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Why We Shouldn't Procrastinate Repentance

Billy Baxter said:
How about the Miracle of the Gulls?
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Cool. For a start, this was not recent - it occurred 175 years ago. And the relevant part of the Wikipedia page about it is this:

Wikipedia said:
While absent in contemporary accounts, later accounts claimed...
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Supernatural claims were absent in contemporary accounts. I think that should tell you everything.

Have you ever witnessed a miraculous healing? I have. Would you like me to tell you about it?
 
arthwollipot said:
Cool. For a start, this was not recent - it occurred 175 years ago. And the relevant part of the Wikipedia page about it is this:



Supernatural claims were absent in contemporary accounts. I think that should tell you everything.

Have you ever witnessed a miraculous healing? I have. Would you like me to tell you about it?
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I have, too. Go for it.
 
Billy Baxter said:
A Parkinson's patient leapt up out of his wheelchair and danced around the room.
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Cool, that's interesting. Now, here's my point:

I didn't personally know the person that I saw rise out of her wheelchair. I didn't know how long she had been in a wheelchair and I didn't know why she was using the wheelchair. I had never seen her before, and I never saw her again.

Long after I stopped going to church I realised that the number of things that I didn't know about the "miracle" that I had witnessed was astronomical. Here's one thing that I didn't think about at the time but which is critical to understand: most people who use wheelchairs are not incapable of walking, or even dancing, unassisted for various periods of time. A person standing up out of a wheelchair is not even remotely miraculous, especially if they are acting with the adrenaline of the kind of evangelical revivalist meeting that I was witnessing.

Now, your story about the Parkinson's patient is not the same as mine. It is a different situation. But I am willing to bet that there were things about that situation that you didn't know, just as there were things about my situation that I didn't know.

And I think you should think about that a bit.
 
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Billy Baxter said:
A Parkinson's patient leapt up out of his wheelchair and danced around the room.
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There are a few points to make about this....

I will grant for the sake of the conversation that...
  • it is perfectly honest and true story from you
  • it was perfectly honest and true event from the Parkinson's victim (i.e. you were not duped)
  • it was a supernatural event (i.e. there is no other explanation due to medicine or other such natural stuff)
  • it was even caused by the "deity" that was being worshiped during that event

So given that...

  1. Why did this "deity" afflict the person with such a disease in the first place?
  2. How do you differentiate this kind of "miracle" from all the millions of such stuff done around the world in the names of so many other godssssss?
  3. Why this one guy is so special and granted the miracle and not the millions of children afflicted with all sorts of horrendous diseases and ailments... not to mention the millions of children raped and abused and starved and tortured and tormented and killed???
  4. If this "deity" is willing to play tricks by "curing" one solitary guy here and there but not lift a finger to do the same for the millions upon millions of others, then this "deity" is either a DEMON playing tricks on the gullible... or a "deity" who is not capable except of the occasional trick here and there.... either way not worthy of worship.
  5. Why did this deity cause all those diseases and pathogens and natural disasters that ravage humanity and cause strife and mayhem and misery and agony.... just so as to cure an occasional one here and there in situations where no one can verify their veracity or even who or what is doing it even if true?
So the risible irony of these kinds of anecdotal shenanigans, is not just that they are unverifiable neither from the teller nor from the actors.. nor even from the alleged cause.... it is... even if fully granted as authentic... ironically and pathetically... that they are in fact a proof that the alleged doer of the "miracle" is either a pathetic trickster or an evil sadist and not at all worthy of anything other than spittle (or worse) flung on its hideous essence.
 
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Olmstead said:
Presumably because theists like to ask gotcha questions.
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Nope. Any time I post the definition of an atheist as "somebody who believes that there are no gods" it is guaranteed that a horde of angry posters will descend on me and "correct" me. This "lack of belief" definition is seriously important to many here for some reason.
 
Billy Baxter said:
Our spirits are made of more refined matter and are eternal in nature. We will all be resurrected into immortal bodies and live forever.
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How do you know that "spirits are made of more refined matter and are eternal in nature". There is absolutely NO such evidence this is the case. Neuro-science research shows that consciousness is a function of the material brain and that the idea of a soul that detaches from our body after we die is wishful thinking. When information travels from our senses to our brain it is a physical action executed by the law of physics.
 
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Norman Alexander said:
Theism = belief in god/gods
A-theism = NOT( belief in god/gods )

Couldn't be any clearer.
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"Theism" is "The" (god(s)) + "ism".

So "atheism" is "athe" (no god(s)) + "ism".

In other words, just so I don't get asked as if this weren't already perfectly obvious, eytmology (the origin & internal structure of words) does not dictate what words mean or how they are used, and you already know it doesn't, so don't make arguments dependent on the idea that it does. You already know that such arguments are invalid.

Now, why is the meaning of "atheism" even being talked about at all? What claim has somebody made which depends on one meaning of it or another? Why can't the substance of that claim be given & answered without using that word, since we all know that that word is clearly not very useful in this situation?
 
I'm beginning to feel sorry for Billy Baxter. Of all the off topic tangents that could have derailed his thread ...
 
Billy Baxter said:
A Parkinson's patient leapt up out of his wheelchair and danced around the room.
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There are a number of questions to be asked:

1) Do you know the "Parkinson's patient"?
2) Was there independent medical confirmation that they suffered from Parkinson's?
3) Are the "patient" and the preacher who "cured" them known to each other?
4) What is the backround of the "patient", specifically are they know to a avct in plays, shows, on TV &c, even at an amateur level?
5) Have you witnessed multiple shows in multiple locations of the preacher? If so have you noticed familiar faces?
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
There are a number of questions to be asked:

1) Do you know the "Parkinson's patient"?
2) Was there independent medical confirmation that they suffered from Parkinson's?
3) Are the "patient" and the preacher who "cured" them known to each other?
4) What is the backround of the "patient", specifically are they know to a avct in plays, shows, on TV &c, even at an amateur level?
5) Have you witnessed multiple shows in multiple locations of the preacher? If so have you noticed familiar faces?
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The first thing I thought about was The Faith Healers by James Randi. He described how many faith healers will bring their own wheelchairs to their events, and have staff helpfully offer seats in them to some early arriving attendees in the lobby, saying they look tired. Then when the doors open to the theater they wheel them down to the front of the house, seeming to just be generously offering them good seats. Later, when the show really gets rollin', the faith healer will come by and encourage them to stand, which they politely do, and most in the audience assume is a miraculous healing. Naturally, anyone who arrives in their own wheelchair is relegated to the shadows in the back of the house.
 
I saw a video of one guy who had come up with a simpler version of that trick: prime everybody to expect the "healing" to come with getting blasted to the floor at first and then getting up afterward, then just go around hitting people & seeing them knock themselves down if you didn't hit them hard enough & moving on to the next & taking the spotlights & cameras with you before there's enough time for the spotlights & cameras to show whether the last one is getting up or not.

Those who see this show will swear for you that they saw your victims get up & dance & sing the praises of the lord while you were somewhere else & they totally weren't watching you anymore.

That's the biggest factor in how these things, from miraculous healings to palm-readings to tarot cards to astrology to the stuff a "medium" says, always "work": the audiences can be consistently counted on to report their observations very inaccurately in the con artist's favor.
 
psionl0 said:
Nope. Any time I post the definition of an atheist as "somebody who believes that there are no gods" it is guaranteed that a horde of angry posters will descend on me and "correct" me. This "lack of belief" definition is seriously important to many here for some reason.
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If that's true I'd tend to agree with you. I think most who make an issue here have a problem with the frequent assertion by deists that the use of that word connotes faith, which in turn makes atheism a religion. For some theists that's a "gotcha," with the conclusion that there can be no such thing as a true atheist. We certainly have seen a few who make that mistake, which I consider similar to insisting that nonexistence has attributes.

At the same time, I'd contend that characterizing atheism simply as lack of belief leaves it weak by definition. But I think we need to be a little flexible in how we read the implication of a statement, when the language itself is ambiguous, and I would consider those who get too upset about just how one describes their atheism as nitpicking. I can use the word "believe" for many things that are not religious in nature. I believe the leaves on that dead elm tree will not burst forth this spring, and I do not need a religious faith to justify the word.

The word "believe" is fraught. I would prefer saying an atheist is someone who asserts that there are no gods, leaving out the finer points of why that assertion is made. The reason for being a member of a group or a category is often interesting in its own right, but it is not the category.

So in short, while I consider your point worth noting, you're stuck in a kind of double bind if you argue it as if the distinction made by others is reasonable.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
There are a number of questions to be asked:...
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Delvo said:
... the audiences can be consistently counted on to report their observations very inaccurately in the con artist's favor.
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The irony of this kind of hoaxing and charlatanism is that... even if we grant that there is no hoax or scamming going on... and even if we grant that the cause is indeed the "deity" the duped and gullible are claiming... all this proves is that the deity the simpletons are attributing this "miracle" to is nothing but a heinous sadistic charlatan itself.

In other words... the anecdotes... even if genuine all the way through (which of course invariably they are not)... all this kind of tall tale proves... ironically and risibly... is that the deity the tall tales are spun for is nothing but a sordid sadistic demon and nothing more.

I wonder if the dupes who fall for, or fabricate such stupid tales are aware of this ironic twist in their attempts to peddle their deity???
 
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