[watsisname]

I for one fully believe Jesus was actually an ancient astronaut.

[Kosh]

There are things the science community has yet to cover - paranormal activity, UFOs

Have you considered that they might not have covered them because they simply do not exist? It is pretty arrogant to claim they must be true and that science simply hasn't covered them.

Keeping an open mind is good. Keeping your mind so open your brains fall out, not so much.

Nice Randi quote.

I'm not even going to touch on paranormal activity because it's such a horrendous myth-mash of cultures and beliefs.

It's a garage sale of nonsense.

[NeoKnight]

I'm not even going to touch on paranormal activity because it's such a horrendous myth-mash of cultures and beliefs.

It's a garage sale of nonsense.

And that's the problem. So much of it is garbage that whenever something interesting actually does happen, it falls to the stereotype and no one ever pays any attention to it.

[Kosh]

You mean there are some things that are not nonsense? Do tell........

[Polpolion]

I'm not even going to touch on paranormal activity because it's such a horrendous myth-mash of cultures and beliefs.

It's a garage sale of nonsense.

And that's the problem. So much of it is garbage that whenever something interesting actually does happen, it falls to the stereotype and no one ever pays any attention to it.

Such as? No, I do believe that paranormal activities that have sufficient factual coverage to give them scientific attention aren't actually paranormal.

[mxlm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMvMb90hem8&feature=related

[NeoKnight]

So much of it is garbage that whenever something interesting actually does happen...no one ever pays any attention to it.

You mean there are some things that are not nonsense?

Um. Yeah, I think so. And your response is a great example of my point.

whenever something interesting actually does happen...

Such as?

There are a lot of particular incidents I could advocate as paranormal occurrences, and if I were to do so I'm sure a lot of good points would be made on both sides of the argument that would inevitably ensue. But the validation or refutation of an individual example isn't going to prove/disprove the central concept; that unexplainable paranormal activity actually does occur. And such is my opinion. Just to be clear, I'm not stating that the aforementioned thesis is factual. I've just observed a sufficient amount of evidence for me personally to adopt that viewpoint. Most of the aforementioned evidence could be considered "religious" in nature and I really don't want to unleash another one of those notorious discussions here on HLP. So, I'll try to avoid entering such territory during this discussion. I tend to shun most of the kooky alien-abducted preachers anyhow. But occasionally I'll find something like this (http://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view) that just really keeps me thinking. Maybe I've opened my mind a little too wide here, but I'm willing to have a little fun with my philosophy and see where it takes me. 

[Kosh]

thirty seconds of googling turned up this about your example of the so called paranormal. In short it's a hoax.


Got anything else?

[Sushi]

as a modern present day atheist, I call bull****, science WILL might explain everything given enough time, it does not now, we are WELL aware of the fact that there are things it has yet to explain.

There's no actual certainty that it will, although there's nothing wrong with being optimistic about it.


Also, successful Marcov flamebait is successful.

[NGTM-1R]

There's no actual certainty that it will, although there's nothing wrong with being optimistic about it.

Actually, according to Turing, it won't.

[Bobboau]

"given enough time" was the qualification, it could very well take an infinite amount of time to gain infinite understanding, the point being that it continuously expands our knowledge getting us closer to an explanation of 'everything'.

[NGTM-1R]

"given enough time" was the qualification, it could very well take an infinite amount of time to gain infinite understanding, the point being that it continuously expands our knowledge getting us closer to an explanation of 'everything'.

You misunderstand me. Turing proved Godel's Incompleteness Theorem; there are mathematical problems that cannot be solved. Science will, and must, remain forever incomplete.

Exactly what that means is yet to be determined.

[Marcov]

Not really. For example, I'm willing to say that there is no teapot orbiting the sun in the asteroid belt, and if you say I'm silly for asserting that, then it's you that's silly. It hasn't been proven and it hasn't been disproven, but in a world where very little is actually proven I'm willing to just assume that there is no such thing.

But there are actually many atheists who just like to be simply because they want to avoid all that bible-thumper crap and enhance their own aura of "being reasonable".

but God isn't fully disprovable either

Provide proof.

No, seriously.

Because in order to be able to make blanket statements like that, you need to be able to back it up with something substantial.

Provide proof? Should I?

How about ghosts? You ever seen one? I did. Proof; another person confirmed having seen the same ghost (with the same description) in the same venue. If you don't believe, either you've never experienced such things, or just plain blank dismiss that such things simply can't be true.

Now what does this have to do with God? You have a point. God today hasn't been fully proven. Jesus Christ asserted that people who put faith above evidence are better. On my interpretation, this means that God cannot be fully proven in a scientific context.

Now, how about not being fully disprovable. My interpretation is that the whole picture of God must be so wide that only a super-genius (not merely a genius, like Einstein) may be able to fully decipher it. As such, please don't expect me to convince you 100% about this statement. But I can, however, defend my point to an extent...

Well first of all, I believe that super-beings such as Jesus Christ, if not "fully divine", are extremely gifted human beings with special knowledge about things that the regular human mind can't understand.  As such, they were able to perform "miracles", which must be the result of a brain that has knowledge of concepts we cannot decipher. Our scientific approach must be under this, and it must be a lower form of understanding how the universe really works. As such, maybe if you ask Christ what 5000X112490X1230909X5898912/9910294 squared equals to, he might be able to answer it in less than a second. If ever a monkey will know how to perform very basic mathematical operations (e.g. 1+1, 5-3, etc.), it must be a record-breaker for the rest of the world's monkeys. Now suppose this intelligent monkey asks you what 1+1 is, you, with knowledge far higher than any monkey, will be able to answer that in a split second.

This brings about the concept of magic, or something that our science today cannot fully explain. People have done magic. I have no direct personal experiences on actually seing someone do magic, but as I said earlier, I saw ghosts, which can be considered magic since science has not fully explained it. The Bible should have numerous references to ghosts, which, according to wikipedia, are products of witchcraft. The Christian Church believes that they are elementals who refuse to leave the material plane and transfer to the spiritual plane.

I don't have to list all the references to convice you that God isn't full disprovable. I'm certain that there are thousands of articles across the net disproving God, but also thousands proving God. God is part of an endless debate of humanity and I don't actually know when such a debate will end. As Bobbau said, it will take an infinite amount of time for science to explain the infinite. And as such, God is infinite; so this means humanity will never be able to FULLY explain God scientifically!

I am, and will be trying to satisfy your hunger for proof and evidence, but if really nothing satisfies you, then I am sorry, but...then there isn't anymore to debate on.

Oh, and one more thing. If you want to start a discussion, it is customary to provide a point of discussion, some statement that can be argued for or against. What you did in your first post, and your second one here, is to simply state a known and accepted fact (to wit, that we haven't found scientific explanations or confirmations for a number of phenomena reported to exist). There can be no serious discussions about this, as both sides of the debate agree on this.

You say that I haven't actually put in anything substantial enough to put up a "serious discussion". Well, to inform you, a "serious discussion" isn't actually what I'm after; I'm after trying to express my ideas in a forum full of people who will reply reasonably. The thing is, you're treating this like some sort of debate. Well, I'll be entertaining, as much as I can, a debate which you can put up against me, but to be blunt, a debate isn't really what I want.

There are things the science community has yet to cover - paranormal activity, UFOs

Have you considered that they might not have covered them because they simply do not exist? It is pretty arrogant to claim they must be true and that science simply hasn't covered them.

Again I'm pretty certain I saw a ghost.

Keeping an open mind is good. Keeping your mind so open your brains fall out, not so much.

My statement was straightforward. I think I said was has to be said.

And, to the statements of Flipside and Kosh, yeah, I've seen a ghost. So I don't think it's a "garage sale of nonsense".

[Mars]

Not really. For example, I'm willing to say that there is no teapot orbiting the sun in the asteroid belt, and if you say I'm silly for asserting that, then it's you that's silly. It hasn't been proven and it hasn't been disproven, but in a world where very little is actually proven I'm willing to just assume that there is no such thing.

But there are actually many atheists who just like to be simply because they want to avoid all that bible-thumper crap and enhance their own aura of "being reasonable".

Yep.

but God isn't fully disprovable either

Provide proof.

No, seriously.

Because in order to be able to make blanket statements like that, you need to be able to back it up with something substantial.

Provide proof? Should I?

How about ghosts? You ever seen one? I did. Proof; another person confirmed having seen the same ghost (with the same description) in the same venue. If you don't believe, either you've never experienced such things, or just plain blank dismiss that such things simply can't be true.

No, no you don't. Ghosts, if anything, have been more thoroughly debunked than god. Has anyone reliably measured a ghost?

I believe in Giant Squid, because they're well documented, but until very recently no one had seen one alive. It's the quality of evidence, not how impressive it is, that matters.

Now what does this have to do with God? You have a point. God today hasn't been fully proven.

Or at all. . .

Jesus Christ asserted that people who put faith above evidence are better. On my interpretation, this means that God cannot be fully proven in a scientific context.

Or it was a con. . . a con to get the faithful to take everything they had just read on faith, so as to not question any of it - for the fact that none of it would stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

Now, how about not being fully disprovable. My interpretation is that the whole picture of God must be so wide that only a super-genius (not merely a genius, like Einstein) may be able to fully decipher it. As such, please don't expect me to convince you 100% about this statement. But I can, however, defend my point to an extent...

Surprisingly little can fit in a human brain.

I'm curious how you go from "not fully disprovable" to describing aspects of this god.

Well first of all, I believe that super-beings such as Jesus Christ, if not "fully divine", are extremely gifted human beings with special knowledge about things that the regular human mind can't understand.

Alright. . . why do you believe this, really; where did this come from. I don't understand.

As such, they were able to perform "miracles", which must be the result of a brain that has knowledge of concepts we cannot decipher. Our scientific approach must be under this, and it must be a lower form of understanding how the universe really works. As such, maybe if you ask Christ what 5000X112490X1230909X5898912/9910294 squared equals to, he might be able to answer it in less than a second. If ever a monkey will know how to perform very basic mathematical operations (e.g. 1+1, 5-3, etc.), it must be a record-breaker for the rest of the world's monkeys. Now suppose this intelligent monkey asks you what 1+1 is, you, with knowledge far higher than any monkey, will be able to answer that in a split second.

Her majesty the Unicorn is pink, and is invisible.

I stop here. . . the rest of this. . . is conjecture based off of what you've already written, which was totally incomprehensible.

[Marcov]

Actually, it is my theory (take note, it's a theory, not a fact) that sufficiently intelligent or advanced minds can actually have the capability to do magic.

[Bobboau]

/*raving gibberish*/

I've seen things that were not really there too, a couple of times, when I was a young child, it took me a few times before I realized that it was because I worked my self up into a powerful emotional frenzy and was so sure that something was there that I could actually see it. many people have done this, and many people can do it on purpose. it's a fun sort of euphoric feeling to have your emotions run that wild, or it is once you get used to it.

unfortunately it is quite well documented that people can see things that are not there, so just because you got spooked and could see what you really really wanted to see doesn't mean what you were perceiving was anything more than a figment of your imagination. it's called a hallucination and they are easier to get than most people realize. now if you managed to get some video of it that would be better, machines don't see **** because they really really want to and are really really sure they will so much so that at the drop of a hat they see it. now it would be silly to say that any given thing you see is a hallucination, they don't happen that often to people with normal brain chemistry, but if you ask me to believe a personal anecdote to which I was not party why the hell should I assume it is more likely that you bore witness to the apparition of an earthbound soul over the possibility that you and your friend got all excited about a omgspookyghost. oh you both could see the same thing, ok, so you were both in the same state of mind and got a similar experience, when you talked about it afterwards and exchanged details you filled in each other's gaps. there has been growing evidence from law enforcement related sources that eye witness testimony can be faulty, and it's been shown that people will remember things differently based on who they talk to and what questions they are asked, being in an emotionally heightened state makes it worse.

"Jesus Christ asserted that people who put faith above evidence are better." yeah and Gadaffi said the people rioting in the streets were drug addicted western al queda agents. people will say silly things if they think it will make their position stronger, for instance if you are trying to convince a bunch of people to believe a completely nonsensical explanation you might assert those who just believe anything you say without questioning it are great people that everyone should emulate, it doesn't make it a fact.

"God today hasn't been fully proven."
...neither has the proposition that you are, right now, in orbit around the moon dieing from exposure to the hard vacuum of space and that this discussion you are having right now is simply your brain's attempts to come to terms with your morality. actually there is another thing that these two possibilities have in common, they have not even begun to be proved, they have not a shred of evidence for them, to assert that there is any solidity in believing either of them is laughable.

"fully decipher"
how about show any hint of it's existence? we might not be able to measure God but we sure as hell could measure it's effects on the universe, so far that hasn't happened, same thing for ghosts.

I believe that super-beings such as Jesus Christ are basically like Santa Claus, a fictitious story, perhaps based on a real person, that gets embellished to the point that they seem "miraculous". the original people telling the story might know that they are exaggerating or just flat out making stuff up because it sounds cool, but if they neglect to inform people after the fact about the nature of these improvements to the story then how is someone getting told that story 200 years later supposed to be able to tell?

you know, I don't really require a comprehensive theological theory that describes god in such detail that we can predict it's actions, I just want a little bit of decent evidence that it exists at all. a being with such power that it is purported to have should be able to effect reality in profound ways, we should be able to see manifestations in the sky, or planets spontaneously changing their orbit for no reason, I could list a million things that would be, at the very least be a good starting point for god to prove it's existence to any rational person. but apparently it wants us not to believe.

"Again I'm pretty certain I saw a ghost."
this is a more accurate description of your reality I would wager.

BTW the answer to your question is approximately 1.6982064820920193789450138439460757522605825149090891*10^29 the exact result is 4169688193643877315493956600935040000000000/24553481791609, I asked a computer, it gave me the answer, in several different forms, in far less than a fraction of a second.

theory

I see you are using the slang meaning of the term here, not the technical one. good on you for specifying as it would be truly embarrassing to you if we were to have misunderstood and thought you were implying that you had a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts that described magic.

[Marcov]

/*raving gibberish*/

I've seen things that were not really there too, a couple of times, when I was a young child, it took me a few times before I realized that it was because I worked my self up into a powerful emotional frenzy and was so sure that something was there that I could actually see it. many people have done this, and many people can do it on purpose. it's a fun sort of euphoric feeling to have your emotions run that wild, or it is once you get used to it.

unfortunately it is quite well documented that people can see things that are not there, so just because you got spooked and could see what you really really wanted to see doesn't mean what you were perceiving was anything more than a figment of your imagination. it's called a hallucination and they are easier to get than most people realize. now if you managed to get some video of it that would be better, machines don't see **** because they really really want to and are really really sure they will so much so that at the drop of a hat they see it. now it would be silly to say that any given thing you see is a hallucination, they don't happen that often to people with normal brain chemistry, but if you ask me to believe a personal anecdote to which I was not party why the hell should I assume it is more likely that you bore witness to the apparition of an earthbound soul over the possibility that you and your friend got all excited about a omgspookyghost. oh you both could see the same thing, ok, so you were both in the same state of mind and got a similar experience, when you talked about it afterwards and exchanged details you filled in each other's gaps. there has been growing evidence from law enforcement related sources that eye witness testimony can be faulty, and it's been shown that people will remember things differently based on who they talk to and what questions they are asked, being in an emotionally heightened state makes it worse.

If it was a hallucination, then only I would have experienced it. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.

"Jesus Christ asserted that people who put faith above evidence are better." yeah and Gadaffi said the people rioting in the streets were drug addicted western al queda agents. people will say silly things if they think it will make their position stronger, for instance if you are trying to convince a bunch of people to believe a completely nonsensical explanation you might assert those who just believe anything you say without questioning it are great people that everyone should emulate, it doesn't make it a fact.

Do you think Jesus is that much of an idiot to seek popularity? Oh, well...

"God today hasn't been fully proven."
...neither has the proposition that you are, right now, in orbit around the moon dieing from exposure to the hard vacuum of space and that this discussion you are having right now is simply your brain's attempts to come to terms with your morality. actually there is another thing that these two possibilities have in common, they have not even begun to be proved, they have not a shred of evidence for them, to assert that there is any solidity in believing either of them is laughable.

Believe in what you believe, but I don't see any reasonable argument here. What I see is just an emotional rant against someone who believes in "ohhhh weird stuff".

"fully decipher"
how about show any hint of it's existence? we might not be able to measure God but we sure as hell could measure it's effects on the universe, so far that hasn't happened, same thing for ghosts.

I believe that super-beings such as Jesus Christ are basically like Santa Claus, a fictitious story, perhaps based on a real person, that gets embellished to the point that they seem "miraculous". the original people telling the story might know that they are exaggerating or just flat out making stuff up because it sounds cool, but if they neglect to inform people after the fact about the nature of these improvements to the story then how is someone getting told that story 200 years later supposed to be able to tell?

Yeah, some people who were thrown off a building, skinned alive, beheaded, hung on a cross for 2 days until death, burned alive, sawed in half lengthwise from the head were just insane retards ranting about someone who was a little smart being someone who knew everything.

you know, I don't really require a comprehensive theological theory that describes god in such detail that we can predict it's actions, I just want a little bit of decent evidence that it exists at all. a being with such power that it is purported to have should be able to effect reality in profound ways, we should be able to see manifestations in the sky, or planets spontaneously changing their orbit for no reason, I could list a million things that would be, at the very least be a good starting point for god to prove it's existence to any rational person. but apparently it wants us not to believe.

Find that evidence for yourself, then.

BTW the answer to your question is approximately 1.6982064820920193789450138439460757522605825149090891*10^29 the exact result is 4169688193643877315493956600935040000000000/24553481791609, I asked a computer, it gave me the answer, in several different forms, in far less than a fraction of a second.

Unfortunately, computers don't cry.

theory

I see you are using the slang meaning of the term here, not the technical one. good on you for specifying as it would be truly embarrassing to you if we were to have misunderstood and thought you were implying that you had a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules that express relationships between observations of such concepts that described magic.

Who cares if my definition was wrong? So what if I change it into an "idea" or a "thought", like what the thread says? Happy now?


Finally, I don't like your attitude. It kind of gets me pissed off.

[Bobboau]

cool, like I said, similar stimulus, similar reaction and when you talked about it with each other you filled in the details to each other perceptions

all of that is well established phenomena that has been measured and reproduced.

it seems more likely to me that you both thought you saw something and after the fact your memories adapted to each other, than you both actually made contact with a spirit from beyond the grave.

(take note, it's a theory, not a fact)

and this pissed me off, so we are even.

[The E]

Provide proof? Should I?

How about ghosts? You ever seen one? I did. Proof; another person confirmed having seen the same ghost (with the same description) in the same venue. If you don't believe, either you've never experienced such things, or just plain blank dismiss that such things simply can't be true.

Does not prove the existence of god. It only provides proof that two individuals, when confronted with the same or similar phenomena, can draw similar conclusions, which doesn't mean they are right. For millenia, humans believed that thunderstorms were an expression of gods' displeasure. Which we now know to be false.

Now what does this have to do with God? You have a point. God today hasn't been fully proven. Jesus Christ asserted that people who put faith above evidence are better. On my interpretation, this means that God cannot be fully proven in a scientific context.

So a somewhat fictionalized person (no matter if there really was a Jesus of Nazareth, his deeds, however important and groundbreaking they were, have become somewhat exaggerated over the years) says that blind faith was better than using reason? What is your argument, exactly?

Now, how about not being fully disprovable. My interpretation is that the whole picture of God must be so wide that only a super-genius (not merely a genius, like Einstein) may be able to fully decipher it. As such, please don't expect me to convince you 100% about this statement. But I can, however, defend my point to an extent...

No, you really can't. There are philosophical reasons why Science can never, ever provide positive proof about the existance or non-existance of a deity. It's pretty simple. In order to prove or disprove God, an experiment would have to be devised that would give different results according to God's presence. Given that god, as defined by christianity, is all-powerful and all-knowing, there is no way to remove him from the experiment, and as such no way to measure his influence.

Well first of all, I believe that super-beings such as Jesus Christ, if not "fully divine", are extremely gifted human beings with special knowledge about things that the regular human mind can't understand.  As such, they were able to perform "miracles", which must be the result of a brain that has knowledge of concepts we cannot decipher. Our scientific approach must be under this, and it must be a lower form of understanding how the universe really works. As such, maybe if you ask Christ what 5000X112490X1230909X5898912/9910294 squared equals to, he might be able to answer it in less than a second.

Riiiight. You really have no idea about your own religion's scripture, do you? By all accounts, Jesus of Nazareth was an extraordinarily charismatic individual, able to inspire his followers into acting according to his vision of what people should act like. Jesus was never described as being supremely gifted in all areas of human endeavour.

This is nothing new, or really that extraordinary, as charismatic individuals can be found in every strata of human society at any time. What made him different was his followers' continuing devotion to his ideals after his death, and their willingness to spread the word. Compare: Martin Luther King, to take one example.

If ever a monkey will know how to perform very basic mathematical operations (e.g. 1+1, 5-3, etc.), it must be a record-breaker for the rest of the world's monkeys. Now suppose this intelligent monkey asks you what 1+1 is, you, with knowledge far higher than any monkey, will be able to answer that in a split second.

This brings about the concept of magic, or something that our science today cannot fully explain. People have done magic. I have no direct personal experiences on actually seing someone do magic, but as I said earlier, I saw ghosts, which can be considered magic since science has not fully explained it. The Bible should have numerous references to ghosts, which, according to wikipedia, are products of witchcraft. The Christian Church believes that they are elementals who refuse to leave the material plane and transfer to the spiritual plane.

No. Ghosts can be just as well considered a malfunction in the brains' pattern recognition. Which happens a lot more often than you think. Also, stop citing bull**** without providing reference points. I thought you should have learned this about debating on HLP by now, if you can't provide references other than your personal beliefs, your arguments are null and void.

I don't have to list all the references to convice you that God isn't full disprovable. I'm certain that there are thousands of articles across the net disproving God, but also thousands proving God. God is part of an endless debate of humanity and I don't actually know when such a debate will end. As Bobbau said, it will take an infinite amount of time for science to explain the infinite. And as such, God is infinite; so this means humanity will never be able to FULLY explain God scientifically!

See above. There are methodogical reasons why God can never be proven or disproven. That you haven't seen them doesn't give you credit.

I am, and will be trying to satisfy your hunger for proof and evidence, but if really nothing satisfies you, then I am sorry, but...then there isn't anymore to debate on.

This is Science. Get used to it.

You say that I haven't actually put in anything substantial enough to put up a "serious discussion". Well, to inform you, a "serious discussion" isn't actually what I'm after; I'm after trying to express my ideas in a forum full of people who will reply reasonably.

First post in this thread, last sentence.

So, anyone willing to discuss this?

Define the difference between a discussion and a debate please.

The thing is, you're treating this like some sort of debate. Well, I'll be entertaining, as much as I can, a debate which you can put up against me, but to be blunt, a debate isn't really what I want.

Oh, really? So you just want to have a nice little chat without people who disagree with your ill-conceived notions and ramblings? Sorry, but no. Not going to happen.

[Bobboau]

why the hell would you edit a post to respond to someone...?