Peanut Gallery

You got that right!
That is why Straggler's and bluegenes' hypothetical imagined beings are off topic.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I'm sorry. I missed that. Where did he concede that? I was under the impression that he was arguing there could be 3, or 4, maybe even more? Look, I may be 5.7 on the Dawkins scale, but I know that there are some people who have "experienced shit that they would never deny". Is it scientific peer-reviewed object evidence? NO.RE: the Yucatan meteor - I must concede that although this is not imagined or directly experienced, it is not supernatural either, so it is irrelevant to the issue. No...............................but again, it is not the job of RAZD to support some kind of "counter-theory" here. It is bluegenes who must support his "theory". And the worst of it is that I am firmly on bluegenes' side when looking at the gist of his conclusion. But when he goes about it in a clumsy way and my brother nails him for that, then I have to be family tight here.Again, I will repeat: science is done by measuring things to collect data. It is not done in the comfort of an armchair, perhaps accompanied by a fine glass of cognac, maybe a good cigar if you go that way, or a lovely lady draped around you, if you go that way. No. You have to go out into the field and collect data. You have to calibrate your measuring equipment against all manner of known ways that any kind of bias can creep into your investigation and then measure that data. You have to get your fingers dirty (forget about that woman draped over your knee for a moment). Then you have to demonstrate that the data supports your theory.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Thanks Coyote. Thank you. BTW I love coyotes. In my area of the country, they have detected a mingling of wolf genes! The guys out back are running up to 50-55 pounds and looking a lot like wolves - wolves are very intelligent. Oh - and, also, there is not a single archaeologist I know of who has done me wrong.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

BZZZZZZT!!!That is not the correct evidence. Then E. coli would be smarter than Coyotes. Cockroaches. Ants.I might agree with you only because I am ill informed about the differences between wolves and coyotes. But I have seen how wolves are very smart and could easily transfer this to the coyote, who had to survive much more in the hard bullets, chemicals, traps and all of the ways humans have been over the years than the wolf - who was driven outright from his home at the beginning. The wily coyote has learned to keep it cool on a certain level.But I am a romantic when it all comes down. No scientist here.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

And Modulous has also concurred.But just a moment....Suppose your 4 dudes had met this really nice ordinary real guy who was also wise in his ways, and they told another 16 dudes at length about him, perhaps just misstating the details so slightly they weren't aware they were doing that. Then those 16 dudes told another 64 dudes and dudettes the story but couldn't remember it exactly, so they may have glossed over some portions, embellished others and then those 64 dudes and dudettes told 256 other dudes and dudettes. And so on.By the time it gets written down on Dead Sea scrolls and in bibles, the supernatural aspects of Jesus have crept in without a conscious effort of any one person. Were any of these aspects experienced by the original 4 dudes? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know. Did Jesus himself make any of his story up? Was he mentally delusional about the facts of his own life but able to convince the original 4 dudes? Were any of the people who passed the story on through the ages delusional? Were any of these aspects figments of human imagination? Most likely, but which ones? We do not know. So the original source of the Jesus' supernaturalness is still not scientifically known and therefore isn't yet ready to be tested by bluegenes theory.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Thank you. He does seem to couch it in a conditional way and you snipped off an unimportant "but" clause.However, let's move on.
Again, thanks.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

OR these dudes met and really experienced an ordinary mortal man who was cool and they liked him and started telling others who later on added the supernatural things (things like virgin birth, fishes/loaves, walking on water, Lazarus, Easter Resurrection),OR these dudes made up only some of those things about him and others were added later,OR these dudes experienced only some of those things and the others were made up about him later,OR they experienced some and made up others and more were experienced or made up later by others,OR they experienced some and others were actually experienced later.See? There are more than just 2 possibilities, not that it matters, because right now they ALL fall into the category of "We don't know".I suppose the only permutation that wouldn't make any sense would be that the 4 dudes made him up and then later others had real experiences with him.The original source of the supernatural Jesus story was probably not a single First Event in time, like Modulous put it. And before you claim that all additions to the story after these original 4 dudes described him for others - have to be, say, by something as trivial as by definition, made up, it might be that later on real experiences with the supernatural Jesus story occurred, as well as later embellishments of pure imagination. We don't know. The evidence is not available.The closer we get to the present timeline, the easier it is to investigate. The Shroud of Turin has been determined to not be a real Jesus story experience, but it took some scientific investigative work to determine that, preserving bluegenes' theory. Imagine other stuff attributed to the Jesus story dating from 100 A.D. - I am no scholar on the Jesus story, but there may have been many other little "miracle" stories along the way that cannot be scientifically investigated anymore and are thus forever consigned to the Unknown bin. My opinion is that they were all made up, either by crooks who wanted rip off others or by genuine psychotic delusions, but that is only my opinion. I do not know of any scientific evidence either way for the rest of these.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

OKAY OKAY already! Let's cut right to the chase now...the big enchilada.I'll do it:=======> Jesus Christ

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

But that is NOT the hypothesis, RAZD.The hypothesis is that when you are able to make the source of a supernatural being KNOWN, that it turns out to always (so far) to be a product of human imagination. And by KNOWN, I think we can all agree that this means a scientific peer-reviewed investigation.bluegenes claims that, so far, all the scientific peer-reviewed investigations of the original source of any supernatural being done to date have resulted in the conclusion that human imagination is the source. Well - of course, but that is not what is going on here.It may be demonstrated later on down this road that, by the very nature of scientific peer-reviewed investigational procedure, the only cases that can even structurally fall into consideration are in fact only those cases where it can be demonstrated to be human imagination, accounting for the purported 100% success rate of the "theory". This would indeed have a built-in defect of forcing the innocent scientists in question to be forced into affirming the consequent, beyond their ability to avoid it. But this may not turn out to be so.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

I stand corrected, however.... Ah, but he does immediately after state this: Since then, Modulous has further clarified this to be the Original Source of the supernatural beings, so as to dismiss 2nd hand & third hand stories of imperfect transmission, such as "My late Grandfather claims to have really, beyond all shadow of a doubt, to have seen a ghost in the attic in his old home more than once". None of the above...you just shrug & wait, accepting that you don't know. Seems the only instance listed so far is my listing of the FSM. UNFORTUNATELY!Making something up and then claiming and demonstrating it is made up is the epitomy of stupidity in this issue. It's like invading Iraq after 9/11.bluegenes theory boils down to this: Every supernatural being that we can show has been made up is made up.Whoop-ti-doo. Color me unimpressed.And then he doesn't even provide a single peer-reviewed example.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Oh, don't be so stuffy & pedantic. Aint you never done seen no way he aint never gonna do none of that?
ONCE AGAIN - IT IS NOT UP TO RAZD TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION!!

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HE DID NOT PROPOSE THE THEORY!!!
GEE WHIZ!

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IT IS bluegenes WHO MUST ANSWER TO THOSE KIND OF QUESTIONS!!!! I'm also hoping you don't, right now, also now invent some kind of imaginary friend and then demonstrate that, hey, he is imaginary!....

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Yes. All true. - But.So - it seems we, RAZD, bluegenes, Onifre, Straggler, Catholic Scientist, Rahvin, you & me, have not all agreed on what a supernatural entity is.Just what is a supernatural being/entity/event? Well, it apparently cannot be defined as something that cannot be explained away as human imagination, or bluegenes would be saying nothing. Is it something not yet explainable by the current laws of physics? No, because then we could cite any scientific explanations of previously unexplainable things as falsifications of bluegenes theory. It has to be something in between...similar to the phrase "I'll know it when I see it!"Consider the concept of a biographical story. The story could originally intend to only have elements of reality. At various points in the development of the story, fictional elements creep in. At some point in the development of the story it becomes defined for the rest of us as a supernatural being story, when the being does something or is given an ability that is supernatural.I can guess that RAZD was assuming any of the commonly known supernatural entities out of the past historical record. Like the Thor out of the old Norse religion system, not like the Thor out of the Marvel Comic book world.I can only conjecture that RAZD's lament, about there not being a single shred of evidence, refers only to those sorts of supernatural beings, although - admittedly - he did start the whole shebang off with the obviously fictional IPU. (However, it must be added that this was only to see what kind of methodology bluegenes was planning on using when the Big Guns were eventually brought up - it was, as they call it in Go, a sacrifice stone - a yosu miru.)Ah well. Can the original source of any supernatural being story of historical significance by determined? 10% of them? 40%?

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Maybe he was just fucking lucky? Hey - how many delusionary people are there in recorded history? What are the odds that one of them made a lucky guess?BUT- Pangaea was not the initial condition, as bluegenes has already pointed out - so even though this guy made a statement that later was shown to have been true in the past, it was not true in the past before that.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

The picture of the desk could be photoshopped.... "what's essentially true is virtual reality. technology to wipe out the truth is now available. not everybody can afford it but it's available. when the cost comes down look out!" - b.dylan, liner notes to World Gone Wrong, 1993

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Hey, I'm 5.7d. I dont think there is anything.HOWEVER - just to throw some red meat onto the pile, YEAH: Jesus ChristI am certain there are some here in EvC who would argue that he is not hypothetical or made up.I, like you & bluegenes, don't think there is anything more than subjective evidence supporting his existence. RAZD is most assuredly on our side as well.But there are some here who disagree with us.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d