Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[P.J. Denyer]

I thought atheists were sure God doesn't exist.
Agnostics aren't sure.

No, theism/athiesm is about belief, gnostic/agnostic is about knowledge. They are orthagonal claims.

 

[Mojo]

No, theism/athiesm is about belief, gnostic/agnostic is about knowledge. They are orthagonal claims.

Theists seem to be unable to understand this. Do you have a shorter word than "orthogonal"?

 

[theprestige]

The thread title is a tautology. They're called supernatural events because of how little evidence they have.

If they had evidence; if they were testable, predictable, repeatable; if anyone who followed the same recipe consistently got the same results; we'd call it natural.

Atomic fusion? Natural. Quantum tunneling? Natural. Relativistic time dilation? Natural. The Casimir effect? Natural. Radiation poisoning? Natural.

Near death experiences? Supernatural.

Anyway, my position is that if a supernatural phenomenon isn't testable and predictable enough to make money or wage war with it, there's no point in arguing about whether it's real.

---

So. You say we should listen to NDE accounts. There are many such accounts on the record. Have you studied them? Have you learned anything new and useful from them? Or are you just the idea guy, and we're the ones who are supposed to take your idea for granted and start doing the work that you want done?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Theists seem to be unable to understand this. Do you have a shorter word than "orthogonal"?

"Different" would probably do as a start.

ETA: And 'Atheist' is anyone who can't answer the question "Which God(s) do you believe in?", no positive claim or certainty required.

 

[Thermal]

"Different" would probably do as a start.

Am I to take it that orthogonal doesn't refer to straightening teeth then? Putting the E in the ISF.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

As for NDEs, people usually examine them from only one direction: "how does religion explain them?" One could just as readily ask, "how have NDEs shaped religious beliefs?"

That is, maybe the existence of NDEs explain certain common religious beliefs, rather than religious beliefs explaining the NDEs. Perhaps people are looking the wrong way down the cause-effect line.

 

[Steve]

First: why does there need to be a point?

Second: the point could be what one actually did with one's life.

Personally, I'm quite happy with the idea of life, the universe and everything having no point and also that I may have done a few decent things with my time here and drunk some very good wine and listened to a lot of JS Bach. Good enough for me.

There does seem to have been a point to JS Bach's life though, doesn't there .

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Am I to take it that orthogonal doesn't refer to straightening teeth then? Putting the E in the ISF.

Depends, has anyone ever had their teeth straightened, or a missing tooth replaced, through the power of prayer?

 

[Thermal]

There does seem to have been a point to JS Bach's life though, doesn't there .

He fronted Skid Row, didn't he?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Seems to be the only way to really get our attention.

Really not.
People dying is the most basic human thing there is - nothing special about it.
Now, if we had a vision very time we help someone in a meaningful way, that would be both a strong attention grabber And a a good thing to promote - instead of glorifying death as the only way to God

 

[malbui]

For a long time I’ve been trying to find out why there is no footage on YouTube of Barnet FC destroying PSG to win the Champions League.

Some ardent Barnetists reckon it’s because the rights holders are very aggressive and videos get pulled as soon as they are published.

Others reckon it’s because there were technical issues that stopped the 6-0 drubbing being recorded in broadcast quality.

Whatever the reason, I fear it will remain a mystery.

 

[Mojo]

Good question, thanks.
No, that's not what I meant.

What I mean is at the end of physical life, if there is nothing more, what was the point?

My personal take on it is, "please leave this bathroom as you would expect to find it."

 

[Mojo]

My personal take on it is, "please leave this bathroom as you would expect to find it."

Note to P.J. Denyer: I'm serious about this.

 

[Olmstead]

Good question, thanks.
No, that's not what I meant.

What I mean is at the end of physical life, if there is nothing more, what was the point?

What's the "point" of something more?

 

[Mojo]

Note to P.J. Denyer: I'm serious about this.

Seriously, it's the only world, and the only life, we have. What should we do beyond trying not to ◊◊◊◊ it up any more than we can avoid?

Life will go on, but I'm not confident about our civilisation or our species. And our civilisation has some wonderful stuff.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Seriously, it's the only world, and the only life, we have. What should we do beyond trying not to ◊◊◊◊ it up any more than we can avoid?

Be excellent to each other..

And party on dudes!

 

[Mojo]

Be excellent to each other..

And party on dudes!

And try not to ◊◊◊◊ it up.

 

[Mojo]

As you can probably tell, I'm a little annoyed and dispirited at the state of the world. And especially I'm depressed that people who are capable of posting things like "evidentiary evidence" have to be taken seriously.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Seriously, it's the only world, and the only life, we have. What should we do beyond trying not to ◊◊◊◊ it up any more than we can avoid?

Life will go on, but I'm not confident about our civilisation or our species. And our civilisation has some wonderful stuff.

I have a philosophy that everything is about 'the little things', people who park like selfish dicks, drive like selfish dicks, people who leave their shopping trolley blocking a parking space because they can't be bothered to walk 20ft to the trolley bay do all sorts of other horrible things like murder, incest and voting Reform Ltd. They might even Morris Dance! The little stuff matters, if you sweat the small stuff the big stuff follows naturally.

 

[Dave Rogers]

As you can probably tell, I'm a little annoyed and dispirited at the state of the world. And especially I'm depressed that people who are capable of posting things like "evidentiary evidence" have to be taken seriously.

Yes, I found that an interesting form of words. It implies that there is some non-evidentiary form of evidence, that has to be taken as seriously as evidentiary evidence while not being subject to the same scrutiny.

The answer, of course, to why there is no compelling evidence for supernatural phenomena is that, if there were, they would be natural phenomena.

Dave