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Do you think those events are independent?
The same natural laws that govern everything else, obviously. There aren't a separate set of natural laws for twins, or weird experiences we can't explain.
I am so tired of explaining the argument from ignorance fallacy on here. If you don't understand / can't explain something, then it is fallacious to cite that as evidence for anything. This includes labelling anecdotal experiences with woo woo words like telepathy. If these claims were credible then why isn't there research confirming it in every peer-reviewed scientific journal on the planet.
Its beyond absurd that people think these claims are valid, but the global scientific community failed to notice this "evidence" that people keep claiming exists. Then when pressed you get a link to some book filled with unevidenced anecdotal pseudoscientific hokum.
Someone had a heart attack and it took 10 minutes of CPR to restart it, and they claim they saw something in a dream, and no one can explain how they knew the things they saw, give me fucking strength. If no one can explain it, then how the fuck is that credible evidence for anything?
First of all, 'super natural events that people report' are just claims. Such claims don't warrant explanations.
Secondly, even if people actually experience stuff that they can't explain, that just means they can't explain something. It doesn't mean there's a god.
@ Christian Engineer
I have had experiences I could not explain at the moment. However, after applying critical thinking, logical and deductive reasoning, and rational and analytical thought, I was able to explain them within the natural realm. No supernatural anything needed.
rmfr
Science: "eliminate all other possibilities before believing the hypothesis, then test the hypothesis"
Religion: "pay no attention to all other gods/beliefs and believe in this one for no other reason than this book says so"
How is this not in opposition?
Your comment of religion is inaccurate. I would say religion would say "Seek the truth at all cost, do not be afraid to courageously seek the truth".
Often times seeking the truth requires courage as many of you likely understand. Sometimes it means breaking with close family and friends who may not accept what is true.
@Christian_Engineer
Unless of course the "truth" leads you away from your particular god idea. Then promptly try to rationalize it away...
You do realize that a big component that makes the religion con work is it offers nice warm fuzzy blanket of lies that people want to hear?
- Oh there is purpose to life, given to us by this unevidenced god idea!
- Oh there is life after death!
- Oh there is heaven! Where you will be reunited with lost loved ones and you can be all warm and cozy next to god for the rest of eternity.
- Oh there is a possibility of miracles that are seemingly impossible, but god is all powerful so he could make it happen! If I just pray enough a miracle will come through and I will be able to pay my bills!
All very nice comforting thoughts, all conveniently completely allowed to not be held to any sort of measurable standard or tested or proven.
I have quite a bit of religious family and I did not have to break with them at all. We mostly just do not talk about religion, I still love them and they still love me, and whenever we visit we have a good time and are not at each other's throats. All of my family and friends describe as very likable and easy to get along with even though I very firmly believe there is no god (Most certainly no god like any described in any major religion I ever heard of.)
Seriously if I wanted to create a con that made me fabulously rich and powerful I would mirror, mimic, copy, and plagiarize the various religions heavily with all the thousands of years of practice various religion ideas have had to refine the same basic con, it is an exceedingly effective and lucrative con.
The hardest part to make such a con work would be: converting people away from the same con with a slightly different paint color.
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▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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Christian,
What method do you use to determine the truth?
Science follows the evidence, no matter where it goes. Supernatural claims are just unevidenced claims.
Are we to be shown any evidence for these "clear experiences" or is to be another drive by sermon?
By clear, I simply meant people who appear to authentically report miraculous incidents in their lives.
Christian_Engineer can you please provide an example of "clear experience".
And no, I am not going to waste my time watching some long video.
If you watch the first 10 minutes or even minutes 6-10 it probably is the area where the man is describing a locution. Those are the types of experiencing I am talking about. People here/see God or some other entity that would not consider to be normal and outside of the dream state.
What I meant by clear experience isn't that I have undoctored video evidence of someone materializing from thin air, but that there are 100's of thousands of people who claim vivid experiences.
So they are just unevidenced claims?
Correct, similar to an eye witness.
Most of them probably experienced "something", but even they, themselves have no idea what it was. Hence the appeal to the "supernatural." But as other have pointed out, whatever the cause, you can bet it behaves according to some law of universal application or another. There's no need to claim anything is "supernatural." It may just be part of what's "natural" that we don't yet understand. In which case the proper stance is "I don't know."
@Christian Engineer thank you for taking a humble approach to our members here and holding your discussions in a calm and collected manner. I appreciate that. Please read my reposne.
I disagree with you that science and religion are complimentary. Yet, I don't believe that they are opposed to one another either. I see them as a chronological change in how humans try to make sense of our reality. With Religion at the younger age of civilization to the methods of science evolving from religion as new technology allows humans to explain phenomena with facts and no longer fill in the blanks of the unknown with God.
To you question, Memory is unreliable making testimony a very poor source of factual information. there have been a wide range of studies focused on eye witness testimony in court cases with findings that eye witness testimony is inaccurate by more than 70%. Most cases being overturned by DNA evidence.
Why should testimony be any different for religion? People can be as confident as they want or believe in their story as strongly as they want to. That doesn't make things true and it certainly doesn't make their claims any easier to prove empirically.
Dark Matter is invisible. What about that?
In what sense?
Yes please elaborate.
It means that dark matter (presumably) does not couple strongly with photons.
Or rephrased in English: the chance of it absorbing or emitting light is extremely small (essentially 0). Or rephrased another way: it has no electric charge.
Sounds crazy, but the same is true for neutrons and neutrinos. So again, postulating this property isn't a huge stretch.
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