Miracle Of Healed Vision Or A Hoax?

[mwc]

Wait... that's the interpretation of what I said, isn't it? You got the spirit of discernment, dude. Awesome! We only need to find a prophet to tell the future too, then we're almost a complete X-Men team.

Ack! Touche.

 

mwc

[trueagnostic]

Interesting you're calling your search a BFS... but I think you've got your graph set up all wrong.

.god,

Technically you are correct, I cannot do a meaningful DFS on a graph with root and two nodes. Actually when I was writing I didn't think of individual nodes of the graph, I simply used BFS as an analogy to doing the search sequentially by alternating between the arguments from both points of view. Now that I think about it the graph would consist of two subtrees (christianity and atheism) with all the supporting evidence and data being nodes for each subtree. If you assume standard way of implementing BFS with a queue, then contrasting arguments or evidence would be neighboring nodes in the queue, something like I did with glossolalia, where I look at the phenomenon from the two perspectives at once. The other approach would be to explore each subtree in depth, but that makes me biased towards one of the sides when I study it for a long period of time without contrasting with the opposing point of view. If this makes any sense..

 

I appreciate your generous feedback, it's always interesting to read.

As for the theory on this thread's main story,no offence, but you started with a wrong premise. You correctly noted that he couldn't see the numbers on the odometer, but in the next sentence I also said he had to get real close to read a book. Alex, well that's his real first name, also told me when in school he had to sit at the first row to see something on the board. So, instead of farsightedness he had nearsightedness, and like you said, that is pretty bad situation to be in if you are young.

I did a quick research (some site http://www.lighthouse.org/education-servic...vision/normal/) and found that with age the lens hardens (they call it presbyopia) and it's both hard to see very far and very close. That probably can have some "correction" effect on nearsightedness, so people who wore glasses can then do some things without them. I know this is true for my mother who has been very nearsighted from childhood; as she is getting older now she can read books without glasses but still cannot see well farther than a reading distance. At any rate, presbyopia does not have much relevance to the story as Alex was still pretty young and the change happened in the period of couple of weeks. He is now in his thirties and after wearing thick glasses can see now close to 20/20 from what I tested him in starbucks, has no problem seeing far or close (that is if you believe the story of course --the point I am still afraid not to forget to mention)

I probably did not address all your suggestions/questions, but I will try to do it elsewhere.

And thanks for Derren Brown links, I like his clips a lot.(Although in the last post the links are broken, I had to search some by keywords)

[Vigile]

Trueagnostic, if you want to be truly intellectually honest, I suggest you attend a Mormon church service for educational purposes. It\'s my understanding that during the service members stand up and give testimony, very similar to the testimonies you are relying upon as evidence in your quest for truth.

 

I would love to. Since you probably had experience with them before, can you tell me how they treat outsiders? Can I just walk in and observe, or do I need connections like in masonry (I wasn't there either, but I heard it's not easy to get in)?

 

I will comment on the criticism and other comments (that I find fascinating) later.

 

Well, I grew up with a lot of LDS friends, but have never attended their ceremony, so I'm not really an expert here.

 

It's my understanding that you can attend their Sunday services by just walking in the way you would any church. I'm sure they would be very warm and welcoming.

 

It's the temple that I believe you are refering to. You would not be allowed to visit their temple.

[trueagnostic]

Well, I grew up with a lot of LDS friends, but have never attended their ceremony, so I'm not really an expert here.

 

It's my understanding that you can attend their Sunday services by just walking in the way you would any church. I'm sure they would be very warm and welcoming.

 

It's the temple that I believe you are refering to. You would not be allowed to visit their temple.

Thanks Vigile, I already located a mormon church in my neighbourhood. If my folks don't prevail on me, I will attend this sunday. (Actually inside it looks just as any other church, I am shocked though that they believe in god in heaven making babies all the time, and other nonsense. Hope they have prophets there and I'm lucky to hear that.

 

Right now I'm leaving to see a sinsere christian, hope to get some sensible arguments for christianity from him. I will post soon.

[.god]

hey TA,

this came up in another thread, but I highly recommend Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" if you haven't read it. It's a good read.

[trueagnostic]

But you yourself say in your post at the beginning that you don't have any actual evidence and all of this is vague. Why accept something that's vague as "evidence"? It's intellectually dishonest and hypocritical for you to admit that this isn't even actual evidence, then turn around and expect others to believe it.

 

All fair criticism. As a science major I know very well what constitutes a valid evidence and what is just a vague argument. Ideally I should be going by scientific method only – evidence backed by empirical data, and anything less would be invalid. If that’s the way to go, I might as well stop my search completely. After all, I have never seen a “miracle” myself, let alone some indefinite entity called god. And I may never see this God or manifestations of him. Is this alone enough to disprove god? I think no.

 

The problem comes from the fact that people have biases. In particular christians and atheists both have biases about their beliefs/convictions. Let’s take chrsitians first. You talk to them about evidences of evolution and they don’t even want to study them and take them seriously. The lame argument I hear is “The science is never stable, it is developing all the time. What scientists have proven to be true today will be wrong a decade from now.” Or if you say there are contradictions in the Bible, they rationalize them by saying “We are not looking at the things the way god looks” or something of the sort.

 

Atheists are not prone to bias either. Examples are all the replies I got for the miracles, and “tongue speaking” accounts I listed. A specific example would be this Grigoriy Zinchenko story of him hearing another person (I looked at the book, this was not an old lady but a 14-year old boy) speaking in perfect German. If you are not biased either way you would think “hey this sounds strange, but who knows, if God exists it may be true”(the way I think). Explanations I received here ranged from Grigoriy greatly embellishing to inadvertently making up the story. Same goes for Alex’s vision healing and everything else.

 

Of course I understand if you are absolutely sure that God is nonexistent, then no story, no account verbal or written of a supernatural phenomenon will sway you to look at things differently. And I don’t say you are wrong by having bias against god. If I am absolutely confident Santa Clause exists only in fairy tales then if you tell me that one guy you know drank tea with Santa yesterday I would have a strong bias and would require extraordinary evidence as a proof.

 

To sum up, my decision to look at things in an unbiased way and put Christian explanations to events at the same level of trust as those that atheism provides makes it hard to talk to people on both sides.

 

I am in a predicament (that some of you foresaw before) as my quest for truth is turning out to be elusive. If I assume “I accept only well documented evidences” attitude I automatically shut off myself to all indirect evidences that might actually be true (can you prove Zinchenko was not hearing guy speak german or Alex’s vision healing was not real?). On the other hand these “proofs” by themselves are not sufficient to safely become a Christian as was pointed out by possible alternative explanations.

 

So it’s hard to prove or disprove god. Several things currently are holding me from becoming an atheist.

1) Insufficient explanation of “speaking in tongues” and other paranormal activities in churches. Yes, I wrote about this before and have yet to find a scientific and satisfying explanation of the phenomenon. Those who say this is learned and you can get better by practice, I am sorry I cannot agree. I spent several minutes today trying to “speak in tongues” and all my efforts were futile.

2) Many accounts of miraculous things that happened in the lives of people in my church and elsewhere. Please understand, I don’t mean just diseases vanishing after prayer –that can be attributed in the most unlikely event to “body mind connection”. I cannot restrain myself from telling one such account (please skip one paragraph if you don’t accept undocumented evidence)

 

Pastor in my church tells about an older man (first name Ivan) who was jailed in Siberia during Soviet era for being a christian. When my pastor and Ivan were driving here in US the later told my pastor that while in prison an angel appeared to him, took him through the doors of three walls, past all guards and directed him to go to a nearby village to serve a communion in a house where Christians gathered. Pastor reluctantly listened but had doubts. When they stopped for the night at some house, Ivan spoke about himself and when the host woman heard the name she inquired if Ivan had been jailed in Siberia. Having received a ‘yes’ she told the story how she and other Christians prayed that God would send them someone to serve the communion, and Ivan so and so came in and told that an angel sent him from the prison.

 

I don’t need anyone refute the story. That’s simple. How do I know my pastor didn’t tell a lie, Ivan didn’t tell a lie and woman didn’t tell a lie. Maybe your pastor saw the story in his dream. This story wouldn’t fly in court. Nevertheless, the significant number of such accounts from real people that live today make me question if coincidence, hallucination, and self-persuasion are sufficient to explain all of this.

 

3) There is one testimony in specific that is really holding me from turning my back on God. It is the strongest and most powerful testimony of a Christian I have ever read. It alone would explain my resistance to be easily convinced to become an atheist, as well as why I don’t consider other religions for truth. Unfortunately it is both in Russian and is quite long –I would say about 10 pages. So I am not sure people will want to read that much. However if someone would be willing to read it and give me some feedback I will start translation immediately and can post it some time in future. The guy who gives the testimony –Dmitriy Berezuk --is alive and I have visited him two years ago, but didn’t have an opportunity to talk with him about the testimony.

 

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth. If I ever become an atheist I would have to be persuaded that evolution is the way we came to be. There are several weak spots of the theory as I see it now. First, self-development of a cell from inorganic material takes almost as much faith to believe as the bible story of creation. I am reading “Selfish Gene” and the first 3 chapters, which tell how organisms developed from inorganic matter were an exercise in imagination. Dawkins often admits that a certain mechanism that would have to be developed next had no known reason to arise, but the reader should assume it still did (I could reference page numbers if someone is interested).The author himself says that since no one was at the time to observe, the described evolutionary process is of speculative character. Nothing like a self-creation of a “replicator” molecule has ever been observed (for an obvious reason of insufficient time), but we must think (I don’t want to say believe) that such process happened. The second immediate problem with evolution is the absence of the links (missing links) between a man and an ape, except for few contested samples.

However, I don’t want to make premature conclusions about evolution theory. My knowledge on the subject is very limited indeed so I will need to do a lot more study and research. I am wondering if “Selfish Gene” was the right book to start with – it is quite outdated (published 1976). Anyways I am 1/4 into the book so I think I will finish it anyway.

 

I have already raised point 2) before and I feel that's the area I will still have to deal with by myself. Perhaps you have some comments on other points. Appreciate any input.

Lastly, I am moving from my current place to a new address, which means I may not have internet for one or two days.

TA

[Vigile]

Is this alone enough to disprove god? I think no.

 

Being a science major you should know then that no one can prove a negative. The question here is not can we disprove god, but do positive claims as to his existance hold water.

 

I hold that they don't. You need to come to this conclusion on your own. Trying to disprove him is just a rabbit trail that will get you nowhere.

 

Of course I understand if you are absolutely sure that God is nonexistent, then no story, no account verbal or written of a supernatural phenomenon will sway you to look at things differently.

 

No, I doubt any of us are absolutely sure that god doesn't exist. This is a strawman that xians often march out about our position.

 

We are probably quick to discount this German speaker's claims. The reason for that is not that we are willing to discount any claim of the supernatural, whatever that might mean, but rather most of us have been fed this type of anecdotal evidence for years and years.

 

From where I sit the claim has several problems. First, there is no documentation offered in its favor (at least none has been provided here). Second, it's an extraordinary claim without extraordinary evidence to back it up. And lastly, the claim comes from a non objective, self interested claimant. Why isn't anything like this showing up in scientific journals? Why are no similar claims being submitted for peer review? Is the entire academic and scientific community keeping a lid on all the supernatural events that are occuring in churches and in church circles every day because there is a vast world wide atheist conspiracy? Seriously.

 

Certainly there are more problems with the claim than I just pointed out, but hopefully these will give you food for thought.

 

If I am absolutely confident Santa Clause exists only in fairy tales then if you tell me that one guy you know drank tea with Santa yesterday I would have a strong bias and would require extraordinary evidence as a proof.

 

Again, and no offense intended, you are going about this all bass akwards. If someone made a claim about Santa, it would be an extraordinary claim and any rational person would demand some sort of extraordinary evidence before the claim could ever be taken seriously. Bias against Santa is not even close playing a role in the equation.

 

To sum up, my decision to look at things in an unbiased way and put Christian explanations to events at the same level of trust as those that atheism provides makes it hard to talk to people on both sides.

 

Well, since most atheists are not actually making any claims, I'm not sure how this is the issue. They are simply rejecting the reasoning and the evidence offered up by those making the claims. Yeah, that probably makes it difficult for them/us to find common ground, but that's because people don't like to have their sacred cows challenged, not because the atheists are biased and married to their positions.

 

I am in a predicament (that some of you foresaw before) as my quest for truth is turning out to be elusive. If I assume “I accept only well documented evidences” attitude I automatically shut off myself to all indirect evidences that might actually be true (can you prove Zinchenko was not hearing guy speak german or Alex’s vision healing was not real?). On the other hand these “proofs” by themselves are not sufficient to safely become a Christian as was pointed out by possible alternative explanations.

 

It's quite a dillema you find yourself in. And it's a much bigger dillema than I think you realize. Taking your position for a moment, are we to all take every single outragious claim seriously? How do we know which ones to take seriously and which not to? Life will throw at you a zillion claims, most of which you also reject for the same reasons we do.

 

Personally, I think you are the one that is biased toward xian claims in that you give them more weight than you do the claims of all the other religions and every single fanatic that shouts proclamations from street corners around the world.

 

You ask "can you prove Zinchenko was not hearing guy speak german or Alex’s vision healing was not real?" and I ask, can you prove that pixies don't cause gravity? Can you prove that Ganesh isn't really the creator of the world? Can you prove that the world isn't supported by a giant Turtle the way the Shinto religion claims? Ect... > infinity?

 

I am sorry I cannot agree. I spent several minutes today trying to “speak in tongues” and all my efforts were futile.

 

You can't speak in tongues, I can't dance. What does this prove? You are making the following equation here:

 

I can't speak in tongues at will, therefore anyone who can must be doing so supernaturally.

 

Many accounts of miraculous things that happened in the lives of people in my church and elsewhere. Please understand, I don’t mean just diseases vanishing after prayer –that can be attributed in the most unlikely event to “body mind connection”. I cannot restrain myself from telling one such account (please skip one paragraph if you don’t accept undocumented evidence)

 

You've already been told this, but I'll repeat it. Every single religion on the planet, past and present has people making similar claims. Are they all true? Why is it that no arms grow back? Why is it that god only heals people from problems that can also sometimes fix themselves? Show me one guy whose pinky grew back and I'll examine the claim more closely. Until then, I don't have time to worry about every cancer that went into remision and every girl who got pregnant after her doctor told her she couldn't.

 

Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth. If I ever become an atheist I would have to be persuaded that evolution is the way we came to be.

 

Evolution only explains how life diversified. It does not explain where life came from in the first place. So, we don't know the answer, that means it must be the xian god? Doesn't follow. Non sequitur.

 

Again, you claim to be agnostic and unbiased, but it is very clear that you are very biased toward the xian religion. You are ignoring the fact that every single evidence you are taking seriously about xianity is also offered by a myriad of other faiths. Not only other faiths, but also other claimants of the abnormal, like UFO observers, big foot observers, tarrot card readers, etc...

 

I don't mean this as an insult, so please don't take it that way. It's just me being frank, as I tend to be. You are being intellectually dishonest with yourself.

[Jeff H]

I agree with what Vigile said, and I'd like to add my own thoughts on what you've mentioned as well.

 

All fair criticism. As a science major I know very well what constitutes a valid evidence and what is just a vague argument. Ideally I should be going by scientific method only – evidence backed by empirical data, and anything less would be invalid. If that’s the way to go, I might as well stop my search completely. After all, I have never seen a “miracle” myself, let alone some indefinite entity called god. And I may never see this God or manifestations of him. Is this alone enough to disprove god? I think no.

As a person interested very much in philosophy, I don't think I'd say that "evidence backed by empirical data" is the only way to prove or disprove God. I think that it certainly is the most useful, but at the same time, we can reach truth based on philosophical arguments as well. Have you invested any time into looking at the alleged contradictions in Christianity, or the arguments for the existence of God? I would suggest to you that the philosophical arguments in favour of God come up short, in addition to the lack of empirical evidence. But if you are a science major, perhaps science is the direction you wish to travel. Not a big deal. Truth is truth

 

Atheists are not prone to bias either. Examples are all the replies I got for the miracles, and “tongue speaking” accounts I listed. A specific example would be this Grigoriy Zinchenko story of him hearing another person (I looked at the book, this was not an old lady but a 14-year old boy) speaking in perfect German. If you are not biased either way you would think “hey this sounds strange, but who knows, if God exists it may be true”(the way I think). Explanations I received here ranged from Grigoriy greatly embellishing to inadvertently making up the story. Same goes for Alex’s vision healing and everything else.

You're right in one sense. We cannot discount the existence of God based on the idea that we can't "prove" this evidence to be true. What I think is the biggest reason people here are giving you these explanations is because we are trying to help you look at it from a different angle, and give you alternate explanations. Just because we say "he could be lying", that doesn't mean he was or that we believe he was. Just that it is a possibility that you need to consider as well. You already understand that what he is saying could be evidence of the supernatural, so why should we repeat the point? You came here asking us to disprove your friend's story about his vision being healed. So we did, and then you discounted it all. All we are offering are options. It's up to you to decide which one fits best and is most consistent with all the evidence.

 

To sum up, my decision to look at things in an unbiased way and put Christian explanations to events at the same level of trust as those that atheism provides makes it hard to talk to people on both sides.

I would suggest to you that perhaps the best way to look at this sort of decision is to view it like a court case. Build up the evidence for either side, and then find out where the weight of the evidence lies. You already know that nothing of this sort will ever be proven 100%. So it's all about the weight of the evidence. Figure out whose side has more, and then be on that side. Of course, that is easier said than done, but I believe it's possible to do, at least.

 

So it’s hard to prove or disprove god. Several things currently are holding me from becoming an atheist.

1) Insufficient explanation of “speaking in tongues” and other paranormal activities in churches. Yes, I wrote about this before and have yet to find a scientific and satisfying explanation of the phenomenon. Those who say this is learned and you can get better by practice, I am sorry I cannot agree. I spent several minutes today trying to “speak in tongues” and all my efforts were futile.

I'm not sure that you fully understand that meaning of "learning" in this context. It's not meant to be like algebra class, where a teacher gets up and teaches you what you need to know. "Learning" in this sense means that it is a cultural phenomenon that you grow up with, and as such you view it as "normal," essentially. To give you an example (I don't think I mentioned this before, forgive me if I did)...my church, although Pentecostal, is not really all that "charismatic." We're about as conservative as you can get while still being called Pentecostal. There is only the odd time that people actually "speak in tongues" out loud for others to hear. And you know what I realized? Most of the people my age who have grown up in that church do not speak in tongues. They have grown up their whole lives in a Pentecostal environment and been taught that speaking in tongues and "baptism of the Holy Spirit" is normal and expected, and yet I don't think that I have ever heard any of them speak in tongues, whether out loud or just quietly in prayer. Why? Because while the church teaches that it is normal, it is not common-place in the church. The people my age haven't grown up hearing it a lot, and so they don't replicate it, even though they know that if they do hear it, it's nothing weird. Thus, "learning" how to speak in tongues is generally through hearing others doing it over and over, not by being told it is normal.

 

At any rate, to add to what I've said here, not everyone speaks in tongues, even in an environment where it is accepted and practised. And usually these people are not full of doubt as to the origin of this phenomenon. You trying to speak in tongues and wondering why it doesn't work, I would imagine is precisely because you don't believe it works, necessarily. You have doubts about whether it's real. I'm not trying to say, "Just have faith!", but rather, it is because these people don't question it and don't doubt it that it occurs to them. See what I'm saying? I don't know if I'm making myself clear, so let me know if you understand...

 

2) Many accounts of miraculous things that happened in the lives of people in my church and elsewhere. Please understand, I don’t mean just diseases vanishing after prayer –that can be attributed in the most unlikely event to “body mind connection”. I cannot restrain myself from telling one such account (please skip one paragraph if you don’t accept undocumented evidence)

The problem is, as Vigile pointed out, that every religion, and indeed even people outside of religion, have stories like this. Muhammed apparently was visited by the angel Gabriel and choked until he wrote down what he was supposed to write. People believe very firmly that they have been abducted by aliens. There are people who are convinced that they remember memories from a previous life (reincarnation), or that they can remember being born.

 

The important thing to remember is this: Weird things happen. Wherever you go, and whatever you believe, you will find weird things happening. Now, you can claim that Christian weird things are more real, or that they are more verifiable, or that they are weirder than all the rest, but you cannot say that Christian weird things are true and all others are false - not without some strange sort of proof. Where do you get that proof? Well, if you can determine the truth of Christianity through other means, then you could use the truth of that to prove that Christian weird things are true. But this necessarily involves using evidence other than miraculous events, etc. in order to prove Christianity true.

 

Just remember that the inability to explain a weird event happening doesn't mean that it is supernatural. There's just too much weird stuff out there to believe it all. Unless you're a conspiracy theorist...

 

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth. If I ever become an atheist I would have to be persuaded that evolution is the way we came to be. There are several weak spots of the theory as I see it now. First, self-development of a cell from inorganic material takes almost as much faith to believe as the bible story of creation.

Again, to go back to the image of a court case - be on the side where the weight of evidence lies. Perhaps evolution is not true. Perhaps somewhere down the road, some genius will come along and propose a better theory. Who knows? But right now, evolution is the best theory we've got, and I daresay it blows creationism out of the water. And that's saying a lot coming from a person who actively argued against evolution for several years...

 

The problem with abiogenesis is that it's pretty much impossible to prove what actually happened way back then. So scientists come up with hypotheses and theories, and some are more sensible than others. But I think that they at least are sensible. A molecule, forming on the back of a crystal that has a well-defined structure could definitely have the backbone needed to produce a self-replicating molecule. We know that self-replicating molecules exist, and so we know that they can be created - but we must also remember that conditions back then were not like they are now. So it's not unreasonable to assume that replicator molecules don't create themselves now. Or even if they do - the world is a big place. And most people aren't constantly searching for these types of things...

 

The second immediate problem with evolution is the absence of the links (missing links) between a man and an ape, except for few contested samples.

Sounds like you've spent too much time in creationist literature. For just a short summary of the research, check out this site: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC050.html

And of course, take a look at the references and links at the bottom, and do some Google searches. It's true that human ancestry still isn't all figured out, but it's also true that much work has been done on it. Just because the whole thing hasn't been figured out, doesn't mean we can't observe the patterns and see the "big picture." And the big picture points to evolution.

 

At any rate, good luck on your continuing search.

[Vigile]

Perhaps evolution is not true. Perhaps somewhere down the road, some genius will come along and propose a better theory

 

Actually, this is unlikely to ever happen. The evidence in favor of TOE is tremendous and that things evolve is accepted as plain fact. Our understanding of how things evolved may change in bits and pieces over time, but the fact that we did indeed evolve will surely not change.

 

And to be clear for agnostic, TOE is separate from abiogenisis. There is no unified theory in place for abiogenisis.

 

Sounds like you've spent too much time in creationist literature

 

That's a good point. Agnostic claims that he is attempting to be unbiased, yet he has been giving equal weight to unqualified, non scientists, or scientists working outside their area of expertise.

 

Agnostic, reading the critiques of TOE from self interested players before you really study and understand at least the basics of TOE is not being unbiased, it's just feeding your ignorance.

 

How? If you don't understand it, how will you even know if they are critiquing TOE or just a strawman of TOE? Here's a hint. They almost always critique the strawman.

[Ouroboros]

TA,

 

Of course there are "missing links". There always will be. Why? Because evolution is a slow progression of individuals. If there were 101 individuals between one species and the next, and we find 100 bodies, one from each generation, we still will miss the 101st. And it's very unlikely we'll ever find all 100,000,000,000,000,000 skeletons. They're most likely destroyed through nature, disaster, volcanoes, or as food to dogs, wolfs, ... to assume that we have to have every individual to prove evolution is wrong. The strongest proofs are in the DNA. Research that area instead, and forget the "missing link" argument, and you'll soon figure out that the evidence is extremely strong to support evolution.

 

To put another spin on the missing link: if you have kids, you are the link between your parents and your kids. Lets say you died, and they cremated you. Now, you are the missing link. Hence, there's no proof that your kids are related to your parents, and according to Creationism, we are to assume that your kids ARE NOT related to your parents, just because of you missing. Do you really think that's a reasonable criticism?

 

Lets expand the thought here a bit, what about the missing link between our modern Bible and the "First and True Bible?" Is there a constant, unbroken chain of books, fragments, back to the authors of the Bible? Nope. It doesn't exist. So with the same argument, the Bible does NOT come from the first Christians, and is NOT the word of God, and it does NOT quote Jesus, and the letters are NOT from Paul. And the same goes for the current Christian beliefs. Can anyone prove that Bob and Mary, somewhere in the distant parts of Texas desert, believed the same things and interpreted the Bible the same way as the modern Christian? Nope. So the modern Christian belief have missing links too. So it must be a false belief, according to Creationists way of arguing evidence.

[Neon Genesis]

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth. If I ever become an atheist I would have to be persuaded that evolution is the way we came to be. There are several weak spots of the theory as I see it now. First, self-development of a cell from inorganic material takes almost as much faith to believe as the bible story of creation. I am reading “Selfish Gene” and the first 3 chapters, which tell how organisms developed from inorganic matter were an exercise in imagination. Dawkins often admits that a certain mechanism that would have to be developed next had no known reason to arise, but the reader should assume it still did (I could reference page numbers if someone is interested).The author himself says that since no one was at the time to observe, the described evolutionary process is of speculative character. Nothing like a self-creation of a “replicator” molecule has ever been observed (for an obvious reason of insufficient time), but we must think (I don’t want to say believe) that such process happened. The second immediate problem with evolution is the absence of the links (missing links) between a man and an ape, except for few contested samples.

However, I don’t want to make premature conclusions about evolution theory. My knowledge on the subject is very limited indeed so I will need to do a lot more study and research. I am wondering if “Selfish Gene” was the right book to start with – it is quite outdated (published 1976). Anyways I am 1/4 into the book so I think I will finish it anyway.

 

I have already raised point 2) before and I feel that's the area I will still have to deal with by myself. Perhaps you have some comments on other points. Appreciate any input.

Lastly, I am moving from my current place to a new address, which means I may not have internet for one or two days.

TA

But as Dawkins says in The God Delusion, even if evolution isn't true, it doesn't mean god created the universe because then you must answer the question if the universe is so complex that it needs a complex creator to exist, then the creator would have to be as complex as the universe. So, if complex beings need complex creators to exist, what was the complex creator that created the complex god? Furthermore, even if evolution is false, that doesn't mean the Genesis creation account was meant to be read literally. In the original Hebrew language, the word for day that's used in Genesis is yowm which can be translated to mean a year or a lifetime or even an age. Then, there's also this verse in 2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

So, even if evolution isn't correct, that doesn't change the fact that the Genesis creation account is clearly meant to be read allegorically, not literally. And where in the bible does it ever say that the scriptures are supposed to be read literally? It doesn't say that anywhere in the bible at all. Also, consider this famous quote

"The Bible teaches men how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go,"

[Jeff H]

Perhaps evolution is not true. Perhaps somewhere down the road, some genius will come along and propose a better theory

 

Actually, this is unlikely to ever happen. The evidence in favor of TOE is tremendous and that things evolve is accepted as plain fact. Our understanding of how things evolved may change in bits and pieces over time, but the fact that we did indeed evolve will surely not change.

 

And to be clear for agnostic, TOE is separate from abiogenisis. There is no unified theory in place for abiogenisis.

Well, I was just trying to be fair. Science is and always will be inductive, and so there is always that slight room for error. I mean, things were all well and good until quantum theory revolutionized physics...so there is always the possibility that something will come along to better explain the evidence. But you're right....it's not likely

[.god]

I very much agree with what Vigile posted regarding testimonials and he makes some very good points.

 

As for the theory on this thread's main story,no offence, but you started with a wrong premise. You correctly noted that he couldn't see the numbers on the odometer, but in the next sentence I also said he had to get real close to read a book. Alex, well that's his real first name, also told me when in school he had to sit at the first row to see something on the board. So, instead of farsightedness he had nearsightedness, and like you said, that is pretty bad situation to be in if you are young.

Yes, therein lies the problem, the fact that he couldn't see something close (the odometer) suggests he was farsighted. But I had assumed that things change at extreme close ups because I've seen both farsighted and nearsighted people literally stick their nose into the book to be able to read it. I don't think most farsighted people place the book really far away in order to read it. Thus because of the contradictory pieces of information - can't see close, can't see blackboard, has to read book close - we are unable to reliably conclude what exactly was wrong with his vision. He could have been farsighted with compounding factors such as astigmatism, or nearsighted with factors that messed with his close-up vision. All we know is that he couldn't have been both technically farsighted and nearsighted at the same time. So the only way to resolve the heart of the issue is to either obtain his original prescription or have his glasses (which he trashed correct?), and I doubt we will have either. In the end either the anecdote is worthless because the original facts are so muddled and unsupported, or we will have to hold out concluding either way until more soild verifiable evidence such as the original prescription is forthcoming. Don't you agree?

 

As for the quick apparent change in vision, I reiterate that it only appears quick because for all we knonw he could have been wearing glasses he did not really need for years. Not until the change in his vision hit "critical mass" did he suddenly realize that he the prescription of the glasses no longer matched his current visual acuity.

 

 

Regarding your BFS search, I think that there is a key difference between the end or leaf nodes of each of your main branches of christianity vs atheism depending on how you approach it.

With christianity the usual problem is all further investigation stops at "god did it", where as the corresponding leaf node in a science/evidence based approach would be "not enough evidence, pending further inquiry". While the "not enough evidence" node can either be substituted in the future with new evidence or whole new branches of inquiry, a "god did it" node generally closes off further inquiry. What more do you need if you determine the answer is "god" or the "supernatural"? Do you devise further repeatable experiments of how exactly god does it, when he does it and why? Or do you just pile on the nodes of anecodtal evidence, although all anecdotal evidence nodes should sit at the same depth in the tree. What the most hardcore fundamental christians do of course it just stick the "god did it" node at the very top of the tree, QED, no need for any more inquiry.

 

 

The bias you atribute to non-chrisitans that I never understand is the assumption that a person's perception, memory and reasoning is in a word - perfect. A glimpse at any area of pychology or biology should show that to be the least likely of cases. Human perception is incredibly fallible, easily deceived, and heavily dependent on our not-so-perfect sensory organs. Add to that the incredible malleability and unreliability of our memories and really, just what part of your experience can you trust?

That is exactly what the scientific method tries to take out of the equation, and also exactly why we bring up problems with "mistaken perceptions" to "embellishing a story" in anecdotal stories.

 

If you are going to accept anecdotal evidence and testimonies as "proof" of the supernatural, then you really should believe in quite a few things. Where do you draw the line?

For example, my sibling who is a christian heard first hand from a fellow church member (who he said has no reason to lie or fabricate anything of course) who was on a mission in Africa, the following:

There was a village in which a bag of rice multiplied enough times so that it fed an entire village. (why does this miracle happen? it's in the bible apparently)

All the deaf children of the village (and there were many) came out to listen to the preacher, and were instantly healed of their deafness on the spot.

In Africa, there are many people, entire village in fact where people have died and then are resurrected and come back to life 3 days later (just like jesus it seems!)

 

And that's just the beginning. Of course many of this was supposedly experienced first hand (but he doesn't know which ones exactly) by said missionary, but no one I know nor can I verify the details of anything.

 

 

And then there are the other mysterious proofs of god - pilgrams flock all the time to: the image of Mary in a church window that gets hit by the sprinkler system, the face of Jesus the the wound of a tree limb that was cut off, and so on and so forth.

 

And so it is with Allah as well, his name is constantly found spelled out in food, on animals, anywhere you look. I can't find it online but a while back there was an email that contained over 2 dozen images of items with allah spelled out on it.

http://www.mcn.org/1/Miracles/allaharchive.htm

This quote from the one who found the holy "allah" eggplant sums it up well:

"This clearly shows people that our god exists. It is a message to the nonbelievers," Abdullah Patel told Reuters, claiming that 4,500 people had visited his home within just weeks of the incident being reported.

 

Mormons and their magic underwear - there are stories of how someone was protected from bullets by wearing it. Or how a person survived a car crash because he had his "garments" on at the time. You might say that no one would really believe in magic underwear, but I would counter that there is proof enough that it works. Just like some christians argue that people wouldn't die for beliefs that weren't true, Mormon's wouldn't wear their garments (which go underneath their actual underwear) iif it didn't really protect them. And these garments are pretty ridiculous and uncomfortable (and it forces the women to dress modestly): http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&...sa=N&tab=wi

 

I could go on and on, Scientology auditing (they pay loads and loads of cash for this stuff to be done on them), alien abductions, crop circles, healing magnets, tourmaline healing necklaces, healing stones, astrology, etc.

 

Entire churches full off young kids and adults testify regularly that they know Joseph Smith is the prophet of god, and that they know the Mormon church is true. So many people can't be wrong or lying could they?

 

Amusingly, Carl Sagan comes up with a chapter on a "Baloney detection kit" in his book, The Demon Haunted World, with advice on how you filter this sort of BS.

 

 

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth. If I ever become an atheist I would have to be persuaded that evolution is the way we came to be. There are several weak spots of the theory as I see it now. First, self-development of a cell from inorganic material takes almost as much faith to believe as the bible story of creation. I

 

Perhaps I should have recommended Blind Watchmaker first since that book addresses creationism vs evolution more than Selfish Gene.

As others have stated, evolution is not a theory about abiogenesis. I personally find the theory about comets/meteorites seeding the planets quite interesting. Our planet and solar system is hardly alone in our vast galaxy.

 

Fossils are the exception and not the rule, with the vast number of organisms that have lived and died on this ever changing planet, is it sometimes amazing that there is as many species fossilized as it is. I hate to seem to only recommend books by Dawkins, but if you are interested in the details of current scientific knowledge on our ancestral heritage, then "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution" might be a good one. I've only read a few chapters but then got distracted by other things so I can't say how good it is, read the reviews on amazon for that I guess. It's damn thick though, almost 4" for the large paperback version.

[cslewissucks]

edit

[chefranden]

Of course I understand if you are absolutely sure that God is nonexistent, then no story, no account verbal or written of a supernatural phenomenon will sway you to look at things differently. And I don’t say you are wrong by having bias against god. If I am absolutely confident Santa Clause exists only in fairy tales then if you tell me that one guy you know drank tea with Santa yesterday I would have a strong bias and would require extraordinary evidence as a proof.

 

To sum up, my decision to look at things in an unbiased way and put Christian explanations to events at the same level of trust as those that atheism provides makes it hard to talk to people on both sides.

 

IMHO You are not doing well at being unbiased. You might want to give some thought about whether it is possible for a human to be unbiased or not. As a person studying science you ought to be aware that the struggle to develop and the struggle to use the scientific method is the struggle look at the data to see what is there rather than what we'd like and or expect to be there.

 

From what you've written I don't see that you are trying to apply science to your study. You spent a small time trying to speak in tongues. Is that any kind of a controlled experiment? I don't think so. It is merely anecdotal. I can tell you that as an apostate I can still speak in tongues. But that tells you nothing from an unbiased perspective.

 

Your quest is going awry because you've failed to do one thing, take yourself out of the experiment in favor controlled repeatable techniques. All you are going to find out is whether you have a stronger emotion for religion or for a secular point of view.

 

One side note on abiogenesis: Not knowing how this took place does not negate what is known about evolution anymore than not knowing what a quasar was negated what was known about astronomy. To try to make it so is special pleading. "I don't know therefore god" is not very scientific of you.

[chefranden]

I hate to seem to only recommend books by Dawkins, but if you are interested in the details of current scientific knowledge on our ancestral heritage, then "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution" might be a good one. I've only read a few chapters but then got distracted by other things so I can't say how good it is, read the reviews on amazon for that I guess. It's damn thick though, almost 4" for the large paperback version.

 

I suggest one read River Out Of Eden: A Darwinian View Of Life before trying to tackle The Ancestor's Tale.

[Ouroboros]

TrueAgnostic,

 

Another thing you have to consider is that there could be OTHER explanations to sudden improvements of vision. Now you probably say: No, it can't happen naturally. Then you're most likely wrong. Sudden changes of vision can be caused by diabetes. I read somewhere that it is well known that sudden changes in glucose can improve vision. Your friend who had this miracle, could suffer from a adult onset diabetes, thyroid problem, or other medical problems. It also could be sign of more serious problems in the brain. He/she needs to go to a medical checkup ASAP, and not assume it's a "miracle."

 

To prove my point, look at this short articles from people asking for advice after improved vision:

http://boards.webmd.com/webx?THDX@@.89a403...child=.89a403ee

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/412369

 

A simple search on Google sometimes can give you the answer better than praying to an imaginary friend.

[Jeff H]

Fossils are the exception and not the rule, with the vast number of organisms that have lived and died on this ever changing planet, is it sometimes amazing that there is as many species fossilized as it is. I hate to seem to only recommend books by Dawkins, but if you are interested in the details of current scientific knowledge on our ancestral heritage, then "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution" might be a good one. I've only read a few chapters but then got distracted by other things so I can't say how good it is, read the reviews on amazon for that I guess. It's damn thick though, almost 4" for the large paperback version.

Just as an addendum to this post, here's something to think about:

 

Where were all the fossilized animals when they were alive? Schadewald [1982] writes:

 

"Scientific creationists interpret the fossils found in the earth's rocks as the remains of animals that perished in the Noachian Deluge. Ironically, they often cite the sheer number of fossils in 'fossil graveyards' as evidence for the Flood. In particular, creationists seem enamored by the Karroo Formation in Africa, which is estimated to contain the remains of 800 billion vertebrate animals (see Whitcomb and Morris, p. 160; Gish, p. 61). As pseudoscientists, creationists dare not test this major hypothesis that all of the fossilized animals died in the Flood.

 

"Robert E. Sloan, a paleontologist at the University of Minnesota, has studied the Karroo Formation. He asserts that the animals fossilized there range from the size of a small lizard to the size of a cow, with the average animal perhaps the size of a fox. A minute's work with a calculator shows that, if the 800 billion animals in the Karoo formation could be resurrected, there would be twenty-one of them for every acre of land on earth. Suppose we assume (conservatively, I think) that the Karroo Formation contains 1 percent of the vertebrate [land] fossils on earth. Then when the Flood began, there must have been at least 2100 living animals per acre, ranging from tiny shrews to immense dinosaurs. To a noncreationist mind, that seems a bit crowded."

 

A thousand kilometers' length of arctic coastal plain, according to experts in Leningrad, contains about 500,000 tons of tusks. Even assuming that the entire population was preserved, you seem to be saying that Russia had wall-to-wall mammoths before this "event."

 

Even if there was room physically for all the large animals which now exist only as fossils, how could they have all coexisted in a stable ecology before the Flood? Montana alone would have had to support a diversity of herbivores orders of magnitude larger than anything now observed.

 

(from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html)

 

Interesting, no? Fossil evidence isn't just about the transitional fossils

[trueagnostic]

First off I deeply appreciate the comments. I understand it took you time and effort to write well thought out comments and I don’t take it for granted, thanks Exchristian.net!

Second, I think this may be my last comment or I may not be able to reply to your comments for a while. The new house my family moved in needs work, plus other things -- approaching school. Also I think I would benefit from reading couple of books on evolution before continuing conversation.

Third, I wrote a response already three times. The first one was “eaten” by a glitch in a browser , and second and third I rejected for not reflecting my exact thoughts. In brief, this is what I wanted to say.

Last time I put the four things that stump me on the way out of Christianity.

1) Insufficient explanation of “speaking in tongues” and other paranormal activities in churches.

Vigile makes right point that my own inability to learn to speak in tongues does not mean others can’t learn. I understand that. Jeff H told about the practice of speaking in tongues in his church – only few people are able to do it; which seems to support the theory that only a few people who have a “talent” to learn to speak in tongues were able to do so. (Jeff you didn’t say that but that’s the point I understood you wanted to make, right?). Well, if you don’t have a lot of first hand experience with this phenomenon the “learning” theory will satisfy you –it makes sense. According to this theory as a church goer you get to listen to other people speaking in tongues for some time, and then (when praying to receive the “spirit”) and being in a very suggestive state of mind (basically earnestly believing that it’s going to happen) your brain unconsciously reproduces the “tongues” you heard before maybe adding some new syllables creating therefore a dialect of your own. I would say such theory is plausible, not that I am convinced though…In my church 60 to 85% of people speak in tongues, which suggests you don’t need a special “talent” to learn or be suggestive. My grandpa was one who was initially a Baptist guy and he was very skeptical about “tongues” being from God; eventually he got baptized and enjoyed praying in tongues. In bible camps I have been to 5-6 year olds would get baptized in “wholesale” and would talk in different “languages” –some quite distinct from what their peers spoke. Moreover, my brother has been to a bible crusade children’s camp where children from unchristian families who never had any exposure to Christianity would get “spirit baptism” and would speak in tongues(it was in Ukraine last summer, and children attended because the camp was free of charge).

So, sometimes “learning theory” just doesn’t cut it as you can’t explain baptism of people who didn’t have prior exposure and didn’t have an opportunity to “learn” (of course learn unconsciously, I understand that). However I leave a possibility for a slightly different explanation – what .god described in previous posts – that it is possible to start babbling something by letting your mind get in a state of trance. Who knows? If you get a chance to be around Seattle, let me know maybe you could attend one of the prayers and get a first hand experience of this “sign for unbelievers” as bible calls it.

(Please understand I don’t discount anyone’s explanation, just given my experience with the phenomenon I don’t seem to find a good explanation that would satisfy me. Perhaps there will be more studies on glossolalia in the future and scientists will be able to demystify it..)

 

2) Many accounts of miraculous things that happened in the lives of people in my church and elsewhere.

Well, the consensus here is that one cannot trust these accounts for they can be

 

a)Lies. I heard some miracles (especially in Catholisicm like crying icon of the Vergin, but even more recently in evangelical church as with Australian megachurch where pastor pretended he had cancer) were fabricated.

True. But that’s a minority I believe, the 99.9 of Christians are afraid of saying lies and would not say them intentionally. Especially people I know I can trust for not intentionally lying.

 

b)Unintentionally exaggerated and greatly embellished stories. This one deserves great attention, however sometimes such problem is not a case. In the case of Jenya Polishuk who claims to have been instantly healed from extreme case of arthritis there are witnesses who saw slow progression of desease and her lying on a bed for 7 years and medical documents.Then they witnessed her instantaneous healing –heard bones cracking and her getting up from bed after prayer. There is not much to exaggerate in this story as it appears to me. I am really interested in this “miracle” and will investigate it (will go and interview the subject) some day this autumn as Jenya lives in a nearby city.

 

c)should not be considered as it is “intellectually dishonest” to consider accounts of miracles in Christianity only as opposed to those happening in other religions.

This one is not hard to answer. This will also explain why I only consider Christianity for truth and not a host of other beliefs.

The occurrence of miracles in other religions is wholly compatible with Christianity. According to the old testament magicians did a “miracle” of transforming a rod into a snake; Moses did the same and eventually won over the magicians. The books that I mentioned several times frequently talk about witchcraft as a real thing where supernatural does happen. But ofcourse when it comes to the withcraft colliding with Christianity, the later prevails. There are numerous accounts in the books about witches repenting and demons being cast out of them in very conspicuous ways. More interesting is the verbal account I heard recently from one Christian old guy. He was the first member of my church to learn about my serious doubts, so he invited me to his house and told about his experience of God. He was an evangelist in the early 90-s in Siberia in the city of Tumen’. Once a prominent magician (they call them “extra-sense” in Russian) by the name of Chumak came to visit the city. (In Russia there was another “extra-sense” –Kashperovsky, who was #1, but Chumak was just as good) Michail (his real name actually) went into the room where the city officials were sitting and there was Chumak at the table. Chumak said that he can tell everyone in the room what their diseases were and that no one would leave the room sick –everyone will be healed. He went from person to person, named their diseases and people confirmed every disease he would name, they had it. When he got to Michail he spent 10 minutes thinking and couldn’t name one disease; he later called in his wife for assistance and for another 20 minutes they meditated, but couldn’t point out anything wrong with him. Michail had many diseases actually. I understand that this story is prone to the problems of a) and that I named but the point is that supernatural in other religions only confirm Christianity for being true. Another example would be alien abductions. I researched the subject and found that there were numerous reports of such abductions and interestingly enough they all had a common structure –abduction, medical examination of reproductive system by an alien, touring the ship, and return. This occurrence of supernatural outside Christianity should make me skeptical about Christianity right? Unfortunately, Wikipedia article also says that a very similar experiences of abductions were reported in which craft, which as you see can be explained by Christianity as alien abductions being another form of witch craft and eventually of demonic world. Even more argument for Christianity is that other religions like Islam or Buddhism don’t report any serious miracles. If you do a google search on Islam miracles one site lists the greatest contemporary miracle in Islam is Quran, others are the writings of Islamic words on plants walls, or earth, which are no more miracles than my seeing my first name’s letters in the clouds. In general Islam is a pretty passive religion – Allah is not intervening in the lives of people according to their beliefs. Other religions like Jehowa witnesses, Masons, etc don’t stress miracles or supernatural – they are more about rituals and just belief.

One potential problem I see is the mormons. It was pointed out here that they have prophets and perhaps believe in supernatural happening today. I was unable to attend the service last week, but I will try in the future. Maybe there are other religions that practice supernatural and Christians cannot call them manifestations of devil? I will be interested to know.

 

3) There is one testimony in specific that is really holding me from turning my back on God.

This is not something of a regular testimony. Otherwise I wouldn’t care separating it from other accounts. This was told by the guy who prayed for Jenya Polishuk. When I was 12 I read it and was impressed like never before. I read it couple days ago again and it had the same effect. Even though I try to analyze and use knowledge of psychology, that’s not enough for me to discard the testimony. I understand the general skepticism for testimonies of Christians. So I don’t expect many people to read it or comment, however I will make it available through a link some time in the future. It is in the form of interview, so you can skip as much as you want without missing much. The guy is alive and I know his physical address in Ukraine; I would go talk to him but that is not possible with my situation now.

I will do translation when I have time and will post a link on a separate thread. Maybe someone will explain why the article has so much influence on me.

 

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth.

Besides not having had a direct experience with God this is the second greatest reason to think Atheism is the real truth. After finishing “Selfish gene” I will read God Delusion or Blind Watchmaker. And more books specifically on the subject. As some one pointed out evolution shows the big picture of how we came to be. If I continue to be open-minded hopefully I will see that picture clearly.

The thing with me is that I am very sensitive to the feeling of cognitive dissonance. In my physics or math classes I learned that if I get a reasonable looking answer and it feels right it is still not a guarantee that it is the correct answer. Therefore on the tests I would be the last one to leave the classroom (after double and triple checking my work) and then as a rule would get rewarded with a nice grade (and get blamed by others for skewing the class curve). I do the same in this search for truth. Yes, I have not experienced god myself. I prayed, I cried, I tried to humble myself but still no sign of god. Chef. I read your story and I have not done nearly as much for god as you did, I understand your feelings (thanks for posting your story). And I read deconversion testimonies where maybe more than 50% are from former Christians who honestly looked for god and didn’t find him. Perhaps one day I will make the same conclusion. Maybe be I am wrong and wasting my time still believing there could be truth in Christianity. But I will be true to my habit of careful double checking until the cognitive dissonance I have now leaves me.

 

Thanks for reading this. I may be able to reply, but I believe I have already touched on all aspects of my search. Perhaps you would like to comment about the supernatural in other religions and Christianity, that’s something I didn’t talk about before.

TA

[Vigile]

TA, learning theory is a term you've coined. Speaking in tongues is just making random noise. People tend to make random sounds that sound like others they've heard, but it's still just putting together syllables. Personally, I think that the fact that you can't do that makes you an exception to the rule. It's really very easy.

 

Haven't you ever tried to talk like a person from China? Most people can do it even though most people can't speak Chinese.

 

You are using scientific words in your evaluation, but you are not being scientific in your approach. In order to do so you would need to set up a trial, use a control group, develop quantifiable measurements, and then do statistical analysis.

 

What you are doing is taking your own subjective perspective from much less than a random sample and then drawing conclussions based almost primarily on your own inability to just make random noise with your mouth.

 

Making the claim that speaking in tongues is more than just giberish requires much more evidence than you have presented. Without that evidence the default position should be dubious.

 

Why Anecdotal Evidence is Untrustworthy

 

Anecdotal Wiki

[Jeff H]

Well, I know that you may or may not see this, as you mentioned you were busy, but in case you do drop by at least to read the replies, here are a few comments on what you've said.

Jeff H told about the practice of speaking in tongues in his church – only few people are able to do it; which seems to support the theory that only a few people who have a “talent” to learn to speak in tongues were able to do so. (Jeff you didn’t say that but that’s the point I understood you wanted to make, right?).

Well, that's not exactly what I was trying to say; sorry for the confusion. My point was that since speaking in tongues doesn't happen often in my church, although it is socially accepted, most of the youth that grown up in the church do not speak in tongues. In churches where it happens all the time, I would suspect that their youth would be much more likely to speak in tongues. So I wasn't trying to say anything about a "talent", but rather that speaking in tongues often occurs as a result of it being heard often and becoming "normalized" in your head, if you will. Increased hearing of the phenomenon = increased chance of doing it yourself.

So, sometimes “learning theory” just doesn’t cut it as you can’t explain baptism of people who didn’t have prior exposure and didn’t have an opportunity to “learn” (of course learn unconsciously, I understand that). However I leave a possibility for a slightly different explanation – what .god described in previous posts – that it is possible to start babbling something by letting your mind get in a state of trance. Who knows? If you get a chance to be around Seattle, let me know maybe you could attend one of the prayers and get a first hand experience of this “sign for unbelievers” as bible calls it.

(Please understand I don’t discount anyone’s explanation, just given my experience with the phenomenon I don’t seem to find a good explanation that would satisfy me. Perhaps there will be more studies on glossolalia in the future and scientists will be able to demystify it..)

Perhaps the "learning theory" as you call it doesn't quite cut it. But I think it explains a large part of it. And that's what theories should do - attempt to explain as much of the evidence as possible. But I mean, especially with psychological theories, humans are too complex to really compose a theory that explains all the evidence. Perhaps the other cases you speak of fall under some other sort of natural explanation. Perhaps not. But it doesn't make sense to throw out a theory that explains a lot of the evidence just because it doesn't explain it all. I'd rather put my feet down on where the weight of the evidence lies, not on the few "strange cases" out there. That kind of thinking will wind up leading you into conspiracy theories and UFO sightings...

The occurrence of miracles in other religions is wholly compatible with Christianity. According to the old testament magicians did a “miracle” of transforming a rod into a snake; Moses did the same and eventually won over the magicians. The books that I mentioned several times frequently talk about witchcraft as a real thing where supernatural does happen. But ofcourse when it comes to the withcraft colliding with Christianity, the later prevails.

I suppose that, while this is a somewhat plausible conclusion (assuming the truth of Christianity, at any rate), the problem is still that an unbiased observer - let's take, for instance, an invisible alien entirely unfamiliar with human cultures and beliefs - could look at Christian phenomena, and then look at phenomena in other religions, and come away not seeing any difference between the two. Other religions have "healings." Other religions have "speaking in tongues" (I believe the one I am thinking of is a type of Buddhism. Searching for "glossolalia other religions" should probably turn up something). Other religions have miraculous images, prophetic fulfillments, and ways of showing that their Scriptures prove to be correct scientifically. In every way other than the actual, specific beliefs, Christianity is virtually indistinguishable from other religions. So from an unbiased perspective, how should one know which is the "truth" and which is the "deception"?

Another example would be alien abductions. I researched the subject and found that there were numerous reports of such abductions and interestingly enough they all had a common structure –abduction, medical examination of reproductive system by an alien, touring the ship, and return. This occurrence of supernatural outside Christianity should make me skeptical about Christianity right? Unfortunately, Wikipedia article also says that a very similar experiences of abductions were reported in which craft, which as you see can be explained by Christianity as alien abductions being another form of witch craft and eventually of demonic world.

Actually, alien abductions have a much better explanation - sleep paralysis. Often people who experience this phenomenon (and it's quite a common phenomenon) wake up and are paralyzed temporarily. They often report feeling a "presence" in the room, which generally takes on the characteristics of what they are very afraid of. Some report angels, others report demons, some report burglars, and others report aliens. It's quite an interesting thing to study, actually. I would suspect that similar things could happen in "witchcraft," as the phenomenon is fairly common, as I mentioned.

Even more argument for Christianity is that other religions like Islam or Buddhism don’t report any serious miracles. If you do a google search on Islam miracles one site lists the greatest contemporary miracle in Islam is Quran, others are the writings of Islamic words on plants walls, or earth, which are no more miracles than my seeing my first name’s letters in the clouds.

I don't think you've looked very hard, then....

4) Evolution (or my knowledge of it) is not sufficient to explain why we live on earth.

Besides not having had a direct experience with God this is the second greatest reason to think Atheism is the real truth. After finishing “Selfish gene” I will read God Delusion or Blind Watchmaker. And more books specifically on the subject. As some one pointed out evolution shows the big picture of how we came to be. If I continue to be open-minded hopefully I will see that picture clearly.

If you want my advice on this - don't think of evolution as a "proof" one way or the other. Think of it as an explanation. And it's a very good one. Now, atheism works out much better with the theory of evolution, but it's not a requirement, as there were certainly atheists around before the theory was thought up. And of course, evolution doesn't disprove Christianity, either. So it's not something like, "Evolution is true, therefore Christianity is false/Atheism is true." As long as you acknowledge that evolution is a strong possibility, and don't discount atheism on the basis of "evolution can't be true," then I don't think it really needs to weigh into the argument any further.

 

Anyways, those are my comments. Hopefully they are helpful. Just remember that this questioning you are doing is a good thing. Either way, when you come out of it, you'll be closer to the truth - whatever that happens to be.

[chefranden]

I can't remember if I mentioned this book in this thread, but it is certainly relevant to your quest. It was the text for the absolute best collage course I ever took.

 

How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age

[Neon Genesis]

Some food for thought, trueagnostic. The bible defines faith as the evidence of things not seen. It doesn't say that the bible is evidence of god or that miracles and speaking tongues is evidence. Even Jesus said those who believed but have not seen were blessed. If faith is the evidence of things not seen, then other religions and ways of life are just as likely to be true as Christianity is. But if faith is the evidence of things not seen, then if you're claiming that the bible and these miracles are evidence, then are you really believing with faith or are you believing with the wrong evidence and are you really blessed? By insisting that the theory of evolution is incompatible with Christianity because you can only accept one view of Genesis and that Christianity is the only one true way, aren't you turning your belief in the bible into a form of idolatry and worshiping the bible more than you worship god? Isn't it disrespectful to the god you claim to worship for you to tell god how it can and cannot create the universe? Why must the bible be literally true and you have to believe these are miracles in order to find value in the bible? Is it really the message of Jesus that you truly value or are you simply just using the bible as a form of escapism?

[.god]

Hey TA,

 

good luck in your search and definitely keep your reading list full! Knowledge is never a bad thing.

 

The occurrence of miracles in other religions is wholly compatible with Christianity.

I think this is a perfectly legitimate thing to say... as long as you keep in mind that anyone of a different spiritual or religious bent is just as legitimate in saying, "The occurrence of miracles in other religions is wholly compatible with Islam/Mormonism/Wicca/Scientology/etc/etc"

 

Because for them, as it is for you, any manifestations of those other false religions is just a manifestation of the devil, evil demons, liars, false prophets, government conspiracies, alien conspiracies, or lab mice conspiracies. It fits into their world view as snugly as non-Christian miracles fit into your view - they happen, but they stem from whatever the opposing force it is to the flavor you have chosen.

 

 

carpe diem

[Etchison]

I didn't have time to read all the replies, so forgive me if this is redundant. But here are my initial responses:

 

1. Many other religions in other parts of the world have these stories as well. People being miraculously healed, by Krishna, Mohammad, Zoroaster, etc. If a "healing" is evidence that a religion is true, then they are all true. Since they all claim the others are false we end up in a logical quandary.

 

2. The placebo effect, as others have mentioned. If 10,000 people with bad eyesight pray to God that their vision improves, God will not answer 9,997 of them but THREE OF THEM HALLELUJAH WE HAVE A MIRACLE!! You can achieve similar results of those 10,000 people pray to a rock.

 

3. Occam's Razor: what is more likely? A) that Jesus performed a miracle and caused his eyes to see or that he is lying.