Atheism requires as much faith as religion?

[Hidingfromyou]

Eagle12 wrote:

<quoted text>
Isaiah 53:5
King James Version (KJV)
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Yes, mythology books report all kinds of miracles.

Why don't you care more about the miracles of non-Christians that thousands of people report going on the modern age?

It's because you don't believe them. Like you, I don't believe them. I also don't believe your holy book. Why not?

Well, it goes like this: how do we know the Bible/Koran is the Word of God? It tells us it is! Oh, so why should we believe that? Because it's the Word of God!

Yes, that seems quite stupid to me, too.

[Thinking]

Great, thanks. Been very busy recently, done a lot of travelling.
Hope life is treating you well in that there North.

ChristineM wrote:

<quoted text>
Hello stranger, long time no see, how’ve you been?

[Hidingfromyou]

timn17 wrote:

<quoted text>But it *can* affect your epigenome! Dave already explained it.

By saying we can cook it. And then claiming I lied about that. Yes, yes he did.

[blacklagoon]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Quite a bold statement. Just because YOU have never had a prayer answered does NOT suggest that "prayers are never answered", son. I have had prayers answered. Lots if people have.

No, you haven't, you only THINK you're prayers have been answered. Here is what an answered prayer is; Your own personal interpretation or an event or circumstance that has worked in your favor.

The other option is that you are laboring under a serious delusion, like talking to Angels or a mythical being touching you on the head.

The body healing itself is NOT a miracle. Medical science is full of well documented cases of the body healing itself.

Praying to God for a loved one to get better and they do, is NOT a miracle.

Praying to find your lost car keys and then finding them, is NOT a miracle.

Now....having an amputee pray for a limb to be restored and it happens, IS a miracles from God.

Praying for someone to be completely cured of HIV, and they do, IS a miracle from God.

Praying that millions of starving children survive starvation, and they do, IS a miracle from God.

Non of these three situations has ever happened, EVER.

Glad I could clear up your confusion as to what constitutes a miracles.

[Thinking]

Didn't you mean p!ss?

Hidingfromyou wrote:

<quoted text>
I said "ok, let's drink beer. Not Budweiser, it's crap."
:)

[Hidingfromyou]

Dave Nelson wrote:

<quoted text>
That was a completely different thing. I said have someone put you in a microwave, and referred to radar beams.
You go to such lengths to twist things to imagine you are winning an argument on a stupid forum. You would surely do the same to win fame and glory with a research paper. I am sure you are marked by others to undergo a very stringent peer review. They should, anyhow.

No, Dave, you said that microwaves could affect my epigenome by cooking it ONLY AFTER I pointed out that standing near a microwave would do nothing. You immediately moved the goal posts because you're a small man and you need to not be wrong about anything.

I'm not trying to "win" against your stupid inability to remember what you wrote, or the insane gibberish that you write. No one can "win" an argument with someone who is not rational and does not respect logical thinking like you.

I'm correcting your dishonest labeling of me as a liar.

[Hidingfromyou]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Where's the "unfriend" button?

You like Budweiser?!? Blach!!!

One sip for me, instant migraine. It has some chemical in it that gets boys not laid. No joke - full on migraine.

[timn17]

NightSerf wrote:

<quoted text>
Yeah, that's what I meant when I wrote, "But we still notice, and it is still annoying. It's hard not to say so every great once in a while." One of the reasons that I rarely mention mistakes, though, is that they often offer insight into the way a writer thinks--or fails to. Our mistakes are part of our subtext, and unintentional ones at that. They are like gambling tells or the kind of micro-expressions that reveal the emotions behind the spoken word. Tells give other gamblers an extra edge. Little quirks in writing styles do the same.

Yeah, I know you weren't attacking me, I just wanted to point out that it's not at all something that I do all the time. Your observation about mistakes being akin to a "tell" is spot on - everyone gives little insights into the way they think through their writing.

[Hidingfromyou]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes. I think that natural law as we know is probably infantile. We're just beginning to learn about natural law, which a suggests that we still have a lot that is unknown.
Do you think the periodic table is finished?
Do you think humans are all done evolving?

I agree.

No.

No.

It's worth pointing out that, if we first assume there are natural phenomena science has yet to explain and then we run across some of those phenomena, should we pause, with our stunned jaws dropped and think "wow, that's impossible, that's unnatural!" or should we say "we need to rethink our understanding of what is natural"?

[Hidingfromyou]

NightSerf wrote:

<quoted text>
Just a quick tip on Topix links: if a little time has passed, sometimes so many posts have been deleted that the page number changes. When that happens, you can still get a good link to the post in question by removing the page number from the link so that it looks like this like this:
http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories/TUGI0DV...

Thanks! I'll do that from now on.

:)

[timn17]

Hidingfromyou wrote:

<quoted text>
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm...
"Seeking to assess the effect of third-party prayer on patient outcomes, investigators found no evidence for divine intervention. They did, however, detect a possible proof for the power of negative thinking."
That's from the largest double blind study on prayer to date. No positive effect, slightly increased chance of dying.

It's really funny that there was an increased chance of prayer when the subjects knew they were being prayed for. It's fun to pretend you are a believer and then try to rationalize that fact.

[Hidingfromyou]

timn17 wrote:

<quoted text>Well, he's right. Anything supernatural is necessarily something that exists outside of our reality, and therefore does not exist for us.

Well said.

[Hidingfromyou]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
He's not right and neither are you.
To think like you two do is to say that DNA was "non-existent" before it was discovered...
But that isn't true.

DNA was non-existent in the minds of people back then. Their realities did not have DNA in them at all. The "knew" about other things, like miasma and the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

The thing is, everything about the way they interacted with, experienced and thought about the world around them included non-DNA causal explanations of how life worked. Their lived reality was very different than our own.

[Hidingfromyou]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Don't tell me what has and hasn't happened to me, you have no idea what you're talking about.

You were born.

You just breathed!

I think you had some beer...

[timn17]

Adam wrote:

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Maybe one of the free thinkers can back me up. But there have been plenty of scientific studies showing prayer does not work. Prayers which seem answered are merely coincidence.
The fact that God fails to feed the hungry or give water to the thirsty, but lets millions starve and go without clean water, is proof that no loving all powerful deity exists.
This was the clincher for me. When I realised prayer is superstition.

But he helped me make that red light the other day!

[Hidingfromyou]

Thinking wrote:

Didn't you mean p!ss?
<quoted text>

hahaha! Yes!

[timn17]

timn17 wrote:

<quoted text>It's really funny that there was an increased chance of prayer when the subjects knew they were being prayed for. It's fun to pretend you are a believer and then try to rationalize that fact.

I've settled on "well, god heard all the prayers for these people, and taking that as proof that they were a good christian with good christian friends, he decided to beam them up to heaven a bit early."

I think that's a good rationalization - any christians here, feel free to use it.

[Catcher1]

Dave Nelson wrote:

<quoted text>
But feel free to believe what you want.

Gee thanks.

Or disbelieve, I hope.

[NightSerf]

Thinking wrote:

Didn't you mean p!ss?
<quoted text>

Remember the old jingle, "Schaefer is the one beer to have when you're having more than one."? there's something to that. Weak American lagers may lack any character worth mentioning, but their alcohol content is also lower, so you can drink more of them without getting sloppy drunk. Me, I'd rather have one or maybe two really good beers (or glasses of win) than a six pack of Bud Light, but I have friends who prefer the latter. At the end of the evening, we both drive home safely.

[Eagle12]

Hidingfromyou wrote:

<quoted text>
Yes, mythology books report all kinds of miracles.
Why don't you care more about the miracles of non-Christians that thousands of people report going on the modern age?
It's because you don't believe them. Like you, I don't believe them. I also don't believe your holy book. Why not?
Well, it goes like this: how do we know the Bible/Koran is the Word of God? It tells us it is! Oh, so why should we believe that? Because it's the Word of God!
Yes, that seems quite stupid to me, too.

I don’t operate in non Christian realms. But I do believe there have been miracles in non Christian environments. I attribute these miracles to the dark side.

Since you had a Christian background. You will remember the story of Moses and Aaron in Pharaoh’s court.

Moses through down his staff and a snake emerged. Pharaoh had his magicians throw down their staffs and two snakes emerged. The same miracle but twice as many.

But in the story referenced. The difference was in the type of snakes that emerged. Moses snake was a King Snake. The type of snake that feast on other snakes. And the King snake consumed Pharaoh’s snakes.

The dark side and followers of the dark side do indeed see miracles of every sort.