Wherein I catch a profession YEC in a lie 2.0

[_-iconoclast-_]

I think that some accident would get you in the end. Even if it took a trillions of years, something would get you.

Hey larnievc

Thank you for your participation. Hope you are having a great day.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

I’m maximally certain death is inevitable.

Hey hey.

Thank you for including your position. Hope you are having a great day.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Hey there friend. Care to join in? Do you agree with jimmie d?

Is death an absolute certainty?

If something lived long enough, it'd see the entropy of the universe and either be left drifting as the only matter and energy never to dissipate or be destroyed through something like an energy shift of the entire universe. The former would make for an existence so bereft of stimuli that the individual would be indisputably better off dead, and the latter would mean death.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

If something lived long enough, it'd see the entropy of the universe and either be left drifting as the only matter and energy never to dissipate or be destroyed through something like an energy shift of the entire universe. The former would make for an existence so bereft of stimuli that the individual would be indisputably better off dead, and the latter would mean death.

Hey hey.

Thank you for including your position.

 

[DogmaHunter]

So if scientists were to reverse the ageing process could that result in immortality?

Theoretically, yes. At least for as long as the universe allows living things in it.
At least the cause of "natural death of old age" would be no longer a cause of death.
So providing you won't get into a fatal accident or contract some incurable terminal desease or something, yes - you'ld effectively be immortal.

Do you believe it could be possible in the future (or later today) that humans could live for millions of years

Yes. Wheter we would want that or if it would actually be practically possible, is another story. Surely it would raise quite a few problems like population explosion etc. Serious regulation would have to be implemented. Imagine everyone having a bunch of kids every couple decades, while all live for millions of years. It would not be sustainable.

But simply talking physically... the manipulation of genetics etc to "halt" aging? And going further, the total eradication of all desease? Sure, why not.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible in principle. "All" it would take, would be to first define what constitutes a "healthy person" and what that means fysiologically. Next, one would have to figure out how one can force a body to stay in such a state and not age past a certain point.

Not sure how all this ties into the topic though. We seem to have wandered off a bit.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

Theoretically, yes. At least for as long as the universe allows living things in it.

Hey hey dh you beauty

What does that mean re 'universe allows'? Does this mean all systems decay?

So providing you won't get into a fatal accident or contract some incurable terminal desease or something, yes - you'ld effectively be immortal

But simply talking physically... the manipulation of genetics etc to "halt" aging? And going further, the total eradication of all desease? Sure, why not.

So a variable?

Death is not an absolute certainty because future scientific breakthroughs are unforeseeable. What would you call this position - it, itself is not a 100% certainty?

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible in principle. "All" it would take, would be to first define what constitutes a "healthy person" and what that means fysiologically. Next, one would have to figure out how one can force a body to stay in such a state and not age past a certain point.

Do you believe all things are possible?

Cheers.

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

Whats up doc. Pls excuse my delayed response.

Oh, Hey! I thought you'd left the planet! lol! Good to see you again...

Bugs - How could you exist as a non believer if i have 100% clarity on this?

My dear Im confused. Could you re word this.

This is simply a rehash of the same that you responded to here:

In the meanwhile...

Bugs "How can you be 100% certain of all this, isn't just knowing people like me existing, enough to sew at least an inkling of uncertainty?"

Why is the knowledge of your existance linked to uncertainty?

so I will address them both here:

For you to be rationally 100% certain, all the evidence available to you would have to be 100% correlating. I don't fit into this 100% correlation model, just as Jews and Muslims don't fit either, so therefore we're all anomalies in your dataset that has to be explained. It's okay, Creationists are always in a state of cognitive dissonance, so this is expected. In Science, every datapoint has to be accounted for - i.e. in order to be done properly, Science has to account for all of the data (both supporting and unsupporting evidence and datapoints) in order to get to a usable conclusion as close to reality as it's possible to get.

Your model has to allow for a Christian God who willingly allows Muslims, Jews and Atheists alike (not to mention every other religion and culture that will never know about Christianity) to be born, live and die never knowing of the Christian God let alone being saved. Your 100% Certainty in your Faith (i.e. Trust without Evidence) is only possible if you ignore the evidence of all these people and cultures that do not conform with your model of this universe.

Bugs - "But that reality can be verified any number of ways. You could be on security camera when the piece of fruit landed on your head and others could see it".

God is not a puppet master. What would be the point in God doing so?

I do not know. Nor do i care. This is speculation.

well, No. Is such a thing impossible of your God?

No.

so your God isn't all-powerful after all? I have to say, I find that refreshing...

Is God capable of implanting memories into my head, is He able to do so in the same way He created Adam and Eve?

Im more confused now friend?

This is the Question I ask of you. You seem to be mistaken about the Power of your God but it seems you concede your God isn't all that powerful. After all, if he was able to create an entire Universe that looks like it's 13.8 billion years old and an Earth that looks 4.5 billion years old all the way down to the most minute detail that fool the most sceptical and thorough Scientists among us today, surely he could create this same universe in an instant just 5 minutes ago with all of us, repleat with memories of our entire lives, including memories of relatives that have passed away, past employment, memories of our first kiss, etc. in exactly the same way he created Adam fully grown with the memory of speech and understanding of the world around him, ability to walk, run, sit, jump, etc. as if he had grown into an adult like all of us?

Being an all-omnipotent being is a tall ask after all, so I'm happy you feel your God isn't so impossibly powerful - after all, he would have ensured every aspect, right down to buried bones and fossils in the earth, security camera footage, news and current affairs along with geo-political situations the world over would be entirely consistent with having been the result of a universe existing for 13.8 billion years, even though he made it just five minutes ago. In short, there'd be no way for you to catch out an all-omnipotent version of your God creating this Universe in its current state just 5 minutes past - Do you agree?

How do (or better still, Could) you know he Didn't do this?

Of course my dear. I have experienced both.

Dream v vision.

A vision is where you see something; you get a heavenly perspective either in your literal eyes or in your mind's eye. A dream is what you see when you're asleep.

You have never had a vision. Until then you will never know the difference. This was a life changing experience. Afterwards i received the Holy Spirit - this was a form of confirmation not confirmation bias. i got a result.

I had a divine experience and it effected me. This experience changed me. I have never neen so effected by a dream, lucid or not.

This was during day 11am. Dreams happen when you sleep. I was conscious before it happened. I had breakfast. I have never neen abused. I have never seen the visuals i experienced before on tv or in my travels. I was not sick.

My last lucid dream. I found my self at high school and i was stressed over a test i had to do. In my mind i was feeling dread that i did not study when i realised wait... im 30yro and work for a living. I do not go to school.

I realised i was dreaming. I started to become awake and i woke up.

The only time i was able to control one of my dreams ie a made a tower appear. I woke up within a short period of time. I had become aware of the dream.

I was aware in my vision. It went for what felt like 10mins. It was real time and i haf no control over it.

You did say yourself that you went into a dream-like state, so this may still be the case. It's a natural phenomenon that we know happens to us (and animals too btw), so this would surely be the first assessment that requires no extra presumptions about reality to be brought into play.

All that aside though, what about a hallucination or delusion? These things are real to the people that experience them and they too are natural and well-understood phenomenons. Regardless what happened, the burden for asserting something occurring over and above these naturalistic and very plausible explanations, is on you. Asserting it to be a divine experience isn't good enough for the rest of us who didn't experience it. You even mentioned the two ladies with you at your congregation had no idea of the experience you had, they didn't see anything so it definitely was entirely your own experience (I'll stop short of saying "it was entirely in your head" here), an experience that nobody else was able to experience with you.

Well my dear lets compare. Can you give me an example of these experiences that are exactly the same?

Sure:

From Hindu milk miracle - Wikipedia :

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon, considered by many Hindus as a miracle, which started on 21 September 1995, in which statues of the Hindu deity Ganesha were said to drink milk offerings. It attracted great attention from people and the media particularly in India.

Phenomenon

Before dawn on 21 September 1995, a worshipper at a temple in south New Delhi made an offering of milk to a statue of Ganesha. When a spoonful of milk from the bowl was held up to the trunk of the statue, the liquid was seen to disappear, apparently taken in by the idol. Word of the event spread quickly, and by mid-morning it was found that statues of the entire Hindu pantheon in temples all over India were taking in milk.[1]

By noon the news had spread beyond India, and Hindu temples in the United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, and Nepal among other countries had successfully replicated the phenomenon, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (an Indian Hindu nationalist organisation which provides social services to Hindus in India and across the world.) had announced that a miracle was occurring. In the United States, it was observed at the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Ganesh Temple)[4]

The reported miracle had a significant effect on the areas around major temples; vehicle and pedestrian traffic in New Delhi was dense enough to create a gridlock lasting until late in the evening. Many stores in areas with significant Hindu communities saw a massive jump in sales of milk, with one Gateway store in England selling over 25,000 pints of milk,[4] and overall milk sales in New Delhi jumped over 30%.[5] Many minor temples struggled to deal with the vast increase in numbers, and queues spilled out into the streets, reaching distances of over a mile.​

And here is a personal account of this Hindu Milk Miracle (Read the whole story here How I witnessed a miracle ):

"The thing I love about Hinduism is that it gives me complete freedom to make my own decisions on how to practice my religion, it gives me the flexibility I need and indeed it gives me a great amount of choice. I have always felt from a very young age that there is a higher power beyond this universe, this nature, our world.

Many a time I have seen the results of prayer in my own life and some of those little miracles may well be ascribed to coincidences but when you actually weigh all the arguments in your own mind its difficult not to accept the power of prayer or an intervention by another force. Besides that I did have a very personal experience at the age of 19 which left no doubt in my mind of the existence of a higher power or reality.

One of the very public experiences I had was at the week of the milk miracle of 1995, when Lord Ganesh and generally Lord Shiva’s family was drinking milk. I got a phone call from my mother in law to go to the temple and try and offer milk to Ganesh ji, she insisted that I must go immediately whereas I could hardly believe that a stone idol could consume a liquid. I couldn’t help laughing in my mind though realising that my mother in law would not have phoned me in office hours – I run an accountancy practice - unless it was serious.

So I went to the Vishwa Hindu temple at Lady Margaret Road in Southall and at about 1pm there was a queue of 4 or 5 people in front of me. They were all offering milk in a spoon to the Deity Nandi – a marble idol of the bull that is supposed to be Lord Shiva’s vehicle and his foremost devotee and is worshipped as a family member of Lord Shiva. Incidentally Lord Ganesh is the first son of God which Goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Shiva, created and infused life into. I was not thinking of Lord Shiva or Ganesh or Parvati at the time but just offered a spoon full of milk to Nandi as directed by the priest.

As I raised the spoon to Nandi’s mouth and the milk touched the idol, very slightly, the level of milk in the spoon started to go down as if someone was actually drinking it, quite evenly.

I was shaking with awe.

This experience made me realise how stupid I had been to be influenced by the negative propaganda against idols by some ideologies of other religions. I did always believe in the almighty and prayed to, say Lord Krishna, or Lord Shiva etc. and of course in my youth did not question much but as I grew up I was influenced by the negative propaganda against idolatry targeted mainly at Hindus and in spite of the Hindu belief that once an idol is consecrated in the temple through Vedic Mantras then spirituality is infused in the idol and for all intents and purposes it becomes God, alive in spirit, I could not bring myself to agree with this belief, which seemed to me just a theory.

Nonetheless I understood that my thoughts had to be directed towards an indescribable reality God through some form of medium and so I prayed to Lord Shiva or Krishna or Goddess Durga whenever I went to the temple, quite sincerely. It was not really important to believe that the idols were alive, what mattered to me were my thoughts and devotion. However after the milk miracle everything changed in that respect. And that to happen through the idol of Nandi, a Bull, associated with Lord Shiva i.e., not even Shiva himself or Ganesh or Parvati.

I rang my wife who is a scientist with a PhD and actually works in medicinal research. She too laughed in disbelief. Then I asked her to ring her mother also and in any case, on her way home from work, she stopped at Ram Mandir in King street, Southall. Being a scientist she offered the milk to the “bronze” serpent around Shiva’s neck and the milk went into thin air. Since then her Hindu beliefs consolidated and she now observes various practices much more devoutly than me.

I rang some of my local clients, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians to tell them what had happened. They all went there and had the same experience. "​

From 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident - Wikipedia :

The 2006 Mumbai "sweet" seawater incident was a strange phenomenon during which residents of Mumbai claimed that the water at Mahim Creek had suddenly turned sweet. Within hours, residents of Gujarat claimed that seawater at Teethal beach had turned sweet as well. This caused a mass hysteria among people who started coming in large numbers to drink the sea water.​

Not sure if you've ever heard of Sathya Sai Baba, but he's a Hindu Guru attributed with many miracles of Jesus and a few more ( Sathya Sai Baba - Wikipedia ) including being the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirid ( Sai Baba of Shirdi - Wikipedia ). From 7 Beautiful Stories That Prove Miracles Actually Happen

"On May 10, 1977, Bhagwandas Daswani suffered from a massive heart attack. “I actually died for two minutes and was revived by doctors.” Daswani recalls. Although he came around, there was no improvement in his condition and he was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ten days later, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. Losing about four pints of blood a day, he had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family, and the team of doctors had lost all hope of his survival.

“On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,” recalled Daswani, “Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore said, ‘Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?’ He said, ‘I am here all right. What would you like me to do?’ I said, ‘Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not dreaming.’ He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was disturbed.

“I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment was beyond description. ‘How did you get here?’ they asked. ‘I walked,’ I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the truth. ‘Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and all over you?’ they asked. I said, ‘Don’t ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper bag for me.’ They did this and collected one and a half kilograms of vibhuti.

Daswani's health began to improve rapidly, and the doctors and the staff kept questioning him, but his lips were sealed. On May 29, he was able to walk by himself to another ward. Not only did he make a complete recovery, his diabetes disappeared as well. Bhagwandas Daswani believes he owes everything to Bhagavan Baba."​

Other miracle attestations are numerous, the following attributed to Sai Baba of Shirid (see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Miracles

Sai Baba's disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways. He also gave Darshan (vision) to people in the form of Sri Rama, Krishna, Vithoba, Shiva and many other gods depending on the faith of devotees.

According to his followers, he appeared to them in their dreams and gave them advice. His devotees have documented many stories.​

The following attributed to Sathya Sai Baba (again see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Early life

Almost everything known about Sai Baba's early life stems from the hagiography that grew around him, narratives that hold special meaning to his devotees and are considered by them to be evidence of his divine nature. According to these sources, Sathya Narayana Raju was born to Meesaraganda Eashwaramma and Peddavenkama Raju Ratnakaram in the village of Puttaparthi, to a Raju family, in what was the Madras Presidency of British India. His birth, which his mother Eashwaramma asserted was by miraculous conception, was also said to be heralded by miracles.

Sai Baba's siblings included elder brother Ratnakaram Sesham Raju (1921–1984), sisters Venakamma (1923–1993) and Parvathamma (1928–1998), and younger brother Janakirammiah (1930–2003).

As a child, he was described as "unusually intelligent" and charitable, though not necessarily academically inclined, as his interests were of a more spiritual nature. He was uncommonly talented in devotional music, dance and drama. From a young age, he was alleged to have been capable of materialising objects such as food and sweets out of thin air.
Proclamation
Sai Baba at the age of 14, soon after proclaiming himself as the avatar of Shirdi Sai Baba

On 8 March 1940, while living with his elder brother Sesham Raju in Uravakonda, a small town near Puttaparthi, Sathya was apparently stung by a scorpion. He lost consciousness for several hours and in the next few days underwent a noticeable change in behaviour. There were "symptoms of laughing and weeping, eloquence and silence." It is claimed that then "he began to sing Sanskrit verses, a language of which it is alleged he had no prior knowledge." Doctors concluded his behaviour to be hysteria. Concerned, his parents brought Sathya back home to Puttaparthi and took him to many priests, doctors and exorcists. One of the exorcists at Kadiri, a town near Puttaparthi, went to the extent of torturing him with the aim of curing him; Sathya seemingly kept calm throughout, which further worried his parents.

On 23 May 1940, Sathya called household members and reportedly materialised prasad and flowers for his family members. His father became furious at seeing this, thinking his son was bewitched. He took a stick and threatened to beat him if Sathya did not reveal who he really was. On 20 October 1940, the young Sathya responded calmly and firmly "I am Sai Baba", a reference to Sai Baba of Shirdi. This was the first time he proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi—a saint who became famous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Maharashtra and had died eight years before Sathya was born.
First mandir and development of Puttaparthi

In 1944, a mandir for Sai Baba's devotees was built near the village of Puttaparthi. It is now referred to as the "old mandir". The construction of Prashanthi Nilayam, the current ashram, began in 1948 and was completed in 1950. In 1954, Sai Baba established a small free general hospital in the village of Puttaparthi. He won fame for mystical powers and the ability to heal. In 1957 Sai Baba went on a North Indian temple tour.
Stroke, paralysis and prediction of reincarnation

In 1963, it was asserted that Sai Baba suffered a stroke and four severe heart attacks, which left him paralysed on one side. These events culminated in an event where he apparently healed himself in front of the thousands of people gathered in Prashanthi Nilayam who were then praying for his recovery.​

I have the capability of making mistakes or being wrong. This is true. Being a fallible human being does not discredit confidence or certainty in one's own abilities or experiences. Being a fallible human being does not mean i cannot get some things right my dear.

Even a broken clock can display the correct time twice a day.

You are suggesting for me to doubt God and myself. You have suggested that i interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms my preexisting beliefs or hypotheses - this is not the case. I had a practical contact with God and observed facts and events.

My experience was so profound it effected me.

Just as other people have had very profound experiences with their Deities and Saints (as shown above). Are their experiences any less real than yours? Why/Why not? Their miracle claims are no less fantastic than yours - in many cases, theirs have physical manifestations that your attestations don't, which would arguably make them an even grander claim than yours. Do you agree that we're all part of the same reality? If so, then you can't all be right and I don't see your claims being any more realistic than theirs.

Where did i say that?

I trust it is not confirmation bias, because of plenty of evidence in seeing others have a relationship with God & the experience of having one myself.

Sound familiar?

It does sound familiar and you're mistaken to use it here. You admit that you cannot demonstrate your experiences to me, yet you blindly accept other people's testimonies of their experience where it conforms with your belief as if you experienced it yourself. If seeing others have a relationship with God was as real and testable as seeing others pull up a chair and sitting on it without it collapsing out from underneath, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? Your use of my evidenced statement in this context is in error.

How does one prove a personal experience?

How does one prove personal experiences?

It cannot be done as far as I know. Noting this point, how could you accept the personal experience of others as confirmation of your God? Why don't you accept the equivalent experiences of other religions' followers?

You seem to suggest applying the scientific method to a spiritual matter. This is an error on your behalf.

I know God is real. I have a relationship with Him. God is the truth.

It could be luck, co incidence or fate. Ill accept either one. There is only 1 truth- what actually happened no matter the quantity or sequence of parts.

I know the truth. I got a result.

Again my friend. Your folly is applying the scientific method to God when you need the spiritual method. God has choosen the way to approach Him. You will not do so. You will always be lost my dear.

If your God makes no measurable impact here in this universe, then why should I accept your religion over any others? If you have a relationship with him, what can you do with this relationship? I have a relationship with my family, my friends, coworkers, etc. and these lead to meaningful and tangible benefits for all of us. What has your relationship with your untestable God given you that couldn't happen without him? Intangible effects don't count.

Now you my friend.

Why should i accept pagan gods when you do not?

For the same reason you accept the Christian God when I do not.

Hehe ok. You are fun!

Last time i checked, the Torah is the first 5 books of the Bible and first 5 books of the tanakh.

What about the reverse, the Jews were wrong and rejected the messiah. Satan fooled the scribes, pharisees, sadducees and the learned!

Do not forget my friend. The early church was made of exclusively of Jews. Jews who knew the Law and were waiting for their messiah.

Now heres where things get interesting. Are you aware that modern rabbis reject satan - render as human adversary - and reject hell?

Yes, all the more reasons to not trust the Bible 100%. So then, how did the first 5 books talk of the Messiah? and how could you possibly conclude it was Jesus?

My dear when we consider modern Judaism, satan is not a malevolent being or super natural, or exists how tou know him. The jews would not consider me fooled by satan.

Agreed. Point still stands if you consider Islam's position, becaue Islam does believe in Satan - but let's just accept the Jews consider Christianity a Cult then.

Satan has as much power as I allow him to have over me. I have authority through Jesus Christ. 'Get behind me satan'. He is a liar, a coward and the accuser.

In the book of Job we Satan is given a measure of 'power' from God to test Job - not an eternal power but limited. What ever power he is allowed to have is only allowable if God decides it.

I do not know if satan did those things. That is speculation. Lets dance!

Of course, you'll know I'll ask you why God would be so evil as to hand over anyone, let alone his most adherent believer, to Satan as a pawn in some sadistic test that he already knows the outcome of. If God does indeed rule over this universe and not Satan, then from whence comes Evil? If Satan has no power over us because God doesn't allow it then what is the issue here?

If you do not test then you do not have doubt. 100% certainty.
Test = doubt. No test = no doubt.

This is not correct. I (as do we all) have levels of confidence. Never is it 100% at either end, Certainty and Doubt are not employed in a binary fashion in reality. For example, you know that people have accidents and die in cars, busses, trains and planes, right? If so, do you not use these modes of transport since knowing of these deaths? Are you aware that people choke to death on food? Do you still eat food knowing this?

These things are not only untested prior to use/consumption, there isn't really a worthwhile test available before travelling or eating.

My cousin you have shown an inconsistency.

Previous discussion

Bugs - "Yes, I check the plank to make sure it is fine, and Yes, I Do 'rock' the chair."

Now....

Bugs - "but it isn't so tenuous that I feel it necessary to test it before taking a seat."

These 2 statements are not consistant. This does not look good.

You are inconsistent my dear.

Not at all. Again, you demonstrate a level of dishonesty I find disappointing. Nobody would expect to test every seat every time I sit down - but that's not to say I haven't ever tested a seat I thought suspect. You chastised me for testing one thing and not testing another in a simplistic game of words to completely skirt the point being made. That is dishonest of you. To reiterate:

In general, I don't test a seat before sitting on it however I have tested a seat on the very odd occasion I had reason to be suspect (this would be the 99% sure, 1% unsure scenario). By contrast, a temporary plank over a trench is not the same assuredness I have in a seat, hence the test or evidence before apportioning my trust in it (perhaps 85%-90% sure, 10%-15% unsure).

There you go. Assuredness - The fact or condition of being without doubt.

Brother you are digging your self in!

Not at all, your dishonesty notwithstanding. I specifically said I wasn't 100% positive.

I have not been behaving or prone to behave in an untrustworthy, deceitful, or insincere way. I have been civil.

My methods are not disrespectable in character or appearance. I have been polite.

My dear, you yourself said yes to being unreliable. Unless you are reliable - which would be another inconsistent statement you made.

Bugs "How can you be 100% certain of all this, isn't just knowing people like me existing, enough to sew at least an inkling of uncertainty?"

Your existance is linked to uncertainty.

Not what I said. Your 100% Faith in your God of Christianity is inconsistent with the facts of the universe available to you.

You are inconsistent, uncertain and unreliable. This is not an attack. This has been observed.

In verbiage, yes. But you are being dishonest and deceitful about what I've said and deliberately misconstrued it (i.e. built a straw man) to discredit something I did not in fact say. I'm not uncertain about my existence, in fact, I'm very certain of it.

What methods did you use? How did you seek Him?

Consider this below remark you made previously.

Bugs - I don't even know his only Son actually existed,.

Considering 99.9% is the highest you can ever offer. What effort did you make? Please provide a detailed response.

Religion isn't a big thing in my country and I had no real guidance on how to seek the Truth about our universe given neither of my parents are religious either. I had no idea what Spirituality was (still don't) and was flooded with a number of religions including a variety of Christian religions that believed mutually exclusive things, especially Creationism. I vested interest in attending any Holy gathering and worked on realising a direct connection with the Creator(s) of the Universe or a God that would make him/her/itself clear to me, I was someone honestly looking to become known to, and to know such a Divine Being. back then, I looked at every religion I knew of or had access to (pre-internet era, mind you) and I didn't know nearly as much as I do now about religions let alone Christianity in particular - for example, I didn't know about the Trinity (had heard it, but wasn't aware of the three in one divine being), I knew of the mutually different belief systems within Christianity (from YEC through to Theological day-age, and even complete Deistic style Christianity where God started the Universe just so with everything so perfectly aligned as to have us fall into being through all the perfect alignments of every atom, electron, proton, etc. to realise our existence, but I had no reason to accept any flavour of Christianity over any other religion I had access to - all communicating very different things and all having the same reasons and conviction to believe them over anyone elses' religion. Keep in mind that Christianity wasn't the foremost religion I had access to. Had I just "had Faith" so I could get the evidence I needed, then Christianity wouldn't have been where I ended up, and as much I too would be among the religions that would never know the Christian God and according to you, would be damned for the human fallibility of having 100% Faith in the wrong God.

Looks like 0.1% doubt. 99.9 is very close to complete.

Science is the most reliable system. Yet you have no faith in it.

Here again, you are being DISHONEST and frankly, your deceitful tactics are making it hard to have an honest discussion with you. You need to stop being dishonest with me in this conversation. I have TRUST in Science and the Scientific Method as the best way by which we come about facts in reality. I don't have FAITH (i.e. trust without evidence) in the same.

Science is in a state of flux. What is true today may be false tomorrow - theories. Your position will always change. You will never be sure or certain. You will accept the word of science which has uncertainty. Your position is therefore uncertain with acceptance of modern theoretical science.

Science is an endeavour to continually narrow in on the facts about our Universe. It works to create working models that can be used in a predictive and useful way. These models are continually refined to make them more accurate and more useful, but rarely does it do what you caracature it to do. For excample, Newton's Theory of Gravity was an excellent way to calculate the effects of gravity on mass, but it wasn't accurate when applied to extreme cases (in this case, it was the precession of the perihelion of Mercury). The model was still useful in pretty much every other every day application, so it stayed in play pending a better model. That of course happened when Einstein's Theory of Relativity came to light, it DID account for these extreme case scenarios while also accommodating the every day usage cases too. It wasn't the Newton's theory was wrong, it was not as accurate as Einstein's Theory of Relativity. See: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury and Tests of general relativity - Wikipedia for the success of Science and the scientific method on this point. Perhaps this paragraph might help you understand:

"Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, 'fact' doesn't mean 'absolute certainty'; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

Therefore you are unsure. You are not an authority to reality. You must accept someone elses version of it.

I'm quite sure thank you all the same. Why would you say I'm Unsure when it remains the bare inkling of unsuredness? Again, this is Dishonest and I don't appreciate you changing what I specifically say into something I specifically did NOT say. Next, I'll address the following point under the same reply given they are intertwined:

Icon - Are you unreliable?

Bugs - yes.

You did not say you could be unreliable. You agreed and said yes, you are unreliable. Therefore what you say cannot be trusted. What methods you used cannot be trusted.

Your point of view re God is invalid. No one should listen to you my dear.

Let us go over this conversation from the start to point out your dishonesty

Labelled 1) 2) and 3) where appropriate to track each post response:

1) Its exactly the same. I put the meaning of 2 words together.
So you believe there is a God?
2) So you would be positive to Christianity but it would depend on the interpretation. What interpretation would you accept?
3) Lets just say i want one. Can you cannot give me a substitution?

1) As long as it purports to reality.
2) One that purports to reality.
3) Reality. It's the most valuable substitution you can have.

Reality - the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
Who is the authority to how reality exists? Does science purport reality and certainty?

Science is demonstrably the best way by which we come to determine accurate things about reality. This is an excellent framework to finding out about things. There is no authority.

1) You have complete trust in science?
2) You are not an authority on reality? Are you unreliable?

1) No.
2) I could be, Yes.

Notice I DID NOT Say "I Am, Yes.", I said "I could be, Yes."

1) Icon - "Do You have complete trust in science?"

Bugs - "no".

However in a previous discussion.

Bugs - " I have trust that I proportion to the claim and the evidence in support of it. The scientific method, which I think is the process you describe here, is the single most reliable method by which we have all the technology and progress we enjoy in our modern lives."

This statements implies that for you, science is consistantly able to be trusted? How is this statement not complete trust?

2) Ok. You are unsure if you are an authority to reality.

2 Cont.) Ok. You have agreed to that you are unreliable.

Here, you try to dishonestly tie me to a 100% Trust in Science when I've already stated I didn't and couldn't have 100% trust in it. I do however have an enormous amount of confidence in Science, the Scientific method and the results of this endeavour. You also dishonestly and disrespectfully twist what I've specifically said (that I could be unreliable) and make out as if I've admitted I'm 100% unreliable - and THIS, my friend, is what makes you an untrustworthy, disrespectful and dishonest person. I honestly explain to you again what I said and what I meant and why I mean it in the very next post to you:

1) Is 99.9% complete trust? There are documented examples where science and/or the scientific process has failed - it isn't a perfect system, just the most reliable system we have so far.
2) No, I'm not entirely sure, but I have a working model of reality that continues to provide consistent and reliable results. Also, that you believe you are an authority on reality (along with my Muslim friends and Hindu friend) and believe something very different to what I accept as reality gives me at least a little pause to double-check my working model of reality.
2 Cont.) No, I said I could be unreliable, I didn't say I AM unreliable. I have to acknowledge I may not be entirely 100% reliable because there are so many ways in which I could be fooled - Magicians or Illusionists can sometimes fool me (in fact, many of them are so good at fooling people, that they are professionals and sell tickets to performances). If I lack sleep, I could possibly see hallucinations, I might also experience a lucid dream (as discussed earlier) - I'm not sure I have, but knowing I'm not 100% infallible (as are you), I have to at least be sceptical about the reality I experience, just in case. If you don't acknowledge your fallibility, then you're in danger of becoming one of those people that get taken away and put in a padded room because if you do experience something like a delusion, then delusions are real to the people that experience them and act on them as if they are - and I'm not saying you're delusional, but how would you know if you experience delusions?

1) Looks like 0.1% doubt. 99.9 is very close to complete.
Science is the most reliable system. Yet you have no faith in it.
Science is in a state of flux. What is true today may be false tomorrow - theories. Your position will always change. You will never be sure or certain. You will accept the word of science which has uncertainty. Your position is therefore uncertain with acceptance of modern theoretical science.
2) Therefore you are unsure. You are not an authority to reality. You must accept someone elses version of it.
Icon - Are you unreliable?
Bugs - yes.
You did not say you could be unreliable. You agreed and said yes, you are unreliable. Therefore what you say cannot be trusted. What methods you used cannot be trusted.
Your point of view re God is invalid. No one should listen to you my dear.

And Full Circle! You AGAIN Dishonestly attempt to portray me as saying something I specifically DID NOT SAY! Here are the Numerous times I Correct you on your False portrayal of what I said:

You are not an authority on reality? Are you unreliable?

I could be, Yes.

Ok. You are unsure if you are an authority to reality.
Ok. You have agreed to that you are unreliable.

No, I'm not entirely sure, but I have a working model of reality that continues to provide consistent and reliable results.
No, I said I could be unreliable, I didn't say I AM unreliable.

Therefore you are unsure. You are not an authority to reality. You must accept someone elses version of it.
Icon - Are you unreliable?
Bugs - yes.
You did not say you could be unreliable. You agreed and said yes, you are unreliable. Therefore what you say cannot be trusted. What methods you used cannot be trusted.
Your point of view re God is invalid. No one should listen to you my dear.

And Here, your dishonesty is displayed in its full glory. You, @_-iconoclast-_ are entirely Dishonest, Disrespectful and Untrustworthy in your conduct here. You need to curb your contempt for honest conversation if you want to be taken seriously, and not as yet another self-absorbed hypocrite bent on perching yourself on some proverbial throne above everyone else who doesn't share your YECist worldview, let alone challenge the nonsense therein.

You use observation as a fact. Observation is part of the scientific method. Observation can sometimes fool you. Observation, measurement and experiment are core to the method. We have just proved 1 out of the 3 core methods has failed you.

My friend your position is erroneous.

and You are Dishonest and Deceitful. When we observe facts about reality, it isn't trying to go out of its way to fool our senses. A Magician or Illusionist is (and of course, we go to their shows to be entertained as such). Another thing that can fool your senses is cognitive bias and self deception. If you want something to be true, then you will be prone to being biased about your observations and experiences in spite of the evidence - as you have demonstrated in this conversation in spades. You literally ignore the evidence against your position and claim 100% confidence in your belief despite it. it is Your position that is erroneous, and demonstrably so.

You have never experienced a lucid dream or a vision. So you are 100% uninformed and do not know the experience through observation or testing. I have experienced both so know the difference.

Lucid dreams = asleep.
My vision - awake and praying with 2 spirit filled ladies.

There you go again. You just announced that I'm 100% uninformed and do not know the experience through observation or testing, when in fact, I HAVE experienced lucid dreaming and visions in the form of hallucinations.

I may be fallible. That does not me a cannot be right sometimes. Even a broken clock displays the correct time twice a day.

...and Crazy People who have been committed can make sense sometimes too.

Exactly a crazy person does not know he is crazy. If i feel like im going crazy i must to be insane.

Thank you for agreeing that spirituality is not a mental disorder.

Non-Sequitur. Again, you just agreed that someone experiencing a delusion may not be able to tell it from reality - how do you KNOW you didn't exerience a delusion? After all, Nobody Else can verify your claim! Those two "spirit filled ladies" saw you wake up from your sleep and were confused when they saw your expression, because they had no idea what you had just "experienced" (or dreamed, or hallucinated). I don't think spirituality is a mental disorder btw, I just don't know what it's supposed to be and nobody can seemingly explain it to me.

This is not the case. This question was answered previously

No, you answered a strawman version of what I didn't say. You have no way to demonstrate your God actually exists let alone show enough verifiable evidence to have 100% confidence in his existence. ALL of your evidence of his existence consists entirely of other people's say so, your own in-head experiences, and confirmation bias. List ANYTHING outside these three categories.

I have never said i was infallible. so therefore no hypocrite. Not acting in a dishonest way - as mentioned previously.

Never claimed 100% equality with God. Im unworthy compared to God. Being right some of the time is not infallibility my dear. Nice try though.

You ARE saying you're infallible by stating your 100% confidence in God being real. I'll repoint you to my previous questions which you've avoided answering - how you could even know there is a God to start with, let alone all the things he wants us to do, etc. The standard of evidence you accept is so vague that the Hindu experiences above are more than equal to any and every claim made by Christianity - why are you not a Hindu?

My dear you are confusing faith ie complete trust/100% certainty sith infallibility.

Yes! God sees my faith

Not at all - You won't even acknowledge you might be mistaken. You equate "100% certainty in something without any verifiable evidence" with "being rational", and that's just plain silly. My Due Dilligence in vetting evidence for a supernatural creator of the universe is the exact opposite of being "unreliable" as you put it. You on the other hand have jumped into the first religion that passed you fantastical claims without so much as a doublecheck. Christianity holds no first places in any of the claims it makes with respect to Gods, Miracles, the supernatural, explanations for the beginning, or "creation", etc. All of the claims made by your religion have been made by someone else, somewhere else earlier in recorded history.

Imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offence. Why would you punish your child for wrongdoing?

Where are you going with this? Is there a point? If so, please get to it.

Your existance is linked to uncertainity. You said yes in regards to being unreliable and you do not hold a firm opinion. Show me otherwise?

Correction, My existence as a non-believer is linked to YOUR uncertainty, unless you can explain how I fit into your 100% certainty in Jesus Christ? I never gave you an unqualified "Yes" to being unreliable, this just continues your dishonesty in misrepresenting my position. Go back and re-read what I did say and explain what you think I meant.

What is this 0.1%? What do you have 0.1% doubt in?

Well, there's a slim possibility I might be dreaming or hallucinating, but admittedly, dreaming is unlikely given I can pinch myself and have general recall of my entire life. It could be that we're in the Matrix, or some parallel version of it, perhaps my senses aren't giving me entirely correct information about the world around me like one of the many flavours of delusion we're known to experience but again, unlikely, perhaps I've taken someone else's testimony as being accurate when in fact, it isn't, Perhaps I've been hypnotised or otherwise brainwashed into experiencing the world around me in a different light but still unlikely, perhaps I read a religious text and accepted it as "Truth" and now put everything through this confirmation bias that has given me a skewed version of what's actually real, of course particularly unlikely given this one would require wilful acts which I'd likely be aware of, etc.

You have already demonstrated some of these reservations too but you don't seem to recognise it and just plough on as if you're infallible and can't be wrong.

Are you 99.9% sure your children are yours or 100% sure?

You are unsure. Inconsistency is unpredictability. Unpredictability is the state of being unsure.

Its called complete trust = faith. Are you 100% certain your children are yours friend?

I'm 99.9% Sure they are, so not inconsistent, unpredictable or unsure sorry to tell you, you are incorrect in this statement. Again though, there's always a slim chance they might be someone else's - perhaps a nurse had a faux-pas late one evening after they were born and still in hospital, inadvertently swapped newborns by accident (this has happened before you know...). I could go get them genetically tested I guess... but still, there's a slimming to nil possibilities the DNA test could be botched, etc. It's still all about degrees of certainty, never absolutely 100%. Regardless, I'd love them as my own of course.

This is an appeal to emotion. This is not a sound argument. This statement is only highlighting worst case scenerios. Bad cases do not make good laws or rules. Doing something in the name of God does not always mean it is.

Islam is not christianity. It would be ignorant to lump all religions together and say they are one. There is always bad fruit and good fruit. You seem to ignore all the good Christian works.

NO! This is NOT an "appeal to emotion", nor do I ignore the good things that ALL religious folk do, whether they be Islam, Hindu, Jewish or Christian to name a few! This Lack of Rationality is the Very Reason I do what I do here! Children and other vulnerable people Literally DO DIE because of these irrational and unevidenced choices made by the responsible people that should know better. The Very method You use to come to your 100% certainty in your belief without any verifiable evidence is the exact same dangerous method that put all of these people into the positions to do the damage they did and kill those who trusted in them.

I Challenge you to demonstrate your method of epistemology to be any different to any of the people who caused the deaths and damage I pointed out. Newsflash!: Yours is No Different to Theirs. Of course I'm not saying that you're a murdering tyrant who wants to bomb family planning clinics and fly planes into buildings, as with a majority of people who don't exercise critical thinking, but it doesn't start out there. Instead, it starts out by training believers to discard formal standards of evidence and critical thinking. Once that's done away with, then power mongers (priests, used car salesmen, IRS Scammers, MS Helpdesk Scammers, pick-pocketers, pyramid sales schemers) can reprogram you directly, bypassing your critical thought process to socially engineer you into doing what they want you to do. First, it starts out small, usually by getting you to believe something for which there's no evidence. Once you pass that test of programmability, they then get you to tythe, or otherwise invest in an ideal or community, and usually, that's as far as it goes. You just end up paying a portion of your income to a community head for the rest of your life.

A select few though, will push it further - sometimes to indoctrinate (or vaccinate) against rationality to protect you against common sense - they get you to start denying well-evidenced science, like a universe that's 13.8 billion years old, and the Theory of Evolution, that Vaccinations aren't anywhere nearly as harmful as going without, and even that seeing a Doctor will save lives. they replace it with dangerous things like prayer is better than seeking medical attention for potetially life-threatening conditions, and that Scientists and Medical Professionals are conspiring with Big Pharma to make you sick with all their chemicals and scare-mongering about levels of vaccinations, etc.

then one day you find yourself with children who died of entirely treatable medical conditions or because of complications from a childhood disease that was nearly eradicated via vaccinations, and that bombing those baby-murdering medical staffers at the family planning clinic to be a plausible response to all those babies being murdered by abortions, etc.

Bugs - "I trust the chair I sit on won't collapse, because of plenty of evidence in seeing others do it & the experience of having done it myself before."

If you say so.

I trust that Jesus Christ is real because of plenty evidence in seeing others with faith and the experience of having got the proof my self.

Then you cannot disagree with the above statement of faith. It is rational thinking. The same reasoning you used.

No, you are mistaken. What you have is evidence of other people's FAITH in Jesus Christ, not evidence of Jesus Christ himself... I can literally observe the test results for myself when other people test and sit in a chair, I don't have to take their word for it. The ONLY thing you can do is take their word of Faith (on Faith, mind you) in Jesus Christ. You have no way of seeing their personal experiences, let alone validating it independently using the same method.

In other words you need another person to validate you. This is the method of a person who is unsure.

Or you are mistaken because it is the method of a person who is responsible and diligent.

I do not know the answer to that question. This is speculation.

Again, refreshing to know that your God isn't all-powerful and all-knowing after all - brings an element of human-like fallibility into the mix...

God has ordained a different way. Life is a test. God has a harvest. Earth is a learning ground.

To find God you must have 100% trust. Something you believe is impossible.

This will always be an obstacle for you. You are the problem. Your decisions and philosophy will stop you from knowing God. You will have no excuse.

No, a God that demands 100% trust on no verifiable evidence whatsoever is incompetent. What if I was as uncritical as you and my first experience with a religion was the Hindu Polytheistic religion, I'd have looked at the miracle claims and accepted them unchallenged, then I'd have adopted 100% faith in it (which means I'd be as impervious to any rational discussion about my belief as you are). Will your God usher me into heaven on my passing for having 100% faith in Vishnu, Bramah and the other Gods of the Hindu religion?

Faith in Jesus Christ

lol! Didn't know chewing gum and faith in Jesus Christ were equivalent passtime habits... that was a very big circle to nowhere, by design I suspect.

No. You asked for a subsitute and i gave you one. Having fun

So, it's plainly obvious that you know I've made a point that you're unwilling to acknowledge, so you're being dishonest and disguising it as humor?

Yes human beings can get it wrong but we can get it right.

But you can be fooled by magicians - fallible men. Observation is flawed. How could you rationally evaluate anything?

As can You be fooled by those same magicians too, you seem to not only evaluate things without rational consideration, but you commit to your irrational considerations with 100% conviction and refuse to even acknowledge your fallibility in coming to this 100% conviction. This is comical.

I, on the other hand, acknowledge the possibility and take measures to minimise that hazard through appropriate critical thinking processes.

Did you vote for him? Do you trust him?

Kind of, and he has redeeming qualities...

Bugs - Rational thinking and secular governance. I'd put your trust in that.

By your logic you and i must put our trust in trump and the decisions he makes?

Why should i trust a system that delivered you trump as potus - leader of the free world?

Should i have 100% trust in rational thinking?

No, not 100%, but rational thinking is certainly where you should apportion the bulk of your trust, for sure. I don't trust Trump, even if I voted for him (if I were American, that is).

All good. Ill supply the references.

Japan

Japan: The Most Religious Atheist Country

Agency for Cultural Affairs commissioned a report into religious beliefs in Japan, they were initially confused by their results. Totaling up the number of people who belonged to religious groups in Japan, they got the result that 209 million people belonged were religiously affiliated. The problem? This was almost twice the population of Japan!

This anomaly seemed to suggest that Japan was highly religious. However, further research showed that this strange result was caused by respondents happily checking the boxes for numerous religions without seeing any contradiction. After all, as the old saying goes a Japanese person is born to Shinto rites, married with Christian rites, and buried with Buddhist ones.



Sweden

Irreligion in Sweden - Wikipedia

writes that several academic sources have in recent years placed atheism rates in Sweden between 46% and 85%, with one source reporting that only 17% of respondents self-identified as "atheist".

Only 1 in 10 Swedes thinks religion is important in daily life.Only 1 in 10 Swedes has trust in a religious leader.


Statistics from the Church of Sweden states that:

Under 5 out of 10 children are christened in the church]Around 1 out of 3 weddings take place in church.Around 3 out of 4 Swedes have Christian burials.

Christianty still plays an important part in sweden. Sixty-four per cent of the Swedish population are members of the Church of Sweden.



Finland.
Religion in Finland - Wikipedia
2016.

72% evangical lutherian church of finland.



Norway

Religion in Norway is mostly Lutheranism, with 71.5% of the population belonging to theEvangelical Lutheran Church of Norway in 2016



China

Is not a good example for human rights. Including this country does not help your cause.



Australia

Wiki Australia

In the 2016 census, 52.1% of Australians were counted as Christian, including 22.6% as Roman Catholic and 13.3% as Anglican; 30.1% of the population reported having "no religion"

It would seem china would be the most irreligious. I would not use china as a good example considering how many millions of ppl suffered under atbeist communism.

Not sure what the point is with all the random research by country, I didn't say thee's no religion there - just that it isn't as pervasive as it is in your country. In general, even among those who claim themselves religious, it's a far more milder and less overt than it is in the US.

Some notes on your random research:

Japan

Japanese culture does dictate that their people honour the memory of their ancestors and borrow honourable ideas from wherever they're found to create a foundational framework for their culture and philosophy, but this is still the freedom borne of not being inexorably bound to a particular deity. Did you even read this article?

Sweden

Still largely Atheistic all the same though, right? Also, doesn't have a State Church any longer, has a consistently higher quality of life, lower crime, better satisfaction index in any survey than pretty much every country more religious than they are.

Finland

Granted, not the best choice, even though they're still less religious and enjoy lower crime rates and have better quality of life...

Norway

As you'll see below (and explained above), Norway citizens may say they're part of the Lutheran Church of Norway, but this is more of a cultural throwback than it is they're actually religious...

China

I think you've conflated "Atheism" with the "Policies of the Regime" and I don't agree with your assessment. Perhaps you meant to say "... considering how many millions of ppl suffered under Maoist communism."? Political Ideologies are just the same as religion in that respect. The Regime isn't ruling with any "Atheist" agenda, the administration definitively exercise an ideology that has nothing to do with Atheism. I certainly don't respect the conduct of the Regime and it still has long way to go, but they have made progress in their humanity of late. I've been there a couple of times now and the country has made many changes under international pressure (you should go there and have a look for yourself). All this aside, we're assessing the people of the country, not the administration. The people themselves are predominantly atheist and where figures are available, these bear out the same as any other equally irreligious country.

Australia

Ahh, my home territory. As with just about every other country I mentioned here, those that do proclaim to be religious aren't funatical and our acceptance of Science both in education and everyday lives is testament to this. The figures I've quick-fived for you below show this. Here, we don't have to be religious to have a hope of being elected to parliament, the Administration doesn't ignore the Science that might affect public policy (such as climate change, public health and education), nor do they table bad policy on fundamental beliefs that run counter to it, etc.

so there's that on your random research.... Then This on how important religion is in their respective country - From Importance of religion by country - Wikipedia

Japan - 24% say religion is important
Sweden - 17% say religion is important
Finland - 28% say religion is important
Norway - 21% say religion is important
China - Not Listed
Australia - 32% say religion is important
and Finally,
USA - 69% say religion is important <=== Most Religious one here.

but Wait!, there's More - From List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia :

Japan - 0.33 per 1,000,000
Sweden - 1.15 per 1,000,000
Finland - 1.60 per 1,000,000
Norway - 0.56 per 1,000,000
China - 0.74 per 1,000,000
Australia - 0.98 per 1,000,000
and Finally,
USA - 4.88 intentional deaths per 1,000,000 population <=== Most Religious one here.

and Then This on Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population! From Chart(s) of the Week – Incarceration Rates

Japan - 63 per 100,000
Sweden - 74 per 100,000
Finland - 67 per 100,000
Norway - 70 per 100,000
China - Not Listed
Australia - 134 per 100,000
and Finally,
USA - 753 persons incarcerated per 100,000 population <=== Most Religious one here. lol! So much for "Land of the Free!"... you are statistically more probable to be incarcerated there than pretty much anywhere else in the civilised world.

Anyway, still not sure what it was you were wanting to make a point of with your notes - perhaps you could explain?

No. Im getting you. Any possibility as long as its not God and that is a 99.9% certainty the Christian God is not real.
I'm quite convinced (though not 100%) that the Christian God as described by a literal reading of the Bible doesn't exist, but there could be a God (or Gods) that do exist, either other religion's God(s), or a God that the Christian God is based on, so you're getting that bit wrong.
Why would there be 0.1% doubt? Why are you not willing to have absolute doubt in God?

For All the reasons I've given you so many times already - To go back to the testimony of the Hindu believers I gave you earlier, they all have a collorary account that mirrors any you have, but for Their Gods and Their Religion. You've had visions that left you in no doubt - They've had visions that leave them in no doubt, You've seen the effects of Your religion on the people around you - They've seen the effects of Their religion on the people around them, You have copies of your holy book that are thousands of years old - They have copies of their holy books that are thousands of years old(er than Yours btw...), so on.

So you agree. You have confirmation bias as well. Thank you for stating the obvious. You will interpret and favour information as long as it agrees with your position.
No, I will consider ALL Evidence and Minimise my confirmation bias wherever I can.
I have had experiences with God that confirm His existance.

Just as the Hindus had experiences with their Gods confirming Their existances as demonstrated earlier.

You are inconsistent, unreliable, unsure and uncertain.

Nope, you're being dishonest. Unlike you, I am Thorough about the conclusions I come to. My inconsistencies, unreliability, unsuredness and uncertainty are acknowledged and addressed in any conclusion I come to. I very much doubt you can come to any conclusion with as much vigilance. You discard a great swathe of information to arrive at your belief where I just can't do that. I have to consider all the evidence, not just the bits that suit me as you do.

You are a lost soul who has convinced himself there is no God. You will not humble yourself and need validation from fallible human beings with poor logic.

Not at all. I'd have to say I'm living my life as if there isn't one, but I'm certainly not convinced of it. Can't say I'm a lost soul either. I don't know what a soul is let alone if I have one, and I have plenty of direction and self-worth thanks all the same. If there's anyone exercising poor logic in this conversation, it isn't me.

You hide behind the scientific method - flawed -, secular governance - flawed - and 'rational thinking' - misconstrued. You have no faith and no hope.

Yes, anything involving humans is flawed. I challenge you to come up with a better method of coming about the truth of this universe than the scientific method. Keep in mind you owe ALL of your technology, medicines, food production and energy resources, and more to this method.

Speak for yourself about having no hope, I'm going great thanks all the same. I don't have Faith, because it's literally the worst way to come about what is true in reality. Your Faith in your Religion is exactly the same as the Faith a Hindu has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Muslim has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Scientologist has in their religion, etc. Which one of you have it right and how do you know? I feel you haven't seen much of the world outside your church group. You should try it one day.

You cannot offer me anything as your position is reactionary. Spiritually, you have nothing, you want nothing and you can only offer nothing.

Well, as far as I can tell, Spirituality and spirits is pretty much a religious thing. I do things in the real world where they have an effect. I tell you what, why don't you tell me what Spirituality is and how it works? What does it do? As far as I can tell, it's pretty much a fictional concept.

God can offer you something. Anytime you want He is waiting for you to do the right thing and admit your failures. Admit you cannot do it without Him and open your heart to him.

Life is hard. You cannot do it alone. The relief is worth it. You could have God in your life and certainty in your life.

What about the Hindu Gods? What about Zeus? Odin? Allah? Should I admit I cannot do it without Them and open my heart to Them too? How will I know which God it is? How will I know there's a God(s) to start with? I think you're putting the cart well before the horse here. No wonder you're so blinded to reality.

Also, not sure why you insist on fabricating false persona about me because I have plenty of certainty thanks all the same. Unlike you though, I don't have 100% certainty in something I'm unable to independently validate anything whatsoever about.

Come over bugs. What do you need to make this leap of faith?

Evidence. Evidence would do it.

Cheers

Cheers!

 

[HitchSlap]

Oh, Hey! I thought you'd left the planet! lol! Good to see you again...

This is simply a rehash of the same that you responded to here:

so I will address them both here:

For you to be rationally 100% certain, all the evidence available to you would have to be 100% correlating. I don't fit into this 100% correlation model, just as Jews and Muslims don't fit either, so therefore we're all anomalies in your dataset that has to be explained. It's okay, Creationists are always in a state of cognitive dissonance, so this is expected. In Science, every datapoint has to be accounted for - i.e. in order to be done properly, Science has to account for all of the data (both supporting and unsupporting evidence and datapoints) in order to get to a usable conclusion as close to reality as it's possible to get.

Your model has to allow for a Christian God who willingly allows Muslims, Jews and Atheists alike (not to mention every other religion and culture that will never know about Christianity) to be born, live and die never knowing of the Christian God let alone being saved. Your 100% Certainty in your Faith (i.e. Trust without Evidence) is only possible if you ignore the evidence of all these people and cultures that do not conform with your model of this universe.


well, No. Is such a thing impossible of your God?

so your God isn't all-powerful after all? I have to say, I find that refreshing...

This is the Question I ask of you. You seem to be mistaken about the Power of your God but it seems you concede your God isn't all that powerful. After all, if he was able to create an entire Universe that looks like it's 13.8 billion years old and an Earth that looks 4.5 billion years old all the way down to the most minute detail that fool the most sceptical and thorough Scientists among us today, surely he could create this same universe in an instant just 5 minutes ago with all of us, repleat with memories of our entire lives, including memories of relatives that have passed away, past employment, memories of our first kiss, etc. in exactly the same way he created Adam fully grown with the memory of speech and understanding of the world around him, ability to walk, run, sit, jump, etc. as if he had grown into an adult like all of us?

Being an all-omnipotent being is a tall ask after all, so I'm happy you feel your God isn't so impossibly powerful - after all, he would have ensured every aspect, right down to buried bones and fossils in the earth, security camera footage, news and current affairs along with geo-political situations the world over would be entirely consistent with having been the result of a universe existing for 13.8 billion years, even though he made it just five minutes ago. In short, there'd be no way for you to catch out an all-omnipotent version of your God creating this Universe in its current state just 5 minutes past - Do you agree?

How do (or better still, Could) you know he Didn't do this?

You did say yourself that you went into a dream-like state, so this may still be the case. It's a natural phenomenon that we know happens to us (and animals too btw), so this would surely be the first assessment that requires no extra presumptions about reality to be brought into play.

All that aside though, what about a hallucination or delusion? These things are real to the people that experience them and they too are natural and well-understood phenomenons. Regardless what happened, the burden for asserting something occurring over and above these naturalistic and very plausible explanations, is on you. Asserting it to be a divine experience isn't good enough for the rest of us who didn't experience it. You even mentioned the two ladies with you at your congregation had no idea of the experience you had, they didn't see anything so it definitely was entirely your own experience (I'll stop short of saying "it was entirely in your head" here), an experience that nobody else was able to experience with you.

Sure:

From Hindu milk miracle - Wikipedia :

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon, considered by many Hindus as a miracle, which started on 21 September 1995, in which statues of the Hindu deity Ganesha were said to drink milk offerings. It attracted great attention from people and the media particularly in India.

Phenomenon

Before dawn on 21 September 1995, a worshipper at a temple in south New Delhi made an offering of milk to a statue of Ganesha. When a spoonful of milk from the bowl was held up to the trunk of the statue, the liquid was seen to disappear, apparently taken in by the idol. Word of the event spread quickly, and by mid-morning it was found that statues of the entire Hindu pantheon in temples all over India were taking in milk.[1]

By noon the news had spread beyond India, and Hindu temples in the United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, and Nepal among other countries had successfully replicated the phenomenon, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (an Indian Hindu nationalist organisation which provides social services to Hindus in India and across the world.) had announced that a miracle was occurring. In the United States, it was observed at the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Ganesh Temple)[4]

The reported miracle had a significant effect on the areas around major temples; vehicle and pedestrian traffic in New Delhi was dense enough to create a gridlock lasting until late in the evening. Many stores in areas with significant Hindu communities saw a massive jump in sales of milk, with one Gateway store in England selling over 25,000 pints of milk,[4] and overall milk sales in New Delhi jumped over 30%.[5] Many minor temples struggled to deal with the vast increase in numbers, and queues spilled out into the streets, reaching distances of over a mile.​

And here is a personal account of this Hindu Milk Miracle (Read the whole story here How I witnessed a miracle ):

"The thing I love about Hinduism is that it gives me complete freedom to make my own decisions on how to practice my religion, it gives me the flexibility I need and indeed it gives me a great amount of choice. I have always felt from a very young age that there is a higher power beyond this universe, this nature, our world.

Many a time I have seen the results of prayer in my own life and some of those little miracles may well be ascribed to coincidences but when you actually weigh all the arguments in your own mind its difficult not to accept the power of prayer or an intervention by another force. Besides that I did have a very personal experience at the age of 19 which left no doubt in my mind of the existence of a higher power or reality.

One of the very public experiences I had was at the week of the milk miracle of 1995, when Lord Ganesh and generally Lord Shiva’s family was drinking milk. I got a phone call from my mother in law to go to the temple and try and offer milk to Ganesh ji, she insisted that I must go immediately whereas I could hardly believe that a stone idol could consume a liquid. I couldn’t help laughing in my mind though realising that my mother in law would not have phoned me in office hours – I run an accountancy practice - unless it was serious.

So I went to the Vishwa Hindu temple at Lady Margaret Road in Southall and at about 1pm there was a queue of 4 or 5 people in front of me. They were all offering milk in a spoon to the Deity Nandi – a marble idol of the bull that is supposed to be Lord Shiva’s vehicle and his foremost devotee and is worshipped as a family member of Lord Shiva. Incidentally Lord Ganesh is the first son of God which Goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Shiva, created and infused life into. I was not thinking of Lord Shiva or Ganesh or Parvati at the time but just offered a spoon full of milk to Nandi as directed by the priest.

As I raised the spoon to Nandi’s mouth and the milk touched the idol, very slightly, the level of milk in the spoon started to go down as if someone was actually drinking it, quite evenly.

I was shaking with awe.

This experience made me realise how stupid I had been to be influenced by the negative propaganda against idols by some ideologies of other religions. I did always believe in the almighty and prayed to, say Lord Krishna, or Lord Shiva etc. and of course in my youth did not question much but as I grew up I was influenced by the negative propaganda against idolatry targeted mainly at Hindus and in spite of the Hindu belief that once an idol is consecrated in the temple through Vedic Mantras then spirituality is infused in the idol and for all intents and purposes it becomes God, alive in spirit, I could not bring myself to agree with this belief, which seemed to me just a theory.

Nonetheless I understood that my thoughts had to be directed towards an indescribable reality God through some form of medium and so I prayed to Lord Shiva or Krishna or Goddess Durga whenever I went to the temple, quite sincerely. It was not really important to believe that the idols were alive, what mattered to me were my thoughts and devotion. However after the milk miracle everything changed in that respect. And that to happen through the idol of Nandi, a Bull, associated with Lord Shiva i.e., not even Shiva himself or Ganesh or Parvati.

I rang my wife who is a scientist with a PhD and actually works in medicinal research. She too laughed in disbelief. Then I asked her to ring her mother also and in any case, on her way home from work, she stopped at Ram Mandir in King street, Southall. Being a scientist she offered the milk to the “bronze” serpent around Shiva’s neck and the milk went into thin air. Since then her Hindu beliefs consolidated and she now observes various practices much more devoutly than me.

I rang some of my local clients, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians to tell them what had happened. They all went there and had the same experience. "​

From 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident - Wikipedia :

The 2006 Mumbai "sweet" seawater incident was a strange phenomenon during which residents of Mumbai claimed that the water at Mahim Creek had suddenly turned sweet. Within hours, residents of Gujarat claimed that seawater at Teethal beach had turned sweet as well. This caused a mass hysteria among people who started coming in large numbers to drink the sea water.​

Not sure if you've ever heard of Sathya Sai Baba, but he's a Hindu Guru attributed with many miracles of Jesus and a few more ( Sathya Sai Baba - Wikipedia ) including being the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirid ( Sai Baba of Shirdi - Wikipedia ). From 7 Beautiful Stories That Prove Miracles Actually Happen

"On May 10, 1977, Bhagwandas Daswani suffered from a massive heart attack. “I actually died for two minutes and was revived by doctors.” Daswani recalls. Although he came around, there was no improvement in his condition and he was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ten days later, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. Losing about four pints of blood a day, he had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family, and the team of doctors had lost all hope of his survival.

“On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,” recalled Daswani, “Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore said, ‘Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?’ He said, ‘I am here all right. What would you like me to do?’ I said, ‘Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not dreaming.’ He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was disturbed.

“I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment was beyond description. ‘How did you get here?’ they asked. ‘I walked,’ I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the truth. ‘Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and all over you?’ they asked. I said, ‘Don’t ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper bag for me.’ They did this and collected one and a half kilograms of vibhuti.

Daswani's health began to improve rapidly, and the doctors and the staff kept questioning him, but his lips were sealed. On May 29, he was able to walk by himself to another ward. Not only did he make a complete recovery, his diabetes disappeared as well. Bhagwandas Daswani believes he owes everything to Bhagavan Baba."​

Other miracle attestations are numerous, the following attributed to Sai Baba of Shirid (see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Miracles

Sai Baba's disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways. He also gave Darshan (vision) to people in the form of Sri Rama, Krishna, Vithoba, Shiva and many other gods depending on the faith of devotees.

According to his followers, he appeared to them in their dreams and gave them advice. His devotees have documented many stories.​

The following attributed to Sathya Sai Baba (again see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Early life

Almost everything known about Sai Baba's early life stems from the hagiography that grew around him, narratives that hold special meaning to his devotees and are considered by them to be evidence of his divine nature. According to these sources, Sathya Narayana Raju was born to Meesaraganda Eashwaramma and Peddavenkama Raju Ratnakaram in the village of Puttaparthi, to a Raju family, in what was the Madras Presidency of British India. His birth, which his mother Eashwaramma asserted was by miraculous conception, was also said to be heralded by miracles.

Sai Baba's siblings included elder brother Ratnakaram Sesham Raju (1921–1984), sisters Venakamma (1923–1993) and Parvathamma (1928–1998), and younger brother Janakirammiah (1930–2003).

As a child, he was described as "unusually intelligent" and charitable, though not necessarily academically inclined, as his interests were of a more spiritual nature. He was uncommonly talented in devotional music, dance and drama. From a young age, he was alleged to have been capable of materialising objects such as food and sweets out of thin air.
Proclamation
Sai Baba at the age of 14, soon after proclaiming himself as the avatar of Shirdi Sai Baba

On 8 March 1940, while living with his elder brother Sesham Raju in Uravakonda, a small town near Puttaparthi, Sathya was apparently stung by a scorpion. He lost consciousness for several hours and in the next few days underwent a noticeable change in behaviour. There were "symptoms of laughing and weeping, eloquence and silence." It is claimed that then "he began to sing Sanskrit verses, a language of which it is alleged he had no prior knowledge." Doctors concluded his behaviour to be hysteria. Concerned, his parents brought Sathya back home to Puttaparthi and took him to many priests, doctors and exorcists. One of the exorcists at Kadiri, a town near Puttaparthi, went to the extent of torturing him with the aim of curing him; Sathya seemingly kept calm throughout, which further worried his parents.

On 23 May 1940, Sathya called household members and reportedly materialised prasad and flowers for his family members. His father became furious at seeing this, thinking his son was bewitched. He took a stick and threatened to beat him if Sathya did not reveal who he really was. On 20 October 1940, the young Sathya responded calmly and firmly "I am Sai Baba", a reference to Sai Baba of Shirdi. This was the first time he proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi—a saint who became famous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Maharashtra and had died eight years before Sathya was born.
First mandir and development of Puttaparthi

In 1944, a mandir for Sai Baba's devotees was built near the village of Puttaparthi. It is now referred to as the "old mandir". The construction of Prashanthi Nilayam, the current ashram, began in 1948 and was completed in 1950. In 1954, Sai Baba established a small free general hospital in the village of Puttaparthi. He won fame for mystical powers and the ability to heal. In 1957 Sai Baba went on a North Indian temple tour.
Stroke, paralysis and prediction of reincarnation

In 1963, it was asserted that Sai Baba suffered a stroke and four severe heart attacks, which left him paralysed on one side. These events culminated in an event where he apparently healed himself in front of the thousands of people gathered in Prashanthi Nilayam who were then praying for his recovery.​

Just as other people have had very profound experiences with their Deities and Saints (as shown above). Are their experiences any less real than yours? Why/Why not? Their miracle claims are no less fantastic than yours - in many cases, theirs have physical manifestations that your attestations don't, which would arguably make them an even grander claim than yours. Do you agree that we're all part of the same reality? If so, then you can't all be right and I don't see your claims being any more realistic than theirs.

It does sound familiar and you're mistaken to use it here. You admit that you cannot demonstrate your experiences to me, yet you blindly accept other people's testimonies of their experience where it conforms with your belief as if you experienced it yourself. If seeing others have a relationship with God was as real and testable as seeing others pull up a chair and sitting on it without it collapsing out from underneath, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? Your use of my evidenced statement in this context is in error.


It cannot be done as far as I know. Noting this point, how could you accept the personal experience of others as confirmation of your God? Why don't you accept the equivalent experiences of other religions' followers?

If your God makes no measurable impact here in this universe, then why should I accept your religion over any others? If you have a relationship with him, what can you do with this relationship? I have a relationship with my family, my friends, coworkers, etc. and these lead to meaningful and tangible benefits for all of us. What has your relationship with your untestable God given you that couldn't happen without him? Intangible effects don't count.

For the same reason you accept the Christian God when I do not.

Yes, all the more reasons to not trust the Bible 100%. So then, how did the first 5 books talk of the Messiah? and how could you possibly conclude it was Jesus?

Agreed. Point still stands if you consider Islam's position, becaue Islam does believe in Satan - but let's just accept the Jews consider Christianity a Cult then.

Of course, you'll know I'll ask you why God would be so evil as to hand over anyone, let alone his most adherent believer, to Satan as a pawn in some sadistic test that he already knows the outcome of. If God does indeed rule over this universe and not Satan, then from whence comes Evil? If Satan has no power over us because God doesn't allow it then what is the issue here?

This is not correct. I (as do we all) have levels of confidence. Never is it 100% at either end, Certainty and Doubt are not employed in a binary fashion in reality. For example, you know that people have accidents and die in cars, busses, trains and planes, right? If so, do you not use these modes of transport since knowing of these deaths? Are you aware that people choke to death on food? Do you still eat food knowing this?

These things are not only untested prior to use/consumption, there isn't really a worthwhile test available before travelling or eating.

Not at all. Again, you demonstrate a level of dishonesty I find disappointing. Nobody would expect to test every seat every time I sit down - but that's not to say I haven't ever tested a seat I thought suspect. You chastised me for testing one thing and not testing another in a simplistic game of words to completely skirt the point being made. That is dishonest of you. To reiterate:

In general, I don't test a seat before sitting on it however I have tested a seat on the very odd occasion I had reason to be suspect (this would be the 99% sure, 1% unsure scenario). By contrast, a temporary plank over a trench is not the same assuredness I have in a seat, hence the test or evidence before apportioning my trust in it (perhaps 85%-90% sure, 10%-15% unsure).

Not at all, your dishonesty notwithstanding. I specifically said I wasn't 100% positive.

Not what I said. Your 100% Faith in your God of Christianity is inconsistent with the facts of the universe available to you.

In verbiage, yes. But you are being dishonest and deceitful about what I've said and deliberately misconstrued it (i.e. built a straw man) to discredit something I did not in fact say. I'm not uncertain about my existence, in fact, I'm very certain of it.


Religion isn't a big thing in my country and I had no real guidance on how to seek the Truth about our universe given neither of my parents are religious either. I had no idea what Spirituality was (still don't) and was flooded with a number of religions including a variety of Christian religions that believed mutually exclusive things, especially Creationism. I vested interest in attending any Holy gathering and worked on realising a direct connection with the Creator(s) of the Universe or a God that would make him/her/itself clear to me, I was someone honestly looking to become known to, and to know such a Divine Being. back then, I looked at every religion I knew of or had access to (pre-internet era, mind you) and I didn't know nearly as much as I do now about religions let alone Christianity in particular - for example, I didn't know about the Trinity (had heard it, but wasn't aware of the three in one divine being), I knew of the mutually different belief systems within Christianity (from YEC through to Theological day-age, and even complete Deistic style Christianity where God started the Universe just so with everything so perfectly aligned as to have us fall into being through all the perfect alignments of every atom, electron, proton, etc. to realise our existence, but I had no reason to accept any flavour of Christianity over any other religion I had access to - all communicating very different things and all having the same reasons and conviction to believe them over anyone elses' religion. Keep in mind that Christianity wasn't the foremost religion I had access to. Had I just "had Faith" so I could get the evidence I needed, then Christianity wouldn't have been where I ended up, and as much I too would be among the religions that would never know the Christian God and according to you, would be damned for the human fallibility of having 100% Faith in the wrong God.

Here again, you are being DISHONEST and frankly, your deceitful tactics are making it hard to have an honest discussion with you. You need to stop being dishonest with me in this conversation. I have TRUST in Science and the Scientific Method as the best way by which we come about facts in reality. I don't have FAITH (i.e. trust without evidence) in the same.

Science is an endeavour to continually narrow in on the facts about our Universe. It works to create working models that can be used in a predictive and useful way. These models are continually refined to make them more accurate and more useful, but rarely does it do what you caracature it to do. For excample, Newton's Theory of Gravity was an excellent way to calculate the effects of gravity on mass, but it wasn't accurate when applied to extreme cases (in this case, it was the precession of the perihelion of Mercury). The model was still useful in pretty much every other every day application, so it stayed in play pending a better model. That of course happened when Einstein's Theory of Relativity came to light, it DID account for these extreme case scenarios while also accommodating the every day usage cases too. It wasn't the Newton's theory was wrong, it was not as accurate as Einstein's Theory of Relativity. See: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury and Tests of general relativity - Wikipedia for the success of Science and the scientific method on this point. Perhaps this paragraph might help you understand:

"Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, 'fact' doesn't mean 'absolute certainty'; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

I'm quite sure thank you all the same. Why would you say I'm Unsure when it remains the bare inkling of unsuredness? Again, this is Dishonest and I don't appreciate you changing what I specifically say into something I specifically did NOT say. Next, I'll address the following point under the same reply given they are intertwined:

Let us go over this conversation from the start to point out your dishonesty

Labelled 1) 2) and 3) where appropriate to track each post response:






Notice I DID NOT Say "I Am, Yes.", I said "I could be, Yes."

Here, you try to dishonestly tie me to a 100% Trust in Science when I've already stated I didn't and couldn't have 100% trust in it. I do however have an enormous amount of confidence in Science, the Scientific method and the results of this endeavour. You also dishonestly and disrespectfully twist what I've specifically said (that I could be unreliable) and make out as if I've admitted I'm 100% unreliable - and THIS, my friend, is what makes you an untrustworthy, disrespectful and dishonest person. I honestly explain to you again what I said and what I meant and why I mean it in the very next post to you:



And Full Circle! You AGAIN Dishonestly attempt to portray me as saying something I specifically DID NOT SAY! Here are the Numerous times I Correct you on your False portrayal of what I said:






And Here, your dishonesty is displayed in its full glory. You, @_-iconoclast-_ are entirely Dishonest, Disrespectful and Untrustworthy in your conduct here. You need to curb your contempt for honest conversation if you want to be taken seriously, and not as yet another self-absorbed hypocrite bent on perching yourself on some proverbial throne above everyone else who doesn't share your YECist worldview, let alone challenge the nonsense therein.

and You are Dishonest and Deceitful. When we observe facts about reality, it isn't trying to go out of its way to fool our senses. A Magician or Illusionist is (and of course, we go to their shows to be entertained as such). Another thing that can fool your senses is cognitive bias and self deception. If you want something to be true, then you will be prone to being biased about your observations and experiences in spite of the evidence - as you have demonstrated in this conversation in spades. You literally ignore the evidence against your position and claim 100% confidence in your belief despite it. it is Your position that is erroneous, and demonstrably so.

There you go again. You just announced that I'm 100% uninformed and do not know the experience through observation or testing, when in fact, I HAVE experienced lucid dreaming and visions in the form of hallucinations.

...and Crazy People who have been committed can make sense sometimes too.

Non-Sequitur. Again, you just agreed that someone experiencing a delusion may not be able to tell it from reality - how do you KNOW you didn't exerience a delusion? After all, Nobody Else can verify your claim! Those two "spirit filled ladies" saw you wake up from your sleep and were confused when they saw your expression, because they had no idea what you had just "experienced" (or dreamed, or hallucinated). I don't think spirituality is a mental disorder btw, I just don't know what it's supposed to be and nobody can seemingly explain it to me.


No, you answered a strawman version of what I didn't say. You have no way to demonstrate your God actually exists let alone show enough verifiable evidence to have 100% confidence in his existence. ALL of your evidence of his existence consists entirely of other people's say so, your own in-head experiences, and confirmation bias. List ANYTHING outside these three categories.

You ARE saying you're infallible by stating your 100% confidence in God being real. I'll repoint you to my previous questions which you've avoided answering - how you could even know there is a God to start with, let alone all the things he wants us to do, etc. The standard of evidence you accept is so vague that the Hindu experiences above are more than equal to any and every claim made by Christianity - why are you not a Hindu?

Not at all - You won't even acknowledge you might be mistaken. You equate "100% certainty in something without any verifiable evidence" with "being rational", and that's just plain silly. My Due Dilligence in vetting evidence for a supernatural creator of the universe is the exact opposite of being "unreliable" as you put it. You on the other hand have jumped into the first religion that passed you fantastical claims without so much as a doublecheck. Christianity holds no first places in any of the claims it makes with respect to Gods, Miracles, the supernatural, explanations for the beginning, or "creation", etc. All of the claims made by your religion have been made by someone else, somewhere else earlier in recorded history.

Where are you going with this? Is there a point? If so, please get to it.

Correction, My existence as a non-believer is linked to YOUR uncertainty, unless you can explain how I fit into your 100% certainty in Jesus Christ? I never gave you an unqualified "Yes" to being unreliable, this just continues your dishonesty in misrepresenting my position. Go back and re-read what I did say and explain what you think I meant.

Well, there's a slim possibility I might be dreaming or hallucinating, but admittedly, dreaming is unlikely given I can pinch myself and have general recall of my entire life. It could be that we're in the Matrix, or some parallel version of it, perhaps my senses aren't giving me entirely correct information about the world around me like one of the many flavours of delusion we're known to experience but again, unlikely, perhaps I've taken someone else's testimony as being accurate when in fact, it isn't, Perhaps I've been hypnotised or otherwise brainwashed into experiencing the world around me in a different light but still unlikely, perhaps I read a religious text and accepted it as "Truth" and now put everything through this confirmation bias that has given me a skewed version of what's actually real, of course particularly unlikely given this one would require wilful acts which I'd likely be aware of, etc.

You have already demonstrated some of these reservations too but you don't seem to recognise it and just plough on as if you're infallible and can't be wrong.


I'm 99.9% Sure they are, so not inconsistent, unpredictable or unsure sorry to tell you, you are incorrect in this statement. Again though, there's always a slim chance they might be someone else's - perhaps a nurse had a faux-pas late one evening after they were born and still in hospital, inadvertently swapped newborns by accident (this has happened before you know...). I could go get them genetically tested I guess... but still, there's a slimming to nil possibilities the DNA test could be botched, etc. It's still all about degrees of certainty, never absolutely 100%. Regardless, I'd love them as my own of course.

NO! This is NOT an "appeal to emotion", nor do I ignore the good things that ALL religious folk do, whether they be Islam, Hindu, Jewish or Christian to name a few! This Lack of Rationality is the Very Reason I do what I do here! Children and other vulnerable people Literally DO DIE because of these irrational and unevidenced choices made by the responsible people that should know better. The Very method You use to come to your 100% certainty in your belief without any verifiable evidence is the exact same dangerous method that put all of these people into the positions to do the damage they did and kill those who trusted in them.

I Challenge you to demonstrate your method of epistemology to be any different to any of the people who caused the deaths and damage I pointed out. Newsflash!: Yours is No Different to Theirs. Of course I'm not saying that you're a murdering tyrant who wants to bomb family planning clinics and fly planes into buildings, as with a majority of people who don't exercise critical thinking, but it doesn't start out there. Instead, it starts out by training believers to discard formal standards of evidence and critical thinking. Once that's done away with, then power mongers (priests, used car salesmen, IRS Scammers, MS Helpdesk Scammers, pick-pocketers, pyramid sales schemers) can reprogram you directly, bypassing your critical thought process to socially engineer you into doing what they want you to do. First, it starts out small, usually by getting you to believe something for which there's no evidence. Once you pass that test of programmability, they then get you to tythe, or otherwise invest in an ideal or community, and usually, that's as far as it goes. You just end up paying a portion of your income to a community head for the rest of your life.

A select few though, will push it further - sometimes to indoctrinate (or vaccinate) against rationality to protect you against common sense - they get you to start denying well-evidenced science, like a universe that's 13.8 billion years old, and the Theory of Evolution, that Vaccinations aren't anywhere nearly as harmful as going without, and even that seeing a Doctor will save lives. they replace it with dangerous things like prayer is better than seeking medical attention for potetially life-threatening conditions, and that Scientists and Medical Professionals are conspiring with Big Pharma to make you sick with all their chemicals and scare-mongering about levels of vaccinations, etc.

then one day you find yourself with children who died of entirely treatable medical conditions or because of complications from a childhood disease that was nearly eradicated via vaccinations, and that bombing those baby-murdering medical staffers at the family planning clinic to be a plausible response to all those babies being murdered by abortions, etc.

No, you are mistaken. What you have is evidence of other people's FAITH in Jesus Christ, not evidence of Jesus Christ himself... I can literally observe the test results for myself when other people test and sit in a chair, I don't have to take their word for it. The ONLY thing you can do is take their word of Faith (on Faith, mind you) in Jesus Christ. You have no way of seeing their personal experiences, let alone validating it independently using the same method.

Or you are mistaken because it is the method of a person who is responsible and diligent.

Again, refreshing to know that your God isn't all-powerful and all-knowing after all - brings an element of human-like fallibility into the mix...

No, a God that demands 100% trust on no verifiable evidence whatsoever is incompetent. What if I was as uncritical as you and my first experience with a religion was the Hindu Polytheistic religion, I'd have looked at the miracle claims and accepted them unchallenged, then I'd have adopted 100% faith in it (which means I'd be as impervious to any rational discussion about my belief as you are). Will your God usher me into heaven on my passing for having 100% faith in Vishnu, Bramah and the other Gods of the Hindu religion?


lol! Didn't know chewing gum and faith in Jesus Christ were equivalent passtime habits... that was a very big circle to nowhere, by design I suspect.

So, it's plainly obvious that you know I've made a point that you're unwilling to acknowledge, so you're being dishonest and disguising it as humor?

As can You be fooled by those same magicians too, you seem to not only evaluate things without rational consideration, but you commit to your irrational considerations with 100% conviction and refuse to even acknowledge your fallibility in coming to this 100% conviction. This is comical.

I, on the other hand, acknowledge the possibility and take measures to minimise that hazard through appropriate critical thinking processes.

Kind of, and he has redeeming qualities...

No, not 100%, but rational thinking is certainly where you should apportion the bulk of your trust, for sure. I don't trust Trump, even if I voted for him (if I were American, that is).

Not sure what the point is with all the random research by country, I didn't say thee's no religion there - just that it isn't as pervasive as it is in your country. In general, even among those who claim themselves religious, it's a far more milder and less overt than it is in the US.

Some notes on your random research:

Japan

Japanese culture does dictate that their people honour the memory of their ancestors and borrow honourable ideas from wherever they're found to create a foundational framework for their culture and philosophy, but this is still the freedom borne of not being inexorably bound to a particular deity. Did you even read this article?

Sweden

Still largely Atheistic all the same though, right? Also, doesn't have a State Church any longer, has a consistently higher quality of life, lower crime, better satisfaction index in any survey than pretty much every country more religious than they are.

Finland

Granted, not the best choice, even though they're still less religious and enjoy lower crime rates and have better quality of life...

Norway

As you'll see below (and explained above), Norway citizens may say they're part of the Lutheran Church of Norway, but this is more of a cultural throwback than it is they're actually religious...

China

I think you've conflated "Atheism" with the "Policies of the Regime" and I don't agree with your assessment. Perhaps you meant to say "... considering how many millions of ppl suffered under Maoist communism."? Political Ideologies are just the same as religion in that respect. The Regime isn't ruling with any "Atheist" agenda, the administration definitively exercise an ideology that has nothing to do with Atheism. I certainly don't respect the conduct of the Regime and it still has long way to go, but they have made progress in their humanity of late. I've been there a couple of times now and the country has made many changes under international pressure (you should go there and have a look for yourself). All this aside, we're assessing the people of the country, not the administration. The people themselves are predominantly atheist and where figures are available, these bear out the same as any other equally irreligious country.

Australia

Ahh, my home territory. As with just about every other country I mentioned here, those that do proclaim to be religious aren't funatical and our acceptance of Science both in education and everyday lives is testament to this. The figures I've quick-fived for you below show this. Here, we don't have to be religious to have a hope of being elected to parliament, the Administration doesn't ignore the Science that might affect public policy (such as climate change, public health and education), nor do they table bad policy on fundamental beliefs that run counter to it, etc.

so there's that on your random research.... Then This on how important religion is in their respective country - From Importance of religion by country - Wikipedia

Japan - 24% say religion is important
Sweden - 17% say religion is important
Finland - 28% say religion is important
Norway - 21% say religion is important
China - Not Listed
Australia - 32% say religion is important
and Finally,
USA - 69% say religion is important <=== Most Religious one here.

but Wait!, there's More - From List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia :

Japan - 0.33 per 1,000,000
Sweden - 1.15 per 1,000,000
Finland - 1.60 per 1,000,000
Norway - 0.56 per 1,000,000
China - 0.74 per 1,000,000
Australia - 0.98 per 1,000,000
and Finally,
USA - 4.88 intentional deaths per 1,000,000 population <=== Most Religious one here.

and Then This on Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population! From Chart(s) of the Week – Incarceration Rates

Japan - 63 per 100,000
Sweden - 74 per 100,000
Finland - 67 per 100,000
Norway - 70 per 100,000
China - Not Listed
Australia - 134 per 100,000
and Finally,
USA - 753 persons incarcerated per 100,000 population <=== Most Religious one here. lol! So much for "Land of the Free!"... you are statistically more probable to be incarcerated there than pretty much anywhere else in the civilised world.

Anyway, still not sure what it was you were wanting to make a point of with your notes - perhaps you could explain?

For All the reasons I've given you so many times already - To go back to the testimony of the Hindu believers I gave you earlier, they all have a collorary account that mirrors any you have, but for Their Gods and Their Religion. You've had visions that left you in no doubt - They've had visions that leave them in no doubt, You've seen

Just as the Hindus had experiences with their Gods confirming Their existances as demonstrated earlier.

Nope, you're being dishonest. Unlike you, I am Thorough about the conclusions I come to. My inconsistencies, unreliability, unsuredness and uncertainty are acknowledged and addressed in any conclusion I come to. I very much doubt you can come to any conclusion with as much vigilance. You discard a great swathe of information to arrive at your belief where I just can't do that. I have to consider all the evidence, not just the bits that suit me as you do.

Not at all. I'd have to say I'm living my life as if there isn't one, but I'm certainly not convinced of it. Can't say I'm a lost soul either. I don't know what a soul is let alone if I have one, and I have plenty of direction and self-worth thanks all the same. If there's anyone exercising poor logic in this conversation, it isn't me.

Yes, anything involving humans is flawed. I challenge you to come up with a better method of coming about the truth of this universe than the scientific method. Keep in mind you owe ALL of your technology, medicines, food production and energy resources, and more to this method.

Speak for yourself about having no hope, I'm going great thanks all the same. I don't have Faith, because it's literally the worst way to come about what is true in reality. Your Faith in your Religion is exactly the same as the Faith a Hindu has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Muslim has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Scientologist has in their religion, etc. Which one of you have it right and how do you know? I feel you haven't seen much of the world outside your church group. You should try it one day.

Well, as far as I can tell, Spirituality and spirits is pretty much a religious thing. I do things in the real world where they have an effect. I tell you what, why don't you tell me what Spirituality is and how it works? What does it do? As far as I can tell, it's pretty much a fictional concept.

What about the Hindu Gods? What about Zeus? Odin? Allah? Should I admit I cannot do it without Them and open my heart to Them too? How will I know which God it is? How will I know there's a God(s) to start with? I think you're putting the cart well before the horse here. No wonder you're so blinded to reality.

Also, not sure why you insist on fabricating false persona about me because I have plenty of certainty thanks all the same. Unlike you though, I don't have 100% certainty in something I'm unable to have someone else validate anything whatsoever about.

Evidence. Evidence would do it.

Cheers!

Quite literally one of the best responses I’ve ever read.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Hey hey dh you beauty
What does that mean re 'universe allows'? Does this mean all systems decay?

It means just what it means. Assuming current models of the universe are correct, then it will eventually suffer so-called "heath death". Not sure exactly how that works or if one could work around it or not, but in any case: it doesn't sound very hospitable to living things.

I'ld say any number of things could happen that would make the universe a dark dead void.
And it's not clear to me in what ways technology could be used to work around that, or if that is even possible.

Death is not an absolute certainty because future scientific breakthroughs are unforeseeable. What would you call this position - it, itself is not a 100% certainty?

Yes, I'm not a future teller so how could I ever be 100% certain of future events?

Do you believe all things are possible?

No. What a strange question.

 

[USincognito]

@Bugeyedcreepy

Instead of posting a 75,000 word message, how about breaking it up into smaller chunks.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Oh, Hey! I thought you'd left the planet! lol! Good to see you again...

This is simply a rehash of the same that you responded to here:

so I will address them both here:

For you to be rationally 100% certain, all the evidence available to you would have to be 100% correlating. I don't fit into this 100% correlation model, just as Jews and Muslims don't fit either, so therefore we're all anomalies in your dataset that has to be explained. It's okay, Creationists are always in a state of cognitive dissonance, so this is expected. In Science, every datapoint has to be accounted for - i.e. in order to be done properly, Science has to account for all of the data (both supporting and unsupporting evidence and datapoints) in order to get to a usable conclusion as close to reality as it's possible to get.

Your model has to allow for a Christian God who willingly allows Muslims, Jews and Atheists alike (not to mention every other religion and culture that will never know about Christianity) to be born, live and die never knowing of the Christian God let alone being saved. Your 100% Certainty in your Faith (i.e. Trust without Evidence) is only possible if you ignore the evidence of all these people and cultures that do not conform with your model of this universe.


well, No. Is such a thing impossible of your God?

so your God isn't all-powerful after all? I have to say, I find that refreshing...

This is the Question I ask of you. You seem to be mistaken about the Power of your God but it seems you concede your God isn't all that powerful. After all, if he was able to create an entire Universe that looks like it's 13.8 billion years old and an Earth that looks 4.5 billion years old all the way down to the most minute detail that fool the most sceptical and thorough Scientists among us today, surely he could create this same universe in an instant just 5 minutes ago with all of us, repleat with memories of our entire lives, including memories of relatives that have passed away, past employment, memories of our first kiss, etc. in exactly the same way he created Adam fully grown with the memory of speech and understanding of the world around him, ability to walk, run, sit, jump, etc. as if he had grown into an adult like all of us?

Being an all-omnipotent being is a tall ask after all, so I'm happy you feel your God isn't so impossibly powerful - after all, he would have ensured every aspect, right down to buried bones and fossils in the earth, security camera footage, news and current affairs along with geo-political situations the world over would be entirely consistent with having been the result of a universe existing for 13.8 billion years, even though he made it just five minutes ago. In short, there'd be no way for you to catch out an all-omnipotent version of your God creating this Universe in its current state just 5 minutes past - Do you agree?

How do (or better still, Could) you know he Didn't do this?

You did say yourself that you went into a dream-like state, so this may still be the case. It's a natural phenomenon that we know happens to us (and animals too btw), so this would surely be the first assessment that requires no extra presumptions about reality to be brought into play.

All that aside though, what about a hallucination or delusion? These things are real to the people that experience them and they too are natural and well-understood phenomenons. Regardless what happened, the burden for asserting something occurring over and above these naturalistic and very plausible explanations, is on you. Asserting it to be a divine experience isn't good enough for the rest of us who didn't experience it. You even mentioned the two ladies with you at your congregation had no idea of the experience you had, they didn't see anything so it definitely was entirely your own experience (I'll stop short of saying "it was entirely in your head" here), an experience that nobody else was able to experience with you.

Sure:

From Hindu milk miracle - Wikipedia :

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon, considered by many Hindus as a miracle, which started on 21 September 1995, in which statues of the Hindu deity Ganesha were said to drink milk offerings. It attracted great attention from people and the media particularly in India.

Phenomenon

Before dawn on 21 September 1995, a worshipper at a temple in south New Delhi made an offering of milk to a statue of Ganesha. When a spoonful of milk from the bowl was held up to the trunk of the statue, the liquid was seen to disappear, apparently taken in by the idol. Word of the event spread quickly, and by mid-morning it was found that statues of the entire Hindu pantheon in temples all over India were taking in milk.[1]

By noon the news had spread beyond India, and Hindu temples in the United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, and Nepal among other countries had successfully replicated the phenomenon, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (an Indian Hindu nationalist organisation which provides social services to Hindus in India and across the world.) had announced that a miracle was occurring. In the United States, it was observed at the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Ganesh Temple)[4]

The reported miracle had a significant effect on the areas around major temples; vehicle and pedestrian traffic in New Delhi was dense enough to create a gridlock lasting until late in the evening. Many stores in areas with significant Hindu communities saw a massive jump in sales of milk, with one Gateway store in England selling over 25,000 pints of milk,[4] and overall milk sales in New Delhi jumped over 30%.[5] Many minor temples struggled to deal with the vast increase in numbers, and queues spilled out into the streets, reaching distances of over a mile.​

And here is a personal account of this Hindu Milk Miracle (Read the whole story here How I witnessed a miracle ):

"The thing I love about Hinduism is that it gives me complete freedom to make my own decisions on how to practice my religion, it gives me the flexibility I need and indeed it gives me a great amount of choice. I have always felt from a very young age that there is a higher power beyond this universe, this nature, our world.

Many a time I have seen the results of prayer in my own life and some of those little miracles may well be ascribed to coincidences but when you actually weigh all the arguments in your own mind its difficult not to accept the power of prayer or an intervention by another force. Besides that I did have a very personal experience at the age of 19 which left no doubt in my mind of the existence of a higher power or reality.

One of the very public experiences I had was at the week of the milk miracle of 1995, when Lord Ganesh and generally Lord Shiva’s family was drinking milk. I got a phone call from my mother in law to go to the temple and try and offer milk to Ganesh ji, she insisted that I must go immediately whereas I could hardly believe that a stone idol could consume a liquid. I couldn’t help laughing in my mind though realising that my mother in law would not have phoned me in office hours – I run an accountancy practice - unless it was serious.

So I went to the Vishwa Hindu temple at Lady Margaret Road in Southall and at about 1pm there was a queue of 4 or 5 people in front of me. They were all offering milk in a spoon to the Deity Nandi – a marble idol of the bull that is supposed to be Lord Shiva’s vehicle and his foremost devotee and is worshipped as a family member of Lord Shiva. Incidentally Lord Ganesh is the first son of God which Goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Shiva, created and infused life into. I was not thinking of Lord Shiva or Ganesh or Parvati at the time but just offered a spoon full of milk to Nandi as directed by the priest.

As I raised the spoon to Nandi’s mouth and the milk touched the idol, very slightly, the level of milk in the spoon started to go down as if someone was actually drinking it, quite evenly.

I was shaking with awe.

This experience made me realise how stupid I had been to be influenced by the negative propaganda against idols by some ideologies of other religions. I did always believe in the almighty and prayed to, say Lord Krishna, or Lord Shiva etc. and of course in my youth did not question much but as I grew up I was influenced by the negative propaganda against idolatry targeted mainly at Hindus and in spite of the Hindu belief that once an idol is consecrated in the temple through Vedic Mantras then spirituality is infused in the idol and for all intents and purposes it becomes God, alive in spirit, I could not bring myself to agree with this belief, which seemed to me just a theory.

Nonetheless I understood that my thoughts had to be directed towards an indescribable reality God through some form of medium and so I prayed to Lord Shiva or Krishna or Goddess Durga whenever I went to the temple, quite sincerely. It was not really important to believe that the idols were alive, what mattered to me were my thoughts and devotion. However after the milk miracle everything changed in that respect. And that to happen through the idol of Nandi, a Bull, associated with Lord Shiva i.e., not even Shiva himself or Ganesh or Parvati.

I rang my wife who is a scientist with a PhD and actually works in medicinal research. She too laughed in disbelief. Then I asked her to ring her mother also and in any case, on her way home from work, she stopped at Ram Mandir in King street, Southall. Being a scientist she offered the milk to the “bronze” serpent around Shiva’s neck and the milk went into thin air. Since then her Hindu beliefs consolidated and she now observes various practices much more devoutly than me.

I rang some of my local clients, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians to tell them what had happened. They all went there and had the same experience. "​

From 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident - Wikipedia :

The 2006 Mumbai "sweet" seawater incident was a strange phenomenon during which residents of Mumbai claimed that the water at Mahim Creek had suddenly turned sweet. Within hours, residents of Gujarat claimed that seawater at Teethal beach had turned sweet as well. This caused a mass hysteria among people who started coming in large numbers to drink the sea water.​

Not sure if you've ever heard of Sathya Sai Baba, but he's a Hindu Guru attributed with many miracles of Jesus and a few more ( Sathya Sai Baba - Wikipedia ) including being the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirid ( Sai Baba of Shirdi - Wikipedia ). From 7 Beautiful Stories That Prove Miracles Actually Happen

"On May 10, 1977, Bhagwandas Daswani suffered from a massive heart attack. “I actually died for two minutes and was revived by doctors.” Daswani recalls. Although he came around, there was no improvement in his condition and he was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ten days later, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. Losing about four pints of blood a day, he had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family, and the team of doctors had lost all hope of his survival.

“On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,” recalled Daswani, “Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore said, ‘Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?’ He said, ‘I am here all right. What would you like me to do?’ I said, ‘Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not dreaming.’ He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was disturbed.

“I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment was beyond description. ‘How did you get here?’ they asked. ‘I walked,’ I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the truth. ‘Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and all over you?’ they asked. I said, ‘Don’t ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper bag for me.’ They did this and collected one and a half kilograms of vibhuti.

Daswani's health began to improve rapidly, and the doctors and the staff kept questioning him, but his lips were sealed. On May 29, he was able to walk by himself to another ward. Not only did he make a complete recovery, his diabetes disappeared as well. Bhagwandas Daswani believes he owes everything to Bhagavan Baba."​

Other miracle attestations are numerous, the following attributed to Sai Baba of Shirid (see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Miracles

Sai Baba's disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways. He also gave Darshan (vision) to people in the form of Sri Rama, Krishna, Vithoba, Shiva and many other gods depending on the faith of devotees.

According to his followers, he appeared to them in their dreams and gave them advice. His devotees have documented many stories.​

The following attributed to Sathya Sai Baba (again see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Early life

Almost everything known about Sai Baba's early life stems from the hagiography that grew around him, narratives that hold special meaning to his devotees and are considered by them to be evidence of his divine nature. According to these sources, Sathya Narayana Raju was born to Meesaraganda Eashwaramma and Peddavenkama Raju Ratnakaram in the village of Puttaparthi, to a Raju family, in what was the Madras Presidency of British India. His birth, which his mother Eashwaramma asserted was by miraculous conception, was also said to be heralded by miracles.

Sai Baba's siblings included elder brother Ratnakaram Sesham Raju (1921–1984), sisters Venakamma (1923–1993) and Parvathamma (1928–1998), and younger brother Janakirammiah (1930–2003).

As a child, he was described as "unusually intelligent" and charitable, though not necessarily academically inclined, as his interests were of a more spiritual nature. He was uncommonly talented in devotional music, dance and drama. From a young age, he was alleged to have been capable of materialising objects such as food and sweets out of thin air.
Proclamation
Sai Baba at the age of 14, soon after proclaiming himself as the avatar of Shirdi Sai Baba

On 8 March 1940, while living with his elder brother Sesham Raju in Uravakonda, a small town near Puttaparthi, Sathya was apparently stung by a scorpion. He lost consciousness for several hours and in the next few days underwent a noticeable change in behaviour. There were "symptoms of laughing and weeping, eloquence and silence." It is claimed that then "he began to sing Sanskrit verses, a language of which it is alleged he had no prior knowledge." Doctors concluded his behaviour to be hysteria. Concerned, his parents brought Sathya back home to Puttaparthi and took him to many priests, doctors and exorcists. One of the exorcists at Kadiri, a town near Puttaparthi, went to the extent of torturing him with the aim of curing him; Sathya seemingly kept calm throughout, which further worried his parents.

On 23 May 1940, Sathya called household members and reportedly materialised prasad and flowers for his family members. His father became furious at seeing this, thinking his son was bewitched. He took a stick and threatened to beat him if Sathya did not reveal who he really was. On 20 October 1940, the young Sathya responded calmly and firmly "I am Sai Baba", a reference to Sai Baba of Shirdi. This was the first time he proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi—a saint who became famous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Maharashtra and had died eight years before Sathya was born.
First mandir and development of Puttaparthi

In 1944, a mandir for Sai Baba's devotees was built near the village of Puttaparthi. It is now referred to as the "old mandir". The construction of Prashanthi Nilayam, the current ashram, began in 1948 and was completed in 1950. In 1954, Sai Baba established a small free general hospital in the village of Puttaparthi. He won fame for mystical powers and the ability to heal. In 1957 Sai Baba went on a North Indian temple tour.
Stroke, paralysis and prediction of reincarnation

In 1963, it was asserted that Sai Baba suffered a stroke and four severe heart attacks, which left him paralysed on one side. These events culminated in an event where he apparently healed himself in front of the thousands of people gathered in Prashanthi Nilayam who were then praying for his recovery.​

Just as other people have had very profound experiences with their Deities and Saints (as shown above). Are their experiences any less real than yours? Why/Why not? Their miracle claims are no less fantastic than yours - in many cases, theirs have physical manifestations that your attestations don't, which would arguably make them an even grander claim than yours. Do you agree that we're all part of the same reality? If so, then you can't all be right and I don't see your claims being any more realistic than theirs.

It does sound familiar and you're mistaken to use it here. You admit that you cannot demonstrate your experiences to me, yet you blindly accept other people's testimonies of their experience where it conforms with your belief as if you experienced it yourself. If seeing others have a relationship with God was as real and testable as seeing others pull up a chair and sitting on it without it collapsing out from underneath, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? Your use of my evidenced statement in this context is in error.


It cannot be done as far as I know. Noting this point, how could you accept the personal experience of others as confirmation of your God? Why don't you accept the equivalent experiences of other religions' followers?

If your God makes no measurable impact here in this universe, then why should I accept your religion over any others? If you have a relationship with him, what can you do with this relationship? I have a relationship with my family, my friends, coworkers, etc. and these lead to meaningful and tangible benefits for all of us. What has your relationship with your untestable God given you that couldn't happen without him? Intangible effects don't count.

For the same reason you accept the Christian God when I do not.

Yes, all the more reasons to not trust the Bible 100%. So then, how did the first 5 books talk of the Messiah? and how could you possibly conclude it was Jesus?

Agreed. Point still stands if you consider Islam's position, becaue Islam does believe in Satan - but let's just accept the Jews consider Christianity a Cult then.

Of course, you'll know I'll ask you why God would be so evil as to hand over anyone, let alone his most adherent believer, to Satan as a pawn in some sadistic test that he already knows the outcome of. If God does indeed rule over this universe and not Satan, then from whence comes Evil? If Satan has no power over us because God doesn't allow it then what is the issue here?

This is not correct. I (as do we all) have levels of confidence. Never is it 100% at either end, Certainty and Doubt are not employed in a binary fashion in reality. For example, you know that people have accidents and die in cars, busses, trains and planes, right? If so, do you not use these modes of transport since knowing of these deaths? Are you aware that people choke to death on food? Do you still eat food knowing this?

These things are not only untested prior to use/consumption, there isn't really a worthwhile test available before travelling or eating.

Not at all. Again, you demonstrate a level of dishonesty I find disappointing. Nobody would expect to test every seat every time I sit down - but that's not to say I haven't ever tested a seat I thought suspect. You chastised me for testing one thing and not testing another in a simplistic game of words to completely skirt the point being made. That is dishonest of you. To reiterate:

In general, I don't test a seat before sitting on it however I have tested a seat on the very odd occasion I had reason to be suspect (this would be the 99% sure, 1% unsure scenario). By contrast, a temporary plank over a trench is not the same assuredness I have in a seat, hence the test or evidence before apportioning my trust in it (perhaps 85%-90% sure, 10%-15% unsure).

Not at all, your dishonesty notwithstanding. I specifically said I wasn't 100% positive.

Not what I said. Your 100% Faith in your God of Christianity is inconsistent with the facts of the universe available to you.

In verbiage, yes. But you are being dishonest and deceitful about what I've said and deliberately misconstrued it (i.e. built a straw man) to discredit something I did not in fact say. I'm not uncertain about my existence, in fact, I'm very certain of it.


Religion isn't a big thing in my country and I had no real guidance on how to seek the Truth about our universe given neither of my parents are religious either. I had no idea what Spirituality was (still don't) and was flooded with a number of religions including a variety of Christian religions that believed mutually exclusive things, especially Creationism. I vested interest in attending any Holy gathering and worked on realising a direct connection with the Creator(s) of the Universe or a God that would make him/her/itself clear to me, I was someone honestly looking to become known to, and to know such a Divine Being. back then, I looked at every religion I knew of or had access to (pre-internet era, mind you) and I didn't know nearly as much as I do now about religions let alone Christianity in particular - for example, I didn't know about the Trinity (had heard it, but wasn't aware of the three in one divine being), I knew of the mutually different belief systems within Christianity (from YEC through to Theological day-age, and even complete Deistic style Christianity where God started the Universe just so with everything so perfectly aligned as to have us fall into being through all the perfect alignments of every atom, electron, proton, etc. to realise our existence, but I had no reason to accept any flavour of Christianity over any other religion I had access to - all communicating very different things and all having the same reasons and conviction to believe them over anyone elses' religion. Keep in mind that Christianity wasn't the foremost religion I had access to. Had I just "had Faith" so I could get the evidence I needed, then Christianity wouldn't have been where I ended up, and as much I too would be among the religions that would never know the Christian God and according to you, would be damned for the human fallibility of having 100% Faith in the wrong God.

Here again, you are being DISHONEST and frankly, your deceitful tactics are making it hard to have an honest discussion with you. You need to stop being dishonest with me in this conversation. I have TRUST in Science and the Scientific Method as the best way by which we come about facts in reality. I don't have FAITH (i.e. trust without evidence) in the same.

Science is an endeavour to continually narrow in on the facts about our Universe. It works to create working models that can be used in a predictive and useful way. These models are continually refined to make them more accurate and more useful, but rarely does it do what you caracature it to do. For excample, Newton's Theory of Gravity was an excellent way to calculate the effects of gravity on mass, but it wasn't accurate when applied to extreme cases (in this case, it was the precession of the perihelion of Mercury). The model was still useful in pretty much every other every day application, so it stayed in play pending a better model. That of course happened when Einstein's Theory of Relativity came to light, it DID account for these extreme case scenarios while also accommodating the every day usage cases too. It wasn't the Newton's theory was wrong, it was not as accurate as Einstein's Theory of Relativity. See: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury and Tests of general relativity - Wikipedia for the success of Science and the scientific method on this point. Perhaps this paragraph might help you understand:

"Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, 'fact' doesn't mean 'absolute certainty'; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

I'm quite sure thank you all the same. Why would you say I'm Unsure when it remains the bare inkling of unsuredness? Again, this is Dishonest and I don't appreciate you changing what I specifically say into something I specifically did NOT say. Next, I'll address the following point under the same reply given they are intertwined:

Let us go over this conversation from the start to point out your dishonesty

Labelled 1) 2) and 3) where appropriate to track each post response:






Notice I DID NOT Say "I Am, Yes.", I said "I could be, Yes."

Here, you try to dishonestly tie me to a 100% Trust in Science when I've already stated I didn't and couldn't have 100% trust in it. I do however have an enormous amount of confidence in Science, the Scientific method and the results of this endeavour. You also dishonestly and disrespectfully twist what I've specifically said (that I could be unreliable) and make out as if I've admitted I'm 100% unreliable - and THIS, my friend, is what makes you an untrustworthy, disrespectful and dishonest person. I honestly explain to you again what I said and what I meant and why I mean it in the very next post to you:



And Full Circle! You AGAIN Dishonestly attempt to portray me as saying something I specifically DID NOT SAY! Here are the Numerous times I Correct you on your False portrayal of what I said:






And Here, your dishonesty is displayed in its full glory. You, @_-iconoclast-_ are entirely Dishonest, Disrespectful and Untrustworthy in your conduct here. You need to curb your contempt for honest conversation if you want to be taken seriously, and not as yet another self-absorbed hypocrite bent on perching yourself on some proverbial throne above everyone else who doesn't share your YECist worldview, let alone challenge the nonsense therein.

and You are Dishonest and Deceitful. When we observe facts about reality, it isn't trying to go out of its way to fool our senses. A Magician or Illusionist is (and of course, we go to their shows to be entertained as such). Another thing that can fool your senses is cognitive bias and self deception. If you want something to be true, then you will be prone to being biased about your observations and experiences in spite of the evidence - as you have demonstrated in this conversation in spades. You literally ignore the evidence against your position and claim 100% confidence in your belief despite it. it is Your position that is erroneous, and demonstrably so.

There you go again. You just announced that I'm 100% uninformed and do not know the experience through observation or testing, when in fact, I HAVE experienced lucid dreaming and visions in the form of hallucinations.

...and Crazy People who have been committed can make sense sometimes too.

Non-Sequitur. Again, you just agreed that someone experiencing a delusion may not be able to tell it from reality - how do you KNOW you didn't exerience a delusion? After all, Nobody Else can verify your claim! Those two "spirit filled ladies" saw you wake up from your sleep and were confused when they saw your expression, because they had no idea what you had just "experienced" (or dreamed, or hallucinated). I don't think spirituality is a mental disorder btw, I just don't know what it's supposed to be and nobody can seemingly explain it to me.


No, you answered a strawman version of what I didn't say. You have no way to demonstrate your God actually exists let alone show enough verifiable evidence to have 100% confidence in his existence. ALL of your evidence of his existence consists entirely of other people's say so, your own in-head experiences, and confirmation bias. List ANYTHING outside these three categories.

You ARE saying you're infallible by stating your 100% confidence in God being real. I'll repoint you to my previous questions which you've avoided answering - how you could even know there is a God to start with, let alone all the things he wants us to do, etc. The standard of evidence you accept is so vague that the Hindu experiences above are more than equal to any and every claim made by Christianity - why are you not a Hindu?

Not at all - You won't even acknowledge you might be mistaken. You equate "100% certainty in something without any verifiable evidence" with "being rational", and that's just plain silly. My Due Dilligence in vetting evidence for a supernatural creator of the universe is the exact opposite of being "unreliable" as you put it. You on the other hand have jumped into the first religion that passed you fantastical claims without so much as a doublecheck. Christianity holds no first places in any of the claims it makes with respect to Gods, Miracles, the supernatural, explanations for the beginning, or "creation", etc. All of the claims made by your religion have been made by someone else, somewhere else earlier in recorded history.

Where are you going with this? Is there a point? If so, please get to it.

Correction, My existence as a non-believer is linked to YOUR uncertainty, unless you can explain how I fit into your 100% certainty in Jesus Christ? I never gave you an unqualified "Yes" to being unreliable, this just continues your dishonesty in misrepresenting my position. Go back and re-read what I did say and explain what you think I meant.

Well, there's a slim possibility I might be dreaming or hallucinating, but admittedly, dreaming is unlikely given I can pinch myself and have general recall of my entire life. It could be that we're in the Matrix, or some parallel version of it, perhaps my senses aren't giving me entirely correct information about the world around me like one of the many flavours of delusion we're known to experience but again, unlikely, perhaps I've taken someone else's testimony as being accurate when in fact, it isn't, Perhaps I've been hypnotised or otherwise brainwashed into experiencing the world around me in a different light but still unlikely, perhaps I read a religious text and accepted it as "Truth" and now put everything through this confirmation bias that has given me a skewed version of what's actually real, of course particularly unlikely given this one would require wilful acts which I'd likely be aware of, etc.

You have already demonstrated some of these reservations too but you don't seem to recognise it and just plough on as if you're infallible and can't be wrong.


I'm 99.9% Sure they are, so not inconsistent, unpredictable or unsure sorry to tell you, you are incorrect in this statement. Again though, there's always a slim chance they might be someone else's - perhaps a nurse had a faux-pas late one evening after they were born and still in hospital, inadvertently swapped newborns by accident (this has happened before you know...). I could go get them genetically tested I guess... but still, there's a slimming to nil possibilities the DNA test could be botched, etc. It's still all about degrees of certainty, never absolutely 100%. Regardless, I'd love them as my own of course.

NO! This is NOT an "appeal to emotion", nor do I ignore the good things that ALL religious folk do, whether they be Islam, Hindu, Jewish or Christian to name a few! This Lack of Rationality is the Very Reason I do what I do here! Children and other vulnerable people Literally DO DIE because of these irrational and unevidenced choices made by the responsible people that should know better. The Very method You use to come to your 100% certainty in your belief without any verifiable evidence is the exact same dangerous method that put all of these people into the positions to do the damage they did and kill those who trusted in them.

I Challenge you to demonstrate your method of epistemology to be any different to any of the people who caused the deaths and damage I pointed out. Newsflash!: Yours is No Different to Theirs. Of course I'm not saying that you're a murdering tyrant who wants to bomb family planning clinics and fly planes into buildings, as with a majority of people who don't exercise critical thinking, but it doesn't start out there. Instead, it starts out by training believers to discard formal standards of evidence and critical thinking. Once that's done away with, then power mongers (priests, used car salesmen, IRS Scammers, MS Helpdesk Scammers, pick-pocketers, pyramid sales schemers) can reprogram you directly, bypassing your critical thought process to socially engineer you into doing what they want you to do. First, it starts out small, usually by getting you to believe something for which there's no evidence. Once you pass that test of programmability, they then get you to tythe, or otherwise invest in an ideal or community, and usually, that's as far as it goes. You just end up paying a portion of your income to a community head for the rest of your life.

A select few though, will push it further - sometimes to indoctrinate (or vaccinate) against rationality to protect you against common sense - they get you to start denying well-evidenced science, like a universe that's 13.8 billion years old, and the Theory of Evolution, that Vaccinations aren't anywhere nearly as harmful as going without, and even that seeing a Doctor will save lives. they replace it with dangerous things like prayer is better than seeking medical attention for potetially life-threatening conditions, and that Scientists and Medical Professionals are conspiring with Big Pharma to make you sick with all their chemicals and scare-mongering about levels of vaccinations, etc.

then one day you find yourself with children who died of entirely treatable medical conditions or because of complications from a childhood disease that was nearly eradicated via vaccinations, and that bombing those baby-murdering medical staffers at the family planning clinic to be a plausible response to all those babies being murdered by abortions, etc.

No, you are mistaken. What you have is evidence of other people's FAITH in Jesus Christ, not evidence of Jesus Christ himself... I can literally observe the test results for myself when other people test and sit in a chair, I don't have to take their word for it. The ONLY thing you can do is take their word of Faith (on Faith, mind you) in Jesus Christ. You have no way of seeing their personal experiences, let alone validating it independently using the same method.

Or you are mistaken because it is the method of a person who is responsible and diligent.

Again, refreshing to know that your God isn't all-powerful and all-knowing after all - brings an element of human-like fallibility into the mix...

No, a God that demands 100% trust on no verifiable evidence whatsoever is incompetent. What if I was as uncritical as you and my first experience with a religion was the Hindu Polytheistic religion, I'd have looked at the miracle claims and accepted them unchallenged, then I'd have adopted 100% faith in it (which means I'd be as impervious to any rational discussion about my belief as you are). Will your God usher me into heaven on my passing for having 100% faith in Vishnu, Bramah and the other Gods of the Hindu religion?


lol! Didn't know chewing gum and faith in Jesus Christ were equivalent passtime habits... that was a very big circle to nowhere, by design I suspect.

So, it's plainly obvious that you know I've made a point that you're unwilling to acknowledge, so you're being dishonest and disguising it as humor?

As can You be fooled by those same magicians too, you seem to not only evaluate things without rational consideration, but you commit to your irrational considerations with 100% conviction and refuse to even acknowledge your fallibility in coming to this 100% conviction. This is comical.

I, on the other hand, acknowledge the possibility and take measures to minimise that hazard through appropriate critical thinking processes.

Kind of, and he has redeeming qualities...

No, not 100%, but rational thinking is certainly where you should apportion the bulk of your trust, for sure. I don't trust Trump, even if I voted for him (if I were American, that is).

Not sure what the point is with all the random research by country, I didn't say thee's no religion there - just that it isn't as pervasive as it is in your country. In general, even among those who claim themselves religious, it's a far more milder and less overt than it is in the US.

Some notes on your random research:

Japan

Japanese culture does dictate that their people honour the memory of their ancestors and borrow honourable ideas from wherever they're found to create a foundational framework for their culture and philosophy, but this is still the freedom borne of not being inexorably bound to a particular deity. Did you even read this article?

Sweden

Still largely Atheistic all the same though, right? Also, doesn't have a State Church any longer, has a consistently higher quality of life, lower crime, better satisfaction index in any survey than pretty much every country more religious than they are.

Finland

Granted, not the best choice, even though they're still less religious and enjoy lower crime rates and have better quality of life...

Norway

As you'll see below (and explained above), Norway citizens may say they're part of the Lutheran Church of Norway, but this is more of a cultural throwback than it is they're actually religious...

China

I think you've conflated "Atheism" with the "Policies of the Regime" and I don't agree with your assessment. Perhaps you meant to say "... considering how many millions of ppl suffered under Maoist communism."? Political Ideologies are just the same as religion in that respect. The Regime isn't ruling with any "Atheist" agenda, the administration definitively exercise an ideology that has nothing to do with Atheism. I certainly don't respect the conduct of the Regime and it still has long way to go, but they have made progress in their humanity of late. I've been there a couple of times now and the country has made many changes under international pressure (you should go there and have a look for yourself). All this aside, we're assessing the people of the country, not the administration. The people themselves are predominantly atheist and where figures are available, these bear out the same as any other equally irreligious country.

Australia

Ahh, my home territory. As with just about every other country I mentioned here, those that do proclaim to be religious aren't funatical and our acceptance of Science both in education and everyday lives is testament to this. The figures I've quick-fived for you below show this. Here, we don't have to be religious to have a hope of being elected to parliament, the Administration doesn't ignore the Science that might affect public policy (such as climate change, public health and education), nor do they table bad policy on fundamental beliefs that run counter to it, etc.

so there's that on your random research.... Then This on how important religion is in their respective country - From Importance of religion by country - Wikipedia

Japan - 24% say religion is important
Sweden - 17% say religion is important
Finland - 28% say religion is important
Norway - 21% say religion is important
China - Not Listed
Australia - 32% say religion is important
and Finally,
USA - 69% say religion is important <=== Most Religious one here.

but Wait!, there's More - From List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia :

Japan - 0.33 per 1,000,000
Sweden - 1.15 per 1,000,000
Finland - 1.60 per 1,000,000
Norway - 0.56 per 1,000,000
China - 0.74 per 1,000,000
Australia - 0.98 per 1,000,000
and Finally,
USA - 4.88 intentional deaths per 1,000,000 population <=== Most Religious one here.

and Then This on Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population! From Chart(s) of the Week – Incarceration Rates

Japan - 63 per 100,000
Sweden - 74 per 100,000
Finland - 67 per 100,000
Norway - 70 per 100,000
China - Not Listed
Australia - 134 per 100,000
and Finally,
USA - 753 persons incarcerated per 100,000 population <=== Most Religious one here. lol! So much for "Land of the Free!"... you are statistically more probable to be incarcerated there than pretty much anywhere else in the civilised world.

Anyway, still not sure what it was you were wanting to make a point of with your notes - perhaps you could explain?

For All the reasons I've given you so many times already - To go back to the testimony of the Hindu believers I gave you earlier, they all have a collorary account that mirrors any you have, but for Their Gods and Their Religion. You've had visions that left you in no doubt - They've had visions that leave them in no doubt, You've seen

Just as the Hindus had experiences with their Gods confirming Their existances as demonstrated earlier.

Nope, you're being dishonest. Unlike you, I am Thorough about the conclusions I come to. My inconsistencies, unreliability, unsuredness and uncertainty are acknowledged and addressed in any conclusion I come to. I very much doubt you can come to any conclusion with as much vigilance. You discard a great swathe of information to arrive at your belief where I just can't do that. I have to consider all the evidence, not just the bits that suit me as you do.

Not at all. I'd have to say I'm living my life as if there isn't one, but I'm certainly not convinced of it. Can't say I'm a lost soul either. I don't know what a soul is let alone if I have one, and I have plenty of direction and self-worth thanks all the same. If there's anyone exercising poor logic in this conversation, it isn't me.

Yes, anything involving humans is flawed. I challenge you to come up with a better method of coming about the truth of this universe than the scientific method. Keep in mind you owe ALL of your technology, medicines, food production and energy resources, and more to this method.

Speak for yourself about having no hope, I'm going great thanks all the same. I don't have Faith, because it's literally the worst way to come about what is true in reality. Your Faith in your Religion is exactly the same as the Faith a Hindu has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Muslim has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Scientologist has in their religion, etc. Which one of you have it right and how do you know? I feel you haven't seen much of the world outside your church group. You should try it one day.

Well, as far as I can tell, Spirituality and spirits is pretty much a religious thing. I do things in the real world where they have an effect. I tell you what, why don't you tell me what Spirituality is and how it works? What does it do? As far as I can tell, it's pretty much a fictional concept.

What about the Hindu Gods? What about Zeus? Odin? Allah? Should I admit I cannot do it without Them and open my heart to Them too? How will I know which God it is? How will I know there's a God(s) to start with? I think you're putting the cart well before the horse here. No wonder you're so blinded to reality.

Also, not sure why you insist on fabricating false persona about me because I have plenty of certainty thanks all the same. Unlike you though, I don't have 100% certainty in something I'm unable to have someone else validate anything whatsoever about.

Evidence. Evidence would do it.

Cheers!

Nominated for "longest post on the interwebs" award!

 

[Bugeyedcreepy]

@Bugeyedcreepy

Instead of posting a 75,000 word message, how about breaking it up into smaller chunks.

Nominated for "longest post on the interwebs" award!

....uhh, yeah, sorry 'bout that....

-_-

....but I REALLY wanted to be concise about which post I replied to - that, and I didn't want to wheel back to any of 20 normal-sized posts to work out what I said to @_-iconoclast-_ , and when I said it given where our conversation is going...

would breaking it up into a stack of smaller ones really be any better? I figured lumping it as one would be _less_ messy?

 

[DogmaHunter]

....uhh, yeah, sorry 'bout that....

-_-

....but I REALLY wanted to be concise about which post I replied to - that, and I didn't want to wheel back to any of 20 normal-sized posts to work out what I said to @_-iconoclast-_ , and when I said it given where our conversation is going...

would breaking it up into a stack of smaller ones really be any better? I figured lumping it as one would be _less_ messy?

No worries man. Epic posts are epic. ;-)

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

Oh, Hey! I thought you'd left the planet! lol! Good to see you again.

Hey bey bugs i come and go. Dont fear im still round. Great to see you.

Wow what a long post. Thank you for taking the time. This will take me a bit... hehe

 

[joshua 1 9]

Unless you get ran over and get locked in syndrome.

Or get smote by a terminal disease.

Etc.

The point is that we have a choice. The choices we make in life determine the results that we are going to receive. This began with Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve had a choice then Adam had to decide if he was going to follow Eve or make a choice contrary to the choice that Eve made. Moses tells us to choice life, health, blessing and prosperity. WE can also choose death, sickness curses and poverty. Each individual has to make their own choice. No one can make their choices for them.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

@Bugeyedcreepy

Instead of posting a 75,000 word message, how about breaking it up into smaller chunks.

Hey hey cog

Im the one who that post is directed to. I do not mind the length and am willing to read and reply.

God bless you friend

 

[USincognito]

Hey hey cog

Im the one who that post is directed to. I do not mind the length and am willing to read and reply.

God bless you friend

That's nice. I and everyone else reading this thread has to scroll through 10s of thousands of characters of content not directed at us.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

That's nice. I and everyone else reading this thread has to scroll through 10s of thousands of characters of content not directed at us.

Hey hey big fella

Then dont read it my dear.

 

[Ophiolite]

Oh, Hey! I thought you'd left the planet! lol! Good to see you again...

This is simply a rehash of the same that you responded to here:

so I will address them both here:

For you to be rationally 100% certain, all the evidence available to you would have to be 100% correlating. I don't fit into this 100% correlation model, just as Jews and Muslims don't fit either, so therefore we're all anomalies in your dataset that has to be explained. It's okay, Creationists are always in a state of cognitive dissonance, so this is expected. In Science, every datapoint has to be accounted for - i.e. in order to be done properly, Science has to account for all of the data (both supporting and unsupporting evidence and datapoints) in order to get to a usable conclusion as close to reality as it's possible to get.

Your model has to allow for a Christian God who willingly allows Muslims, Jews and Atheists alike (not to mention every other religion and culture that will never know about Christianity) to be born, live and die never knowing of the Christian God let alone being saved. Your 100% Certainty in your Faith (i.e. Trust without Evidence) is only possible if you ignore the evidence of all these people and cultures that do not conform with your model of this universe.


well, No. Is such a thing impossible of your God?

so your God isn't all-powerful after all? I have to say, I find that refreshing...

This is the Question I ask of you. You seem to be mistaken about the Power of your God but it seems you concede your God isn't all that powerful. After all, if he was able to create an entire Universe that looks like it's 13.8 billion years old and an Earth that looks 4.5 billion years old all the way down to the most minute detail that fool the most sceptical and thorough Scientists among us today, surely he could create this same universe in an instant just 5 minutes ago with all of us, repleat with memories of our entire lives, including memories of relatives that have passed away, past employment, memories of our first kiss, etc. in exactly the same way he created Adam fully grown with the memory of speech and understanding of the world around him, ability to walk, run, sit, jump, etc. as if he had grown into an adult like all of us?

Being an all-omnipotent being is a tall ask after all, so I'm happy you feel your God isn't so impossibly powerful - after all, he would have ensured every aspect, right down to buried bones and fossils in the earth, security camera footage, news and current affairs along with geo-political situations the world over would be entirely consistent with having been the result of a universe existing for 13.8 billion years, even though he made it just five minutes ago. In short, there'd be no way for you to catch out an all-omnipotent version of your God creating this Universe in its current state just 5 minutes past - Do you agree?

How do (or better still, Could) you know he Didn't do this?

You did say yourself that you went into a dream-like state, so this may still be the case. It's a natural phenomenon that we know happens to us (and animals too btw), so this would surely be the first assessment that requires no extra presumptions about reality to be brought into play.

All that aside though, what about a hallucination or delusion? These things are real to the people that experience them and they too are natural and well-understood phenomenons. Regardless what happened, the burden for asserting something occurring over and above these naturalistic and very plausible explanations, is on you. Asserting it to be a divine experience isn't good enough for the rest of us who didn't experience it. You even mentioned the two ladies with you at your congregation had no idea of the experience you had, they didn't see anything so it definitely was entirely your own experience (I'll stop short of saying "it was entirely in your head" here), an experience that nobody else was able to experience with you.

Sure:

From Hindu milk miracle - Wikipedia :

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon, considered by many Hindus as a miracle, which started on 21 September 1995, in which statues of the Hindu deity Ganesha were said to drink milk offerings. It attracted great attention from people and the media particularly in India.

Phenomenon

Before dawn on 21 September 1995, a worshipper at a temple in south New Delhi made an offering of milk to a statue of Ganesha. When a spoonful of milk from the bowl was held up to the trunk of the statue, the liquid was seen to disappear, apparently taken in by the idol. Word of the event spread quickly, and by mid-morning it was found that statues of the entire Hindu pantheon in temples all over India were taking in milk.[1]

By noon the news had spread beyond India, and Hindu temples in the United Kingdom, Canada, UAE, and Nepal among other countries had successfully replicated the phenomenon, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (an Indian Hindu nationalist organisation which provides social services to Hindus in India and across the world.) had announced that a miracle was occurring. In the United States, it was observed at the Hindu Temple Society of North America (Ganesh Temple)[4]

The reported miracle had a significant effect on the areas around major temples; vehicle and pedestrian traffic in New Delhi was dense enough to create a gridlock lasting until late in the evening. Many stores in areas with significant Hindu communities saw a massive jump in sales of milk, with one Gateway store in England selling over 25,000 pints of milk,[4] and overall milk sales in New Delhi jumped over 30%.[5] Many minor temples struggled to deal with the vast increase in numbers, and queues spilled out into the streets, reaching distances of over a mile.​

And here is a personal account of this Hindu Milk Miracle (Read the whole story here How I witnessed a miracle ):

"The thing I love about Hinduism is that it gives me complete freedom to make my own decisions on how to practice my religion, it gives me the flexibility I need and indeed it gives me a great amount of choice. I have always felt from a very young age that there is a higher power beyond this universe, this nature, our world.

Many a time I have seen the results of prayer in my own life and some of those little miracles may well be ascribed to coincidences but when you actually weigh all the arguments in your own mind its difficult not to accept the power of prayer or an intervention by another force. Besides that I did have a very personal experience at the age of 19 which left no doubt in my mind of the existence of a higher power or reality.

One of the very public experiences I had was at the week of the milk miracle of 1995, when Lord Ganesh and generally Lord Shiva’s family was drinking milk. I got a phone call from my mother in law to go to the temple and try and offer milk to Ganesh ji, she insisted that I must go immediately whereas I could hardly believe that a stone idol could consume a liquid. I couldn’t help laughing in my mind though realising that my mother in law would not have phoned me in office hours – I run an accountancy practice - unless it was serious.

So I went to the Vishwa Hindu temple at Lady Margaret Road in Southall and at about 1pm there was a queue of 4 or 5 people in front of me. They were all offering milk in a spoon to the Deity Nandi – a marble idol of the bull that is supposed to be Lord Shiva’s vehicle and his foremost devotee and is worshipped as a family member of Lord Shiva. Incidentally Lord Ganesh is the first son of God which Goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Shiva, created and infused life into. I was not thinking of Lord Shiva or Ganesh or Parvati at the time but just offered a spoon full of milk to Nandi as directed by the priest.

As I raised the spoon to Nandi’s mouth and the milk touched the idol, very slightly, the level of milk in the spoon started to go down as if someone was actually drinking it, quite evenly.

I was shaking with awe.

This experience made me realise how stupid I had been to be influenced by the negative propaganda against idols by some ideologies of other religions. I did always believe in the almighty and prayed to, say Lord Krishna, or Lord Shiva etc. and of course in my youth did not question much but as I grew up I was influenced by the negative propaganda against idolatry targeted mainly at Hindus and in spite of the Hindu belief that once an idol is consecrated in the temple through Vedic Mantras then spirituality is infused in the idol and for all intents and purposes it becomes God, alive in spirit, I could not bring myself to agree with this belief, which seemed to me just a theory.

Nonetheless I understood that my thoughts had to be directed towards an indescribable reality God through some form of medium and so I prayed to Lord Shiva or Krishna or Goddess Durga whenever I went to the temple, quite sincerely. It was not really important to believe that the idols were alive, what mattered to me were my thoughts and devotion. However after the milk miracle everything changed in that respect. And that to happen through the idol of Nandi, a Bull, associated with Lord Shiva i.e., not even Shiva himself or Ganesh or Parvati.

I rang my wife who is a scientist with a PhD and actually works in medicinal research. She too laughed in disbelief. Then I asked her to ring her mother also and in any case, on her way home from work, she stopped at Ram Mandir in King street, Southall. Being a scientist she offered the milk to the “bronze” serpent around Shiva’s neck and the milk went into thin air. Since then her Hindu beliefs consolidated and she now observes various practices much more devoutly than me.

I rang some of my local clients, Hindus, Sikhs and Christians to tell them what had happened. They all went there and had the same experience. "​

From 2006 Mumbai sweet seawater incident - Wikipedia :

The 2006 Mumbai "sweet" seawater incident was a strange phenomenon during which residents of Mumbai claimed that the water at Mahim Creek had suddenly turned sweet. Within hours, residents of Gujarat claimed that seawater at Teethal beach had turned sweet as well. This caused a mass hysteria among people who started coming in large numbers to drink the sea water.​

Not sure if you've ever heard of Sathya Sai Baba, but he's a Hindu Guru attributed with many miracles of Jesus and a few more ( Sathya Sai Baba - Wikipedia ) including being the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirid ( Sai Baba of Shirdi - Wikipedia ). From 7 Beautiful Stories That Prove Miracles Actually Happen

"On May 10, 1977, Bhagwandas Daswani suffered from a massive heart attack. “I actually died for two minutes and was revived by doctors.” Daswani recalls. Although he came around, there was no improvement in his condition and he was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ten days later, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. Losing about four pints of blood a day, he had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family, and the team of doctors had lost all hope of his survival.

“On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,” recalled Daswani, “Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore said, ‘Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?’ He said, ‘I am here all right. What would you like me to do?’ I said, ‘Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not dreaming.’ He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was disturbed.

“I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment was beyond description. ‘How did you get here?’ they asked. ‘I walked,’ I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the truth. ‘Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and all over you?’ they asked. I said, ‘Don’t ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper bag for me.’ They did this and collected one and a half kilograms of vibhuti.

Daswani's health began to improve rapidly, and the doctors and the staff kept questioning him, but his lips were sealed. On May 29, he was able to walk by himself to another ward. Not only did he make a complete recovery, his diabetes disappeared as well. Bhagwandas Daswani believes he owes everything to Bhagavan Baba."​

Other miracle attestations are numerous, the following attributed to Sai Baba of Shirid (see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Miracles

Sai Baba's disciples and devotees claim that he performed many miracles such as bilocation, levitation, mindreading, materialisation, exorcisms, entering a state of Samādhi at will, lighting lamps with water, removing his limbs or intestines and sticking them back to his body (khandana yoga), curing the incurably sick, appearing beaten when another was beaten, preventing a mosque from falling down on people, and helping his devotees in other miraculous ways. He also gave Darshan (vision) to people in the form of Sri Rama, Krishna, Vithoba, Shiva and many other gods depending on the faith of devotees.

According to his followers, he appeared to them in their dreams and gave them advice. His devotees have documented many stories.​

The following attributed to Sathya Sai Baba (again see Wiki link provided earlier which will also include the references for these claims):

Early life

Almost everything known about Sai Baba's early life stems from the hagiography that grew around him, narratives that hold special meaning to his devotees and are considered by them to be evidence of his divine nature. According to these sources, Sathya Narayana Raju was born to Meesaraganda Eashwaramma and Peddavenkama Raju Ratnakaram in the village of Puttaparthi, to a Raju family, in what was the Madras Presidency of British India. His birth, which his mother Eashwaramma asserted was by miraculous conception, was also said to be heralded by miracles.

Sai Baba's siblings included elder brother Ratnakaram Sesham Raju (1921–1984), sisters Venakamma (1923–1993) and Parvathamma (1928–1998), and younger brother Janakirammiah (1930–2003).

As a child, he was described as "unusually intelligent" and charitable, though not necessarily academically inclined, as his interests were of a more spiritual nature. He was uncommonly talented in devotional music, dance and drama. From a young age, he was alleged to have been capable of materialising objects such as food and sweets out of thin air.
Proclamation
Sai Baba at the age of 14, soon after proclaiming himself as the avatar of Shirdi Sai Baba

On 8 March 1940, while living with his elder brother Sesham Raju in Uravakonda, a small town near Puttaparthi, Sathya was apparently stung by a scorpion. He lost consciousness for several hours and in the next few days underwent a noticeable change in behaviour. There were "symptoms of laughing and weeping, eloquence and silence." It is claimed that then "he began to sing Sanskrit verses, a language of which it is alleged he had no prior knowledge." Doctors concluded his behaviour to be hysteria. Concerned, his parents brought Sathya back home to Puttaparthi and took him to many priests, doctors and exorcists. One of the exorcists at Kadiri, a town near Puttaparthi, went to the extent of torturing him with the aim of curing him; Sathya seemingly kept calm throughout, which further worried his parents.

On 23 May 1940, Sathya called household members and reportedly materialised prasad and flowers for his family members. His father became furious at seeing this, thinking his son was bewitched. He took a stick and threatened to beat him if Sathya did not reveal who he really was. On 20 October 1940, the young Sathya responded calmly and firmly "I am Sai Baba", a reference to Sai Baba of Shirdi. This was the first time he proclaimed himself to be the reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi—a saint who became famous in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Maharashtra and had died eight years before Sathya was born.
First mandir and development of Puttaparthi

In 1944, a mandir for Sai Baba's devotees was built near the village of Puttaparthi. It is now referred to as the "old mandir". The construction of Prashanthi Nilayam, the current ashram, began in 1948 and was completed in 1950. In 1954, Sai Baba established a small free general hospital in the village of Puttaparthi. He won fame for mystical powers and the ability to heal. In 1957 Sai Baba went on a North Indian temple tour.
Stroke, paralysis and prediction of reincarnation

In 1963, it was asserted that Sai Baba suffered a stroke and four severe heart attacks, which left him paralysed on one side. These events culminated in an event where he apparently healed himself in front of the thousands of people gathered in Prashanthi Nilayam who were then praying for his recovery.​

Just as other people have had very profound experiences with their Deities and Saints (as shown above). Are their experiences any less real than yours? Why/Why not? Their miracle claims are no less fantastic than yours - in many cases, theirs have physical manifestations that your attestations don't, which would arguably make them an even grander claim than yours. Do you agree that we're all part of the same reality? If so, then you can't all be right and I don't see your claims being any more realistic than theirs.

It does sound familiar and you're mistaken to use it here. You admit that you cannot demonstrate your experiences to me, yet you blindly accept other people's testimonies of their experience where it conforms with your belief as if you experienced it yourself. If seeing others have a relationship with God was as real and testable as seeing others pull up a chair and sitting on it without it collapsing out from underneath, then we wouldn't be having this conversation now, would we? Your use of my evidenced statement in this context is in error.


It cannot be done as far as I know. Noting this point, how could you accept the personal experience of others as confirmation of your God? Why don't you accept the equivalent experiences of other religions' followers?

If your God makes no measurable impact here in this universe, then why should I accept your religion over any others? If you have a relationship with him, what can you do with this relationship? I have a relationship with my family, my friends, coworkers, etc. and these lead to meaningful and tangible benefits for all of us. What has your relationship with your untestable God given you that couldn't happen without him? Intangible effects don't count.

For the same reason you accept the Christian God when I do not.

Yes, all the more reasons to not trust the Bible 100%. So then, how did the first 5 books talk of the Messiah? and how could you possibly conclude it was Jesus?

Agreed. Point still stands if you consider Islam's position, becaue Islam does believe in Satan - but let's just accept the Jews consider Christianity a Cult then.

Of course, you'll know I'll ask you why God would be so evil as to hand over anyone, let alone his most adherent believer, to Satan as a pawn in some sadistic test that he already knows the outcome of. If God does indeed rule over this universe and not Satan, then from whence comes Evil? If Satan has no power over us because God doesn't allow it then what is the issue here?

This is not correct. I (as do we all) have levels of confidence. Never is it 100% at either end, Certainty and Doubt are not employed in a binary fashion in reality. For example, you know that people have accidents and die in cars, busses, trains and planes, right? If so, do you not use these modes of transport since knowing of these deaths? Are you aware that people choke to death on food? Do you still eat food knowing this?

These things are not only untested prior to use/consumption, there isn't really a worthwhile test available before travelling or eating.

Not at all. Again, you demonstrate a level of dishonesty I find disappointing. Nobody would expect to test every seat every time I sit down - but that's not to say I haven't ever tested a seat I thought suspect. You chastised me for testing one thing and not testing another in a simplistic game of words to completely skirt the point being made. That is dishonest of you. To reiterate:

In general, I don't test a seat before sitting on it however I have tested a seat on the very odd occasion I had reason to be suspect (this would be the 99% sure, 1% unsure scenario). By contrast, a temporary plank over a trench is not the same assuredness I have in a seat, hence the test or evidence before apportioning my trust in it (perhaps 85%-90% sure, 10%-15% unsure).

Not at all, your dishonesty notwithstanding. I specifically said I wasn't 100% positive.

Not what I said. Your 100% Faith in your God of Christianity is inconsistent with the facts of the universe available to you.

In verbiage, yes. But you are being dishonest and deceitful about what I've said and deliberately misconstrued it (i.e. built a straw man) to discredit something I did not in fact say. I'm not uncertain about my existence, in fact, I'm very certain of it.


Religion isn't a big thing in my country and I had no real guidance on how to seek the Truth about our universe given neither of my parents are religious either. I had no idea what Spirituality was (still don't) and was flooded with a number of religions including a variety of Christian religions that believed mutually exclusive things, especially Creationism. I vested interest in attending any Holy gathering and worked on realising a direct connection with the Creator(s) of the Universe or a God that would make him/her/itself clear to me, I was someone honestly looking to become known to, and to know such a Divine Being. back then, I looked at every religion I knew of or had access to (pre-internet era, mind you) and I didn't know nearly as much as I do now about religions let alone Christianity in particular - for example, I didn't know about the Trinity (had heard it, but wasn't aware of the three in one divine being), I knew of the mutually different belief systems within Christianity (from YEC through to Theological day-age, and even complete Deistic style Christianity where God started the Universe just so with everything so perfectly aligned as to have us fall into being through all the perfect alignments of every atom, electron, proton, etc. to realise our existence, but I had no reason to accept any flavour of Christianity over any other religion I had access to - all communicating very different things and all having the same reasons and conviction to believe them over anyone elses' religion. Keep in mind that Christianity wasn't the foremost religion I had access to. Had I just "had Faith" so I could get the evidence I needed, then Christianity wouldn't have been where I ended up, and as much I too would be among the religions that would never know the Christian God and according to you, would be damned for the human fallibility of having 100% Faith in the wrong God.

Here again, you are being DISHONEST and frankly, your deceitful tactics are making it hard to have an honest discussion with you. You need to stop being dishonest with me in this conversation. I have TRUST in Science and the Scientific Method as the best way by which we come about facts in reality. I don't have FAITH (i.e. trust without evidence) in the same.

Science is an endeavour to continually narrow in on the facts about our Universe. It works to create working models that can be used in a predictive and useful way. These models are continually refined to make them more accurate and more useful, but rarely does it do what you caracature it to do. For excample, Newton's Theory of Gravity was an excellent way to calculate the effects of gravity on mass, but it wasn't accurate when applied to extreme cases (in this case, it was the precession of the perihelion of Mercury). The model was still useful in pretty much every other every day application, so it stayed in play pending a better model. That of course happened when Einstein's Theory of Relativity came to light, it DID account for these extreme case scenarios while also accommodating the every day usage cases too. It wasn't the Newton's theory was wrong, it was not as accurate as Einstein's Theory of Relativity. See: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury and Tests of general relativity - Wikipedia for the success of Science and the scientific method on this point. Perhaps this paragraph might help you understand:

"Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.
Moreover, 'fact' doesn't mean 'absolute certainty'; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." - Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

I'm quite sure thank you all the same. Why would you say I'm Unsure when it remains the bare inkling of unsuredness? Again, this is Dishonest and I don't appreciate you changing what I specifically say into something I specifically did NOT say. Next, I'll address the following point under the same reply given they are intertwined:

Let us go over this conversation from the start to point out your dishonesty

Labelled 1) 2) and 3) where appropriate to track each post response:






Notice I DID NOT Say "I Am, Yes.", I said "I could be, Yes."

Here, you try to dishonestly tie me to a 100% Trust in Science when I've already stated I didn't and couldn't have 100% trust in it. I do however have an enormous amount of confidence in Science, the Scientific method and the results of this endeavour. You also dishonestly and disrespectfully twist what I've specifically said (that I could be unreliable) and make out as if I've admitted I'm 100% unreliable - and THIS, my friend, is what makes you an untrustworthy, disrespectful and dishonest person. I honestly explain to you again what I said and what I meant and why I mean it in the very next post to you:



And Full Circle! You AGAIN Dishonestly attempt to portray me as saying something I specifically DID NOT SAY! Here are the Numerous times I Correct you on your False portrayal of what I said:






And Here, your dishonesty is displayed in its full glory. You, @_-iconoclast-_ are entirely Dishonest, Disrespectful and Untrustworthy in your conduct here. You need to curb your contempt for honest conversation if you want to be taken seriously, and not as yet another self-absorbed hypocrite bent on perching yourself on some proverbial throne above everyone else who doesn't share your YECist worldview, let alone challenge the nonsense therein.

and You are Dishonest and Deceitful. When we observe facts about reality, it isn't trying to go out of its way to fool our senses. A Magician or Illusionist is (and of course, we go to their shows to be entertained as such). Another thing that can fool your senses is cognitive bias and self deception. If you want something to be true, then you will be prone to being biased about your observations and experiences in spite of the evidence - as you have demonstrated in this conversation in spades. You literally ignore the evidence against your position and claim 100% confidence in your belief despite it. it is Your position that is erroneous, and demonstrably so.

There you go again. You just announced that I'm 100% uninformed and do not know the experience through observation or testing, when in fact, I HAVE experienced lucid dreaming and visions in the form of hallucinations.

...and Crazy People who have been committed can make sense sometimes too.

Non-Sequitur. Again, you just agreed that someone experiencing a delusion may not be able to tell it from reality - how do you KNOW you didn't exerience a delusion? After all, Nobody Else can verify your claim! Those two "spirit filled ladies" saw you wake up from your sleep and were confused when they saw your expression, because they had no idea what you had just "experienced" (or dreamed, or hallucinated). I don't think spirituality is a mental disorder btw, I just don't know what it's supposed to be and nobody can seemingly explain it to me.


No, you answered a strawman version of what I didn't say. You have no way to demonstrate your God actually exists let alone show enough verifiable evidence to have 100% confidence in his existence. ALL of your evidence of his existence consists entirely of other people's say so, your own in-head experiences, and confirmation bias. List ANYTHING outside these three categories.

You ARE saying you're infallible by stating your 100% confidence in God being real. I'll repoint you to my previous questions which you've avoided answering - how you could even know there is a God to start with, let alone all the things he wants us to do, etc. The standard of evidence you accept is so vague that the Hindu experiences above are more than equal to any and every claim made by Christianity - why are you not a Hindu?

Not at all - You won't even acknowledge you might be mistaken. You equate "100% certainty in something without any verifiable evidence" with "being rational", and that's just plain silly. My Due Dilligence in vetting evidence for a supernatural creator of the universe is the exact opposite of being "unreliable" as you put it. You on the other hand have jumped into the first religion that passed you fantastical claims without so much as a doublecheck. Christianity holds no first places in any of the claims it makes with respect to Gods, Miracles, the supernatural, explanations for the beginning, or "creation", etc. All of the claims made by your religion have been made by someone else, somewhere else earlier in recorded history.

Where are you going with this? Is there a point? If so, please get to it.

Correction, My existence as a non-believer is linked to YOUR uncertainty, unless you can explain how I fit into your 100% certainty in Jesus Christ? I never gave you an unqualified "Yes" to being unreliable, this just continues your dishonesty in misrepresenting my position. Go back and re-read what I did say and explain what you think I meant.

Well, there's a slim possibility I might be dreaming or hallucinating, but admittedly, dreaming is unlikely given I can pinch myself and have general recall of my entire life. It could be that we're in the Matrix, or some parallel version of it, perhaps my senses aren't giving me entirely correct information about the world around me like one of the many flavours of delusion we're known to experience but again, unlikely, perhaps I've taken someone else's testimony as being accurate when in fact, it isn't, Perhaps I've been hypnotised or otherwise brainwashed into experiencing the world around me in a different light but still unlikely, perhaps I read a religious text and accepted it as "Truth" and now put everything through this confirmation bias that has given me a skewed version of what's actually real, of course particularly unlikely given this one would require wilful acts which I'd likely be aware of, etc.

You have already demonstrated some of these reservations too but you don't seem to recognise it and just plough on as if you're infallible and can't be wrong.


I'm 99.9% Sure they are, so not inconsistent, unpredictable or unsure sorry to tell you, you are incorrect in this statement. Again though, there's always a slim chance they might be someone else's - perhaps a nurse had a faux-pas late one evening after they were born and still in hospital, inadvertently swapped newborns by accident (this has happened before you know...). I could go get them genetically tested I guess... but still, there's a slimming to nil possibilities the DNA test could be botched, etc. It's still all about degrees of certainty, never absolutely 100%. Regardless, I'd love them as my own of course.

NO! This is NOT an "appeal to emotion", nor do I ignore the good things that ALL religious folk do, whether they be Islam, Hindu, Jewish or Christian to name a few! This Lack of Rationality is the Very Reason I do what I do here! Children and other vulnerable people Literally DO DIE because of these irrational and unevidenced choices made by the responsible people that should know better. The Very method You use to come to your 100% certainty in your belief without any verifiable evidence is the exact same dangerous method that put all of these people into the positions to do the damage they did and kill those who trusted in them.

I Challenge you to demonstrate your method of epistemology to be any different to any of the people who caused the deaths and damage I pointed out. Newsflash!: Yours is No Different to Theirs. Of course I'm not saying that you're a murdering tyrant who wants to bomb family planning clinics and fly planes into buildings, as with a majority of people who don't exercise critical thinking, but it doesn't start out there. Instead, it starts out by training believers to discard formal standards of evidence and critical thinking. Once that's done away with, then power mongers (priests, used car salesmen, IRS Scammers, MS Helpdesk Scammers, pick-pocketers, pyramid sales schemers) can reprogram you directly, bypassing your critical thought process to socially engineer you into doing what they want you to do. First, it starts out small, usually by getting you to believe something for which there's no evidence. Once you pass that test of programmability, they then get you to tythe, or otherwise invest in an ideal or community, and usually, that's as far as it goes. You just end up paying a portion of your income to a community head for the rest of your life.

A select few though, will push it further - sometimes to indoctrinate (or vaccinate) against rationality to protect you against common sense - they get you to start denying well-evidenced science, like a universe that's 13.8 billion years old, and the Theory of Evolution, that Vaccinations aren't anywhere nearly as harmful as going without, and even that seeing a Doctor will save lives. they replace it with dangerous things like prayer is better than seeking medical attention for potetially life-threatening conditions, and that Scientists and Medical Professionals are conspiring with Big Pharma to make you sick with all their chemicals and scare-mongering about levels of vaccinations, etc.

then one day you find yourself with children who died of entirely treatable medical conditions or because of complications from a childhood disease that was nearly eradicated via vaccinations, and that bombing those baby-murdering medical staffers at the family planning clinic to be a plausible response to all those babies being murdered by abortions, etc.

No, you are mistaken. What you have is evidence of other people's FAITH in Jesus Christ, not evidence of Jesus Christ himself... I can literally observe the test results for myself when other people test and sit in a chair, I don't have to take their word for it. The ONLY thing you can do is take their word of Faith (on Faith, mind you) in Jesus Christ. You have no way of seeing their personal experiences, let alone validating it independently using the same method.

Or you are mistaken because it is the method of a person who is responsible and diligent.

Again, refreshing to know that your God isn't all-powerful and all-knowing after all - brings an element of human-like fallibility into the mix...

No, a God that demands 100% trust on no verifiable evidence whatsoever is incompetent. What if I was as uncritical as you and my first experience with a religion was the Hindu Polytheistic religion, I'd have looked at the miracle claims and accepted them unchallenged, then I'd have adopted 100% faith in it (which means I'd be as impervious to any rational discussion about my belief as you are). Will your God usher me into heaven on my passing for having 100% faith in Vishnu, Bramah and the other Gods of the Hindu religion?


lol! Didn't know chewing gum and faith in Jesus Christ were equivalent passtime habits... that was a very big circle to nowhere, by design I suspect.

So, it's plainly obvious that you know I've made a point that you're unwilling to acknowledge, so you're being dishonest and disguising it as humor?

As can You be fooled by those same magicians too, you seem to not only evaluate things without rational consideration, but you commit to your irrational considerations with 100% conviction and refuse to even acknowledge your fallibility in coming to this 100% conviction. This is comical.

I, on the other hand, acknowledge the possibility and take measures to minimise that hazard through appropriate critical thinking processes.

Kind of, and he has redeeming qualities...

No, not 100%, but rational thinking is certainly where you should apportion the bulk of your trust, for sure. I don't trust Trump, even if I voted for him (if I were American, that is).

Not sure what the point is with all the random research by country, I didn't say thee's no religion there - just that it isn't as pervasive as it is in your country. In general, even among those who claim themselves religious, it's a far more milder and less overt than it is in the US.

Some notes on your random research:

Japan

Japanese culture does dictate that their people honour the memory of their ancestors and borrow honourable ideas from wherever they're found to create a foundational framework for their culture and philosophy, but this is still the freedom borne of not being inexorably bound to a particular deity. Did you even read this article?

Sweden

Still largely Atheistic all the same though, right? Also, doesn't have a State Church any longer, has a consistently higher quality of life, lower crime, better satisfaction index in any survey than pretty much every country more religious than they are.

Finland

Granted, not the best choice, even though they're still less religious and enjoy lower crime rates and have better quality of life...

Norway

As you'll see below (and explained above), Norway citizens may say they're part of the Lutheran Church of Norway, but this is more of a cultural throwback than it is they're actually religious...

China

I think you've conflated "Atheism" with the "Policies of the Regime" and I don't agree with your assessment. Perhaps you meant to say "... considering how many millions of ppl suffered under Maoist communism."? Political Ideologies are just the same as religion in that respect. The Regime isn't ruling with any "Atheist" agenda, the administration definitively exercise an ideology that has nothing to do with Atheism. I certainly don't respect the conduct of the Regime and it still has long way to go, but they have made progress in their humanity of late. I've been there a couple of times now and the country has made many changes under international pressure (you should go there and have a look for yourself). All this aside, we're assessing the people of the country, not the administration. The people themselves are predominantly atheist and where figures are available, these bear out the same as any other equally irreligious country.

Australia

Ahh, my home territory. As with just about every other country I mentioned here, those that do proclaim to be religious aren't funatical and our acceptance of Science both in education and everyday lives is testament to this. The figures I've quick-fived for you below show this. Here, we don't have to be religious to have a hope of being elected to parliament, the Administration doesn't ignore the Science that might affect public policy (such as climate change, public health and education), nor do they table bad policy on fundamental beliefs that run counter to it, etc.

so there's that on your random research.... Then This on how important religion is in their respective country - From Importance of religion by country - Wikipedia

Japan - 24% say religion is important
Sweden - 17% say religion is important
Finland - 28% say religion is important
Norway - 21% say religion is important
China - Not Listed
Australia - 32% say religion is important
and Finally,
USA - 69% say religion is important <=== Most Religious one here.

but Wait!, there's More - From List of countries by intentional homicide rate - Wikipedia :

Japan - 0.33 per 1,000,000
Sweden - 1.15 per 1,000,000
Finland - 1.60 per 1,000,000
Norway - 0.56 per 1,000,000
China - 0.74 per 1,000,000
Australia - 0.98 per 1,000,000
and Finally,
USA - 4.88 intentional deaths per 1,000,000 population <=== Most Religious one here.

and Then This on Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population! From Chart(s) of the Week – Incarceration Rates

Japan - 63 per 100,000
Sweden - 74 per 100,000
Finland - 67 per 100,000
Norway - 70 per 100,000
China - Not Listed
Australia - 134 per 100,000
and Finally,
USA - 753 persons incarcerated per 100,000 population <=== Most Religious one here. lol! So much for "Land of the Free!"... you are statistically more probable to be incarcerated there than pretty much anywhere else in the civilised world.

Anyway, still not sure what it was you were wanting to make a point of with your notes - perhaps you could explain?

For All the reasons I've given you so many times already - To go back to the testimony of the Hindu believers I gave you earlier, they all have a collorary account that mirrors any you have, but for Their Gods and Their Religion. You've had visions that left you in no doubt - They've had visions that leave them in no doubt, You've seen the effects of Your religion on the people around you - They've seen the effects of Their religion on the people around them, You have copies of your holy book that are thousands of years old - They have copies of their holy books that are thousands of years old(er than Yours btw...), so on.

Just as the Hindus had experiences with their Gods confirming Their existances as demonstrated earlier.

Nope, you're being dishonest. Unlike you, I am Thorough about the conclusions I come to. My inconsistencies, unreliability, unsuredness and uncertainty are acknowledged and addressed in any conclusion I come to. I very much doubt you can come to any conclusion with as much vigilance. You discard a great swathe of information to arrive at your belief where I just can't do that. I have to consider all the evidence, not just the bits that suit me as you do.

Not at all. I'd have to say I'm living my life as if there isn't one, but I'm certainly not convinced of it. Can't say I'm a lost soul either. I don't know what a soul is let alone if I have one, and I have plenty of direction and self-worth thanks all the same. If there's anyone exercising poor logic in this conversation, it isn't me.

Yes, anything involving humans is flawed. I challenge you to come up with a better method of coming about the truth of this universe than the scientific method. Keep in mind you owe ALL of your technology, medicines, food production and energy resources, and more to this method.

Speak for yourself about having no hope, I'm going great thanks all the same. I don't have Faith, because it's literally the worst way to come about what is true in reality. Your Faith in your Religion is exactly the same as the Faith a Hindu has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Muslim has in their religion, which is the same as the Faith a Scientologist has in their religion, etc. Which one of you have it right and how do you know? I feel you haven't seen much of the world outside your church group. You should try it one day.

Well, as far as I can tell, Spirituality and spirits is pretty much a religious thing. I do things in the real world where they have an effect. I tell you what, why don't you tell me what Spirituality is and how it works? What does it do? As far as I can tell, it's pretty much a fictional concept.

What about the Hindu Gods? What about Zeus? Odin? Allah? Should I admit I cannot do it without Them and open my heart to Them too? How will I know which God it is? How will I know there's a God(s) to start with? I think you're putting the cart well before the horse here. No wonder you're so blinded to reality.

Also, not sure why you insist on fabricating false persona about me because I have plenty of certainty thanks all the same. Unlike you though, I don't have 100% certainty in something I'm unable to independently validate anything whatsoever about.

Evidence. Evidence would do it.

Cheers!

I guess you are retired.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

It means just what it means. Assuming current models of the universe are correct, then it will eventually suffer so-called "heath death". Not sure exactly how that works or if one could work around it or not, but in any case: it doesn't sound very hospitable to living things.

I'ld say any number of things could happen that would make the universe a dark dead void.
And it's not clear to me in what ways technology could be used to work around that, or if that is even possible.



Yes, I'm not a future teller so how could I ever be 100% certain of future events?



No. What a strange question.

Hey hey hunter

Fair enough.

Lets try another one.

Say you were wearing shorts, shirt and shoes. You are at the beach with friends and walking near the water.

Your friend decides to push you in the water and succeeds. You fall into the water.

You are in the water.

Could you explain how it would not be absolutely certain that you will be wet?

Cheers

Ps there are no obstructions in your way. There are no boats or anything resembling a platform near you.

It is open water