I will scientifically prove the existence of God to you

[SelfSim]

Priorities? In my perspective and worldview, there's little if any conflict between practical science and the prophetic Bible, so I don't have to worry about being selective and landing in a puddle of cognitive dissonance like so many do. Besides, science doesn't dictate priorities.

As I said, in my view (which relies upon the Critical Thinking apparatus as a liaison between the two realms), I get to have my cake and eat it too.

So you are able to suspend disbelief when reading the 'prophetic Bible', whilst simultaneously claiming to be a Christian, eh?

My 'Critical Thinking apparatus' urges me to seriously interrogate what yours has to say about that .. specifically: what you mean by 'being a Christian' (?)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

So you are able to suspend disbelief when reading the 'prophetic Bible', whilst simultaneously claiming to be a Christian, eh?

I think you may have missed the bit about my cumulative back story of which I've left bits and pieces strewn here and there on CF.

SelfSim, you and I conceptualize and define the nature of selected epistemic concepts differently. By my lights, a state of doubt and uncertainty isn't the opposite of faith; it's merely a human element of the ongoing nature of human cognition.

My 'Critical Thinking apparatus' urges me to seriously interrogate what yours has to say about that .. and what you mean by being 'a Christian' (?)

Let the games begin.................................. ask away.

 

[AV1611VET]

Do you have any reason to believe otherwise?

Nope.

 

[SelfSim]

I think you may have missed the bit about my cumulative back story of which I've left bits and pieces strewn here and there on CF.

SelfSim, you and I conceptualize and define the nature of selected epistemic concepts differently. By my lights, a state of doubt and uncertainty isn't the opposite of faith; it's merely a human element of the ongoing nature of human cognition.


Let the games begin.................................. ask away.

I'm only driven by casual curiosity here, however I see your flaming head avartar on the not-too-distant horizon, so don't expect my query here to go on for pages.

If I were to claim myself as being a Christian, (I'm not saying I'm not), I'd feel obliged to having to go back in adopting the committments, which were basically forced upon me as a naive youth, as I went through the various rituals. I am now unwilling to re-adopt those, at these much later stages in my life.
I use that first-hand knowledge of the weight of those comittments, as my basis for comparing my position with yours, when you declare yourself as being a Christian. Is that a fair basis for my trying to relate with your position on Christianity?

If so, I then query why I don't see demonstrations of the weight of those comittments in your postings here .. they seem to be very much more idealistically and intellectually distanced .. sort of more light-hearted and whimsical .. and lacking in what I'd expect are the prerequisite 'weightings'(?)

Hope that makes sense(?)

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I'm only driven by casual curiosity here, however I see your flaming head avartar on the not-too-distant horizon, so don't expect my query here to go on for pages.

If I were to claim myself as being a Christian, I'd feel obliged to having to go back in adopting the committments, which were basically forced upon me as a naive youth, as I went through the various rituals. I am now unwilling to re-adopt those, at these much later stages in my life.
I use that first-hand knowledge of the weight of those comittments, as my basis for comparing my position with yours, when you declare yourself as being a Christian. Is that a fair basis for my trying to relate with your position on Christianity?

No, not really, because as I've said more than once here, I wasn't raised in anything but a very nominally religious family and my earliest secular influences overshadowed what very little I knew about religion, the Bible or of the figure of Jesus. My youth was spent in mental cavorting with comic books, sci-fi shows, art, and other worldly pursuits that young boys like to pursue. Jesus wasn't on that list.

By contrast to myself, if you were raised in a more robustly fundamentalistic family milieu, then you have my sympathy.

If so, I then query why I don't see demonstrations of the weight of those comittments in your postings here .. they seem to be very much more idealistically and intellectually distanced .. sort of more light-hearted and whimsical .. and lacking in what I'd expect are the prerequisite 'weightings'(?)

Hope that makes sense(?)

Yes, I understand fully where you're coming from, but I simply do not share what a number of folks expect to be, as you've said, "prerequisite weightings" for qualifying as a Christian. However, I also understand that since everyone has their own personal experiences both good and bad with the Christian religion, it behooves me to more clearly lay my definitional cards out on the table for all to see, just so there's no misunderstanding. This is why I've provided an introductory source/book list for what represents my Christian worldview in my CF personal page. Of course, there's a lot more that goes into my present view than that list alone, but it makes for a reasonable spitting image of where I'm at.

On a more confessional note: I am somewhat worn out by having wasted too much time with trolls here on CF over the years, so I tend now toward a more lighthearted and briefer mode of engagement in my typical postings. For me, less is more.

 

[SelfSim]

No, not really, because as I've said more than once here, I wasn't raised in anything but a very nominally religious family and my earliest secular influences overshadowed what very little I knew about religion, the Bible or of the figure of Jesus. My youth was spent in mental cavorting with comic books, sci-fi shows, art, and other worldly pursuits that young boys like to pursue. Jesus wasn't on that list.

By contrast to myself, if you were raised in a more robustly fundamentalistic family milieu, then you have my sympathy.

Oh, I wasn't.
My upbringing sounds very similar to your own. Understanding my parents' thinking better now, (in my more advanced years), helps me to understand more about the 'hows' and 'whys' of my introduction to religion. I have no intense regrets or misgivings about any of that nowadays. Its more like amusement, actually. There's no book on how to raise children .. although the local priest seemed to have everyone in my neighbourhood, (when I was a kid), thinking that there absolutely was! He had a leaning towards the hell/fire/brimstone approach but he also managed to keep that pretty well under control.

Yes, I understand fully where you're coming from, but I simply do not share what a number of folks expect to be, as you've said, "prerequisite weightings" for qualifying as a Christian.

This is the crux of my curiosity.
I'm not entirely sure how people make the leap from holding beliefs and then transitioning them into their physical reality. (Its a lifelong inquiry I have running there). IMO, at the moment, its pretty clear that emotional intensity accounts for the leap they make there.

However, I also understand that since everyone has their own personal experiences both good and bad with the Christian religion, it behooves me to more clearly lay my definitional cards out on the table for all to see, just so there's no misunderstanding. This is why I've provided an introductory source/book list for what represents my Christian worldview in my CF personal page. Of course, there's a lot more that goes into my present view than that list alone, but it makes for a reasonable spitting image of where I'm at.

You almost sound like a @Mountainmike there .. as in: 'here are the books .. now go and read for yourself'.
I find that as being completely unsatisfying because I don't want know what those authors' opinions are .. the question is directed at the individual (in this case: yourself .. and in @MM's case: himself).

More callously, the individual just isn't that important for me to spend hours reading what they've read .. and for me to read into that, what they might have been thinking when they read the same material .. too many variables and too much scope for misinterpretations there, for me to get to the answers I'm pursuing via the inquiry.

On a more confessional note: I am somewhat worn out by having wasted too much time with trolls here on CF over the years, so I tend now toward a more lighthearted and briefer mode of engagement in my typical postings. For me, less is more.

Trolls can occasionally be fun .. but fanatics are definitely never fun.

 

[Mountainmike]

Oh, I wasn't.
My upbringing sounds very similar to your own. Understanding my parents' thinking better now, (in my more advanced years), helps me to understand more about the 'hows' and 'whys' of my introduction to religion. I have no intense regrets or misgivings about any of that nowadays. Its more like amusement, actually. There's no book on how to raise children .. although the local priest seemed to have everyone in my neighbourhood, (when I was a kid), thinking that there absolutely was! He had a leaning towards the hell/fire/brimstone approach but he also managed to keep that pretty well under control.


This is the crux of my curiosity.
I'm not entirely sure how people make the leap from holding beliefs and then transitioning them into their physical reality. (Its a lifelong inquiry I have running there). IMO, at the moment, its pretty clear that emotional intensity accounts for the leap they make there.

You almost sound like a @Mountainmike there .. as in: 'here are the books .. now go and read for yourself'.
I find that as being completely unsatisfying because I don't want know what those authors' opinions are .. the question is directed at the individual (in this case: yourself .. and in @MM's case: himself).

More callously, the individual just isn't that important for me to spend hours reading what they've read .. and for me to read into that, what they might have been thinking when they read the same material .. too many variables and too much scope for misinterpretations there, for me to get to the answers I'm pursuing via the inquiry.

Trolls can occasionally be fun .. but fanatics are definitely never fun.

The authors are scientists doing science, It’s why I want you to read them

- be it cardiologist Pim van lommel ( and many others ) on longtidunal studies of nde in cardiac arrests.
- or serafini cardiologist reviewing the scientific evidence ( and many others) on Eucharistic miracles.


Not liking their conclusions is no basis to discount them. Or even not to read them.
The point is - Dont take my word for it, Try to find holes in the arguments!

You will see it is the sceptics like woerlee and Blackmore who are using badly researched unsupportable pseudoscientific nonsense, which demonstrates they refuse to even study the cases . Any nonsense pseudoscience is good enough for skeptical inquirer,

So Just as woerlee refused to demonstrate his farcical nonsensical argument on how pam Reynolds” heard ”
it was frankly ridiculous , but also the best sceptics have ever come up with!! -

so also The shroud fake advocates ( including the daters) have refused £1m to demonstrate they can reproduce chemistry of the shroud, which they know they cannot, indeed the dater in chief , date result fiddler in chief , tite now admits it is chemistry of a real crucifixion victim.

It’s a shame he misled the entire world for 20 years first.

The only way you will find out this stuff is to read it and study it. Both sides of the argument.
Same as quantum physics, there is no shortcut to knowledge.

My introductory challenge on NDE , is study Pam reynolds and pim van lommels dentures man.
Try to explain them. You can’t.

then read the longitudinal studies that prove anoxia, length of unconsciousness, drugs, beliefs , gender , condition, even prior knowledge of nde , have no effect on the stats.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Oh, I wasn't.
My upbringing sounds very similar to your own. Understanding my parents' thinking better now, (in my more advanced years), helps me to understand more about the 'hows' and 'whys' of my introduction to religion. I have no intense regrets or misgivings about any of that nowadays. Its more like amusement, actually. There's no book on how to raise children .. although the local priest seemed to have everyone in my neighbourhood, (when I was a kid), thinking that there absolutely was! He had a leaning towards the hell/fire/brimstone approach but he also managed to keep that pretty well under control.

When I was a young kid, I had absolutely no idea there was such a thing as a "hellfire and brimstone approach." That's how little I knew at the time. We didn't read the Bible. We barely said any prayers. We barely darkened the halls of the local liberal church. The two pastors I had heard at those Presbyterian U.S.A. churches of the late 70s and early 80s were very soft spoken and provided more of a mild homily for our "respectful consideration."

This is the crux of my curiosity.
I'm not entirely sure how people make the leap from holding beliefs and then transitioning them into their physical reality. (Its a lifelong inquiry I have running there). IMO, at the moment, its pretty clear that emotional intensity accounts for the leap they make there.

Sure. I get that it's a mystery to you. But belief and disbelief, either way, are not mysteries to me.

You almost sound like a @Mountainmike there .. as in: 'here are the books .. now go and read for yourself'.
I find that as being completely unsatisfying because I don't want know what those authors' opinions are .. the question is directed at the individual (in this case: yourself .. and in @MM's case: himself).

I might sound "LIKE" him, but that doesn't mean my operative, conceptual praxis is running along the same lines as his. You might want to keep that in mind like I do when I assess each individual atheist I meet or listen to. Each person isn't a clone of the other. And I really hate being compared to other people when those who are doing the comparing haven't the slightest idea what I think our how I've come by my own education.

As for you finding my views unsatisfactory, I'm just opposite: ......... I engage people's sources, and for me, people who don't engage mine are unsatisfactory.

More callously, the individual just isn't that important for me to spend hours reading what they've read .. and for me to read into that, what they might have been thinking when they read the same material .. too many variables and too much scope for misinterpretations there, for me to get to the answers I'm pursuing via the inquiry.

Well, if I'm not that important to you as an individual, that seems to undercut the whole "wanting to understand how people make the leap from belief to physical reality."

It sort of sounds like you have an inconsistent motivational quirk between your desire to know from what you're willing to do to come to know it.

Trolls can occasionally be fun .. but fanatics are definitely never fun.

I've never been much with putting up with Dark Triadic trolls. Hence, my "flaming head" Ghost Rider motif. Maybe watch the Ghost Rider movies-----you'll understand my mindset a bit more on an existential level if you do so. That is, "if" you want to engage the source material and catch the drift of my use of that metaphor. Or not.

 

[AV1611VET]

When I was a young kid, I had absolutely no idea there was such a thing as a "hellfire and brimstone approach."

 

[2PhiloVoid]

View attachment 364195

As it turns out, I read Jonathan Edwards during my first year at university ...

... not that it was surprising to me at that point since I had already read the New Testament and become a Christian just before that.

 

[AV1611VET]

As it turns out, I read Jonathan Edwards during my first year at university ...

... not that it was surprising to me at that point since I had already read the New Testament and become a Christian just before that.

Good for you!

 

[Hans Blaster]

As it turns out, I read Jonathan Edwards during my first year at university ...

... not that it was surprising to me at that point since I had already read the New Testament and become a Christian just before that.

You Protestant guys are so weird, waiting until your teens to become Christians and actually reading the NT.

 

[AV1611VET]

You Protestant guys are so weird, waiting until your teens to become Christians and actually reading the NT.

As opposed to Paul, who became a Christian first, then wrote the NT?

 

[SelfSim]

I might sound "LIKE" him, but that doesn't mean my operative, conceptual praxis is running along the same lines as his. You might want to keep that in mind like I do when I assess each individual atheist I meet or listen to. Each person isn't a clone of the other. And I really hate being compared to other people when those who are doing the comparing haven't the slightest idea what I think our how I've come by my own education.

One's education surely doesn't make the entire person(?)
Ie: Wouldn't you agree that none of us is simply the net sum of the knowledge we've accumulated from our individual educations (?)

As for you finding my views unsatisfactory, I'm just opposite: ......... I engage people's sources, and for me, people who don't engage mine are unsatisfactory.

Well, if I'm not that important to you as an individual, that seems to undercut the whole "wanting to understand how people make the leap from belief to physical reality."

It sort of sounds like you have an inconsistent motivational quirk between your desire to know from what you're willing to do to come to know it.

What's inconsistent about asking the source for their views?
Like you imply I should be able to find out who someone is by reading a bunch of books they once read?
How is that a consistent way of finding out an individual's perspective?

I've never been much with putting up with Dark Triadic trolls. Hence, my "flaming head" Ghost Rider motif. Maybe watch the Ghost Rider movies-----you'll understand my mindset a bit more on an existential level if you do so. That is, "if" you want to engage the source material and catch the drift of my use of that metaphor. Or not.

It still sounds like you consider yourself to be akin to an empty box waiting to be filled up with someone else's views(?)
I find that very perplexing.
Where do I find the individual 'you' amongst all of that?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Looks like you're SOL then.

(Short On Luck)

For those who have an academic mindset that outranks the Bible, I have this to say:

It looks like NTS has you SOL.

No, it's more a case of you're making something extra-Biblical up about what the Bible is saying to try and get out of something sticky. E.G. Adding to the Bible.
And, once again, if an instruction for something is written, it will not say 'not to scale' since that is only used in visual diagrams.

How old was Darwin when he died?

73?

Or 73 years, 2 months, and 7 days?

(Please answer this.)

Both.

Still doesn't excuse the fact that you're adding to the Bible.

 

[AV1611VET]

How old was Darwin when he died?

73?

Or 73 years, 2 months, and 7 days?

Both.

So it's okay to truncate the "2 months and 7 days" and just say Darwin was 73 when he died?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So it's okay to truncate the "2 months and 7 days" and just say Darwin was 73 when he died?

Who counts the months and days of a person when they died?

Your extra-Biblical addition of 'Not to Scale' to try and bypass the passage in Kings showing something you don't like is just: an extra-Biblical addition. Which is against Proverbs 30:6 - "Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."

 

[Larniavc]

The authors are scientists doing science, It’s why I want you to read them

- be it cardiologist Pim van lommel ( and many others ) on longtidunal studies of nde in cardiac arrests.
- or serafini cardiologist reviewing the scientific evidence ( and many others) on Eucharistic miracles.


Not liking their conclusions is no basis to discount them. Or even not to read them.
The point is - Dont take my word for it, Try to find holes in the arguments!

You will see it is the sceptics like woerlee and Blackmore who are using badly researched unsupportable pseudoscientific nonsense, which demonstrates they refuse to even study the cases . Any nonsense pseudoscience is good enough for skeptical inquirer,

So Just as woerlee refused to demonstrate his farcical nonsensical argument on how pam Reynolds” heard ”
it was frankly ridiculous , but also the best sceptics have ever come up with!! -

so also The shroud fake advocates ( including the daters) have refused £1m to demonstrate they can reproduce chemistry of the shroud, which they know they cannot, indeed the dater in chief , date result fiddler in chief , tite now admits it is chemistry of a real crucifixion victim.

It’s a shame he misled the entire world for 20 years first.

The only way you will find out this stuff is to read it and study it. Both sides of the argument.
Same as quantum physics, there is no shortcut to knowledge.

My introductory challenge on NDE , is study Pam reynolds and pim van lommels dentures man.
Try to explain them. You can’t.

then read the longitudinal studies that prove anoxia, length of unconsciousness, drugs, beliefs , gender , condition, even prior knowledge of nde , have no effect on the stats.

A lot of claims there, MM. Any links?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

A lot of claims there, MM. Any links?

"READ THE BOOK!" Or something of that effect.

 

[Larniavc]

"READ THE BOOK!" Or something of that effect.

*mashing thumb on text*

This link won’t open for some reason.