because i knew how i mixed my paint. that square was absolutely neutral gray, just like i saw it. everyone else was "deluded."
So, what you're saying is - you were in a situation where everybody perceived something you knew was illusionary...
...and you think that undermines my position? Would it have been as invalid for you to insist that the square really was gray and that everyone else was mistaken... or deluded... as you now insist it is for me?
Why the double standard? If you can be so sure that everyone else is mistaken, is suffering from an illusion, why can't I?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 231 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 5:15 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 234 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 6:14 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 238 of 307 (421901)
09-14-2007 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 234 by arachnophilia
09-14-2007 6:14 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
i'm sorry, did you assume i was arguing against you?
Yeah, I did. From context, it seemed like you were presenting an example in rebuttal.
Was I mistaken? Never mind, if so.
i talked to the store manager, and she treated me like i was insane. no one else had ever complained, she said. the one time a customer could hear, i got him to complain -- manager yelled at me, like i somehow made someone else crazy too. i couldn't be crazy, i knew a few other people that could hear it too (brenna could, some of my family could). but everyone there thought i was positively nuts until it got so loud they could hear it too.
I get that too. My TV has a failing flyback transformer, and the coil oscillation noise is mind-shattering, sometimes - but my wife can barely hear it, and neither my parents nor hers hear it at all. (Deafness runs in her family to some degree. No one's ever lived long enough in mine for us to know.)
An interesting aside, but again, in each case there exist tools that would have allowed you to demonstrate, without a doubt, that it wasn't just a matter of perception of subjective reality - that there was actually an objective reality that you were accurately perceiving and others were not. A simple spectrum analyzer would have shown a loud sound up around the 20 kHz range in your department store. A spectrometer would have shown the precise frequency of reflected light reflecting off your grey square.
The fact that humans differ in perceptive ability doesn't impeach the fact that there is an objective reality out there that it's possible to be wrong about. The fact that blind people exist doesn't mean that there's no such thing as light. On the flip side of the coin, the fact that people experience cotton-candy clouds and rivers of lemonade in their dreams doesn't mean that the Big Rock Candy Mountain is an actual place.
Your examples are interesting, but they don't impeach the conclusions I've already arrived at. We're not talking about detecting sounds at the extreme range of human hearing. We're talking about the existence of an infinitely creative and benevolent force who, if it existed, would profoundly change the face of the universe.
(That's not so much a refutation of your point as it is an attempt to draw all this back onto topic.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 234 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 6:14 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 240 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 12:22 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 239 of 307 (421903)
09-14-2007 11:45 PM
Reply to: Message 235 by arachnophilia
09-14-2007 6:25 PM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
i think we'll both fight just for the sake of the fight, but the learning takes a while to set in.
I clearly have a lot less interest in the eternal struggle than you. I'm all for debate but when parties are at loggerheads, I'd like it to come to an end before the really nasty attacks start happening. You know?
what if god does not intervene in any appreciable way?
Then who gives a shit about him? We might as well all just be atheists if we're saddled with a do-nothing God. What's the difference?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 235 by arachnophilia, posted 09-14-2007 6:25 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 241 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 12:25 AM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 242 of 307 (421913)
09-15-2007 12:32 AM
Reply to: Message 240 by arachnophilia
09-15-2007 12:22 AM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
but ockham's razor doesn't say the small variables eliminated for the sake of simplicity don't exist.
I'm not saying that's how it works.
But the things that people make up in their imagination don't tend to exist, as a rule. If the only way to "know" anything about this supposed "God" is to just use your imagination, then that's a pretty strong indication that "God" is simply fantasy.
There's no conceivable way within our power to disprove a teapot orbiting Alpha Centuari. But the fact there's no reason to believe that there is such a teapot is a very strong indication that any teapots so in orbit are simply figments of our imagination.
Nonexistence is the "default" position in such cases. The position of nonexistence is always supported over existence when there's an absolute lack of evidence.
And honestly, you should know better. How many times around here have you heard people say that the burden of evidence is on those who propose the existence of something? Did you just not believe them? Surely this isn't the first time you've heard of this principle. If we're talking about a God who never takes action and is therefore completely undetectable, what possible reason is there to believe in that God? From what possible basis might anyone assert his existence, besides their own imagination? And why would we believe in a figment of someone's imagination? Just making things up is rarely a path to truth.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 240 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 12:22 AM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 243 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 12:45 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 244 of 307 (421915)
09-15-2007 1:02 AM
Reply to: Message 243 by arachnophilia
09-15-2007 12:45 AM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
well, is it objective reality, or not?
Not, obviously. Why would we believe that it is if we're talking about something that can only be "known" by making things up about it?
yet quarks are real, and we can appreciate the effects today, and tests can be formulated and executed. but 200 years ago, it would have just been "imagination."
Quarks were not imagined until there was a need for them, to explain observation.
It's like you're thinking backwards on this, Arach. You're starting by just assuming what you want to be true - even if it's just to have the discussion - and then wondering if our positions change reality.
How does that make any sense? The question is, does God exist or not? The way we answer doesn't change his existence; rather, his existence or non-existence should change how we answer.
But that doesn't happen if you're just using your imagination. Unless you're looking at the evidence, God's existence or non-existence would have no effect on whether or not you come to the conclusion he exists.
Do you see what I'm saying? The power of the imagination is that it can imagine anything at all. It's not limited to what is true. Since it's unlimited in that regard, it, by itself, is not a path to truth.
er, no, on the contrary. it's always the path to truth -- at least one step of it.
Uh, I did say "just making things up", as in making things up and stopping, not making things up and then doing hypothesis testing against the physical evidence.
While imagination is clearly integral to the forming of scientific models, it's not a substitute for doing so. Imagination's power must be restrained by hypothesis testing if it's to guide us to truth.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 243 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 12:45 AM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 245 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 1:21 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 246 of 307 (421925)
09-15-2007 1:46 AM
Reply to: Message 245 by arachnophilia
09-15-2007 1:21 AM


Re: Runaway Train of thought!
obviously it doesn't exist, because you can see no effect of it in your subjective perceptions, and i don't own a spectrum analyzer required to prove it to you.
It wouldn't be unreasonable of me to disbelieve you until one was produced. And it would be pretty ridiculous not to produce one if the stakes of the argument rose to the level of the theism dispute. And indeed, if the spectrum analyzer showed nothing, that would be a mark against your position. Of course, it could be broken. If a second and third failed to detect the sound, a diagnosis of tinnitus on your part would become increasingly reasonable.
That's what it means to be a "skeptic." These questions aren't rendered undecidable by the subjectivity of experience.
one of us is wrong, objectively. the problem is, with only subjective ways to approach the problem, how do you say one way or the other objectively?
Suppose someone maintains the existence of the teapot in orbit. I maintain the non-existence.
Are you saying that, with absolutely no evidence for that teapot, both positions are equally likely? That doesn't make any sense. The way we determine the answer objectively is to look at the evidence. And the conspicuous lack of evidence supports the atheist's position.
but what's to say the crazy person who hears god is actually crazy?
You mean, besides the fact that he has a medically-diagnosed mental illness? See above where we covered replicating experiences. It's a characteristic of fictional or illusional experiences that individual accounts differ dramatically when people don't have a chance to confer. Don't make me repeat what I said about 30,000 Christian sects, etc.
indeed. what test can be proposed here?
Defining "God" in such a way that no test is possible doesn't help anything. Just because you (you, generally, "theists", not you specifically Arach) invalidate hypothesis testing by gaming the definition doesn't mean that you've established the veracity of pure imagination.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 245 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 1:21 AM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 247 by arachnophilia, posted 09-15-2007 5:21 AM crashfrog has replied

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