Theli

Ok, first of all, if you are going to continue this discussion with me, I would appreciate it if you used real words, not "AFAIK".
I will try to respond anyway, natural explainations has always prevailed over "unnatural" ones, we're not using witchdoctors anymore to cure deceases for example. But as I don't know what AFAIK is, i'll leave it for now.
woah? huh?
qeh?
ok, I've deciphered a part of your text and I have come up with the following claim: Nature/reality can be explained in several ways, and the contradictions exists only in our words. Is that even close?

Volker.Doormann

How many times a scientist must see a black swan, that he acknowledge a black swan as of a real part of nature?
It is irrelevant whether Penny got this written statements from a dream or from Allah or from Mickey Mouse; there are significant statements, which can be rejected or be accepted as written long time before an event with that documented matching properties. AFAIR it is claimed by scientists, that future telling is not part of nature. But nature doesn’t need support of scientists about reality.
That what you conclude is also an opinion of your mind, and no fact, same as mine. Knowledge starts with the acknowledgement of a reality. Without this acknowledgement all arguing is worthless.

Volker

Volker.Doormann

Sorry. AFAIK is a common used usenet acronym of As Far A I Know.

I do not think, that I'm going to continue this discussion.

Volker

lpetrich

Refractor:
Thirdly, there have been millions of eyewitness testimonies of spiritual sightings and encounters with spirits.

Like haunted houses and channelers?

And deities of religions that you don't believe in?

Lucretius, philosophical kin of us Internet Infidels, in his book On the Nature of Things attempted to account for all the visions that people would have of various deities. Does that mean that the deities of Mt. Olympus are all real?

Obviously, we are dancing on the periphery of a very large subject, which is the existence of God.

Which one?

If a God exists and created the universe, (which all inductive reasoning supports)

How so? Please be explicit about your arguments.

And even if the Universe had been created, it could have been created by a community of entities in some super-Universe.

then it would be quite logical to assume that God may have created humans with a unique capacity for spiritual relationship.

A total non sequitur. I see no reason to believe that our species has attracted the attention of whatever entities had created the Universe.

Indeed, the existence of God is the real issue here - not musings about the frontal lobe.

Again, which one?

lpetrich

Metacrock:
... Most people who have ever lived have been religious. To then try to make out that religion is somehow anti-scientific and strange is absurd.

However, different people have believed in different religions, most of which are very different from Metacrockianity.

That doen't make skepticism scientific. My religious belief led to interest in science. Tons of scientific people are religious.

However, many scientists have believed in religions other than Metacrockianity.

Read the original version of the Hippocratic Oath. One is to swear by some Olympian deities. And this from someone who is otherwise relatively rational about medicine -- much more rational than the New Testament, it must be said.

So is that evidence for the existence of those entities?

Metacrock

Metacrockanity, ahhahah, what a witty jib! I don't see what this has to do with it? Just because one religion may or may not be ture, or some element of them all, how doesn't mean that relgious belief per se is not ratioonal? If that is indeed the nub of your comment?

That doen't make skepticism scientific. My religious belief led to interest in science. Tons of scientific people are religious.

However, many scientists have believed in religions other than Metacrockianity.

Yes, drat the luck! So far my personal cult has falied to convert even a sinlge scientist! But we have come close. I'll keep trying.

Quote:

Read the original version of the Hippocratic Oath. One is to swear by some Olympian deities. And this from someone who is otherwise relatively rational about medicine -- much more rational than the New Testament, it must be said.

I don't quite see your point? Are you saying this means that rleigious belief is irrational? Or that rational people can hold it?

Well apparently they do, so whatever that means.

Quote:

So is that evidence for the existence of those entities?

I'm going to make two assumptions about your meaning here. I assume you meant to say "what is..." rather than "that is?" and I assume by "those entities" you mean gods?

If this is the case, the point is not to find evidence for some set of individual "entities." God is not an "entity." The point of all religious belief, taken in the abstract, is to do three things:

1) to explain the human problematic, the basic problem at the herat of bieng human; it could be sin, it could be imbalance with nature, it could re-birth (caused by desire for example) it could be meaninglessness in life, or whatever.

2) to resolve the problematic wtih an ultimate transformative experience; being born again, enlightenment, balance, reverense for life, self authentication, whatever.


3) to mediate this experience

These three things are what all religions do. That's the jist of religious belief. All the rest is just detail. The differences are just differences in cultural persective.

To the extent that religious experience does this, and does it well, there is nothing irrational about belief per se ONe can choose a wacy version, or a serious version, or a sophisticated version (such as Metacrockanity) but that's immaterial. IT's not irrational to choose one. And nothign about that has to conflict with science.

Is There A God?

Metacrock

[color=blue]Haaha! you think being Scottish doesn't affect ideology of metaphysical ideas, I've got a whole body of Scottish philosophers you need to know about. Being Scottish itself is a metaphysical idea! (that's a joke, and not a mean one).[/font]





I oppose our entry into the European Union, and don't like France. Religion is just something that I DON'T believe in.

[deleted remark]

Probably not "us."

http://pub18.ezboard.com/bhavetheologywillargue [/B][/QUOTE]

Is There A God?

Gurdur

But then you have the difficulty of explaining just why so few believers have genuine transformative experiences.


No.

Fiach

Well, there certainly is no evidence to back up the claim of god's existence.

Fiach

Darkblade

Metacrockianity?! LOL!!! :notworthy

Volker.Doormann: Thank you for butchering my post by taking everything out of context. THANK YOU!!!!!!