A Parable about Age

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thaumaturgy

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What's the real reason you want him to give an example, quatona?

Well, to be fair, if someone says something is "indisputable" and follows it up with a ton of caveats as to how there is no way to support that claim then it is acceptable to require them to support it in some way. Here's Raze's comment in part:

It's really not that difficult. I have seen many, many "effects on reality" from prayer. Indisputable, countless times.

"indisputable". Well, I'm personally curious what support there is for that claim.

If he then goes on to say:

None of this was under controlled circumstances, nor is it repeatable, nor is it under human control in any sense of the word, which places it squarely outside the realm of science.

Then I am immediately suspect. His claim is one of "indisputability" but then he systematically and unilaterally disallows any way of "disputing" it.

It is only meaningful for something to be "indisputable" if, indeed, there is some way to test that.

This comes back to the idea of "Falsifiability". In science if I make an hypothesis it has to have built into it some way to disprove it if it is indeed incorrect.

That doesn't mean it is incorrect or that it WILL be disproven, just that it needs to have some way of testing against it such that if it were wrong it would show up as wrong.

For instance:

Let's say I claim there is a pink unicorn who can do 15 backflips in a row that lives in my refrigerator. If I then say it is:

1. Invisible
2. Microscopic in size
3. Has no discernible mass
4. Does not interact with any other aspect of the physical world
5. Cannot be perceived by humans using any known or unknown test

What I have proposed is an unfalsifiable claim.

Even if it were untrue (which it IS, I can tell you, because it chose to reveal itself to me one day...it can do that) there is no way to prove it. You can't test for it, you can't test against it.

So Raze merely feels that what he has experienced is "indisputable". And perhaps it was! Who knows? It is clearly disputable to those of us who have no such experience.

Which is easier to assume in my above example of the invisible unicorn in my fridge:

1. That I simply think there is a unicorn like that in my fridge?
or
2. That there actually is a unicorn like that in my fridge?

Now Raze's prayer thing is a bit different in that he claims to have experienced this.

This is good for him. It is useless to establish the "indisputable" nature of the effect. Could Raze have been wrong? Maybe. Not necessarily, but maybe.

If you want to prove to me that prayer has a real effect there's going to be more to it than just taking the word of someone.

I'm not saying Raze was right or wrong, not saying he didn't have the experience he had, I'm not even saying his failure to back up his claim of "indisputable" is evidence of prayer not being real.

Just saying that asking the question is part of what we do in trying to understand the world.

So you can just play the Arbitrary Denial card and add a notch to your ego?

it is not "arbitrary denial". It is simply one of the "rules" you are forced to play by in science or as a materialist. It would be arbitrary if the questioner said "Ok, I will ONLY believe you are not going to steal my money if you can show me evidence of your honest business, but I'll take your word on invisible unicorns in the fridge".

Now, in reality, we are all a bit arbitrary. We are not perfect computing machines, but we have to deal with our shortfalls as best we can.

Who are you really trying to kid here?

Why does anyone have to "kidding" anyone?

I'm sure your ineffectual, myopic science is going to suddenly confirm or deny his claim, isn't it?

Here's a bigger question: If God is real and He truly wants humans to know and love him and it pains Him to see people fail to believe in him and suffer the consequences, why would he make himself only clearly visible to some?

Science is the only way we pitiful "mere humans" have to verify things for ourselves. So since God is omnipotent what possible good would it do to make himself anything less than as obvious as gravity ?

Even if we don't fully understand the nature of gravity, we certainly all understand how it works. No one is "gravity agnostic" or "gravity atheistic". We let go of the keys and they fall to the ground. We cannot dispute that.

And we even know when gravity will not be in certain places (ie no mass). We know whe gravity will be "weaker" and "stronger" (distance or mass differences).

So why is God different?

Especially when the stakes are so high and God himself doesn't want us to be mislead?

Let science do what it does best -- build us a better moustrap -- and keep their ten-cent clipboards out of our Bibles, eh?

My fear is that whenever someone constructs an artificial (and yes, arbitrary) barrier against science it says more about the thing that is being fenced off than it does about science.
 
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sandwiches

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It's really not that difficult. I have seen many, many "effects on reality" from prayer. Indisputable, countless times. Things ranging from life-saving miracles in dire emergencies, to the trivial and mundane.
Personally, I don't really care if you tell us or not what experiences you've had that have convinced you of your faith. However, keep in mind two questions:
1) Are personal experiences by others, which contradict yours, evidence that what they're saying is true?
2) Should I be able to believe what other people believe based on experiences they claim to have had, which I haven't experienced myself?

Apply these questions to yourself and you'll see why your anecdotes are meaningless to me and many others here.

While it may be true that you've had X and Y experience of some deity, I haven't had that experience. Why should I believe you? Why should I have the same faith you do without the experiences you have had? How can I?

None of this was under controlled circumstances, nor is it repeatable, nor is it under human control in any sense of the word, which places it squarely outside the realm of science.

You (the collective you here can be used just as well) on the other hand, claim to be a former Christian. You also claim 0 first-hand experience with either prayer or Faith making a whit of difference.

Funny definition of "christian," that. No, this does not make you a "former Christian," but it does bolster your atheism which is understandable.

(And apparently I missed AV's statement that the Bible was written to an audience of 5 year olds. Got link?)
You have things backwards. I became an atheist BECAUSE of the lack of personal experience with faith or miracles, (among many other things.) I DID NOT stop believing in faith because I was an atheist or wanted to become an atheist.
 
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sandwiches

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Your 2 sentences do not logically follow. In the first sentence, you accurately paraphrase that understanding prayer is not a scientific pursuit, nor does it involve scientific requirements. The fact that this is outside the realm of science does not mean we "can't detect any effects from prayer."

I'm afraid you misunderstand what science is and how it works, then. Anything that can be empirically observed can be scientifically analyzed. Conversely, anything that cannot be scientifically analyzed cannot be empirically observed.
 
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sandwiches

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They would claim the goldfish never died. If there was a test they would claim there was a false reading on the test. If someone in Africa is cured of aids they say the test was in error and they never had aids in the first place.

Ya -- I get sick of their bogus, johnny-on-the-spot, made-up claims.

I guess the alternative makes a lot more sense, right guys? We should just believe anything you say just because you say so? Do you believe anything I say just because I say so? Use your heads for just a second, kids, and you'll see why your claims alone are worthless.
 
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Tiberius

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Well, when you live in a little white room with everything having rounded edges and no ropes or anything allowed -- there isn't much I can do about it, is there?

That would explain a great deal about your posts...

Depends on your perspective. Here is a photo of the universe at the very beginning of time.

deepfld.gif


Immediately after the Big Bang, as one might imagine, the universe was tremendously hot as a result of particles of both matter and antimatter rushing apart in all directions. As it began to cool, at around 10^-43 seconds after creation, there existed an almost equal yet asymmetrical amount of matter and antimatter. As these two materials are created together, they collide and destroy one another creating pure energy. Fortunately for us, there was an asymmetry in favor of matter. As a direct result of an excess of about one part per billion, the universe was able to mature in a way favorable for matter to persist. As the universe first began to expand, this discrepancy grew larger. The particles which began to dominate were those of matter. They were created and they decayed without the accompaniment of an equal creation or decay of an antiparticle.

As the universe expanded further, and thus cooled, common particles began to form. These particles are called baryons and include photons, neutrinos, electrons and quarks would become the building blocks of matter and life as we know it. During the baryon genesis period there were no recognizable heavy particles such as protons or neutrons because of the still intense heat. At this moment, there was only a quark soup. As the universe began to cool and expand even more, we begin to understand more clearly what exactly happened.
THE BIG BANG

And this is a photo of this "quark soup" you mentioned? because those look like galaxies in that photo - which didn't come about until quite a bit later. So that is not a photo of the very beginning of the universe.

the only thing you're saying here that even comes close to making sense, is that you personally have found no value in prayer, and therefore you don't pray. Even so, surely you can "detect a difference between praying and not praying." I mean, it doesn't take a highly accurate detector.

What detector would you suggest?

Stand back world, we're going to try science! ^_^ No, there is no objective measure here.

Then we aren't sciencing!

So you do see my point. (I knew you could)

Again, we aren't sciencing.

True! This is precisely why the "one True Church" TM types grieve me so.

And yet don't you believe in the one true God?

The only reason i commented on a claim re: a studying researching the effectiveness of prayer, was to point out this is NOT science, and the results can't be meaningful.

If the results of prayer aren't meaningful, then why pray?

It's really not that difficult. I have seen many, many "effects on reality" from prayer. Indisputable, countless times. Things ranging from life-saving miracles in dire emergencies, to the trivial and mundane.

Pick any one of these instances and show how prayer is the only [possible explanation.

Remember - if it has an effect on reality, then it can be measured, and thus is science.

None of this was under controlled circumstances, nor is it repeatable, nor is it under human control in any sense of the word, which places it squarely outside the realm of science.

Most of nature falls into this category. Is nature outside the realm of science as well?

Your 2 sentences do not logically follow. In the first sentence, you accurately paraphrase that understanding prayer is not a scientific pursuit, nor does it involve scientific requirements. The fact that this is outside the realm of science does not mean we "can't detect any effects from prayer."

As I said before, if prayer makes a difference in reality, then it can be measured. Even if it as simple as the difference between what happened with it and what happens without it. if it can be measured, it is science.

Just came across a wonderful literal translation straight from the Greek, that describes not only what sandwiches and I have been discussing, but what is happening here; all in the same breath:

"If-ever any ye should be asking in My name, I shall be doing. If ever ye may be loving Me, the My commands be keeping and I shall be asking the Father and another comforter, the spirit of the truth, He shall be giving to ye that may remain with ye into the age, which the world not is able to be receiving, that not it is seeing it, neither is knowing it. Ye yet are knowing it, that beside ye is abiding and in ye shall be."

Ask God in God's name to move Mount Everest to the Australian outback for one month. If it happens, then I will believe.

lol, how about you get someone to make that claim first, huh? Funny how you always resort to saying that a person citing something impossible should convince people that God is real, and yet such claims never pop up, do they?
 
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razeontherock

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Nothing in the real world is outside the realm of science unless we choose to keep it apart from science.


They may have been real or not, but you will probably fail to convince anyone who is not already primed to "believe".

Sorry but here you completely fail to comprehend the nature of prayer, which goes back to how this odd de-rail got started in the first place: an atheist posted an absurd study claiming prayer has no effect. I pointed out the very nature of the claim demonstrates a lack of understanding.
 
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razeontherock

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Yet you seem to be reluctant when it comes to telling us about those "indisputable" effects. That gives me the impression that they are indeed disputable - you just don´t want to see them put to scrutinity and disputed.

Nah. The types here would simply pretend it never happened.
 
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razeontherock

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Then I am immediately suspect. His claim is one of "indisputability" but then he systematically and unilaterally disallows any way of "disputing" it.

It is only meaningful for something to be "indisputable" if, indeed, there is some way to test that.

This comes back to the idea of "Falsifiability". In science if I make an hypothesis it has to have built into it some way to disprove it if it is indeed incorrect.

See those big, red words? What part of those words do you fail to see does not pertain to the topic of prayer?

Just saying that asking the question is part of what we do in trying to understand the world.

And this is fair! And there are more than a few of you here who I think could take part in a reasonable discussion on such a matter. Still, my own experiences are not the real key to understanding the part of our world that is the nature of prayer. Instead, there are key concepts, and I've outlined a few of them and shown how they really aren't measurable by science. If you find the exchange between sandwiches and myself, I think those are clarified pretty well.

Here's a bigger question: If God is real and He truly wants humans to know and love him and it pains Him to see people fail to believe in him and suffer the consequences, why would he make himself only clearly visible to some?

It's even more complicated than that:

(John 1:18) "No man hath seen God at any time"

And yet false gods have been visible to some, at times.

Science is the only way we pitiful "mere humans" have to verify things for ourselves. So since God is omnipotent what possible good would it do to make himself anything less than as obvious as gravity ?

What makes you think He is any less obvious? ;) IOW, you've heard of "third eye blind?"

So why is God different?

Especially when the stakes are so high and God himself doesn't want us to be mislead?

These are not only reasonable questions - but excellent ones! Finding answers to such this is very possible, but I'm not at all sure I'm the person to even attempt to put those into words. In my experience, it takes God Himself to answer that, and with me, He doesn't resort to words.

My fear is that whenever someone constructs an artificial (and yes, arbitrary) barrier against science

Sorry but the context here is still what I clearly showed to be not measurable by any scientific means. There is no falsely constructed barrier, or anything else.
 
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razeontherock

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2) Should I be able to believe what other people believe based on experiences they claim to have had, which I haven't experienced myself?

Why should I have the same faith you do without the experiences you have had? How can I?

Exactly! You can not possibly. The only problem this causes, is the same world holds people who have had such experience(s), and those that have not. And the answer to this that has escaped our species for so long, is to respect those differences. We can see varying degrees of that all across CF, and right here in this thread! (Is this our current frontier of evolution?)

I became an atheist BECAUSE of the lack of personal experience with faith or miracles, (among many other things.) I DID NOT stop believing in faith ...

Well, that is what I meant. Sorry if my wording pointed to something else. At the same time, your phrase "believing in faith," does that reveal your mindset at the time? There really are Christians who actually believe in Faith, and they struggle. While it may seem like semantics, believing in God is quite a different thing, and then Faith develops.
 
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razeontherock

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I'm afraid you misunderstand what science is and how it works, then. Anything that can be empirically observed can be scientifically analyzed. Conversely, anything that cannot be scientifically analyzed cannot be empirically observed.

"The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation or experiments."

You're only considering half the meaning of the word. Observation can take place in daily life, outside of a lab.
 
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razeontherock

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Then we aren't sciencing!

Again, we aren't sciencing.

Remember - if it has an effect on reality, then it can be measured, and thus is science.

Nope. And you agree with me, per the above.

Ask God in God's name to move Mount Everest to the Australian outback for one month. If it happens, then I will believe.

Again, based on merely the 2 Scripture passages already cited in this thread, it can be demonstrated this does not meet the criteria for a prayer God would answer in the positive. Science has no way of knowing that.

Science therefore cannot measure the effectiveness of prayer.
 
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Nostromo

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That's because we don't have a working definition of "old".

Whatever "old" entails, is whatever "old" entails.

For example, if "old" means that the atoms that make something up are "loose", then they're loose.

If it means the strong [or weak] nuclear force is weaker than the same force in a new object -- then that's what it means.

If it means they don't bond as well, then they don't bond as well.

And umgekehrt as well; if something (like a tree) is stronger due to stronger nuclear bonding, then an ex nihilo tree with the same chemical strength should suffice for embedded age.
I appreciate that Freodin has already responded to this but I missed it the first time round and thought I'd add to it.

The bottom line is that there is no difference between an old bunch of atoms and a new bunch. The forces between them don't behave any differently, and the particles which make them up are identical.

There's no difference whatsoever between an electron that has been around since the dawn of the universe and one made yesterday.

As a result, there is no property inherent to materials that we call age. The age of something is the amount of time that has passed while it's been around. The appearance of age is the result of physical processes occurring during that passage of time, altering the configuration of components.

If we go by the (your) dictionary's definition of old, we have to accept that either something is old 1) as a result of time passing, or 2) it appears to have aged. The second definition doesn't appear in any dictionary I've seen.

That would mean that, as we've said all along, embedded age is Omphalos.
 
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razeontherock

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There's no difference whatsoever between an electron that has been around since the dawn of the universe and one made yesterday.

As a result, there is no property inherent to materials that we call age. The age of something is the amount of time that has passed while it's been around. The appearance of age is the result of physical processes occurring during that passage of time, altering the configuration of components.

If we go by the (your) dictionary's definition of old, we have to accept that either something is old 1) as a result of time passing, or 2) it appears to have aged. The second definition doesn't appear in any dictionary I've seen.

You contradict yourself here. It is only the second definition we measure, since as you point out in the first sentence here the first definition escapes us. (Over long periods) Your logic backs up AV's claim, rather than refuting it as you would like.
 
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Tiberius

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See those big, red words? What part of those words do you fail to see does not pertain to the topic of prayer?

And how do you not see that by definition, anything that makes a difference in the universe is measurable and therefore scientific?

It's even more complicated than that:

(John 1:18) "No man hath seen God at any time"

And yet false gods have been visible to some, at times.

Genesis 12:7: And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.

Genesis 17:1: And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him....

Genesis 18:1: And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre.

Exodus 33:11: And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend.

Numbers 14:14: For they have heard that thou Lord art among this people, that thou Lord art seen face to face.

Deuteronomy 5:4: The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire.

Judges 13:22: And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

Job 42:5: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.

Isaiah 6:1: In the year that King Ussiah died, I saw, also, the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

Isaiah 6:5: For mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

Ezekiel 1:27: And saw ... the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward.... (his LOINS? Really?)

Are all these false gods?

These are not only reasonable questions - but excellent ones! Finding answers to such this is very possible, but I'm not at all sure I'm the person to even attempt to put those into words. In my experience, it takes God Himself to answer that, and with me, He doesn't resort to words.

So you don't have answers to those questions.

Sorry but the context here is still what I clearly showed to be not measurable by any scientific means. There is no falsely constructed barrier, or anything else.

Can you describe a non-scientific method of measuring?

Nope. And you agree with me, per the above.

I do not agree with you, because science can take place in nature. Science is the study of nature. Any mechanism that causes a difference in the world is measurable in a quantitative manner, because we can measure the change produced. it doesn't have to be in a lab.

Again, based on merely the 2 Scripture passages already cited in this thread, it can be demonstrated this does not meet the criteria for a prayer God would answer in the positive. Science has no way of knowing that.

Science therefore cannot measure the effectiveness of prayer.

Sorry, I don't feel like sorting through 200 something posts. Could you quote those two passages again?

And can you give an example of a prayer that God would answer in the positive?
 
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AV1611VET

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That would mean that, as we've said all along, embedded age is Omphalos.
No, it's not.

I have defined Embedded Age as: maturity without history.

Then you guys want a definition of "age", and I give it to you; then you say it's Omphalos.

You can't break the term down into its component parts, then claim its wrong.

It's like the example I like to use: flying squirrel.

You can't say that, because squirrels don't fly, a flying squirrel is not a flying squirrel.

Same with terms like starfish, schoolhouse, northeast, hometown, etc.
 
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