Mageth

Padre Pio spoke only Italian. When someone spoke to him in English, he heard it in Italian, and when he talked back to the person in Italian, the person heard it in English.

What I found on Padre Pio's "gift of tongues" is more along the lines of:

"More important for us, he had the gift of tongues, which we are told meant that he spoke several languages without having studied them."

This stems from his supposed ability to hear confession and give advice to people who spoke different languages.

If someone spoke to him in English and he understood them enough to answer, then he understood English. If he spoke and someone understandably heard him in English, then he spoke English. QED. He "spoke in tongues" only because he was bi- or multilingual. Being exceptionally gifted in language could explain this "miracle."

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

hezekiah jones

Wouldn't it be so much more impressive were Padre Pio addressed in fluent Urdu, and responded in fluent Vulcan.

Koyaanisqatsi

Yes, that's right. We atheists are out to destroy the truth! We seek only to confuse and confound the cult member with intelligence, applied critical analysis and demonstrable revelation of deconstructive due process!

Only the cult is unbiased! They just say, "Believe what we tell you to believe or burn in hell."

Koyaanisqatsi

Gosh, WJ! No one's ever thought of pulling the solipsist stalemate out of their evasion bag around here before!

What did I mean by that? I don't know, you don't know, nobody can know, you know, so let's just make sure no one ever addresses anything directly leaving a great big truckful of doubt to insure ignorant, blind faith poisons the mind, eh?

Won't that be great? A whole bunch of otherwise intelligent individuals wandering around like pointless zombies worshipping the cult!

What a magnificient application of your abilities! To be so aware as to shut down all awareness! Orwell was right. Ignorance, apparently, is bliss, eh?

Doubleplusbringaswordnotpeacegood, though.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

ex-preacher

Are you quoting from biased sources, Half-Life? Every religion has its share of "miracle-workers." All such miracles have the same level of poor, often second-hand evidence, and reliance on biased sources who are true believers.

daemon

All sources are biased, to some extent, so you're asking for the impossible. If you want one less strongly biased, I would guess you to be out of luck--the only other articles I was able to find on him were Catholic, which would be no less strongly biased than the AA's.

As to the acid, I wouldn't know. Perhaps you should mail AA and request their sources.

daemon

What on earth was this attack about? AA is an organization dedicated to atheism, and as such have a set stance against theistic claims. It would be dishonest not to note this for someone who might not realize this was the case, as I assumed Half-Life might not. On the whole, I think AA's stance more accurately reflects reality, but this makes them no less biased.

Next time, don't read things into what another person says that aren't there.

WJ

Koy!

You know, there exists a concept called 'mystery'. Some rationalist's seek to explain everything; fact is, words are words-methodology. Do they capture your existence? No, they don't. Does there exist mystery in life. Yes. What is the first step in trying to 'truthfully' explain a mystery or a phenomenon of mystery?

The pragmatist/empiricist should step up to the soabox now as my anti-rationalist disposition is creating quite a dissstur-bancccce...

Who here has actually spoken in tonges?

Stuart Smallie

Koyaanisqatsi

You stated:
When you use the term "biased" in this context, it means that the conclusions and thought processes of the people you're slandering have been unduly corrupted by their beliefs; the implication being, of course, that their conclusions are therefore not to be taken as seriously as an otherwise unbiased source.

Atheists cannot be biased against theism in any kind of significant (i.e., conclusion altering) manner, since theism is a belief system predicated on faith and no evidence and atheism, as you know, is the absence of a belief system.

In this regard, there is nothing against which conclusions could be biased, since there is no substance on the "other side" to be biased against.

As an atheist, I can certainly disagree with what theists believe in, but that would have no conclusion altering biased effect on any investigation of facts in evidence.

Theists believe that mythical god kings factually exist. There is, however, no substance to this belief other than personal whim, which is why it is a belief, therefore, what possible bias could there be from an atheist examining belief-based claims, such as these? The bias of honest, intelligent examination of the facts in evidence?

I'm sorry, but your ending comment implied that the information you provided should be primarily if not summarily dismissed based entirely upon an implied detrimental and therefore conclusion altering bias that is not in evidence and it was to that that I was responding.

Next time, don't unduly slander people you're quoting from and I wouldn't have to come to their defense.

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

Yes, I'm familiar with it. It involves turning an unknown into, hopefully, a known.

Not just going, "Goddidit."

Right...

Does your question have any relevance? No, it doesn't.

Yes, we already covered this.

Examine the facts in evidence. What is this, grade school?

Only in your own head, my friend, since you haven't stated anything of any relevance yet.

Do you exist in implication?

You're coming the closest so far

[ April 17, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>