Peanut Gallery

Empirically? And if they cannot be detected empirically how can any conception of these supernatural causal agents be anything but a product of the internal workings of the human mind? Yes. But we don't have a big blonde godly viking waving around his magic hammer, causing thunder and lightning and sometimes slumming it down here amongst us mere mortals.Whilst we do have a good basis for concluding that Thor is a human constructed myth.Where are you on the scale of belief with regard to Thor RAZ?

Straggles tries again So your strawman caricature of Thor does not match reality. Strawmen arguments are like that, so no big surprise there. We do? I haven't seen any documentation that applies to Thor on this. Do you have any objective empirical evidence of this? Be specific with your source showing that this is so.Have you tested for supernatural effects so that you can show they are not involved or are you just assuming that your opinion is valid without having evidence to substantiate it? By being detectable but not in an empirical manner, for one simple answer.And, amusingly, you still have not provided any means to test for supernatural effects, so you are like a Ben Franklin standing in the rain without any means to test for electricity, and then concluding that electricity is not involved.That's how pseudoscience works.Enjoy

Detectable in a non-empirical manner?Can you exapand upon this please? What do you mean? Can you give an example?Sounds like Immaterial "Evidence" to me. But you have always denied you were relying on such "evidence". Change of heart?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

See Message 289 on Subjective Evidence of Gods (and Message 274 before that) -- a better place for this discussion topic-wise. It should be blatantly obvious to everyone that when you modify {something} (as in "empirically detectable") that you leave the rest of the unmodified {something} wide open ... or in this case {detectable} - {empirically detectable} == {non-empirically detectable}And that to then claim that {something else} (such as human imagination in this case) that is unrelated to the original {something} is the only other alternative, virtually guarantees blindly asserting a false dichotomy.And when someone says something like: (emphasis added)This betrays significant confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Or the closedmindedness of a pseudoskeptic.Either way it is not a logical or rational statement.Enjoyps - you can "dislike" the truth, but that doesn't make you right.Edited by RAZD, : addedEdited by RAZD, : moreEdited by RAZD, : added

Can you give an example?

Has IamJoseph hacked into RADZ's EvC account?

again?

If you want to quote yourself explicitly giving an example of something that is "detectable but not in an empirical manner" then feel free to do so. But I am willing to bet a considerable amount of moeny that you won't be able to. As Percy put it some time ago: Message 114But by all means prove me wrong........

Not the right thread, but Sure, Message 274 on Subjective Evidence of Gods:

quote:

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Message 94: If the thing is question is not empirically detectable then any conception of it must be derived from the internal workings of the human mind. How could it possibly be otherwise?

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Here we have another false dichotomy by Straggles, who seems to dearly love living in a black and white world. The simple answer is that there are many possible sources that (as yet) are not "empirically detectable." One is the well known and documented religious experience.

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If you met a supernatural being, would that not de facto be classed as a religious experience?

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Are there documents of religious experiences where people claim to have met supernatural beings?

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Can you detect when religious experiences occur (ie changes in brain activity)?

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Can you empirically test religious experiences to see if they actually are experiences of supernatural beings etc?

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Can religious experiences be broadly or narrowly classed as consistent?

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Message 94:

RAZD writes:

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Do you have a means to test for the presence of supernatural essences?

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If they are empirically detectable - Yes.

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Otherwise - No.

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In other words, you can have detectable phenomena that cannot be empirically tested, so we are in the "otherwise" category, and Straggles admits he does not have a test to determine whether supernatural effects are involved.

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To come back to the topic at hand, this would count as subjective evidence either for god/s or evidence that does not rule out the possibility of god/s existing at this time.

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Anything that can be detected but not tested empirically because of inconsistent and variable results. Something that only happens once. Etc. etc. etc.Enjoy.

Maybe it would help if you looked up what an example is, because what you posted is not it.
The words "Anything" and "Something" conflict with the specificity required for an example.

Can you give an explicit example of something that is "detectable but not in an empirical manner" or not?Your vaguety is just as Percy predicted all that time ago. This obviously isn't an example.And by this definition the birth of my first son was "detectable but not in an empirical manner" because it only happened once. But I can assure you that it was very detectable in a very empirical manner.Try again. Lots of experiences get classed as religious experiences. And all sorts of experiences that are conceivably being caused by supernatural entities might not be classed as such. If I met a God in a dream I doubt I would class it as a supernatural experience. But who knows if it was actually some God trying to communicate with me huh? I consider it deeply improbable. But don't discount the philosophical possibility.So the question remains as to why we should consider the experiences you keep referring to (but never detailing) as indicative of the existence of gods rather than any other conceivable cause. Why (for example) are such experiences not considered as caused by fluctuations in the Matrix and thus evidence in favour of the existence of the matrix? Why aren’t such experiences indicative of undetectable magic moonbeams messing with human minds? Or indeed any other conceivable cause?The problem with subjective evidence is that ultimately it is nothing more than another name for circular reasoning. You have to assume the conclusion before the so-called evidence supports the conclusion.Far better to consider the objectively evidenced causes of such experiences. And that involves looking at the sort of psychological factors you find so upsetting.

Are there people claiming this? Is there a movement and evidenced transformation of the people who are of the Matrix religion?What are their testimonies? What is their doctrine? I would love to talk to just one and compare it to my faith and sort out the differences.Can you give me an address or number I can call to get this ball rolling? I assume since you keep referencing it it must be huge and therefore I should be able to find one down the street.The Matrix faith must be pretty stable being it has lasted so long and actually keeps growing despite it's naysayers.Thanks for any info you can provide. I look forward to exploiting this false religion for what it is and it's about time someone did.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

This has confused me for the longest time, and only now has the lightbulb gone off. I can't believe it took me so long to figure this out. My god, I feel, sheepish.Thread after thread, post after post, comment after comment, and it finally occures to me that "Panda" actually meant to call himself "Parrot" but was too late to fix after realizing the error.Not wanting to register again he simply stuck with "Panda".Well, not to worry Panda, we get that you meant Parrot. It only takes a few threads and comments to see that. Happy commenting Parrot...Panda.

And why do you think what people claim/believe has any bearing on the matter?It is just as evidentially valid to claim that such experiences are indicative of fluctuations in the matrix as indicative of supernatural causes isn't it?You and RAZ seem to have this strange idea that if people believe that a particular phenomena is caused by something then that phenomena is evidence in support of their belief.This is the 'cart before horse' approach to evidence. Actually it's more of a philosophical position than a religion. ARE YOU LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION? BY NICK BOSTROM Department of Philosophy, Oxford University

If you can find RAZ providing an explicit example of something that is "detectable but not in an empirical manner" then do feel free to provide it. But I doubt you will find one.Let's have some more of Percy's highly insightful prediction: Message 114