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Now you've put yourself in a knowledge position of saying there is no God. I'm an atheist as well, I say it's highly unlikely but I wouldn't say impossible. I don't have concrete proof and there is no consensus like with unicorns. Even if we are correct we can't prove a negative.
its really about what type of god. Its a sliding scale once we jump off of "Christian god only" types.
its really about what type of god. Its a sliding scale once we jump off of "Christian god only" types.
At the very least I think God should mean sentient and creator. Lots of people mean God metaphorically but that's not what's happening here. We have other words for what people are trying to call God and it's very confusing.
God is math...do you believe in God...I see no evidence...oh, so now your saying numbers don't exist. That kind of thing.
A police officer sees a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asks him the goal of his quest. The inebriate replies that he is looking for his car keys, and the officer helps for a few minutes without success then he asks whether the man is certain that he dropped the keys near the lamppost.
“No,” is the reply, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” “Why look here?” asks the surprised and irritated officer. “The light is much better here,” the intoxicated man responds with aplomb.
1. On the day my wife Beverly died, I visited her in the hospice in the early afternoon. She was heavily medicated but there was no reason to think death was imminent. I made the 90-minute ride back home on my motorcycle and entered our bedroom. In the corner was a large portrait photo of Bev on one wall and a portrait photo of her late parents on the other. Beneath them was a 5-foot-high bookshelf with Bev's books. On the top shelf was her jewelry box and a little teddy bear she had received at a cancer survivor's retreat, wearing a sweater that read "I Love Hugs." When I stepped into the bedroom, the teddy bear was sitting bolt upright on the carpet several feet from the bookshelf, facing the door. I was stunned but made no connection to Bev's death since, as far as I knew, she was still alive. I tried gently toppling the teddy off the shelf at least 50 times, just to see if I could make it land upright. I couldn't, nor did it ever land near where it had been sitting. I had difficulty getting it to sit upright even when I carefully placed it on the carpet. OK, weird but no big deal.
I went into the kitchen to make a large salad as I did almost every night. I put a muffin in the toaster oven as I did almost every morning and night. As I prepared the salad, there was a loud POP! but the source wasn't clear. The smoke alarm then began screaming. I turned to my left and saw the toaster oven was literally, visibly red hot. I yanked the cord out of the socket. The muffin was a piece of charcoal, burnt beyond what it would've been if I'd left it in the oven for 20 minutes. I could only conclude that some massive surge of electricity had passed into the toaster oven. Within minutes - no more than five - I received a phone call saying Bev had died shortly after I'd left. The next morning, I plugged the toaster oven back in and held my breath. It was fine, as it had always been before Bev's death and would continue to be until I replaced it two years later.
2. About a month after Bev's death, I was folding clothes in the bedroom. Inexplicably, the bedside stereo simply started playing the CD that was in it. For some reason, probably my prior ADC studies and my many discussions with Bev about these topics, I was prompted to say quietly into the air "Bev, was that you? Do it again and I'll be impressed." I put another load of clothes in the washer, puttered around a bit, and reentered the bedroom about 20 minutes later. Immediately, the stereo began playing again. This time I said "OK, I'm impressed. Do it again and I'll be convinced."
I went grocery shopping at Safeway, put the groceries away and reentered the bedroom close to two hours after I'd last been there. Immediately, the stereo began playing again. "OK, I'm convinced," I said. The stereo had never done anything like that before and never did so again.
3. In an interesting parallel to the teddy bear experience, the elderly woman named Victoria who baby-sat our cat when we were on vacation died earlier this year. Victoria had last worked for us in December, and I was astounded to learn from her sister in January that she had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. She died a week later. Her sister said she was talking about our cat and hoping we could find someone to care for it shortly before she died. She was very poor and had been thrilled to find the job with us, and I had compensated her at a charitable level my wife thought was insane - $20 an hour.
I hadn't known Victoria too well, so I was saddened but not grieving. The last two times she had sat for us, we had discussed an open display of my collection of cat knick-knacks that is hanging on the wall in our living room. She asked me if I'd acquired any new ones on our trip in November, and I showed her what I'd bought. She said "I always check the collection to see if there are any new ones." So I also showed her my new ones when we returned after our December trip.
About a week after she died, my wife and I were in our respective bathrooms, preparing to go somewhere. Our house is tiny, and I had just passed through the living room on my way to the bathroom. When I emerged perhaps 30 minutes later, my wife was still in her bathroom. I was astounded to find one of the cat knick-knacks sitting upright in the middle of the rug at least five feet from the hanging display.
But this was not just any cat knick-knack. It was a 5" round cat-shaped china bowl that had been propped up on the middle shelf behind an entire row of other knick-knacks. Unless it had been removed very carefully and gingerly, I could see absolutely no way it could have fallen without knocking over the ones in front of it as well as another display on a bookshelf immediately below. I could see no way it could have found its way five feet to the rug, which was at a diagonal to the hanging display - let alone have been sitting upright.
As ADCs go, these are entirely routine, garden-variety examples - nothing special.
Consider:
A. I could be lying or embellishing, but to what purpose? If so, are the hundreds of thousands or millions of other people who report similar phenomena all lying or embellishing?
B. I could be delusional - I imagined all this or perhaps did it all myself in some weird trance. There is no history of anything like this, no particular reason I would've been in an altered state at the time of any of the incidents, and we'd still be left with the problem of the hundreds of thousands or millions of other people who report similar phenomena.
C. Perhaps all these things really happened, but they were just fantastically weird coincidences, all explainable in mundane terms - surely the debunker's preferred explanation. The fly in the ointment here is the consistency with which these events occur in close proximity to death and the communicating "intention" that typically seems to be associated with them.
D. Perhaps I somehow caused all these as some sort of poltergeist effect - but in #1 I didn't even know Bev was dead and in #3 Victoria wasn't even on my mind. Moreover, this explanation would be problematical for the naturalistic paradigm in its own right.
E. Or perhaps the surviving consciousnesses of Bev and Victoria were playfully communicating their survival.
Yes, booby, rocks do move and lights do go on. They do so almost routinely in connection with death. And far more astonishing things than that happen all the time to sane, credible people in full control of their faculties. In my experience, people do not "go crazy" when their loved ones die, and the literature on death and dying substantiates this. Many of your assertions seem remarkably out of touch with real life.
When my little experiences (I've described three of 20 or more) are multiplied by, oh, ten million or more over centuries of human experience, I believe this is a body of evidence that must be taken into account and that it, together with related bodies of evidence, makes a pretty compelling case for the survival of consciousness. Because you are locked in the rigid and depressing straitjacket in which you have chosen to confine yourself, you will have to chose from alternatives A-D - as I feel sure you will, and it will make absolutely no difference to me because I think I've pegged you for what you are.
We're done. Adios.
My brother swears my moms number was on his phone. I told him I believe ya, I just think if we had a camera running it would have happened slightly different than you think it did
At the very least I think God should mean sentient and creator. Lots of people mean God metaphorically but that's not what's happening here. We have other words for what people are trying to call God and it's very confusing.
For me, creator and sentient are not things I need. I only need what people are calling it to match what we know. I put them all in a list of relative reliability. deity is like at the bottom. In fact, I go so far as saying, based on what I know it doesn't exist.
Now you've put yourself in a knowledge position of saying there is no God. I'm an atheist as well, I say it's highly unlikely but I wouldn't say impossible. I don't have concrete proof and there is no consensus like with unicorns. Even if we are correct we can't prove a negative.
Are you trying to dissuade Marc from stating how sure he is about God not existing?
Do you want him to stick to the New Atheism script and claim "simply lack of belief"?
If so, you need to have a talk with Salty Water, too. He's also off-script in this regard.
For me, creator and sentient are not things I need. I only need what people are calling it to match what we know. I put them all in a list of relative reliability. deity is like at the bottom. In fact, I go so far as saying, based on what I know it doesn't exist.
What's the pattern? You can input numbers three times and I will answer back if they match the underlying pattern...
God is math...do you believe in God...I see no evidence...oh, so now your saying numbers don't exist. That kind of thing.
A police officer sees a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asks him the goal of his quest. The inebriate replies that he is looking for his car keys, and the officer helps for a few minutes without success then he asks whether the man is certain that he dropped the keys near the lamppost.
“No,” is the reply, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” “Why look here?” asks the surprised and irritated officer. “The light is much better here,” the intoxicated man responds with aplomb.
For me I change up what you are saying up a bit. to better match what he is actually meaning. to me anyway.
Its not that the numbers are god. Its that the numbers were generated by the universe. We are discovering math we are not creating it.
So Its more like the universe is vastly more complex than us. we are alive so how do you classify it? so lets just say "I don't know". It is processing far more information than our brains. In fact, the universe is quantum computing you. The universe made you. They are just facts.
now is that god to them? that's for them to decide but whatever they want to call it fine with me of it matches what we see. and the above fits what we see.
Are you trying to dissuade Marc from stating how sure he is about God not existing?
Do you want him to stick to the New Atheism script and claim "simply lack of belief"?
If so, you need to have a talk with Salty Water, too. He's also off-script in this regard.
I'm having a discussion.
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