A hypothesis

[Bibler]

Lately I’ve been thinking about something and trying to google it using numerous different word combinations in an attempt to find something  even partially related to what I’m seeking but I am failing hard. I’m studying psychology and I’m developing a hypothesis concerning a correlation in which I want to investigate whether there is a causal link between an already acquired knowledge on God (Abrahamic religions in particular) prior to the emersion of visions, sensations and other subjective phenomena that are commonly referred to as personal experience evidence.

My hypothesis basically asserts that said phenomena is resulting not directly from previously acquired knowledge itself, but rather from the built-up expectation of its effects on the real world that is accompanying it. The more a person is inclined to believe, the higher the intensity of this expectation is. Something like confirmation bias, more or less.

I’m trying to find out if there is a case where a person who has never before heard of Jesus, Yahweh, Allah or anything even slightly related to any Abrahamic religion, has actually had some sort of personal experience with them. Be it dreams, visions, or whatever else. Or in other words, a person who has obtained knowledge of the biblical God through unexplainable means. This would serve as an attempt to remove the asserted causative event from the hypothesis in order to test whether the caused event would still occur. Then there would be two possible outcomes:

a:      caused event still occurs – therefore while we can still hypothesize that said causative event is also valid, we cannot confirm that it is the only one to cause it.

b:     Caused event does not occur – therefore we can safely confirm that said causative event is valid and is also the only one to cause it.

 

If there were such a case, and it was absolutely certain that that person genuinely doesn’t possess such information prior to the occurrence of said phenomena , I’d be pretty convinced that something’s really going on.

Now, I believe that this hypothesis couldn’t subjected to experimentation, because an experiment like that would be pretty unethical and technically very difficult if not impossible to conduct. In short it would consist of people raised and living in a controlled environment completely isolated from all sort of knowledge on gods, goddesses,  no Bible, no Quran, nada. But should such an experiment be conducted, and were Jesus to reveal himself to the test subjects exactly the way he is described in the Bible, would that be convincing to you? What do you think?

[disillusioned]

Look who's back.

[sdelsolray]

A hypothesis that is not testable won't go very far.  And even if it were testable (via the unethical process mentioned), it seems to be a very difficult and convoluted way to develop evidence for the existence of Abrahamic sky fairies.

[bornagainathiest]

My thoughts?

 

I think that the holy spirit must have changed his mind since he directed you to come here and win some of us back.

 

Hey everybody, I see you guys have turned your back on Christ, so I felt like the Holy Spirit has moved me to try and win some of you back into His Kingdom. I've noticed some Christians have tried to do the same but most of them seem to back off fairly quickly and I'm pretty disappointed with that. I'm here to stay and fight your demons, and with The Lord's help maybe save a soul or two. So bring it on!

 

Which is odd, since the Bible says that God doesn't change his mind.

 

Numbers 23 : 19

 

God is not human, that he should lie,
    not a human being, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
    Does he promise and not fulfill?

.

.

.

Unless this hypothesis has something to do with your god-ordained mission?

 

 

 

[★ Citsonga ★]

Translation: "I don't really want to answer the questions in the thread that I started and claimed that I would answer questions, so I'll just start another thread and spout off some untestable crap and see who bites."

 

[Bibler]

Hey, I'm not a christian and I don't believe in gods. You can stop acting so defensively. I'll try to further clarify this in my other thread soon

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

Hey, I'm not a christian and I don't believe in gods. You can stop acting so defensively. I'll try to further clarify this in my other thread soon

 

Then what was the point of your first thread?

 

 

[nutrichuckles93]

Hahahahaha. I had to laugh as well, Citsonga. Seriously, what the hell was the point of your initial long thread if you are not in fact a Christian trying to win us back, as you said? Or did we make you start thinking and realize that maybe Christianity isn't all it's cracked up to be?

[sdelsolray]

Was/is Bibler lying then, lying now or lying in both threads?

 

More importantly, why should anyone care?

[Bibler]

I posted an update in my other thread. Honestly, you shouldn't care if you don't want to. But if you decide to post here, can we please stay on topic?

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

I posted an update in my other thread. Honestly, you shouldn't care if you don't want to. But if you decide to post here, can we please stay on topic?

 

Thanks for clarifying there. However, you should not have acted so defensively here when you had not yet made any clarification. Why would you expect us to not think you were a Christian when you yourself said you were in the other thread? Hopefully you're being honest with us this time around, but don't be surprised if some think you're just pretending.

 

 

Now, I believe that this hypothesis couldn’t subjected to experimentation, because an experiment like that would be pretty unethical and technically very difficult if not impossible to conduct. In short it would consist of people raised and living in a controlled environment completely isolated from all sort of knowledge on gods, goddesses,  no Bible, no Quran, nada. But should such an experiment be conducted, and were Jesus to reveal himself to the test subjects exactly the way he is described in the Bible, would that be convincing to you? What do you think?

 

Nobody totally isolated from those things would have any way of having any knowledge of them.

 

[Bibler]

Yeah, sorry about this. I was going to clarify things there either way, but I thought since this is a new thread it would spark a completely different discussion, but instead you guys probably thought I was setting you up for something and the first few posts were somewhat defensive, so I get it, haha.

 

Also, we are assuming that such an experiment is conducted and the knowledge in question was somehow obtained. I'm curious as to whether that would be convincing to you that something is really going on, and how would you go about refuting it? What would be a sensible explanation?

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

Yeah, sorry about this. I was going to clarify things there either way, but I thought since this is a new thread it would spark a completely different discussion, but instead you guys probably thought I was setting you up for something and the first few posts were somewhat defensive, so I get it, haha.

 

Well, a user name like "Bibler," a Bible avatar, and an "Authentic Christian Believer" emblem also give people a certain impression. If you don't want them to have that impression, then I'd suggest that you change your user name and avatar, and then contact a moderator to have the emblem removed. That is, if you're being honest this time in saying that you're not a Christian.

 

 

Also, we are assuming that such an experiment is conducted and the knowledge in question was somehow obtained. I'm curious as to whether that would be convincing to you that something is really going on, and how would you go about refuting it? What would be a sensible explanation?

 

There would be no way to prove that a person had not heard of those things before. However, hypothetically speaking, even if you could, it would only indicate that there has to be some reason for it. It could be supernatural, but it definitely wouldn't prove the Bible to be true. There are a plethora of problems with the Bible that would not be resolved simply by someone magically coming up with a story identical to what's in the Bible.

 

 

[Bibler]

This is probably what I would assume as well – that information might’ve been accidentally or deliberately leaked. Christianity is a powerful institution, so it would make sense that it is in its best interest to do whatever it can to manipulate the experiment in its favor. It would be interesting to read other insights on this.

 

Also, if somebody has a link to an article or something about such a case where a person claims to have had personal experience with God, and/or accepts him as savior, even though it is asserted that no knowledge on Abrahamic religions was possessed prior to it, please do share it with me. I want to implement something like this in my dissertation, but fail to find anything even slightly similar. It doesn’t have to be backed up by evidence whatsoever, I just need to point to a source.

[sdelsolray]

 

Was/is Bibler lying then, lying now or lying in both threads?

 

More importantly, why should anyone care?

 

I posted an update in my other thread. Honestly, you shouldn't care if you don't want to. But if you decide to post here, can we please stay on topic?

 

The topic is your lying.  You lied in the other thread.  Accordingly, I do not trust you.  Are you lying again?  Is the OP in this thread genuine, some smarmy attempt to get attention, another set of lies, something else?

 

Are you A1-Steaksauce's first cousin?

 

 

 

[Jeff]

dick move

[disillusioned]

 

dick move

 

Couldn't have said it better.

[★ Citsonga ★]

 

Also, if somebody has a link to an article or something about such a case where a person claims to have had personal experience with God, and/or accepts him as savior, even though it is asserted that no knowledge on Abrahamic religions was possessed prior to it, please do share it with me.

 

Someone claiming an experience with a god or believing in a savior god wouldn't be impressive. Those concepts are not unique to nor did they originate from Christianity. What would be impressive would be if someone who never heard of the Bible nor its story-line would just magically come up with the same story with the same character names. However, that just ain't gonna happen.

 

[Bibler]

 

 

The topic is your lying.  You lied in the other thread.  Accordingly, I do not trust you.  Are you lying again?  Is the OP in this thread genuine, some smarmy attempt to get attention, another set of lies, something else?

 

Are you A1-Steaksauce's first cousin?

 

 

What does your gut tell you?

 

 

Bibler,

 

Welcome! I'm curious, what is your purpose for interacting on this site?

 

Best regards,

 

EP

 

I posted in my other thread regarding this. Other than that I'll probably pop up from time to time here and maybe even post if I have any meaningful insight on a particular topic.

[Rounin]

 

 

Someone claiming an experience with a god or believing in a savior god wouldn't be impressive. Those concepts are not unique to nor did they originate from Christianity. What would be impressive would be if someone who never heard of the Bible nor its story-line would just magically come up with the same story with the same character names. However, that just ain't gonna happen.

 

That would be very interesting indeed - if, for instance, people from uncontacted tribes started turning up, talking about Jesus.
That being said, it would be hard to prove they hadn't learned that name through some prior contact. A few stories of this nature wouldn't be too shocking, as people lie or have mistaken memories all the time. But it would be interesting enough to look into.

[midniterider]

 

 But should such an experiment be conducted, and were Jesus to reveal himself to the test subjects exactly the way he is described in the Bible, would that be convincing to you? What do you think?

 

Is it important to you that we are convinced that Jesus exists? If so, why?

 

How would I be sure that the test subject wasn't leaked bible information? This seems to be a thought experiment at best. And thought experiments are just imagination so it's probably a waste of time. Not that I am averse to wasting time, mind you. I'm here, after all.

 

Finally, why doesn't Jesus just pop in, wow me, then pop out? Or even pop in and stay?  It would be much simpler than your elaborate experiment.

 

But to answer your question. No. I would rather have direct one-on-one visitation or maybe even a television appearance by Jesus than trust someone's personal experience.

 

And even if I did verify his existence then comes the discussion of what his attitude is towards the bible and church. Is he aligned with the freaky Pentecostals I went to church with? Does he want worship? And why do I want to worship him? If he is as nutso as Stranger or Ordinary Clay I will pass on the worship. If he is as simple minded as Mt 12:30 would suggest, I'd rather maintain my distance.

[Stranger]

Helen Keller

 

Stranger