Belief Versus The Scientific Method

There are only thousands of gods within human imaginations. And in case you ask, Yes! I happened to pick or be picked by the One exception. Perhaps it is an empty opinion, only because objective evidence is not yet possible.And before you mock me for claiming to know the One God, ask yourself why any God is possible, pick one blindfolded, and then ask whether or not you choose to believe your pick is likely or unlikely.

Phat already answered that one in his Message 90: "Points refuted a thousand times." Basically, creationists are apparently incapable (or unwilling) to learn and keep coming back with the same tired old false claims that have been refuted to their faces so many times that, cumulatively, "a thousand times" would be a gross underestimate. Seriously, I have personally witnessed creationists who, after a point was refuted so completely and utterly to the point that the creationist himself had to admit it was false, would then continue to use that exact same false claim (that he himself had admitted was false), thus constituting deliberate lying (at least in my book).Elsewhere, I don't remember an exact phrase but the gist is that it's like trying to kill the undead, that no matter how many times you kill a false claim it just keeps coming back to life and you end up having to refute over and over and over again ad infinitum.Here's a science v. creationism insight. In science when something is found to be false, there are papers published which establish that fact and, ideally, that old false claim is dropped and no longer taught (though there can be some inertia in the system that requires older proponents of that false idea to eventually die out). Such a system does not exist in creationism. Creationism not only doesn't care to test any of its claims, but when a claim is actually found and acknowledged to be false, it still does not get removed from the creationist literature.Case in point is Dr. Henry Morris' repeating of Harold Slusher's false claim about moon dust (which I very strongly suspect Slusher had himself gotten from yet another unknown creationist via handwritten notes since Slusher had misinterpreted "Volume 11" (eleven) as "Volume II" (Roman numeral two)). I did original research into this claim (see my page, MOON DUST) though a couple astronomers published first (no biggie).The thing is that Dr. H. Morris had published that false claim in his book, Scientific Creationism (2nd Ed). Since then, the ICR and Answers in Genesis have both done their best to back away from that moon dust argument, but Dr. H. Morris' Scientific Creationism (2nd Ed) is still in print as the latest edition and is still, I would assume, widely read by budding young creationists.To put that into more practical terms, we have a situation that P.T. Barnum described as a "sucker born every minute". There's an almost steady stream of new converts entering into fundamentalist Christianity (ie, while that movement is hemorrhaging those children born into the faith fleeing that faith for the psychological damage it does, it tries to keep its numbers stable by recruitment through proselytizing).The ultimate problem is that the creationist literature never ever corrects itself. Many creationist claims date back around 1980. While those claims have been refuted soundly, none of those refutations appear in the creationist literature. Indeed, the most common creationist refrain is (paraphrasing) "None of these challenges to evolution have ever been answered by scientists." Oh yes they have been answered! But like the antepenultimate fake news source, "FOX 'News'", the creationists just refuse to publish what scientists actually have to say about your false claims, thus deceiving you. Here's a signature fragment of mine from a novel: Regardless of whether the supernatural actually exists or not, you will always have those individuals who will create gods and then try to convince you of their own personal interpretations, their "own personal heresies."Do I really need to spell it out for you?

Look at what you wrote.You actually provided a definition for the first symbol but instead of just stopping you went one and refuted the definition given and supported the fact that the symbol is just a human creation.Look at the sentence that followed the definition.Then look at your response to the next two symbols where you admit that in both cases the symbol simply represents what the user thinks it means. The last two symbols are exactly like "apple". For one person it is a red fruit, another it is yellow, another it is multicolored, another it is sweet, another it is tart, another it is soft, another it is crisp, another a computer, another it is tiny while another it is large.That is exactly like all of the God & gods ever discussed.Look at the Bible.The God of Genesis 1 is totally different than the God of Genesis 2 & 3 or the God of Exodus or the God described by Jesus in Luke.The God of the Old Testament and of the glorious Qur'an never has a son except where the authors of the New Testament stories imagined that He did.You worship the "God" that you imagine. If you stop at the point where your definition is "the creator of all, seen and unseen" you at least can have a symbol that can be defined. But you don't stop there and insist on adding attributes, often mutually exclusive attributes.That would be fine as long as you were also conscious of the fact that what you have done is create a symbol of your own imagination.

Sure; please always spell things out.Who knows who might read it.

According to Michael Egnor, black holes are supernatural entities.
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And vice versa, a belief is but an empty opinion, like one's favorite flavor of ice cream. But we shouldn't "rely" on them. They're not reliable. That's what I've been telling you for years. Either would be preferable to an empty believer.

Yup. That's the only place there are any. Even IF there is a creator of all thigs seen and unseen, there is no way for anybody to know anything about him/her/it. Everything you think you know about him/her/it is the product of human imagination. That's what YOU should be doing.

Did it ever occur to any of you that this mysterious "God" whom we speak of would allow us to know?

Don't assume that nothing occurs to anybody but you.

But read beyond where the carny conmen stop.

quote:

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25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

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The Jews of Jesus day assumed that this mysterious "God" whom we speak of would allowed them to know.Jesus pointed out that they assumed too much.You commit the same silly error; you assume the God you create actually talks jess to those gathered in your synagogue.The pitiful apologists always stop at verse 24 and so totally miss the actual meaning of the passage. Edited by jar, : fix quote box

So you have thought about it. I can see this line of thought. First of all lets get one thing clear. The God I create exists even if I never existed. That, my friend, is not an empty belief nor simply a subjective opinion.IF A Creator of all seen and unseen exists and IF Jesus represents His identity with humanity, then GOD exists. And no, I do not believe that only those in the synagogue are able to have Holy Communion. You yourself have said before that Matthew 25 supports the atheists and "other" religions as much as accepting Jesus, getting saved, and actualizing a daily homage to God. You and ringo cant simply use the silly argument of (insert God of choice here.Subjectivity, though a factor, is not the default for GOD. It only is for us. At the risk of favoring anthropomorphism, I DO think that GOD loves us and favors no human more than another. I dont feel that we are on the same level as pond scum, however.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

I disagree. A belief is not simply a subjective opinion. You seem to think that without evidence beliefs become "empty."The type of evidence which you seek is objective. Right or wrong? Why not? Are you scared that you will become one of jars carny sideshows? Yes, but you continue to try and push the idea that an undefendable idea/belief is no closer to the truth than is a unicorn, a Big-foot, or a Spaghetti Monster. Dont you realize how silly you sound? Lets get back to our hypothetical (for the sake of argument) God. To start with, I will first move that this God should be known also as Jesus. Any objections?
If so.... It is pretty clear why you stopped believing. You preferred honest unbelief over what you call empty belief. But you should not then lump every single believer (those who chose what you define as empty belief) as engaging in fantasy over reality. There is in my opinion quite a bit of evidence..(however subjective) that Jesus existed and was quite an influential figure in human history. Care to argue that one or can we move on?

If I ask YOU whether you have thought about something, it's because you've said something that indicates you haven't thought about it. For example, I have to wonder if you have really thought about the difference between your God and other Gods because you can never give a valid example of the difference. That's just a detail of the story that you made up, like Long John Silver only having one leg. It certainly is. You can't just claim that Long John Silver really did have only one leg even if Robert Louis Stevenson never existed. Of course we can, because you can't show any difference between your made-up god and any other made-up god.

Says your subjective opinion. They don't "become" empty. They start out empty and without evidence they stay empty. ALL evidence is objective. When will you learn that? I've told you many times. Because they disagree with other unevidenced beliefs. And you continue to fail to show that I'm wrong. You're the only one here who sounds silly. If you think there is a difference, you have to show us what the difference is. Of course I have objections. You might as well say that this God should be known also as Holden Caulfield. It's nonsensical. And why would anybody prefer dishonesty? Why not? How is fantasy different from fantasy? No such thing as subjective evidence. Very little evidence. And remember that you reject what the Bible says about Jesus. A fictional character can be influential, especially if people believe he is real. I'll argue it till the cows come home. Why don't you address my arguments?

Uh, what?Uh, you created that god, so if you never existed that god would never have been created. Huh?Again, Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot-Oscar? (the "Oscar" stands for "over", which is used in radio communications) Synagogues engaged in ritual cannibalism? They cannot even tolerate any beef less than well-done (hence kosher salt which is good for drawing blood out of meat). Plus "Holy Communion" refers both to a specifically Christian (not Jewish) and also a mystery religion ritual (also not Jewish) in which worshippers' partaking of the resurrected god's body and/or blood in order to partake in that god's immortality.So why slander Judaism as you have done?