Christian

Gary,

I can understand such pragmatism. Your position is not what I was referring to with my question.

Thanks.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Cutter & Mike,

Does the "internal alarm clock" you are familiar with predict unannounced events in the middle of the night with 100% accuracy?

I submit that a sufficiently creative and intelligent person with an anti-supernatural bias can explain any event (no matter how outrageous) in naturalistic terms. The problem is not a lack of evidence, but the presuppositions brought to the table when considering the evidence.

Respectfully,

Christian

Cutter

Can your friend provide any eyewitnesses to attest to his waking up 100% of the time to these unannounced events?

Christian

Wade,

That is coherent. If you equate the natural with everything that exists, the supernatural becomes a nonsensical term.

Thanks.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Biff,

I have no desire to get into a shouting match. If you have any additional thoughts I would be happy to consider them.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Cutter,

I don't know. I'll ask him next time I see him.

Respectfully,

Christian

Autonemesis

Or perhaps we have the law wrong. Or the data is faulty. Or neither of those. In any case, even in the case where a solution seems impossible, that we cannot provide a resolution to a problem like that today is not an excuse to throw up our hands and credit supernatural influences instead. That's not even an answer. What does it tell us about the phenomena? That we can't hope to measure its effects consistently and credibly? That's the same as admitting the phenomena isn't real.

Volker.Doormann

No assertions. Nature is to be recognized. Nature needs no promotion.



No. Attention to the self, the acting self, is to be taken in account. There is an (acting) »Ego self« and there is a state beyond the mind of the self, which can observe the self. This state of observation to the self to be aware is meant.



Non-existence as counterpart of existence implies contradiction. Contradiction is a that lack of logic, which is not able to separate the existence from the non-existence, the real from unreal, or the truth from the untruth.



I thank you.

Volker

Christian

AN,

Perhaps. What I suggest is going with the explanation that best fits the data, without bias for either natural or supernatural solutions. Simply go with the best explanation.

A supernatural solution is only “throwing up our hands” if such a solution is a last resort. You are stating an anti-supernatural bias here. My question is …. why adopt such a bias? If a supernatural solution is the most rational one, that is the one we should go with.

Why so? This is where you lose me. It does not make sense to claim that something does not exist just because it is not repeatable on demand. How are you linking those two concepts? If we witness a real phenomenon only once and never again, how is that a reason to claim that it does not and never did exist?

Respectfully,

Christian

alek0

Don't you have a better example of supernatural than "god acting as alarm clock replacement" thing?

I have been an atheist all my life, and never needed an alarm clock when it was important to wake up on time. I would typically wake up few minutes before the alarm. On the other hand, when it wasn't necessary for me to get up on time, my alarm clock mysteriously wouldn't give any sound even though I have set it at usual time. Supernatural events? Or maybe something else?

Mystery of alarm clock "malfunction" was finally solved once when my boyfriend was sleeping over and when he observed me sitting in bed, hand poised to stop the alarm clock at its first sound, which I did and then I just slid back under the covers and continued sleeping. Didn't remember a thing in the morning.
Is this a supernatural event?

If you think it is, please explain why would your god make sure that this atheist would not oversleep or would get extra sleep if it wasn't necessary to get up early. Also please explain why is this more important matter than children dying from preventable diseases in third world countries. Your deity certainly has his priorities straight, doesn't he?

One thing which always puzzled me is:
why are christians so ready to believe that god would intervene to fulfill thier own often insignificant wishes, while the same god does not intervene to prevent disasters, illness and starvation. And no, don't give me the free will argument, I don't think that anybody wants little kids to starve to death or die from diarrhea or aids, so nobody's free will would be interfered with if god would spend a few moments away from making sure that Mr. Good-christian gets a new car or that Mrs. good-christian's son gets a good grade on a test and do smth. about those starving kids.