SHEEPEOPLE

Michael said:

<snip false dichotomy> Give me a break.

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Why? If we lower the evidential bar for deities, all manner of other things may jump over. We could leave the Earth covered in giant. immaterial marshmallows. I hate driving through those things on the freeway.

Michael said:

Ethics classes?

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Indeed. Why else would you compare such dissimilar subjects such as personal gods and cosmology?

Michael said:

You've totally and completely backed yourself into a corner. Science relies upon pattern recognition.

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And then applies methodologies to weed out the false positives. It may be that all you have are those false positives.

joshua 1 9 said:

This is basic dispensationalism. People even send each other Christmas cards talking about the 1000 year reign of Christ. This is a time when "the government shall be upon His shoulder". Every year the nations will send a representative to Jerusalem. They will go out to the great battle field to see where the great battle took place. "Then they will go forth and look On the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be quenched; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind." Isa 66:24

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So you don't know this, you are just asserting it.

Carry on.

Michael said:

As far as I know I haven't made any such arguments in this thread.

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rotflmao.

Or he did. You still didn't explain exactly which work you think he 'built' upon and how, vs. what he simply invented in his wild imagination. Why exactly do you figure that Guth got to "name" his invisible friend anyway?

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Again you talk as if you are completely unfamiliar with the theory.

Pick any picture you like, you'll see part of him.

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Go ahead and post them, so we can check them out.

Michael said:

Until you can demonstrate it's a misrepresentation, neither.

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It's your credibility on the line, not mine.

Michael said:

Plasma physics maths and principles scale to many multiples actually. Besides, there are more active circuits visible in the solar atmosphere every second of every day than exist inside of my brain, and that's only the circuits I see on the *outside* of the sun. What makes you think "awareness" is a completely centralized processes in the first place?

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You did not address my question.

Michael said:

You mean "current flow" in 'circuits'? Have you read *any* of Alfven's work? Birkeland?

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Not that I can recall.

ScottA said:

Technically speaking...it actually has happened already.

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Just not in any way that you can demonstrate?

Time is not what it appears. Time was created, contrived, for a finite purpose, which came to pass in the twinkling of an eye...the before and after of which is referred to as the old and new testament eras. The hourglass was running one way during the first dispensation, and then was turned over to run the other way...and then it will run out.

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How am I to know you (or someone else) did not simply fabricate that story?

ScottA said:

Let me see if I can address these two together:

I would have to say that personally, I came to "know" God without ever "believing"...and then, in time, came to believe. I have seen...blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

I am not sure my whole testimony was what you were asking me to explain, but briefly: I had, over many years, spiraled down through being a victim of crime, going through bankruptcy, loosing my marriage and peaceful contact with my children, etc., etc., to a point of realizing that I was in the very place where people commit suicide. The last straw came and one night while lying in bed, I started talking to a god I had no knowledge of, merely tidbits and rumors. I told him if he wanted my life he could have it, but he would have to take it, otherwise I needed some answers. I needed to know what life was about and what my part in it was...or, it would be the only thing that had not failed me, I would go live in the woods. That's what I said. And he answered.

I was immediately taken up into the atmosphere directly above the place in the woods I had threatened to go...where he showed me my place in the world, my purpose for living. In an instant I was back in my body, and I shot straight up and didn't stop until I was seated at the foot of my bed. I broke out in a cold sweat and sat there in bewilderment, yet "knowing" better than to question what had just happened...I "knew."

Within a week my life completely changed. I was changed. My job changed, my relationship broke off, and I moved. I landed at my brothers house where I found a bible in the spare room where he put me up. I read it from cover to cover, from one point of confirmation of my experience and answer, to the next. The one thing that was unavoidable and undeniable, was...the Author of the bible, and of my experience, was without question, the same. I "know."

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I had a similar experience as a teenager, which is when I decided to become a follower of Jesus. However, later in life I came to understand other dynamics of my experience and the incredible power of the human mind. I met others who had these apparently supernatural experiences. Even later in life, I learned how to manipulate others into having "supernatural" experiences. This causes me to re-narrate the earlier experiences, as I know see the play within the play as serving a much different purpose.

Anyway, I don't require empirical evidence for every claim. I may suspend belief, but I am definitely open to a variety of evidence. Yet, for highly specific claims that should be testable, I do require evidence. If you were to claim that you had an "out of body" type experience, I would be willing to accept this. When you claim that you met a god in this experience who was the author of the bible, this raises questions. Which bible? The Orthodox one with the most books considered canon or the Catholic one with apocrypha or the Evangelical one that rejects the apocrypha? When you say this god was the author of this text, what, exactly, are you claiming? Did he dictate? Inspire? What about the copies of the texts that don't agree and the problems with translation into English? You are making quite a claim there that you personally encounter a being that authored this ancient book, and that kind of claim does require evidence. Your claim also breeds questions about the nature of this being. If you told me you saw a unicorn, I would not doubt that you believe you saw a unicorn. But if you told me this unicorn wanted me to you $50, I would need more evidence. Also, if you claimed you saw a square circle, I would likely refute you on this matter. Either you have redefined the terms "square" and "circle," or you are confused about what you saw, or else you will need much more evidence to convince me than you would with the unicorn since what you are suggesting defies our current understanding.

ScottA said:

Need to know? No.

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I have just demonstrated that you don't have access to infinite knowledge then. Therefore, your claim is refuted.

Justatruthseeker said:

What evidence are you relying on to hold such a belief?

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What belief? I said the evidence is not sufficient to justify belief in Christianity.

OliviaMay said:

Not true either. There are alternatives to the big bang. What is most widely accepted is that the universe is expanding, but even that is debated.

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Well, not really... it was pretty conclusively demonstrated to be expanding long ago. There aren't any legitimate scientists I know of that would seriously argue that idea.

ScottA said:

The end.

This universe was created for a finite purpose, most of which has been fulfilled. Time is not on the side of the skeptic.

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Cite your evidence please

Smidlee said:

As far as I know it's not as it was shown to be incorrect.

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Heliocentrism was shown to be incorrect? Huh? I'd love to read that paper lol

OliviaMay said:

Sorry sir, but you made the claim that there are no plasma physicists. I showed you that to be no true. Don't attribute your lack of research on me.

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I'm afraid you are seeing again through a View Master.

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/sheepeople.7898632/page-10#post-68350257

"Theories that each and every one are considering modifying gravity, or adding extra dimensions, blah, blah, blah - instead of just admitting it {gravity] doesn't apply to 95% of the universe. We do not use gravitational theory to describe plasma behavior in any single laboratory anywhere on this earth or in space. Just cosmologists do, but that's probably whey they are not plasma physicists." {added for clarification}

I said that is why cosmologists are not plasma physicists - because they treat plasma unlike any plasma physicist, not that there are no plasma physicist's. But that still doesn't get you past that one plasma experiment needed to defend all that Fairie Dust of treating plasma gravitationally. The subject you are trying to avoid.

I believe it was you in an earlier post insisting that it is the empirical evidence that is to decide if a thing is true or we have to discard incorrect theories, was it not? Or could of been Loud, he too has a habit of making that claim of science, just never following through on it.

So if you know that not one single plasma physicist uses gravitational theory in any laboratory to describe plasma - what makes you think it's ok to do so in space - when those plasma physicists have stood up and actually spoke out about how they mistreat it?
And then they have to shove in 95% ad-hoc theories to explain why plasma isn't behaving gravitationally, while claiming it still is. It's kinda why you don't have to put your coffee pot below the outlet for it to work.

We were all actually discussing peoples tendency to believe in Fairie Dust - despite every single laboratory experiment ever done with plasma.

Nobody is trying to do away with GR. It's an excellent description of how balanced electrical and magnetic forces behave. It works quite well with the states of matter it was designed for, solids, liquids and gasses - that 5%. It just doesn't work in describing plasma behavior - the other 95% of the universe... Gravity doesn't need modified - it's 98% correct in describing planetary orbits - solids, liquids and gasses.

Unlike the scientists I am not even claiming 99%, but a conservative 95%.

"Our day-to-day lives exist in what physicists would call an electrically neutral environment. Desks, books, chairs and bodies don't generally carry electricity and they don't stick to magnets. But life on Earth is substantially different from, well, almost everywhere else. Beyond Earth's protective atmosphere and extending all the way through interplanetary space, electrified particles dominate the scene. Indeed, 99% of the universe is made of this electrified gas, known as plasma. "

So why do you believe in theories that ignore what 95% of the universe is and instead treats it like that other 5%? And then ask that I accept that 95% Fairie Dust precisely because they did so?

But that's why none of their models matched reality when Voyager got to the heliopause - the end of interplanetary space.

Dave Ellis said:

What belief? I said the evidence is not sufficient to justify belief in Christianity.

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That's why I said "what evidence" do you rely on for "your belief" it is not sufficient to justify "a belief" in God? Treating 95% of the universe like a state of matter it is not? Asking I believe that birds that mate and produce fertile offspring are separate species?

That's why I asked what evidence you rely on for this belief of yours? I've yet to see any for either one of those claims by cosmologists or evolutionists.

Justatruthseeker said:

No one denies that gravitational theory describes the behavior of solids, liquids and gasses. But these neutral states of matter make up only at most 5% of the universe (planetary systems). The other 95% is plasma - which does not obey the gravitational laws - but electromagnetic laws.

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What wonderful bull crap. All forms of matter are subject to gravity, and all charge carrying bodies or particles are subject to the laws of electromagnetism. Does Justa's scientific illiteracy know no bounds?

lesliedellow said:

What wonderful bull crap. All forms of matter are subject to gravity, and all charge carrying bodies or particles are subject to the laws of electromagnetism. Does Justa's scientific illiteracy know no bounds?

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Then I'll tell you the same thing I told the others.

Show me that one plasma laboratory experiment where they treated plasma gravitationally and not electromagnetically and I'll accept all your Fairie Dust claims with no further argument. But in return, when you fail to produce just one - you give up that belief in Fairie Dust. Agreed?

Let's test those faiths in science shall we? I've shown you my faith in the science, now agree and show me yours.