Can this qualify as a challenge?

[Dan O.]

What does God need with a starship?

 

[Moochie]

Well, one thing's exceedingly clear to me -- Mrs. Alvaran is way smarter than her followers.

M.

 

[Cuddles]

Telling an 80 year old man that he has a problem which would become serious in 20 years is a joke.

Age. That's a problem that will be worse in 20 years.

 

[yairhol]

Hey Cuddles, I knew there would be some smart ass saying age....Another one of my predictions coming true. That's 2 for 2.

Regards,
Yair

 

[israelside]

false, jewish records account for the son of mary and joseph to be named Jesus, just like king david's line. Multiple books in the bible account for his quotes, life history, crucifiction, burial and resurrection. scrolls from the area account for this. Also OT books account for a coming messiah, Jesus portrayed everything he was prophecied to be. Why would you not believe these documents? Maybe you don't want Jesus to exist? For any particular reason?

 

[israelside]

Jesus alive

Without any question, Jesus is the most famous and influential person in the history of the human race... He never wrote a book, but millions of books have been written on him... He owned no property, won no medals, never held any political or religious office, commanded no army... Yet no person in history has had such an influence on the human race. Even the present year is dated from his birth.

that is a quote from biblia dot com.....most things in America are a result of Jesus' life, yet some say he never existed...thats nearly funny


prophecy fulfilled....
Christ at the Right hand of the Father: Psalm 110:1..... Hebrews 1:2,3.
- Ps.110:1 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
- Heb.1:2,3 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

 

[israelside]

Why doesn't randi or whoever go talk to the discovery channel and interview the tons of paranormal investigators that have tons of evidence of voices, video, smells, sounds of paranormal activity...If we present all of this info that would be conclusive proof that some supernatural being does exist, anything from that that's rejected would show clear bias into a viewpoint on the part of this website! The work is done, just go call them up and interview them, and give them a million bucks, you people waste more time than anyone i know!

 

[Aoidoi]

Without any question, Jesus is the most famous and influential person in the history of the human race...

Clearly you never heard of the Beatles.

 

[Davide]

Sorry to Hear the News

Dear Fellow Forumers,

This is the conversation I had with the spirit regarding the JREF Challenge on Holy Thursday, April 5, 2007: ...

PC,

Thanks so much for the honest report. As others on this forum have said, it it a real credit to you as a person to have come back here when you knew you had such disappointing news. Less principled people would not have had the courage or courtesy to do so.

I'm sorry (but not at all surprised) that things have turned out as they have.

One thing that is not clear to me is what, in your view, the reason was for Ama refusing to participate. In my view, the reason for refusing is that doing what you asked was impossible, and calling the request not tangi was just an excuse. But I would like to hear what you think.

On a related subject, I'm guessing that you did not ask Ama to give you the numbers that Jackalgirl has written down. Is that correct? I ask because correctly performing that feat would have been very, very tangi (if I understand the word correctly). It would have made many of us here sit up and take notice, and, with no money involved, it was clearly not driven by materialistic movtives.

Assuming you didn't ask about Jackalgirl's numbers, can you say why?

 

[colin]

I’ll ignore your tired old proselytizing and focus on this:

Why doesn't randi or whoever go talk to the discovery channel and interview the tons of paranormal investigators that have tons of evidence of voices, video, smells, sounds of paranormal activity...If we present all of this info that would be conclusive proof that some supernatural being does exist, anything from that that's rejected would show clear bias into a viewpoint on the part of this website! The work is done, just go call them up and interview them, and give them a million bucks, you people waste more time than anyone i know!

You haven’t done an iota of research have you?

So much willful ignorance… :-(

 

[Skeptic Guy]

(SNIP).....most things in America are a result of Jesus' life, yet some say he never existed...thats nearly funny
(SNIP)

What are you referring to when you say "most things in America are a result of Jesus' life"? I question that claim.

 

[chillzero]

israelside, there is a whole other subforum devoted to religious discussion. I would suggest that you take posts such as these over there.

 

[Loss Leader]

Why doesn't randi or whoever go talk to the discovery channel and interview the tons of paranormal investigators that have tons of evidence of voices, video, smells, sounds of paranormal activity...If we present all of this info that would be conclusive proof that some supernatural being does exist, anything from that that's rejected would show clear bias into a viewpoint on the part of this website! The work is done, just go call them up and interview them, and give them a million bucks, you people waste more time than anyone i know!

Bad anecdotal evidence does not suddenly become reliable because there is a lot of it. Hundreds of thousands (millions) in Korea believe that sleeping with a fan on in a closed room can kill you. Some Korean doctors have been noted to agree. Many Koreans know someone whom they say was killed due to a running fan. It doesn't make it true.

Each piece of evidence must stand on its own merit. If you have such evidence, submit it for consideration. Otherwise, I suggest you grab a weapon and man a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to.

Did you order the Code Red?

I did the job they sent me to do.

Did you order the Code Red?

You're God Damned right I did!

 

[PeaceCrusader]

Dear Yair and Fellow Forumers,

Nice future prophecies only there is no date for any one of them. It's like in one of Randi's lectures where he says he let two woo women who said they have special powers to know what's wrong with your health. They said Randi had some kind of problem which would become very serious over time. Randi asked how long that could take and they said it could take maybe 20 years. Telling an 80 year old man that he has a problem which would become serious in 20 years is a joke.

saying all those prophecies without any date is also a joke. Obviously the spirit can never be wrong. If these prophecies do not become real then the spirit says "well give it time...eventually it will happen....it could even take up to 40, 50 or more years."

PeaceCrusader, hearing some stories from some people does not impress me much because all the other people who had illnesses and came to the spirit for help and died from their illness are dead and as we know the dead cannot tell stories (at least not to us...maybe Sylvia Brown can help us there).

I mentioned the prophecies as tests of the spirit if they will come true. The spirit did not accept the Challenge, so could we test Him with the prophecies He revealed instead?

Yes, the spirit did not say when the prophecies will happen. For example, the human babies with three eyes, human being giving birth to kitten, and cat giving birth to human being were revealed in early 1990s. More than a decade has already passed and I have not known of their fulfilment--yet. But I still believe that one day, they will be fulfilled. It is just like the prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah revealed that a virgin would give birth to a son about 700 years earlier. It was fulfilled with the birth of Jesus. Also, it took a hundred years before the flood that Noah prophesied happened.

It will not take that long though when these recent prophecies will happen because the spirit said that there will only be 144,000 people on this earth in the year 2200. Now, God has started to reduce the population. I see this in AIDS and in wars and genocide. The coming war will drastically reduce the population further, if I am not mistaken, by half, because nuclear weapons will be used that people will not even know what hit them.

With regards to the stories of listeners I mentioned, Marcial Aguila, although now dead after 18 years since he was cured, was able to relate while alive his experiences with the spirit in magazine publications. The other listener, Pilar Pilambato, is still alive to this day after she was healed in about 1978 or 1979.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

 

[GzuzKryzt]

...
Isaiah revealed that a virgin would give birth to a son about 700 years earlier. It was fulfilled with the birth of Jesus.
...

No, it wasn't.

Now, God has started to reduce the population. I see this in AIDS and in wars and genocide.
...

Can you back this up with numbers? When has "god" started? Where exactly? By how much did this allegedly caring entity already "reduce" the population?

Because it looks to me like it's still growing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_the_earth

 

[GzuzKryzt]

For good measure:

"Jesus is pain/Jesus is gore/Jesus is the blood/That's spilled in war.
He's everything/He's all things dead/He's pulling on the trigger/Pointed at your head.
Through fear you're sold into the fraud/Revelation revolution.
I see through your Christ Illusion"

(Slayer, "Cult", from the album "Christ Illusion".)

 

[PeaceCrusader]

Dear Dan O and Fellow Forumers,

What we have learned from all this is that there are quite a number of psychics on this board who were able to correctly predict this outcome.

How could so many people here that have never seen this medium or heard the voice of the spirit be able to know how the spirit will react better than you Peace Crusader? Could it be that we have a better grasp of both reality and spirituality?

Would you call the people “on this board who were able to correctly predict this outcome” as “psychics”? There were only two alternatives—either the spirit accepts or does not accept the Challenge.

I was very hopeful that the spirit would accept the Challenge to settle the question once and for all, as what my father said. Unfortunately, the spirit declined the Challenge. Without His participation, there is no way that I will be able to know the five numbers in even the first sealed box. I am very sorry that I have to withdraw from the Challenge.

I had to travel to the Philippines to talk to the spirit and the medium to personally present the details of the Challenge and get their approval. Even with that effort, I still failed.

Could you just use the prophecies as test of the spirit instead? How would you feel if this year, for example, a baby is born with three eyes? Never have I heard or read of any baby born with three eyes. In my right mind, I can never prophesy such because it is impossible and unnatural.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

 

[Jackalgirl]

Could you just use the prophecies as test of the spirit instead? How would you feel if this year, for example, a baby is born with three eyes? Never have I heard or read of any baby born with three eyes. In my right mind, I can never prophesy such because it is impossible and unnatural.

Hi, PC --

Well, we've already explained many times why this will likely not be acceptable to JREF. To cover the major points again:

1) The vast majority of the prophesies are vague and require interpretation or explanation. This is not acceptable. An acceptable prophesy will need to require no interpretation or explanation whatsoever.

2) ALL of the prophesies are open-ended (that is, no deadline is specified). This is not acceptable, because it means that the prophesies are not falsifiable. In other words, the prophesies cannot be shown to be false unless they don't happen, but if there's no time-limit, one can always say "...but it hasn't happened YET." An acceptable prophesy will need to include a time limit: "there will be earthquakes" is not acceptable; there are earthquakes all the time. "There will be an earthquake off the northern coast of Hokkaido on May 12, 2007 at 3:42am local time and its magnitude will be 8.2 on the Richter scale" would be acceptable.

3) For specific prophesies (such as a woman giving birth to a kitten), there will likely have to be significant detail provided. Such as: "I prophesy that a woman will give birth to a kitten. This kitten will not be a human being with cat-like features (such as could be due to birth defects such as certain types of cleft palates). This kitten will be genetically identifiable as a member of the feline species and will share no more genetic similtaries to a human being than a cat would expect to share (by dint of humans and cats both being mammals)." Again, the reason for this is that it is conceivable that a baby might be born that might have some cat-like features, and this could be "back-fitted" to claim the prophesy as a "hit". If the spirit says "a woman will give birth to a kitten", it has to be completely and totally clear that the only acceptable "hit" will be an actual, honest-to-goodness kitten.

For a three-eyed baby, there will probably need to be at least be a deadline, and preferably a geographic location (such as "In the month of May on the island of Luzon, a baby boy will be born with three eyes."). Again, it is not inconceivable that a baby might be born with three eyes. in fact, a 30-second search on Google finds this article about the aftereffects of the Bhopal chemical disaster in India in the 1980s. The page takes the following quotation, cited as being from The Lancet, Volume 360, Number 9336 14 September 2002 (note: I haven't dug up that issue of the Lancet yet to confirm that the quote is accurate):

"Children are being born with deformities like cleft palate, three eyes, all fingers joined, one extra finger, one testicle, different skull shapes, and Down's syndrome", says N Ganesh, a researcher at the Jawaharlal Nehru Cancer Hospital and Research Centre (JNCHRC).

And, interestingly enough, there are some (rather ghastly) photos on that page of children that could be considered cat-like, if you were looking for a child with cat-like features. This only underscores for the need for a potential Challenge-worthy prophecy to be very specific and to include a deadline.

So, if the spirit is willing to make a prophesy that is specific and requires no interpretation AND that has an expiration date, JREF may very well accept your claim. You'd have to ask Jeff Wagg (challenge@randi.org) to be sure.

 

[Loss Leader]

For example, the human babies with three eyes, human being giving birth to kitten, and cat giving birth to human being were revealed in early 1990s. More than a decade has already passed and I have not known of their fulfilment--yet. But I still believe that one day, they will be fulfilled.

Fine. Come back when any of these have been fulfilled. And do not expect on single person to be swayed in their beliefs until they are fulfilled. Anyone can make any sort of statement, but only the ones that come true can possibly be counted.

It is just like the prophecies in the Old Testament. Isaiah revealed that a virgin would give birth to a son about 700 years earlier. It was fulfilled with the birth of Jesus.

What evidence do you have of this? The only evidence that Mary was a virgin is a book written by men that says that Mary was a virgin. Why should we believe them? For that matter, how would they know? The appostles met Jesus as an adult - they didn't know his mother and they certainly didn't know her thirty-four years earlier when she got pregnant. I could tell you my sister is a virgin. Does that make it true?

For that matter, the word that has been translated as "virgin" probably only meant "young maid" in the original. The whole virgin thing was a mistranslation to begin with.

Moreover, Jesus was Jewish. He had access to all the prophesies about the messiah. He knew all of the things the Jews would be looking for to prove that someone was really the messiah. He had ample opportunity to mold himself to those prophesies, to lie about his past to make it fit prophesy and to retcon his actions to make it look like they had been in fulfilment of prophesy. If you say that the messiah will be known by his big handlebar mustache, I would be a fool to claim to be the messiah without first growing a big handlebar mustache.

Your failing, PC, is that you think that pieces of evidence mean more than they actually do. The fact that Mary is described as a virgin in the New Testament is proof of nothing other than the fact that the people who wrote the New Testament described Mary as a virgin. Please apply some critical thinking to your beliefs.

 

[Burner]

Could you just use the prophecies as test of the spirit instead? How would you feel if this year, for example, a baby is born with three eyes? Never have I heard or read of any baby born with three eyes. In my right mind, I can never prophesy such because it is impossible and unnatural.

Best regards,
Aristeo Canlas Fernando, Peace Crusader and Echo

What if the baby had two heads? That's four eyes. How awesome would that be?