skeptic2

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Posts by skeptic2

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  90

  what would be "proof" of God's existance to someone?

  by BlackSwan of Memphis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  short of god coming down herself to say "howdy y'all!

  " what would it take to make you a believer in god?.

  not necessarily the god of the bible or any religion in particular, just a supreme deity of some sort, call it ra, thor or chaos.

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  skeptic2

  So basically if it doesn't measure up to what you think is normal or scientifically valid and scrutinized people are either liars or crazy?

  I assume this is a reference to my response to free2beme's telepathy claims?
  
  Pseudoscience is dangerous. My conscience cannot allow multiple claims of telepathic powers to go unchecked, because this promotes pseudoscience. People may have a right to deceive themselves, but they do not have a right to deceive others.

  If someone wants to make such claims, why should they not be challenged to provide evidence? Truth cannot hurt truth.

  And scientific validity has nothing to do with what I think is normal. It's independant of the subjective opinion of me, you and everyone else. It's specifically designed that way, to stop the credulous spoiling our understanding of the world.
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  90

  what would be "proof" of God's existance to someone?

  by BlackSwan of Memphis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  short of god coming down herself to say "howdy y'all!

  " what would it take to make you a believer in god?.

  not necessarily the god of the bible or any religion in particular, just a supreme deity of some sort, call it ra, thor or chaos.

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  skeptic2

  BlackSwan - you highlighted 'unintentionally embellished'.

  It's a fact that stories become embellished over time. Memory is not like a tape-recorder faithfully recording details of events to be replayed in the future, it is reconstructive. The longer time goes on the more a person's memory of an event changes. This happens to me, you, everyone. I wasn't trying to insinuate anything personal.
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  43

  Telephone Telapathy

  by lonelysheep in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_telepathy

  has anyone ever experienced this?

  i have, as well as with emails and especially text messages.. do you think there's any chance this could be real-that there is a valid, unspoken connection between people who reach out to each other?

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  skeptic2

  By that way this is not the first test that seams on the surface to prove telepathy. Only one amongst the many.

  Yes one amongst many, but none of them ever actually led to anything more concrete did it? Why do you continue to believe in the face of a complete lack of evidence after decades of 'research'? It is almost childishly simple to prove that someone has telepathic powers, but it has never been proved. There are always just badly constructed experiments that 'point' towards something.
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  90

  what would be "proof" of God's existance to someone?

  by BlackSwan of Memphis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  short of god coming down herself to say "howdy y'all!

  " what would it take to make you a believer in god?.

  not necessarily the god of the bible or any religion in particular, just a supreme deity of some sort, call it ra, thor or chaos.

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  skeptic2

  While I was walking up the stairs behind my wife the other night she started talking. I assumed for some reason she was talking to a cat. I tried to look past the movement of her trouser legs and caught a glimpse of the rear and legs of a ginger cat. In the next step there was nothing there. Nothing appeared on the landing. There was no cat.

  Now it seems most people on this thread would conclude that I had seen a ghost cat. But I saw no cat. My brain expected a cat and filled in the detail. But it seems if I were more like most people on this thread, I would be on this forum days later telling an unintentionally embellished story of ghost cats in my apartment building. I would say "you cant tell me what I did and didn't experience, I know what I saw", but that doesn't change reality.

  If any of you would like to put your money where your mouth is (figuratively), I can help arrange for a local skeptical organization, who are experienced in investigating and getting to the bottom of these kinds of matters, to take a look into your reported phenomena. We can investigate it properly and come up with the proof of ghosts and spirit-goings-on the whole world has been waiting for... what do you say?
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  90

  what would be "proof" of God's existance to someone?

  by BlackSwan of Memphis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  short of god coming down herself to say "howdy y'all!

  " what would it take to make you a believer in god?.

  not necessarily the god of the bible or any religion in particular, just a supreme deity of some sort, call it ra, thor or chaos.

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  skeptic2

  This is the kind of nonsense you get on 'ghost hunter shows'. Keep your eye on the presenters finger on the glass:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGzoVkbNsH8
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  43

  Telephone Telapathy

  by lonelysheep in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_telepathy

  has anyone ever experienced this?

  i have, as well as with emails and especially text messages.. do you think there's any chance this could be real-that there is a valid, unspoken connection between people who reach out to each other?

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  skeptic2

  You still only have 25% chance because the person guessing has four people to chose from, the person guessing had no clue which one of the four was going send the email.

  A hypothetical situation:

  At 10:02am my friend John receives an email from Rupert Sheldrake saying he is to email me at 10:10am.

  John sends me an email straight away to tell me.

  At 10:08am I send an email to Mr. Sheldrake saying I think John will email me.

  At 10:10am John emails me, cc-ing the message to Rupert Sheldrake.

  There is absolutely nothing in the experimental protocol to prevent cheating, the whole thing is a farce.

  Even in the second round, groups of friends from the first round are picked who did well. This positively selects anyone who has cheated. Then in the video round the whole thing is wide open to cheating again. Did I say the whole thing is a farce?

  You would think Rupert Sheldrake would now repeat the experiment with a stricter protocol and a larger number of people, but last I heard he was moving onto text messaging... did I say the whole thing is a farce?
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  33

  Agnostic or Athiest--which makes more sense?

  by whyizit in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i can see how someone could be agnostic in their view.

  who knows, who cares?

  thinking that perhaps "god" is just a spiritual santa claus for people who are afraid of death, etc..... but atheism?

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  skeptic2

  God cannot be falsified, so all atheists must be agnostics. But in everyday language the definition of these terms has become confused.
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  43

  Telephone Telapathy

  by lonelysheep in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060905/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_telepathy

  has anyone ever experienced this?

  i have, as well as with emails and especially text messages.. do you think there's any chance this could be real-that there is a valid, unspoken connection between people who reach out to each other?

  1. 
  2. 
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  skeptic2

  But it surely seems more pronounced in this one case.

  It's likely to happen more for some people than others, some people are on your mind more....

  I recommend you read:

  http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Believe-Everything-You-Think/dp/1591024080
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  149

  Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

  by The wanderer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  <!-- .style1 { font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #b18634; } .style2 {font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #b18634; font-size: 16px; } .style3 { color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; } .style4 {color: #0000ff} .style5 {font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #7a5e5d; } --> questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

  personal and more than likely good reasons.

  and after reading the .

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  skeptic2

  LT your understanding of the burden of proof seems the exception rather than the norm.
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  149

  Issuing a Challenge to Atheists and Unbelievers

  by The wanderer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  <!-- .style1 { font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #b18634; } .style2 {font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #b18634; font-size: 16px; } .style3 { color: #000000; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; } .style4 {color: #0000ff} .style5 {font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: #7a5e5d; } --> questions for the atheists and unbelievers understandably, individuals who have left the organization did so for.

  personal and more than likely good reasons.

  and after reading the .

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  skeptic2

  Science and other uses

  Outside a legal context, "burden of proof" means that someone suggesting a new theory or stating a claim must provide evidence to support it: it is not sufficient to say "you can't disprove this". Specifically, when anyone is making a bold claim, it is not someone else's responsibility to disprove the claim, but is rather the person's responsibility who is making the bold claim to prove it.