Peanut Gallery

Straggler argues: Oh if it were only that simple. When you ask me if "you {can} give an example", I take this to mean if I, personally, can. I have tried to keep myself out of this as much as possible, but, you asked me a personal question there and I sat back and answered it as best I knew at the time. I try to speak my mind when the situation warrants it.Incredulity is your spear point here...in an inverse way of the preponderance of creationist arguments floated around on this site.You may be correct. I do think the odds of your preposterous Armageddon Event to be on the same level as the molecules all getting together against Thermodynamic odds and presenting the same thing.What are your personal estimates of the odds on your Armageddon Event? If you agree that the odds are less likely than the Thermodynamic Anomaly, then you are in my camp.Why do I ask? Because I would be more likely to accept a naturalistic explanation, but you might be convinced otherwise, based on a direct witnessing yourself? Tell me.

Straggler says: The odds on a huge asteroid destroying the earth and all living forms on it are so way much more likely than the odds on your Armageddon Scenario. BUT. Guess what - the asteroid destroying the earth will be seen and interpreted by the Believers as being the Armageddon Scenario! When the molten core is splashed all over it will be The Fire Next Time - it will be confirmation bias.Secondly, if your Armageddon Scenario pans out, then the Dinosaurs were killed in the Flood. So your argument presupposes your apriori' denial of a world that would allow something like your Armageddon, me sayeth Snarkely.Straggler continues: Semantics - extraordinary to believers, if you will. And they deserve to see the extraordinary evidence due. Lots of people believe in the psychological tendency of humans to make things up??? Yes - lots of people do. Since when did mass human belief in human psychology constitute any reliable evidence?WAIT - Straggler has more: Jesus Christ. Let's just start there. Moses, Mohamed, the fictionalized Buddha, etc. - these can all wait for now.... Let's just cut to the chase, to biggest enchilada right now.Jesus H. Christ. Billions of people and money are being wasted on this dude. And most (maybe 99.98123%) of all of that effort is completely missing the good characteristics portrayed by their own literature on him. It is a huge shame. But this is off-topic.We can start with things like the Shroud of Turin being false. This is actually cool, because they allowed a small piece of this holy artifact to be cut out and sent to a science lab, where it became falsified. There are probably many other instances of peripheral phenomena being falsified without falsifying the main concept.We can observe that the Bible text has inconsistencies - but again - in my mind to even allow hearsay 2nd hand is to allow the stupidest evidence known. Let's stay away from the bible and Stories Handed Down through the years. That evidence is all DISMISSED. Stories are inadmissable.We both can agree that testimony from even our closest friends of seeing or feeling or "knowing" some experience is all subjective and not scientific. It is also all DISMISSED.There has been a lot of archeological evidence on this, all establishing so far a peripheral, circumstantial level of corroboration with the dismissed story-telling evidence. The Archeological evidence should be examined in much more depth, but for the politics of doing so.What is the body of forensic evidence for or against this dude being a Supernatural Being? Be specific.We have, by inductive reasoning, that bluegenes theory predicts that Jesus' supernaturalness is but figment of human imagination.You will say now that there isn't enough data yet....My Analemma predicts that there will NEVER EVER be enough data.

Chuck77 at the end of this post says: Those are all INADMISSABLE evidence - they are hearsay, subjective memory of a known faulty creature (us) and known faulty sensory systems (us again).Sorry...this conversation is NOT about trying to get you to convert or disbelieve what you believe, but maybe you might want to watch instead. It's more about Logic & Rationality & Objectivism, which are appropriately not part of any particular Religious Belief.Good wishes to you, and welcome to EvC!

This is just as inane as asking for evidence of the IPU, which was being done earlier and which you conceded was approaching things backwards.There is this concept of Jesus Christ, the miracle worker (or at least someone through whom miracles were performed). There are two explanations that are of interest at this time:1. There was a Jesus Christ, and he performed miracles. People witnessed it, and that is where our conception of Jesus originated.2. There may or may not have been a Jesus Christ, but the supernatural properties ascribed to this entity are the result of embellishments via the human imagination.The first is an unevidenced theory. The second has evidence for it. There is evidence that humans embellish stories, to levels that reach a certain minimally counterintuitve nature (too outlandish is too unbelievable and those ideas are quickly forgotten about). The Jesus story has the characteristics of natural human embellishment. There are other stories that share characteristics of the Jesus one, and they are mutually exclusive (principally because of the exclusivity of monotheism).The second explains the concept, provides evidence of the mechanisms proposed to be involved, is consistent with everything else we know, is coherent and self-consistent, and is falsifiable in that any time the first theory gains evidence it could be falsified.

Hi bluegenes -There is a Dylan song called "Man Of Peace" on the Infidels album. Each verse ends with: "Sometimes Satan Comes As A Man Of Peace".One time, in the Dylan Group, as the conversation moved along on this song and it got near Christmas, I admonished to them all that"Sometimes Santa Comes Past Your Mantlepiece".Someone in the UK gave me a Triple Word Score for that....Oh well. Salud!

hi Mod,No - I am not talking to bluegenes and his theory here. It is Straggler who asked me to be specific....you want specific? I'll get specific. He asked.In Message 1476, Straggler asks: Maybe my basis is only the way nearly the whole goddamn world treats this guy.

Xongsmith you are the most atheistic person I have ever met. Apparently you cannot even conceive of a genuinely supernatural entity. Apparently you are unable to even consider the possibility that your atheism towards the supernatural may be wrong. Based on everything you have said here you are a 7 on the Dawkins scale. This is not a reasoned, rational or evidentially legitimate position. When Harold Camping predicted that judgement day would occur on 21st of May this year I gave it only enough credence to find time to laugh. But how unlikely I think any given particular scenario might be has no bearing on it’s ability to falsify a theory does it? I seriously doubt that evolution by natural selection will be falsified by the discovery of mammal fossils in the Precambrian or a discovery that makes genetics incomapatible with evolution. But if these discoveries do genuinely and reliably take place then they do. And if that happens our theories will have been falsified no matter how unlikely I may currently consider this scenario. Likewise if biblical Armageddon had actually occurred as Harold Camping had predicted then I would have been wrong and bluegenes theory would have been falsified. It really is that simple.Don’t confuse a theory remaining unfalsified because it happens to be correct with a theory being unscientifically unfalsifiable. The two things are very different. Where we have a highly evidenced naturalistic explanation (e.g. the human psychological proclivity to invent supernatural entities) we can confidently consider this explanation as superior to evidentially baseless claims (e.g. the claim that supernatural entities actually exist). But your catchall of something-thermodynamic-didit can be applied to absolutely anything you are personally incredulous about can’t it? Any falsification of any theory can be put down to some freak thermodynamic event. Something-thermodynamic-didit is no better as an explanation than the more familiar Goddidit or something-supernatural-didit.

Aside from the current widespread and deep conviction that this particular entity actually exists why should we treat this one as evidentially different to any other supernatural entity one can name?Scientology is (so I am informed) the worlds fastest growing religion. And plenty of other beliefs have dominated various sections of the world in less globalised times. And even if we do concentrate on Christ which of the many variations of Christ should we concentrate our efforts upon? The peace and love hippy? The gay hating, war mongering fundamentalist? Or something else?On what basis are you special pleading Christianity? Like any scientific theory that contradicts people's intuitive beliefs it will take time to be widely accepted. Given human nature it may never be fully accepted by many. But the psychological origins of religious and other supernatural beliefs are increasingly understood and accepted by the scientific community. Your anal Emma is just a restatement of bluegenes theory with your own incredulity layered on top.The fact that you personally would invoke freak thermodynamic anomalies as an explanation for anything that contradicts your beliefs has no bearing on the falsifiability (or otherwise) of any theory at all.

Straggler says: Wait until you meet my dad! But, thanks, I think. That is not your original statement from Message 1468: (Emphasis mine)In your original you have "if it exists". Big difference. Yes, I can give examples to the first of the above. I can list all the same ones you & bluegenes have already listed as genuine supernatural entities/events/phenomena because these things as yet haven't been also categorized as something that actually exists. If I'm wrong and you did list one that does exist, please refresh my memory. Didn't I say in Message 1486, re my Armageddon/Rapture incredulity? Also recall that in Message 1460 I said: * Again raises glass! * Ahah! So are you then accepting the RAZD stratification and that therefore 6.0d is also not a reasoned, rational or evidentially legitimate position? I'm guessing not, since you are self-proclaimed 6.0. No, probably not.I think at times I will show a 7.0 facet, then, turned to a different angle, at times a straight-out 4.0 dunno facet. You should see more facets as the posts unfold. For example, you, yourself, also can display different values from different angles as well.Straggler continues: Correct! And my own personal belief that the odds on a naturalistic Thermodynamics-did-it explanation being more likely than your supernatural Armageddon/Rapture god-did-it explanation also has no bearing on the Xongsmith Analemma, which describes how a completely different group of other humans, the respected scientific community, behaves when confronted with explaining an entity/event/phenomenon either by expanding the scientific description of nature or by saying there is not enough evidence to decide yet or by reluctantly having somewhere inside their published paper that there is an accptable non-zero non-scientific magick content that explains it. The 3rd option has never occurred. The Analemma predicts that it never will. But the falsification of these things will inexorably be a scientific falsification, completely within the scientific communities' naturalistic expectation. Quite so, except for your suspicious use of the highlighted word, and this not what the Analemma is about. Is Last Thursdayism "unscientifically" unfalsifiable? Or just plain unfalsifiable?It is not because I believe that your Armageddon/Rapture Scenario will be explained away naturally - it is because that is how the scientific community has always behaved as a group. All you need do to falsify the Analemma is find a respected scientific publication which has some entity/event/phenomenon explained away with magick. You will not consult anything I have written, because I am not a member of the respected scientific community. What you or I believe about this is INADMISSIBLE. You will also note that if my Analemma is falsified, it does not necessarily falsify bluegenes' theory, because the paper may be retracted or rejected later (as per Fleischman & Pons' cold fusion stuff - although, never in their stuff they published, did they use magick to explain anything).You may also want to look at the article bluegenes posted that I quoted a part of in Message 1472.....you know what they say about theory & practice? In theory they are the same, but in practice they are not? In theory, these folks are proclaiming that science will allow for the supernatural, but, in practice, they never have. The Analemma predicts how the scientific community behaves in practice.Again: The rate of incoming supporting evidence (every paper published in the entire scientific community per second) for the Analemma is much higher than the incoming rate of supporting evidence (every such paper which also debunks a supernatural phenomenon as a figment of human imagination per second) for the bluegenes' theory, which means that, by L'Hopital's Rule, I will get there first in the limit as t->infinity.Is that what you were getting at with your "unscientifically" unfalsifiable gobbledegook?

Don't act like this is the big boys club and im an imposter and your the frikken president. Please, try to get it in your head that my beliefs are EXACTLY what we're talking about here, just in specifics in my case and not in general terms.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Whats so bad about it? Are still one of those who think the Bible had contadictions? And that Straggler is more right than the Bible? Wow, now that is some argument.

Try to not misquote me. I said satan is the one decieving everyone with the different ways to God. Can you understand that simple concept?

Well yes, its belief based on experience. Just like it's your belief there are fish in the sea even tho you can't see them. Well, that settles it! LOL. Ok Straggler, if you say so. So, your a #7 on the dawkins scale now? Like me ima #1....it seems were both just as passionate about our "beliefs" ehe? Oh my. Well, I say different. I say he IS real and I can tell you exactly how I met him and what you can do to meet him to, do you want to know?How come your proof of nothingness is better than mine of somethingness? What makes YOU right? Nope. I WAS a catholic. Lots of Christains were hindu, scientologists, etc etc. They came to knw the truth. Geography doesnt matter, or what you grew up to believe, you listen to richard Dawkins to much.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

(Emphasis yours) Go on then. Give me an example of an entity that if it exists is genuinely supernatural.Just one example.

No. 6. How many times? I don't claim to have proof of nothingness and you sure as hell don't have proof of a godly somethingness. What I have that you don't is objective evidence. Objective evidence of the human proclivity to believe in things that don't exist. Why do humans believe in the existence of god(s)? Are these widespread human beliefs and ideas held as a result of the actual existence of such entities? Or is there a more evidenced explanation for this observable human behaviour?The objective evidence (agency detection, the selection advantage of false positives etc.) tells us that humans have a deep psychological proclivity to invent a variety of intelligent agents including (but far from restricted to) gods in order to explain the things that they find baffling and significant. Meanwhile the claim that such entities actually exist remains completely unevidenced and utterly subjective.On the simple yet essentially inarguable basis that objectively evidenced explanations and conclusions are more likely to be correct than unevidenced subjective claims it therefore follows that any given concept of god cited by humanity is more likely to be a human invention than something that actually exists.