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Nothing can justify this.
You'd make a great defense attorney, maybe Charles Taylor might be interested. You could even reuse your earlier post - ordering the massacre of children is actually one of the reasons he is being tried for war crimes right now.If that's your attitude, then so be it. In my opinion, only the Holy Spirit can change it at this point.
I don't need to justify it --- I wasn't there. What I need to to, is to take it on faith that God knew what He was doing.
And consider this: God would not give the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, then break one of them in 1 Samuel 15.
(your link)Ergot Poisoning may have played a role in the Salem Witch episode along with mass hysteria of course.
Maybe link them in a post, so they are easy to find, or it might be a while before I have time to sift through the last 10 pages.By the way dad, there are some posts of mine you've not responded to yet.
Yes, I can imagine an ignorant wicked man organized so called trial based on knowing squat about His righteous reason! Really. It goes something like this. The little self righteous accuser of the saints inspired pipsqueak man call the Almighty to the stand. The audience hears a laugh, and all the accusers are dead. Then God explains the real reasons for what went on. All are amazed and happy, and agree 100% with His righteousness. And they all live happily ever after.Nothing can justify this. Can you imagine the perps on trail for war crimes and genocide saying "It was OK because these people attacked us in the past and anyway God told us to kill them all even the babies."
Priceless.(...)
So, now the puritans were on LSD, rather than the voodoo demon contorting folks being what was really going on there. Absurd. Really.
OK, but was it God who gave the direct marching orders? I mean directly from God's lips to the soldiers?
If there was anyone else, human, in the chain of command the question arises, was this direct from God or was it from someone using God's name to justify a command?
Adam Clarke's Commentary --- 1 Samuel 15:1 said:Verse 1. [The Lord sent me to anoint thee] This gave him a right to say what immediately follows.
In this case, is it not Samuel who is speaking on behalf of God?
But further, how do you know the story as written is how it all went down?
But further, if indeed God did command this, then if God does the smiting he can certainly do so without it being "murder" since he previously indicated he would hold some subsequent generations liable for the crimes of their forebears (for example Ex 34:7). But it would be murder for humans to carry out these atrocities, would it not? Humans do not have the same rights as God I should think.
If I was endangered by a threatening person, and I contracted a wholly non-threatened person to come and kill the person who was threatening me, I don't think that the contracted killer could claim "self-defense".
But I'm not a lawyer.
Ergot is a fungus that grows on grain. It causes its victims to have spasms referred to as St. Vitus Dance. It was fairly common in Europe in the Middle Ages. No one is saying these people took LSD or even ergot deliberately.(your link)
"Caporael, now a behavioral psychologist at New York's Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, soon noticed a link between the strange symptoms reported by Salem's accusers, chiefly eight young women, and the hallucinogenic effects of drugs like LSD. LSD is a derivative of ergot, a fungus that affects rye grain. "
So, now the puritans were on LSD, rather than the voodoo demon contorting folks being what was really going on there. Absurd. Really.
So she is biased toward reality instead of your fantasies. She has made a good point about the symptoms of the supposedly bewitched people possibly being the result of poisoning by ergot.I think this source is sadly biased. Here is a snip from her.
" 1. From a Darwinian perspective, we expect species-typical human over evolutionary time mental systems to "fit" or match environmental features that recur . In Caporael (1995),"
http://www.cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/cgi/psyc/newpsy?6.17
Oh. Ha! I thought he meant that the accusers were high! In that case, well, demon possession is similar to some drug symptoms. So??? Every occult person I ever met, or heard of so far was into drugs, it seems to aid them getting into the spirit they want to get into. But the spiritual demonic possession of men is not drugs, it is spirits.I have no doubt that the girls could have been afflicted by something. I believe as has been pointed out on this thread it may have been ergot poisoning (not unheard of at the time).
The symptoms to 'medicine' may mimic a spiritual attack, or even bring it on in some cases.Even today some people have adverse reactions to things. And even some people's bodies contort in agony from purely physical means. Even insane people have this happen! To my knowledge, unless you are going to claim that "demon spirits" respond to antipsychotic medication, it is reasonable to assume mental illness is a function of physical things, not demons.
Your claim about the witches contorting and heads nearly spinning being put on trial really seems to be a conflation of a couple different things. Your claim makes it sound as if these people who were contorting were the witches and they were tried in accordance with law. But in fact the "contortionists" (if you will) were the accusers:
Woah, so now it is the witches again?? So, what the contorting spread to those in the court?? Sounds like a strong demon(s) was at work!! No wonder the Puritans were freaking!!The girls who were initially afflicted were Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. Later Mary Walcott was also "afllicted" and acted as a witness at the trials (there may have been others but I don't have the info).
I know, but it is the same drug. So? You simply try to assign PO causes to spiritual things. Pitiful.Ergot is a fungus that grows on grain. It causes its victims to have spasms referred to as St. Vitus Dance. It was fairly common in Europe in the Middle Ages. No one is saying these people took LSD or even ergot deliberately.
Yes she is biased, it would appear. Beastly little philosophy. Those that are blind to the spiritual, and looked for some other PO cause, that mimics the reality of a spiritual attack need some straw to cling to.So she is biased toward reality instead of your fantasies. She has made a good point about the symptoms of the supposedly bewitched people possibly being the result of poisoning by ergot.
So you try to assign fantasy causes to things that can be given a mundane explanation. You are just the sort person who would end up accusing innocent people of being witches. Pitiful.I know, but it is the same drug. So? You simply try to assign PO causes to spiritual things. Pitiful.
You are just the sort of person who would see accidental poisoning by a hallucenogen as a spell cast by a witch and end up convicting innocent people of witch craft. As least you provide us a clear example of how such a thing as the Salem witch trials could come about.Yes she is biased, it would appear. Beastly little philosophy. Those that are blind to the spiritual, and looked for some other PO cause, that mimics the reality of a spiritual attack need some straw to cling to.
No, it's not.Well, no, the pyramid really is said to be built by that watcher. Actual history.
I make no claim. You are the one making the claims - and providing no support for them. All you are doing is frantically trying to shift the burden of proof. Sorry, won't work.Are you claiming it doesn't exist??? Well, considering the planet full of evidence to the contrary, you better pony up.
Exactly. And you repeatedly claim the spiritual exists, so pony up. You can't. You never do.I tell you how it works. It is like this. You make claims, you pony up. Likey or lumpy.
Provide the evidence to support your claim. You never can.That war is won already. Sorry you missed it. No need to fight that again. Now, it is only our reactions to the known spiritual that matter. Yours is stark, raving denial. Mine is a calm acceptance of the evidences.
No, it is not shown. You have never shown any such evidence. You always do the same thing. Claim the spiritual exists, insist the evidence has already been presented and then state that we need to evidence that it doesn't exist. Sorry, but that's not how it works.It is shown already, deal with it the best way you know how. The spiritual is not something negotiable, it is far more certain than gravity, or time.
Just as soon as you provide any evidence that there is something beyond the natural, you'll have something.You are welcome to your fishbowl of the natural only. It is an important part of reality. You may not claim it as all of reality, that is whacked out.
Falsify has nothing to with fishbowls. Don't you know what the word means?Falsify is a fishbowl concept, applying to your little world.
Yes, so you keep claiming...while providing no evidence to support your claims.The spiritual is so well documented, and known, and has been for all time, that it may not be dismissed, period. No option exists to do that. Your only option is denial.
I'm not defending anything. I'm asking you to support your claims and telling you that until you can support those claims, they are worthless.I see you are desperate, and clutching at straws here to keep from having to defend your same past state myth. Relax. I am aware already that it cannot be defended by any man or woman on this earth.
Yes, I do. And science cannot go there. It likes to pretend it can, in saying things about billions of imagined years from now --and beyond!You evidently have no understanding of infinity.
It's a done deal. Those that tried and tested it found proofs, those that did not haven't.Again you say God is known, but knowledge requires justification - proof. So yes there is need for proof, there is a need to question. Because if there's no proof, you don't know anything, all you do is believe.
PROVE IT!
Yes, science knows nothing about it, and spirits live there, it is indicated in the bible. So, I lean towards the center of the earth being a lot like New Jerusalem in building materials at least. (No, it is not there)You have a reason to believe that the inside of the earth is made of spiritual stuff? Do tell us.
Except man never locked it, God did.Common sense applies wherever we don't have a good reason to believe it doesn't, actually. Like in a locked room - you can't see it, but you still know that the furniture's still there. You still know that there's no spiritual stuff going on. Same with the centre of the earth - it's just like a locked room, except further away.
Yes, it is insane not to, with most people on earth realizing there is a spiritual. Of course spiritual things go on.You think it's common sense to assume that something non-physical is going on, do you? Really?
How would you know? Many believe there are spirits under the earth. Ask around. What, you think I make this stuff up? All I doubt are the claims you have no reason for!I say again: Your argument is based on doubt not reason. That is why nobody believes you.
Do you have a reason to doubt my explanation?Ahem. "They already are a good explanation." Your words. We already have a good explanation.
We need a REASON to doubt that explanation.
You ask us to believe without reason! I tend to doubt those sort of requests.Exactly! So you ask us to DOUBT without REASON!
That one I can answer, the 'who knows'? NOT you. NOT science.Nonono. It might be liquid, it might S/P material, or perhaps it's made of pixie dust! Did you think of that? Or perhaps it's made of holy gravy from the flying spaghetti monster itself! Perhaps it doesn't exist at all! WHO KNOWS?!
There you have it, you just claimed you know the unknown.Actually, dad - I know! Just because you've got some crazy alternative doesn't mean it's anywhere near as good. All you're presenting is an alternative - doubt. You're not giving us a reason to accept your alternative.
No, your explanation. Mine is bible based, and a lot more authoritative.So it may as well be goblins! You, yourself, admit that your "explanation" is just as good an explanation as saying that goblins are responsible for the wave-patterns we see!
Well, you need to ask some science folks about air, if you really doubt.Tested? So what! It could be S/P material that just happens to behave exactly like normal air! Hahaa, I love HI theory
Let's look at that. If X, then equals a different state past, and you say it did not exist you are making a universal negative. OK. So, admit there was one! Or prove there was not! At the very least back up your own false science claims! Then it is positive.A universal negative is a statement of the form "No 'x' exists" or "There has never existed an 'x'" where x is some possible thing. For example, if you put "invisible teapot" in place of 'x' then you would have a good universal negative.
No, that is not reasonable evidence. That is only as reasonable as the assumption that the surface is the be all end all.Good! Then we're not flying blind when we say that the earth is made of physical, molten rock. Because we have reasonable evidence that there is liquid down there, and we have reasonable evidence that there is rock down there.
It is tested, and has been. No secret there. You need to separate reality from fantasy.Is it reasonable to assume that the air you're breathing is physical? But you don't test it, you don't know whether it's air or whether it's spiritual stuff that behaves like air.
Did God lock it, or you??So if you came across a locked room that you'd not been in, with no windows, would you assume that the stuff inside was physical or spiritual?
No, admitting I have no science evidence that the interior of the eternal earth is PO is simple honesty.Well then you're as barmy as people who assume leprechauns come into their room at night to party.
X is someone that grew a lew leg. You say X is false. Prove it, by your own standards here.Again, universal negative. "The lame did not grow new legs" is the same as claiming "There has never existed an 'x'" where 'x' is "a lame who grew new legs."
If you can prove any statement of the form "there has never existed an 'x'" then I would be happy to do the same for you.
The spiritual is experienced in person. Telling some 'judge' about it is like telling the mail man you want a quadruple heart bypass, and a new kidney.You proved it to... yourself? perhaps if you'd proved it to a judge or some other rational person we'd be persuaded, but proving something to yourself is not a particularly special feat.
No, I don't doubt it, that would be you, and since you have no proof, doubt is all you have!But still, dad. You have provided us with no REASON to believe the earth is spiritual inside. You only have DOUBT.
No, one can doubt bogus claims that are not supported, that is OK really.There's a problem with doubt though, dad. (Something you'd know if you'd ever done some philosophy) And is that it's impossible to take seriously, without doubting EVERYTHING.
No it isn't, because some things are well founded, and evidenced, and experienced, and tested, etc. Some are not. Learn the difference. Some thing are good to doubt, some bad. Just like some places are good to walk, some bad.This is your problem dad - you are fine doubting things, as long as they don't really have much to do with you. As long as you can't see them, or if they're a long way away from you - you doubt them. But you're so blind that you don't realise the same doubt is just as valid for doubting the EVERYDAY BELIEFS that you have about the world.
So you try to assign fantasy causes to things that can be given a mundane explanation.
No, I am not that dishonest, vile person you try to accuse me of. Not at all. Neither would I hide it if I were a witch, or whatever religion, like some do. By the way, what are you again?You are just the sort person who would end up accusing innocent people of being witches. Pitiful.
No, not at all. Any more than I would accuse a person of breaking some other law, if it was false. Strange that you wax so desperate you resort to ad hominem attacks, and insane accusations.You are just the sort of person who would see accidental poisoning by a hallucenogen as a spell cast by a witch and end up convicting innocent people of witch craft.
No, it's not.
Science does make claims all over the place. No wiggling out of it, and all based on assuming that the present is the key to the past. Be honest. Your inability to prove it puts the burden of proof right on your shoulders.I make no claim. You are the one making the claims - and providing no support for them. All you are doing is frantically trying to shift the burden of proof. Sorry, won't work.
No need at all, that is already tested, experienced and known the world over, and has been for all time! The minority who chose to be in denial are a sad little joke.Exactly. And you repeatedly claim the spiritual exists, so pony up. You can't. You never do.
I can experience the evidences like most men, and test them, I do not need to stick them in the PO fishbowl. For all who get their head out of the sand, it is right there. Seek, and you will find. Really.Provide the evidence to support your claim. You never can.
Which word, fishbowl? Yes.Falsify has nothing to with fishbowls. Don't you know what the word means?
...why do you think that these women were infected with spirits when poisoning is a much more rational explanation.
Yes, I do. And science cannot go there. It likes to pretend it can, in saying things about billions of imagined years from now --and beyond!
It's a done deal.
Except man never locked it, God did.
How would you know? Many believe there are spirits under the earth. Ask around. What, you think I make this stuff up?
Do you have a reason to doubt my explanation?
That one I can answer, the 'who knows'? NOT you. NOT science.
There you have it, you just claimed you know the unknown.
No, your explanation. Mine is bible based, and a lot more authoritative.
Well, you need to ask some science folks about air, if you really doubt.
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