Johnny Skeptic

I request that Christians post evidence that some of their prayers have been answered. What I am most interested in is tangible evidence. Any follower of any religion can claim spiritual/emotional evidence. Do Christians receive tangible benefits that other people do not receive? Well of course they don't.

newtype_alpha

Based on what?

Based on what?

Which, if true, would equally supports the alternative I suggested to you. People are comfortable settling for the appearance of morality instead of aspiring to the real deal. Christianity implies the appearance of morality, atheism does not.

I think it would be more accurate to say that you have imagined a real human trait that facilitates this. You haven't "found" this trait, because you have not yet shown any real evidence that this trait actually exists, what it is, or how to test for it.

Exactly which part of this are you not understanding? THE GODFATHER IS A FICTONAL STORY. This means that the behaviors of the FICTONAL characters in this FICTONAL story are FICTONAL behaviors.

You ar supporting your hypothesis with FICTON. Furthermore, you KNOW it's fiction, but continue to try and draw support from it. I cannot fathom any real reason why you would persist in this behavior.


Based on what?

:banghead:

Slightly better. A far cry from proof that EVERY criminal thinks what he is doing is moral.

I'm wondering what kind of rhetoric you're going to spin together to make the point that Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao believed they were doing God's work...

The "truth" being "an idealized crime family," then yes. The fact that the book/movie comes off as being mostly believeable does not change the fact that it is a work of FICTON.

Then you should cite ACTUAL crime families, not fictional ones. Find out for me if Al Capone prayed and, if he did, what he prayed for.

Right... I'm self deluded because my experience is inconsistent with Ligesh's hypothesis which is supported by, among other things, scenes from popular mafia movies...

Which I have done, on numerous occasions, much to your constant chagrin. One of those third-party sources with the Milgram Experiment, whose results blatantly contradict your hypothesis, a problem you attempted to rectify by shifting the goalposts.

I will never cease to be amused by this sentiment. You expect me to consider the information contained in a popular mafia movie to be more reliable than my own experiences with the world and the people in it...

I dunno, Ligesh, that just doesn't sound logical. In fact, it sounds kind of stupid.

Mmmmm burning straw.... well, at least you're trying new things

So far, my argument has been "The majority of these people insist your interpretation of THEIR religion is incorrect." The point is it's not your religion; you have no experience with it, you have spent very little time studying it, and you are not familiar with any of its customs, social norms, schools of thought, cultural nuances, influential figures or where they stand in the scheme of things. IOW, it's a matter of the informed opinion of the majority vs. the un-informed opinion of... well, Ligesh. It would be illogical to take your word for it in this matter unless you were able to demonstrate by examination of the text that your opinion was correct and everyone else was wrong; since I can read, you were unable to do so.

You run into the same problem with your hypothesis. I have never met anyone who prayed to God for help in comitting crimes, and I have known very few people who prayed to God for help when entering high-risk situations (High-STRESS situations is another matter, and then only when that person is sufficiently removed from the situation to have time to think about praying); the effect it had on their courage is negligeable, so I conclude that your hypothesis is a load of bullshit. And here you counter my experience... with MAFIA MOIVES?


Really, I'm through being charitable with you. Increasingly it becomes clear that you are all set to take your place among the pantheon of wannabe-scientists, and given your inability to support any of your arguments with something other than hyperbolic rhetoric and logical fallacies, there's no reason to believe any further posts from you will contain anything of substance.:huh:

ligesh

You can't fake piety. The whole concept of God is based on the fact that you can't hide anything from him. When you say theist, it doesn't mean you pretend to be a theist. They are serious in their belief. All the theists you meet are people who are serious about their beliefs.

I see that you have identified yourself as a theist. Which means you are just pretending to believe in God, right? Thanks for clarifying. So all the theists are just pretending. This is newtype_alpha's solution to all the troubles in religion. Good. I wouldn't bother replying to if if writing posts wasn't so easy to me. You know I have my own editor/browser/mailer, and it just takes a couple of minutes to draft a reply to a thread.


I have explicitly proposed empirical tests to demonstrate the trait, and I am talking with people about it.


I guess, you still do not understand it. I have explained it in detail, and I don't think it will help you if I explain again. Pointing to fiction is BETTER than stating that I talked to God and so he exists. And actually when we talk about human psychology, what's depicted in Movies is very important, because it shows what the common man wants, and what the common man is ready to believe.

Movies have to have some measure of verisimilitude to work properly. I guess, you are not really cognizant of the basic theories on Art and literature.


That is the statistic. At the least, theists commit as many crimes or even slightly more crimes than atheists.


Nope. You are <Edited> because you think YOUR experience is the paramount arbiter in EVERY logical debate. No it is not. It is worth nothing. Zero. I have my own experience which doesn't count too. You have to present third party sources which both the debtors are aware of.

Bullshit. That's a 40 year old experiment. It doesn't talk about taking risks. Actually I realize you have no idea about human psychology, and that's why you are making such foolish statements. Milgram's did not measure a person's capability to take risks. People hurting others is quite common. You know mass hysteria. In groups, when they can get away with it, people do indulge pretty much horrible deeds which they wouldn't commit if they were alone. We are social beings, we have the tendency to change our viewpoints to match the society which we are in, and that includes authority. Milgram's is just a special case for it. You just read some 40 year old crap from Wiki, and couldn't even realize the actual significance of that. And now you are again bringing it up.


I don't trust you, and neither do I trust myself. Your experiences are your own. <edited> I have no clue. But please stop bringing up YOUR experience into this . When discussing God, I can just say that "Hey everyone is wrong. I just talked with God 10 minutes back.". It doesn't mean anything. Haven't you EVER engaged in some proper debates with people? Actually I just talked to Satan 10 minutes back, and he told me that God doesn't exist. All questions in this universe has been answered.



I have shown you evidences how in history, Islam was practiced the way it I have explained. I also showed that Islam in its real form is impractical when you are in a minority, and thus Muslims IGNORE it. I never said all Muslims are fanatics, but I explicitly said that some people have the intelligence to rise above the petty bigotry as preached by Koran. I gave you explicit reasons why Moderates were misinterpreting Koran, but oh well. <edited> I don't want hear YOUR, or any of YOUR friends' opinion. . If you want to, please show statistics.

The whole world is revolving around newtype_alpha. If he hasn't encountered something, it doesn't exist. Funny. this is exactly my theory. <edited>


Charitable? You have been actually proving my point by claiming that the only thing that matters is YOURS and your friends' opinions. . Ha.

I mean, let us see from the beginning.

::: You first told me that Bush is the apotheosis of Democracy, while actually he was using National Security to stretch the borders of what is allowable in a democratic state.

::: You tried to take credit for something which *I proposed 20 posts earlier.

::: You actually talked about blacks/hispanics, even though you had already enumerated poverty/lack-of-education as a cause, and yet you backed off when I asked you if they had specific genes for crime AND belief.

::: You think YOUR's and your close friend's personal opinions is the arbiter in every subject.

I mean, I wouldn't have bothered with you, if it were not for the fact that I have my own editor/browser/screen software, and it only takes a me a few minutes to reply to you. And of course, you did do some research on my behalf, for which I am grateful too. hehehe.

FarmMama

Thread temporarily closed