I don’t dismiss them actually cofty I’ve just not heard of them. I agree with you that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence which is why I include the Turin shroud and my own and others cumulative and corresponding evidence into the mix. I would say that the first photo in history is extraordinary if nothing else even if you think it is a hoax. I don’t think that but I won’t waste my time and yours trying to convince you. I do admit that my own evidence only convinces me and you are not in a position to believe the veracity of my own subjective experience. However the difference between subjective and objective evidence is not what this thread was asking about.
Seraphim23
JoinedPosts by Seraphim23
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81
What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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81
What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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Seraphim23
It has to be said that there are different qualities of anecdotal evidence of course.
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81
What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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Seraphim23
My view is that each Gospel account had a different message and spin from a set of core real events so they don’t have to be identical as well at target audiences were not all the same by the look of it either. Hence some contradictions I think are there for this reason. I would be tempted to agree with you MP about resurrections being an invention of a later time were it not for the evidence I have mentioned in my first post on this thread.
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What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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Seraphim23
Yes it is of interest MP. I guess the bible is a human written and imperfect record. Of course it may be that the different gospels had different emphasis for a reason.
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Why does god kill children?
by Comatose ini was thinking about all the accounts in the bible that indicate god kills children as a punishment or teaching experience.
1. kills all of egypts firstborn sons, who were innocent kids who did nothing to him or his people, who had no control over the decisions pharoah made.
how many times have you read that account or thought about it without realizing the devastating pain dealt to all those parents, and remembered those were innocent kids?.
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Seraphim23
Judaism had two main forces within its organisational setup, the priestly and the prophet class! The priestly class were satisfied with their interpretations and understanding of what God was and wanted to keep it that way with the organisational structure of religion. The prophet class on the other hand always went against the priestly class in order to correct and improve the understanding of God in various ways, breaking away from rigid organisational machinery and priestly hierarchy designed to keep the statuesque. The bible shows this battle between these two forces hence the idea of some that the biblical God kills children. The truth being that there is no biblical God as such but a reflection of what people thought God was in the bible. If there is a biblical God it would more likely be found within the lines of the text, not the text itself as that is an imperfect human reflection of a deeper truth.
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What evidence is there for the miracles of the Bible OUTSIDE of the Bible?
by punkofnice inok. this is something i've wondered about.. people of certain religions tend to use their own holy book as evidence for things in itself.
this seems very circular to me.
using the book to prove the book in my view is pointless.. i am not aware of any of the 'miracles' of the bible or the quran as having any substantial evidence outside of themselves to give credibility to the books themselves.. has anyone come across such evidence?.
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Seraphim23
Notwithstanding that people will say it has been proven a hoax, albeit that is by far not the whole story, the Turin shroud is to my mind a good example. At the very least it is the first recorded photographic negative and it is not known how it was produced with the properties it has.
Also resurrections still happen but don’t go by that name in modern times. Now days they tend to come under the topic of near death experiences. There are cases where the modern definition of death is satisfied and a few have stayed dead way past the point where resuscitation without brain damages is possible. I’m not talking about freezing lake cases either, yet they have come back, often not because of what medical practitioners did, without cognitive dysfunction. In such instances NDEs tend to be reported also, albeit NDEs happen as well without such dramatic circumstances.
In the bible all resurrections needed a body to be there for a resurrection to happen. No case is recorded where someone was resurrected without a body, hence the word resurrection means to `stand up again`. There are also cases of people dreaming about future or present events that are correct despite there being no conventional way for such information to be available. Had those myself and I know I’m not the only one. The miraculous happens all the time and people don’t notice or don’t believe, or they do, but there it is.
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Infinity and god - why wait to create the universe?
by Simon inhere's the problem with infinity ... we can't comprehend it.. it's bad enough when it's space, but when it's time as well and then we throw in some all powerful creature supposedly existing forever ... well, it just doesn't make sense and raises questions.. such as why wait?
why didn't god create the universe the day before he did?
or the day before that?
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Seraphim23
If the universe is infinite you don’t have to panic with an unlimited amount of JWs because quantum laws would not allow the people to be the same people repeated time after time. Monozygotic twins are genetically identical but are still different people with different consciousness’s. I like the star trek transporter thought experiment to illustrate this. Imagine beaming up from somewhere into the transporter room on the enterprise but an accident occurs. Two of you get materialised which means one is a copy. Only one can be the real you but which one? One could say both are now you but that would mean both would always have to be linked, so that what one knew the other did also like some turbo psychic using quantum entanglement. If not then there must be something different about the two standing on the transporter pad but if it is not body or genetics and so on, it must be something to do with the quantum world that is different, meaning no two quantum events can be separate and the same. Of course it also implies that consciousness has a unique quantum signature which would mean no two people can have the same consciousness. On top of that it also means that consciousness cannot be reduced to a mere process because if that is all it was it could be replicated meaning that both standing on the transporter pad would be you yet not connected, an impossible situation.
Sorry not had my coffee yet this morning.
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108
Infinity and god - why wait to create the universe?
by Simon inhere's the problem with infinity ... we can't comprehend it.. it's bad enough when it's space, but when it's time as well and then we throw in some all powerful creature supposedly existing forever ... well, it just doesn't make sense and raises questions.. such as why wait?
why didn't god create the universe the day before he did?
or the day before that?
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Seraphim23
I think it is the finite world that defies comprehension, not infinity. For instance many scientists, who in this instance were predominantly atheist, used to believe in the solid state universe that never changed and never had a beginning. Of course when it was discovered that all matter was rushing out from a singular point, this was proved wrong, not least because of the singularity that Einstein predicted for such a start point (even though the maths here also produce an infinity) and silly creationists hailed the discovery as a victory. My point though it not the illusion of the creationist so called victory but that an infinitely old and static universe was preferred by the atheist world view because it seemed to remove the need for a God. Infinity or infinite time was not seen as a problem by atheists in this instance but when the finite world was proved via the scientific evidence, it was this that created problems.
Of course if the universe had been the static solid state one postulated in the past and infinitely old as a result, this would have produced other issues because finite structures still existed and there is no way to combine the finite with the infinite in a logical framework. Infinity on its own with absolutely no division in itself is fine and perfectly understandable because there is nothing about it to explain because nothing happens. Finite things on the other hand have to start and end otherwise they are not finite and this is where the non-comprehensibility comes in. It is not understandable to get something from nothing as with a finite object unless it came from something else but that leads back to infinity again, which is fine, if it was only infinity but we have a finite object to explain in this case. The limits of knowledge is actually what drives the search for knowledge else it would be a futile thing to do, as no matter how much you got one would always be infinitely far away from anything useful. It’s good to acknowledge the limits of science if one respects science while not prematurely stopping the search.
Scientists should never stop asking questions because one cannot know what can be discovered without going to look, unlike creationists who stop asking altogether. However at the same time it is folly to think that a brain made of up matter and governed by physical laws and fed by data and input from an exclusively physical environment can get beyond itself to be objective about what itself is trapped in. One can’t be truly objective about something one is and one is in. To do that one would have to literally get outside oneself and physics and that cannot be done. We are in what we study thinking we can get the big picture when we are in that picture. It’s like pointing a camera at the universe and wondering why we are not in the frame. In many ways some atheists and some Christians are in the same boat thinking they have all the answers or the approved and fundamental way to get all the answers. I say fundamentalists abound in both the atheist and theists camps although there are decent non fundamentalists in both groups also.
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WT cautions against playing pac-man 1982 Awake
by EndofMysteries inwith bizarre names like pac-man, asteroids, space invaders, battlezone and donkey kong, video games have landed themselves not only in amusement arcades but also in corner drugstores, supermarkets, gas stations, fast-food parlors and nearly everywhere else that people congregate.
their beeps and booms and colorful lights have captured the fancy and imagination of a new generation of players to the point of obsession.. other than the obvious appeal to teenagers and its commercial success, the proliferation of arcade video games has triggered reactions ranging from strong parental protests to outright government bans.
in the philippines, president marcos officially banned the games and gave owners two weeks to destroy them.
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Seraphim23
I got angry reading Blondie`s quote of the WT here:
*** w52 1/15 pp. 42-43 pars. 21-22 Training Children for Life in the New World ***
Furthermore, modern theocratic parents have to combat a rising tide of old world propaganda calculated to capture and twist the minds of the young. The radio, the television, the cinema, the comics and the press in general are all full of untheocratic, unwholesome instruction. The prudent parent must minimize these sources of demon-inspired utterances and shield the minds of their young from their evil influence. (1 John 4:1, NW) If and when the radio, television and the cinema are resorted to the wise parent should be selective.
22 At this point we must consider the matter of “family responsibility” as legally presented in the Scriptures. Under the Biblical principle of “family responsibility” where the father or the mother or both become iniquitous, adverse judgment comes upon the entire household of minor children. Take the example of Achan, who committed a fatal trespass against Jehovah. By so doing Achan brought condemnation upon his whole family of children and they were all stoned to death with him. (Josh. 7:1, 24, 25) Paul speaks of this principle in the reverse, which might be referred to as “family merit”. If the father or the mother of a family is a believing and practicing Christian he or she brings merit to the entire family of children. Paul writes: “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in relation to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in relation to the brother; otherwise, your children would really be unclean, but now they are holy.” (1 Cor. 7:14, NW) Therefore this proves that minor children of Christian parents are indirectly sanctified or counted worthy of protection in God’s sight until they reach the age of individual responsibility. Hence in this day of final judgment since 1918 parents are responsible for the final destiny of their minor children. When Armageddon strikes all minor children who are not under such “family merit” arrangement will meet annihilation with no hope of a resurrection. This is strongly indicated at Ezekiel 9:6 (AS), where it is written: “Slay utterly the old man, the young man and the virgin, and little children and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark.”
The reason it makes me angry is because they quote Ezekiel 9:6 to promote such a nasty view point that kids will get judged because of what parents do, yet less that ten chapters from the verse they quote Ezekiel says this, in Ezekial 18:20 :
"The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them."
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Infinity and god - why wait to create the universe?
by Simon inhere's the problem with infinity ... we can't comprehend it.. it's bad enough when it's space, but when it's time as well and then we throw in some all powerful creature supposedly existing forever ... well, it just doesn't make sense and raises questions.. such as why wait?
why didn't god create the universe the day before he did?
or the day before that?
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Seraphim23
I agree with you in much of what you say Dewandelaar except I think it is really the finite we have a problem in understanding. I know it sounds strange but for instance as an example we know that A x B is always going to be the same as B x A where and A and B are ordinary numbers. I don’t have to do to the sum an infinite number of times in order to see if this always holds true for every set of numbers. Why is this case? because humans have the ability to understand mathematical rules. I don’t have to count all the numbers of infinity to know this will always be the case for every number. Of course doing so would be impossible but we don’t need to. So the ability to understand rules is an understanding of infinity. The rules themselves, as opposed to the understanding of rules as these are two different things, is where the problem is, due to the fact that one rule depends on another and so on, until infinite rules are reached if that were possible to do in finite time. So if one is attempting to use mathematical rules, or their cousin, physical laws, to explain all of reality as with a scientific theory, the theory will eventually lose explanative power the more it attempts to explain as rules increase to encompass more and more. This may not be obvious yet but it will become so more and more in the future.