Corgan Sow

The topic goes like this;


And now, we have even moderators who starts "pep talking" like a Christian evengelist "You see, unlike you, I don't make decisions based on voices in my head", "Well, if this is that kind of proof of God, sure that can be used to prove elves, etc". Someone asks seebs some couple of questions and now you folks use it as an oppurtunity for intellectual bashing?

I know it is easy to debunk a Christian, but won't you be annoyed when a Christian asks you about atheism, and then proceed to turn that as an oppurtunity for hellfire and brimstone preaching?

Ask questions, get answers. That's enough.

pz

Oh, come on. When the answers are the typical goofy shallow theist nonsense, you can't expect people here to just let it slide.
Pointing out that presenting delusions of god handing out musical instruments as evidence for his existence is pretty darn absurd is not comparable to fire-and-brimstone preaching. I call it using our brains.
Questions never end. And who are you to dictate the limits of a discussion?

Gurdur

You miss the point, pz.

This thread was started to question Seebs about his beliefs --- specifically not to argue about them.

You seem to be quite ungracious in simply wanting to debate him on this thread --- you have many oportunities to debate Seebs elsewhere.
Seebs isn't preaching, he's explaining --- and you're hijacking the thread with your debate.

On a personal note, I'll also add Seebs is a better skeptic than many atheists on this board.
Sad, but true.

seebs

And when several people say "thanks, these are interesting answers" and one person says "typical goofy shallow theist nonsense", what should a rational thinker conclude?

Well, you can call it that. On the other hand, if the only time I've ever heard of someone spontaneously doing a given thing correlates precisely with a prayer, I consider it evidence of something. It's not as though the world is full of people giving guitars to strangers on whims.

Is it "proof"? No. Is it *evidence*? Sure. To say otherwise requires a very committed presupposition, which strikes me as a bad idea.

I'm willing to consider explanations. I'm even willing to consider coincidence - but it strikes me as failing badly in this case, simply because it's so unusual. I do feel that this guy's decision to hand an expensive guitar to a total stranger, no obligation, no questions, is sufficiently atypical (even for psycho nutjob theists) to merit a serious enquiry into the explanation. I'm willing to admit that ESP does just as well.

If anyone's wondering: I have No Opinion on psychic phenomena. I think the majority of what people talk about is probably nonsense, but I think there's a tendency for debunkers to gloss over things and hand-wave, and I further think that any reasonable model of mind-influencing-world would predict that a committed debunker would, in fact, produce such results. So, I cannot yet rule such things out, but I don't waste my time trying to "learn telepathy".

While we're at it: I believe in UFO's; I think people regularly see things they cannot identify. I have no reason to believe them to be men from outer space. I do know that authorities will lie by default to shut people up. A friend of mine released a weather balloon with a flashlight in it, and watched the skies carefully for hours. Another person he knows called it in as a UFO, and was told "that's just Air Force testing", but there was no testing going on which could be seen by the human eye; this suggests that it's a default lie, used to calm people down. I don't think that implies a coverup, I think that implies laziness.

I don't believe in horoscopes, the Bermuda Triangle, the illuminati, the trilateral commission, bigfoot, or Nessie.

And, for what it's worth, although I suspect O.J. did it, from what information leaked, I would have voted not guilty, too, for lack of compelling evidence. I suspect he was guilty, and that the cops tried to frame him to make sure he got caught. This has happened before.

I will say, it seems that perhaps what we should do is start a thread titled "pz: Is all religion stupid and irrational?", just so you have a good platform.

Dismissing claims out of hand is a horrible practice; scientific progress normally starts with "Hey, that's funny.", and I shudder to think of where we'd be if people didn't follow those things up, even when they were obviously stupid.

Gurdur

Oh dear.
My above initial statement still stands, if somewhat just barely.
_________

Sorry, Seebs, it's just you suddenly danced on a nerve of mine.

pz

There does not seem to have been any declaration that disagreement is off-limits in this thread, nor is this forum called "theistic life style and support". I saw a ridiculous post in which someone claimed that mysteriously materializing guitar picks and prayers for guitars get rewarded with presents; I don't consider that kind of claim exempt from criticism. I someone were to object to something I happened to say anywhere on this board, I sure wouldn't try to defend myself by protesting that no one is allowed to argue with me. Why are you trying to do that here?
And I am explaining that what he is saying is patently absurd.
That may be so, but that only says that some atheists must be pretty credulous, too. Or do you also think that the adjective "skeptical" means "willing to believe with no evidence at all"?

pz

Since truth is not decided by popular vote, a rational thinker should not conclude anything on only the basis of the number of people on each side of the debate.
No, it is not evidence of anything, and that is not a matter of prior commitment to a particular position. It's an anecdote. It has almost no provenance, it's completely unverifiable, it's ambiguous, it is incomplete in its details. If you were as skeptical as you claim, you'd see that.
You keep saying this. You are wrong. Dismissing extravagant claims for omnipotent supernatural beings that are based on trivial anecdotes about guitar picks materializing in an apartment is good strategy. Scientists do not go haring off on the basis of such meaningless coincidence.

If I were in your shoes, I might have said, "Hey, that's funny" about your friend's story. Then I would have hypothesized that he has friends with guitars who visit his apartment and sometimes leave picks around; I would not have leapt to the conclusion that god is taking a break from helping out people with AIDS to snap his fingers and make it rain guitar picks.

seesaw

I completely agree with you.

seebs

That depends on the availability of other information. A rational thinker should be willing to use a provisional result, rather than waiting for certainty in all things.

So? My evidence that I'm married is largely anecdotal, with poor provenance, except that I happen to be here right now with my wife looking over my shoulder. But you can't verify that claim; no one ever could, because after all, there's no one else here.

However, anecdotes tell us *something*. They may not be good evidence statistically, but "I know a person who fell out of an airplane and lived" tells us that it is *possible*.

I'm not trying to argue that responses to prayers are regular or predictable or common, only that there are occasionaly things which I feel are best explained in this way. You're welcome to feel otherwise, and, as I've said before, I don't know these things to be miraculous, I just think they're interesting.

If this were science, that might matter. It's not. Science is *a* tool. It's not the only one.

So you might. So?

The problem here isn't that you have a different standard than I do. It's that you've somehow gotten it into your head that your standard is the One True Standard That Everyone Rational Uses.

Nonsense!

It's even a self-defeating standard: I have no evidence that it's the correct one, and I doubt any evidence that it's "correct" can be provided. The most you can come up with is "rarely proven later to be wrong", and that's true of lots of standards, mine included.

I at least admit that many of my beliefs are not rooted in full scientific or mathematical proofs. Furthermore, I distinguish between these.

Your attack would make sense if I treated responses to prayers as every bit as certain a part of the world as, say, gravity. I don't. However, my experience leads me to believe that my model is a more accurate one than yours. Maybe I'm wrong, but what of it? Maybe you're wrong. My model is working acceptably, producing viable results, and consistent with my experience and observations. In the end, that's about all I can ask for.

LuckyCharm

(edited to correct typo)

Leslie Weatherhead has actually written a book titled, "The Christian Agnostic." Very, very good book, highly recommended!

~~Cheryl