Jerry Smith

I would see if there were any obvious signs (apart from his claim) of mental instability. If I found none, I would grab my vido camera and ask him to tell the future.

I would start making copies of the first video tape & be ready to follow him around with a video camera. I would ask him if he could heal serious diseases without the use of medical science.
I would ask the NAS to review my video tapes and prepare a large panel of Medical Doctors and scientists from other fields, making sure Biology and Psychology were represented. Then I would ask the fellow to raise someone from the dead.
I would call the news media, keep my video camera and panel of scientists handy and ask him if he minded if I shot him, to see if he could come back to life. If he agreed...
I would do some q & a with my panel, check the video and CNN. Then I would mention to him, that a good last trick would be ascending bodily into heaven.
More q&a, more video & CNN, submit myself for psychiatric examination & if all of the evidence agreed, admit that he was a miracle worker. Since he claimed to be a messenger from God as well, & would shout after him as he ascended to please send God on down for His round of tests. After all, as every good Christian knows, Satan can work miracles too.. maybe this fellow was doing all of this to lead us astray from God's Kingdom.
Provided God came on down (instead of a Chick style Celestial "Haw Haw Haw!" from above) If so:

Would then believe in the supernatural. Would be very confused. Would ask God for full and proper name (i.e. Jehovah, Allah, Sun Myung Moon), and would begin trying to sort out whether I had gone completely Bonkers, whether this was really God, and whether the answers would actually require any change in my current lifestyle.

Why did you need to know all of this? You couldn't have guessed?

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Jerry Smith ]

[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Jerry Smith ]</p>

lpetrich

O Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas, consider this:

Carl Sagan did not want to believe, he wanted to know.

So why not be like Carl Sagan?

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malaclypse,

...OR you simply wish to avoid jail.

...OR the accusations do not reflect the truth.

Absolutely.


However this puts the atheistic view in a dubious position of circular reasoning. For the presupposition that God doesn't exist implies any miraculous event DIDN'T really happen THEREFORE any account of said miraculous event (personal or otherwise) is fictitious. Therefore there is no evidence for God.

The free-thinking/agnostic viewpoint is far more rational: Given God may or may not exist: Sum the accounts and determine if the accounts are trustworthy.

Thought and comments welcomed,

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malaclypse the Younger

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

10th grade English Rule #2 (Rule #1: "'a lot' is two words"): Do not use "this" or "that" as pronouns for the subject or object of a sentence. It makes your sentence ambiguous. I have no idea what "this" puts the atheistic view in a dubious position.

Even the Humean skeptical presupposition doesn't conclude the nonexistence of miracles based on the presupposition of atheism.

Rather, Humean skepticism concludes that it is impossible to have a coherent and useful definition of knowledge and also be able to describe what the word "miracle" means, or conclude that some event is a "miracle".

In other words, if we don't presuppose the absolute regularity and consistency of the world, we are unable to come to any conclusions. Indeed it is really unclear if the word "supernatural" can have any coherent logical meaning.

An evidential argument (or so I claim) rests on the ability to introduce three assumptions:

P1: H-&gt;E
P2: ~H-&gt;~E
P3: E
-----
H

The problem with "miracles" is that if the world is not presupposed to be regular, then it is impossible to introduce and defend any of the premises necessary to construct an evidential (or even a syllogistic!) argument--miracles deny our ability to believe that anything can imply anything else.

If you do permit miracles, then it seems difficult to even define what evidence or evidential arguments (or any other kind of logical argument for that matter) actually are.

Remember that, to a large degree, "atheist" and "agnostic" are political labels; the underlying philosophies are far too complex to be summed accurately into one or two labels.

My personal self-identification as an atheist describes that I have come to a conclusion--I have decided, after examining the accounts for the existence of a god and finding them not only untrustworthy but intellectually dishonest, fraudulent with regard to fact, and often ridiculously brain damaged, that it is rational to believe (ontologically) that no god (in any meaningful sense) actually exists and that it is pragmatically useless and intellectually embarassing (in the metaphysical sense) to adopt a theistic metaphysical system.

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malclypse,

Basic Theological Exhaustion Sign #2 (#1 is The Great Blind Assertion): X is difficult to define therefore X doesn't exist.


Do this:

Go ask 10 people what 'love' is. You'll (probably) get 10 different answers.

Does this mean love doesn't exist? Does this mean we are not profoundly affected by it in some way almost every hour of every day of our waking lives?


Complexity does not imply non-existence.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


PS-It seems the only people on the planet who have a hard time defining miracles
are atheists. I find this conspicuously convenient.


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Queen of Swords

I can't tell this from my watch. Gosh, I guess Jesus forgot to get into the Alba Quartz Ladies' model.

Malaclypse the Younger

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

This statement is such a bizarre nonsequitur that it doesn't warrant refutation. Go back and read the referenced remarks--if you are able to understand their plain meaning, feel free to address them. If you don't understand them, please feel free to request clarification rather than simply invent a bizarre

As you have not as yet offered any kind of coherent definition of "miracle", this statement is simply factually incorrect.

Since you ask, I am becoming increasingly impatient and frustrated with your inability or unwillingness to make a logical argument and your tendency to ascribe unsupported meaningless, incoherent or false opinions and positions to your opposition and then to claim that such statements show that your opponents' positions are deficient.

In this thread (and others), you simply do not display or use the basic forms of logical argumentation. It is, of course, impossible to determine whether this lack is due to intention, inherent deficiency, or mere incompetence.

It would be helpful (at least as a start) if you would address the comments actually made instead of spouting nonsequiturs and "refutations" of your own straw men with only superficial plausibility sufficient only to give the false impression that these threads constitute actual dialog.

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malaclypse,
non se·qui·tur : a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from anything previously said. Websters Dictionary


You said:
I said:
Note that this is not a non sequitur as my response (paraphrased) 'Finding something difficult to understand does not imply it doesn't exist' directly addresses your statement '...it is impossible to have a coherent and useful definition of knowledge and...describe what the word "miracle" means' and the implied motive of the reduction of miraculous events to mere superstition.

See my first post for some examples of miracles.




Actions speak far louder than words. If what I said truly had no (theological) weight...you would not have responded as you did.

Comments welcomed,

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malaclypse the Younger

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

No, no it doesn't. The quoted sentences simply do not even claim that one can infer the nonexistence of miracles from the difficulty of the definition of the term.

Read the passage you quoted carefully, and address what it says, not what you appear to want it to mean. They're clear, declarative sentences, comprehensible to any ordinary person.

An example is not a definition. And you do not even provide an example of a miracle in your first post.

Again with the nonsequitur. This is an absurd assertion.

If it were true that your arguments were indeed without basic logical weight, then why on earth would I have necessarily responded differently than to say that your arguments were without logical weight?

[ February 24, 2002: Message edited by: Malaclypse the Younger ]</p>

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Malaclypse,

'it is impossible to have a coherent and useful definition of knowledge and also be able to describe what the word "miracle" means'

The usual obvious next step in this very tired line of atheistic reasoning is:
If one can't define it how can one know it exists?

Perhaps I misjudged you, however, and this was not your line of thought. My apologies...I commend you for rejecting such foolish reasoning.

More to point: Why even reply at all?


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas