The way to know God is by the Spirit that Jesus died and sent back, which is the gift of God to us. You cannot know Him from reading the bible. The bible is only a history book.
The "burdon of proof" IS NOT on people who DONT believe in fairytales ! The guy in the vid has some nerve to imply that. If YOU believe in this God entity -you prove it ! The bible clearly portrays a malevolent God -and yet Christians still believe he is a God of "love"..the bible is full of contradictions and so to are all Christian faiths. But if theiests wish to delude themselves and believe in something that isnt there,its their business.
@brindow1 You call religion fairy tales, you'll have to prove that... You say the Bible portrays a malevolent God, well seeing as you are clearly an atheist you have no foundation for any objective morality whatsoever so you can't say anything is "good" or "evil" in your worldview since to be philosophically you'd have to admit that morals are just a matter of subjective opinion... You say Christian faiths are filled with contradictions? examples would help. (Continued in next comment)
@afluffymango As I said in my comment..the burden of proof is on the theist,not on the atheist. The concept of God is man - made, probably had its beginnings with fearful caveman and then religions formed a few thousad yrs ago. The idea of a God who sends plagues and floods etc to torture and kill people by its very admission suggests a malevolent God - it doesn't take a superbrain to work that out - its total opposite to what a God of "LOVE" should be..cnt'd
@afluffymango part 2 ..it says in Jeremiah 19.9 that God tells parents to kill their sons and daughters and then if that isnt bad enough he tells them to EAT THEIR FLESH ! Cumon,get real about this ! Who am I to deliberate moral issues you say,well im just another human being like yourself but my gut instinct tells me not to harm. If you wish to believe in such things and in particular the Malevolent God of the old testament,go ahead..its not something id'e engage myself in.
@brindow1 "But if theiests wish to delude themselves and believe in something that isnt there,its their business." you've essentially claimed God doesn't exist. Congratulations! You now have a burden of proof!
By experience, if you mean He actually showed up and had coffee with you and your friends, sure, you can know Him then. I bet He'd tell you lots of interesting things, maybe even show you a small miracle or two.
If it's anything else, it's delusional thinking. You could just as easily and truthfully know Odin, Thor, Shiva, Vishnu, Allah, and Mithra as you could know Yahweh.
So basically, the whole point of this video is that human brains are remarkably efficient at hallucination, misinformation, and cognitive bias. Everyone suffers from this, including the smartest and the sanest. Granting all this, Christians will still argue that a "personal experience" of God is perfectly legitimate evidence for His existence anyway, despite the fact that such experiences are reproducible across a wide range of circumstances.
@AntiCitizenX For any reason you give me to doubt the reality of my religious experience, I can give a parallel argument to doubt the reality of the external world.
You asked for a reason to doubt the reality of religious experience. I have given you a perfectly natural mechanism that mimics the exact symptoms of a common religious event. The "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit can be perfectly replicated by the phenomenon of the psychological intrusion. Everyone experiences these things all the time under varying contexts, religious or otherwise.
@AntiCitizenX When I see my computer here, you can explain that in physiological terms as far as what's going on in my brain. It doesn't undermine the reality of my experience. Explaining what's going on in my brain when I see my computer in front of me isn't reason to doubt that my computer is in front of me. LIkewise, if you explain what's going on in the brain when a person has a religious experience, or give it a name and call it a "psychological phenomenon," that doesn't undermine it.
It actually does When a naturalistic explanation exists for an apparently supernatural phenomenon, there is no longer any justification for attributing the event to a supernatural cause. Not unless you think God likes to hide himself in events that are indistinguishable from the background noise of human perception.
@AntiCitizenX It seems that whenever I have any experience, natural or supernatural, that something would be going on in my brain. Simply describing what's going on in my brain during prayer doesn't make the experience less real. That doesn't "explain away" the experience. It simply describes a process that's going on in my brain while it's happening.
God is not "hidden," but is on display in the radical contingency of nature. And yes, that would include the contingency of brain events.
"Simply describing what's going on in my brain during prayer doesn't make the experience less real."
Correct. But it does make the experience less supernatural. You cannot attribute something to God when there is a naturalistic process at play. Apples fall because of gravity, not because angels are pushing them down. Something very real indeed goes on when you pray, but it has nothing to do with telepathic communication to some magical sky fairy.
@AntiCitizenX God is not a magical sky fairy, but rather what Thomas Aquinas called ipsum esse suum subsistens, the sheer act of existence itself. You have no idea how silly you sound when you say that. It's a straw man, which tears down a God which no Christian I know believes in, and therefore only insults instead of contributing to conversation.
As God is ipsum esse, we need not drive a wedge between the natural and the supernatural. God can work through something like brain processes.
"You have no idea how silly you sound when you say that."
This is kind of ironic coming from someone who calls God "the sheer act of existence itself." Such a statement is not even wrong or illogical. It is literally incoherent. It sounds really cool and yet means nothing at the same time. How do you even physically justify such an idea?
@AntiCitizenX If there is an incoherence, in what I've said, go ahead and demonstrate it.
"How do you even physically justify such an idea?"
I'm not sure what you mean by "physically justify." If you think that the act of existence itself could be physical, you haven't yet grasped the nettle of what I'm saying. But the claim can be justified: by the argument from contingency.
Say what you want about the idea of ipsum esse, it has nothing to do with a "sky fairy"!
I don't know any way to sugar-coat this, so I'm just going to be blunt. The argument from contingency is by far one of the stupidest arguments for God ever conceived. If you honestly buy into that sort of nonsense, then there is absolutely no point in having a discussion with you. Physical evidence means squat to you, and you apparently can't tell a nonsensical supposition when one stares you in the face.
@AntiCitizenX Wow, no argument, just assertions and insults! Very typical of the new atheists.
If you'd like to see a serious, intelligent atheist engaging with the argument from contingency in a very substantive way, check out Bertrand Russell's debate with Copleston.
There are 10,000 atheists on YouTube who would be more than happy to argue with you over contingency. I am not one of them. I have read the contingency argument and studied it. If you're the kind of person who finds that kind of garbage compelling, then truth obviously does not have much meaning to you.
@AntiCitizenX From what you've written on your channel, you seem interested in de-converting people. Here's a hint: simply insulting people's intelligence isn't very persuasive. I also question how much you mean your comment about keeping discussion civil.
Since you said that God cannot be part of a natural process, I really don't think you've yet understood the "garbage" of the contingency argument. The imagined argument you're rejecting is probably one that I do, as well.
@Parliament45 "I just want to understand 'greater likelihood"
OK Out of a total of a hundred, what would chances of the grass being magicked my goblins on SOME occasions - In relation to the observed and understood natural causes.? Would you say 50/50?
What is the likelihood ratio of some mystic cause rather than the only testable explanation which has ever been available.
How wild does an explanation have to be, with a better one available, before you could surmise it was wrong?
@Parliament45 "............you neglect to respond to my more substantive inquiries"
By who's standard do you deem enquiries substantive?
I directly responded to every comment of yours I could find. I explained my position on my original point which you took exception to, and even went along with your red herrings when your credibility suffered on the original point.
I gave you an opportunity to answer the same question rephrased so you could understand it's fallacy. You refused to answer it!
@Parliament45" You think you impress people here because you use " ten-dollar" words"
Oh....So that's it!!....Sorry if my vocabulary is a tad above your head......I guess that explains why you've been resorting to ad homs, and non sequitor crap, rather than relevent academic arguments based on my critique of some points in this video eh? Lol!!
@Parliament45 "I propose that it might be better to engage others from an honest place inside yourself. Your arguments are vapid"
What an arrogant statement from someone who can't present a coherant proposition at all, nor even offer an argument without resorting to ad homs! - Lol!!
@Parliament45"You ask me to explain your own assertions? It is you, not me, who has to explain your own assertions." Time to remind you again - MY assertions (admittedly provocative) responded to the fallaciously false dichotomy offered by this video YOUR assertions are aimed at me, You accused me of bias with my goblin analogy of these presuppositional claims.
If you find something wrong with it , let's have it? Shit, or get off the pot!
@Parliament45 *" Yes, you do. you preach your empiricism"
Ha ha!! - Are you actually suggesting that universally repeatable empirical observation needs to be preached or believed on "faith" - With the same intensity of indoctrination as religious claims of the numinous??
Are you sure you're not a solipsist?? There are times when even skepticism becomes too fantastic - Lol!!!!
@Parliament45 "Again, you present a dichotomy, forcing the entire discussion into an "either/or' explanation"
OK. So explain the difference between these? : - 1.It is possible that goblins make the grass grow sometimes, even though we know that it is often the result of known natural forces?
2. It is possible that "experiences" are the cause of a previously unproven super natural force, with no more verification than any fantasy, and though we know of other well observed and documented causes?
@Parliament45 "Again, you present a dichotomy, forcing the entire discussion into an "either/or' explanation"
Yes!! - And that is exactly the fallacy I was responding to in this video. don't you see that it's even a ridiculous assumption that these are anything else but illusions from within the psyche??
This video dismisses that greater likelihood almost with certainty to instantly posit that they are supernatural events.. They are not called "possible hullucinations ( a known factor).
@Parliament45 . "You use rationalism and empiricism to make dogmatism"
I don't, but can you think of anything better to be dogmatic about than what we can observe with our own senses, or reason with our own induced knowledge of the patterns we ALL understand, universally, as reality?
Are you one of this who would suspend knowledge, even on what we all agree is reality? A solipsist??
@Parliament45 "It's not really about that. i do not assert anything as true"
This video does, and dismisses more feasible possibilities without good cause.
You accused me of drawing an assumption from the ONLY two which this presuppositional video threw out to be considered. I was deliberately playing their game - I didn't read any dissention from you regarding this video!
Do you really think it's 50/50 likelihood between psychological disorder and "divine intervention" with these claims?
@Parliament45 "That is the difference. I am not a religious person. I was engaging you not over the content of the video, but on your manner of knowing"
I repeat, this video makes the claim of knowledge, My claim challenges misbalances in the feasibility evaluation of both possibilities.
Let's apply the the same degree of evaluation to another dichotomy: Is it more likely that known forces of nature makes the grass grow, or in some special cases, is it the goblins at the bottom of my garden?
@Parliament45 This video isn't positing "unknown" as an explanation. (and you don't seem to be either". There is nothing open minded about this, You are dismissing the ONLY explanation with a history of testability ( Hullucination, phychological manifestations), in favour of the ONLY other, (far less feasible) horn in this false dichotomy you're offereing ("god did it") .
And anything which is not verifiably impossible ("God", and a square circle are good examples) are verified possibility.
@Parliament45" You are not here to teach or learn or discuss; you are here to argue"
However you want to describe my methodology, my purpose is to get you to think within the disciplines of testable reality, instead of automatically positing the supernatural as the certain cause of what is unknown to you. I would refer you to Ockham's razor as a good rule of thumb when seeking explanations.
We know and recognise what hullinucinations are, until someone want's to claim a divine cause it seems.
@Parliament45"You do not engage me to discuss, but to refute and argue"
I would remind you that it was YOU who engaged me, and YOU who attempted to refute MY comments. I merely defended my opinions. You don't want to discuss. As with every religious dogmatist, you want to preach. "I imagine I am not the first in your life to have told you this."
Yes, but never by anyone who is honest with themselves - Only by people who premise unsupported, or unknowable dogma as undeniable fact- Lol!
@Parliament45 "Until you get over that disposition, you will never know much about anything."
I would get over my "ignorance" far quicker when people stop assuming things are defined as something( in this case supernatural experience) when there is no discernable evidence, even to the perciever, that they are not something else(hullucination). These are unsupported claims made without evidence.
Once again, "God" is being defined as the cause on this video!
@Parliament45 ""as with any other non existent entity!" <---------------you show a bias here"
And you show a circularity, as these are the evidence offered for the existence of an unknowable entity with no reasoning or evidence to support the declared claims for its existence.
For my part, I use the term "non existent" with the same (albeit philosophically incorrect) dismissal, as I would claims of alien abductions or goblins etc. It's my assessment of the degree of their likelihood.
@Parliament45 "A Buddhist who never heard the name of Allah or Mohammed is not going to interpret a spiritual awakening in a way that leaves him certain that Allah or Mohammed has touched him"
Correct! Doesn't that explain the nature of the assumption that is made? These people are quite clear about which "god" is responsible.....Also, atheists agnostics, nor anyone else without any strong emotional investment in the a particular religious discipline, aren't known to have these "experiences".
@Parliament45 "My entire premise of my responses to you is that inability to measure and quantify something is no proof at all of that thing's non-existence."
Then why describe them as religious experiences? Note that these are religious apologists making the assumption, not scientists!.
When can we claim that "God" is really talking to us?
For example, if Abraham and Jepthah were recieving real godly messages to kill their kids, why were John List and Andrea Yeats hullucinating ? Who decides?
@Parliament45 I object a bit to your imposing your standard of truth on them in return."
I object to your objection that unsupported claims of events which are beyond everyone's experience of reality, are anything but fantasy or hullucination
We all have the same biological apparatus with which to ascertain reality, How dare you claim extra perception without demonstrating that it exists?
Do you really think a "creator"would deny an extra sense to some people, just to deny them "redemption " ?
@Parliament45 "The problem comes in when we call someone delusional when they are not"
I think someone making an unverifiable claim of the supernatural, which is also unverified EVER, by anyones inductive experience of reality, which the "perciever" cannot demonstrate the reality of, even to Him/herself, is a pretty good indication of someone who is likely to be delusional! - Lol!!
@Parliament45 ""Can you cite..." , again, how would you test such things?"
Exactly!! So why claim it ever happened?? I treat these claims with the same respect as I (or you no doubt) would have for claims made by a junkie, drunk, or fanciful person who claimed to have been visited by space aliens, or leprechauns. The validating evidence is the same. The likelihood that they are true is the same.
On that basis, please feel free to claim they actually happened!
@Parliament45 "It is just safer and more reasonable to say that you don't know rather than "these things cannot be so.". !
Absolutely ANYTHING could, concievably be true or false, short of a logical or mathmatical contradiction. It is a question of degrees. What I asked you is:- What is LIKELY to be true?
Did something REALLY happen, which claims and requires human sentience, which is unverifiable by other independent sentient experience, and has nothing to distinguish it from hullucination?
@Parliament45 "Therefore you are left with only two possibilities; to deny without being able to disprive or to admit that you do not know."
Let's be clear on what you are saying here:
Do you claim a seperate sentient (god given?) apparatus, in some living biological beings, which allows them/you to assertain an DIFFERENT reality which other organicically dependent beings can't witness?
Surely you can test this with predicatability and falsifiability?
@Parliament45 spiritual realities cannot perhaps be measured with material apparatus."
Then they can not be measured at all - as with any other non existent entity! Therefore they have same lack of validation! We ALL have the same, well understood apparatus with which to observe and assertain reality. If you want to claim to have a a different insight to see something, which others present cannot see, the burden of evidence is on you to convince, even yourself, that you're seeing reality!
@Parliament45 "It has been repeated.....it is simply something you have not experienced"
Can you cite any repeatably testable evidence that these experiences happened in reality, to any objective observer?
While you're at it, can you explain why someone who has actually hullucinated, has less right to claim their own experiences as real than you, or anyone else who makes these claims? Where is the distinction?
Aren't ALL delusional people certain that their delusions are true?
@Parliament45 "Therefore you are left with only two possibilities; to deny without being able to disprive or to admit that you do not know
If you wish to quibble such, "I do not know" is an assertion I will make unreservedly, even, to the minutest degree, about observations that can be verified- But my certainty is more reasonable in such a case.
Are you prepared to admit, the greater degree of probability, that an unverified, uniquely personal, event is no more than fantasy or hullucination?
@Parliament45 "No, of course not! Reality is real regardless of anyone's imagination about it?"
Good! - Then we agree on that. Using the same reasoning, imagination is imagination regardless of how much we want to convince ourselves it was real.
If one person's "experience" is unrepeatable to someone else, with the same axiomatic logic and sensual apparatus, it is reasonable to suppose it to be, at best, a personal hullucination of the claimant?
Sometimes these characters are fun to listen to- Lol!! - They really think they can say what they like, and have it accepted, without any kind of objective validation whatsoever.......Such bloody arrogance!
Take William Lane Craig here....... He is so convinced he had a "REAL" experience that he can only verify it happened, by by making a career of using offensively dishonest sophistry and equivication, posing as reason, to verify what he allegedly "experienced"!!
God throughly tries every son He receives. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? All he has in the flesh, for to live he must die to the flesh and be born of the spirit.
You cannot do this with the bible, Jesus died to redeem us from the curse of the law. He fulfilled the law and sent back the Holy Ghost to lead us.
The brain is equipped with reward circuits and, due to evolutionary constraints, those deliver whether their owner is right about something of just happened to believe that. Being religious to a large degree means shamelessly taking advantage of that.
No burden of proof to invalidate "religious experiences" is necessary.
The fact that they are illusions is evident in their lack of verifiability, and that the occur with many gods, and many versions of the same monotheistic god, and always the "god" of which the individual concernerned was previously familiar with, and usually indoctrinated towards.
There is too many self experiences to take it seriously. I can make up my own god and have the same experience so i reject personal testamonies as proof of superbeings.
It is idiotic to think that we "know" it all and to make "claims" that another must "prove" anything based on their life experience is egotistical. This attitude is a sign of true ignorance. If we all just sat in a state of acceptence that we have much to learn a lot of this futile arguing over what "reality" is would cease. We all have varing experiences and just because you and I have differing experiences doesn't make one superior over another - it should just be respected for what it is.
the burden of proof is on the idiots with these enormous outlandish claims.. think about it... a supreme transcendant non changing ultimately powerful being that answers your prayers and finds his way into your heart... oh and he burns u in hell if u don't accept him, but he loves you.
imagine a conversation bt atheist(A) and theist(T) Mohamed Atta.
A- Why did you do that to the WTC?
T-God commanded me to
A-how did you know it was God
T-Allah revealed himself to me through personal experience. I felt alive and he tranformed me.I knew it was him( personal experience). He told me to fight against god-less western influence pervading the world.( rationalisation). The plan fell into place..it was a miracle( noteing the hits)
T-yeh that was unfortunate..but they are infidels...and there are good reasons for the suffering..Allah does not do anything for good reasons!( good reasons and rationalisation).
this is how personal experience can lead to rationalisation...and error.we are all prone to this..which is why science tries to eliminate subjectivity with placebo control groups,peer review and publication and always takes the negative skeptical stance..prove the null-hypothesis conta Swinburne.
The key sentence here is "this is how personal experience CAN lead to" to these types of terrible beliefs.
Any approach CAN be misused and abused. Science itself has been misused and abused. I don't think we dismiss all supposed religious experiences because a handful of nutjobs think God told them to do violence. As for science: we don't rely on science for religious epistemology, we look to philosophy and reason, not empirical verification. How could you test God in a lab?
the main problem with this is that all religions excite these experiences..even those from our past that we now know to be false.Religious memes can do this. If you were to ask any suicide bomber they too would say that they have experienced the transforming power of God...so apprently have mormons, catholics, hindus,muslems and even scientologists. Swineberg is wrong. It would be very bizaar for a God to reveal himself in such a nebulous way.
This doesn't make him right, but for the record, the philosopher you are so casually dismissing, Swinburne, is at Oxford and among the most notable contemporary philosophers. Why do you think that because there are different religious experiences that therefore none of them are real? If there can be a revelation from God, couldn't there be many false experiences as well due to either error or deception? I see no problem. And how bizarre & nebulous that the atheist experience is true?
i mean that Swinburne is wrong to assume that these experiences should be assented to until evidence to the contrary arrives. We have massive amount of evidence that these experiences occur all the time, in mutually exclusive religions and even in non-theistic situations. a good feeling that a human attributes to diety is not usually diety.All religions casually dismiss the expetiences of other religions..assuming they are not diety..this IS the proper default position conta Swineburne.
How does one know that any particular experience is really from God? Humans have demonstrated our adeptness at this sort of thing, earnestly believing the experience to be real( usually the experience is interpreted culturally)...Why would God reveal himself in such a nebulous way. All religions have shown adeptness at rationalisation.The atheistic experience is based upon theory building through verification and falsificaction and takes a skeptical orientation. It has proved very sucessful!
I am not anti-science. And science is not the same thing as atheism, as you suggest. I love science. That said, contrary to what you say above, I think that strict verification and falsification theories of knowledge (also not synonymous with science) are UNSUCCESSFUL. I will post a video soon on this--but have a look at the failure of the verificationist theories of meaning. Search for logical positivism to learn more. This theory of knowledge has been abandoned.
What has been abandoned by science is the idea that we can aquire knowledge through revelation...It has no epistemological value...it might conclude that there is a diety or that we are one with brahma, or that mohamed is Allah's prophet or that a book was inspired by God...but is this really knowledge? One might retreat to an esthetic life thinking one is aquiring knowledge..become a munk. these experiences must give way to science and reason..skepticism and doubt are good things!
Swinburne also finds that there is good evidence for theism and Christianity. I follow this also. I'm not sure about the experience alone, but when you couple the experience with the other good reasons, I think there is a powerful case for believing. I do think an experience alone technically justifies belief. That is, an atheist has the burden of proof with respect to the reality of someone else's experience. And if you love falsification, you shouldn't have any problem with this.
And if we accept your default position, isn't that basically the same thing as deciding, in advance of ALL experiences, that God couldn't possibly exist or be revealed to a person?
Example: God appearing to you in Glory: "Adstanra, I'm real. This is your evidence!"
Adstanra responds: "No God, you are something I ate last night. The default position is that experiences like this are false. I can never believe, no matter how powerful and evidential an experience of God is." THAT seems absurd!
what?... the atheist doesn't have the burden of proof... we don't say that there's an invisible sky daddy who intervenes and creates the universe. ffs!
I have just heard a similar story from a muslem aquiantence....how he had an experience that changed his life. He is fillied witht the joy of Allah.He just knows that Allah is one and Mohamed is his prophet. i have had catholics explain similar things. And after I agreed to read the book of Mormon and read it and found nothing to it personally, the mormon asked me if I had prayed to God while reading to reveal to me it's truth.He told me how God had revealed to him that the book is from god.
haha ya, i've seen and read most of his stuff including everything on reasonable faith, dvds and books and debates. this is like, in between his debate with frank zindler and peter atkins 1993-1998 probably no later than that. but ya he looks a little older now, there is a big difference between 50 and 60 obviously :(
haha ya, i've seen and read most of his stuff including everything on reasonable faith, dvds and books and debates. this is like, in between his debate with frank zindler and peter atkins 1993-1998 probably no later than that. but ya he looks a little older now, there is a big difference between 50 and 60 obviously :(
The way to know God is by the Spirit that Jesus died and sent back, which is the gift of God to us. You cannot know Him from reading the bible. The bible is only a history book.
BIBLEisMARKofBEAST 1 month ago
The "burdon of proof" IS NOT on people who DONT believe in fairytales ! The guy in the vid has some nerve to imply that. If YOU believe in this God entity -you prove it ! The bible clearly portrays a malevolent God -and yet Christians still believe he is a God of "love"..the bible is full of contradictions and so to are all Christian faiths. But if theiests wish to delude themselves and believe in something that isnt there,its their business.
brindow1 3 months ago
@brindow1 You call religion fairy tales, you'll have to prove that... You say the Bible portrays a malevolent God, well seeing as you are clearly an atheist you have no foundation for any objective morality whatsoever so you can't say anything is "good" or "evil" in your worldview since to be philosophically you'd have to admit that morals are just a matter of subjective opinion... You say Christian faiths are filled with contradictions? examples would help. (Continued in next comment)
afluffymango 2 months ago
@afluffymango As I said in my comment..the burden of proof is on the theist,not on the atheist. The concept of God is man - made, probably had its beginnings with fearful caveman and then religions formed a few thousad yrs ago. The idea of a God who sends plagues and floods etc to torture and kill people by its very admission suggests a malevolent God - it doesn't take a superbrain to work that out - its total opposite to what a God of "LOVE" should be..cnt'd
brindow1 2 months ago
@afluffymango part 2 ..it says in Jeremiah 19.9 that God tells parents to kill their sons and daughters and then if that isnt bad enough he tells them to EAT THEIR FLESH ! Cumon,get real about this ! Who am I to deliberate moral issues you say,well im just another human being like yourself but my gut instinct tells me not to harm. If you wish to believe in such things and in particular the Malevolent God of the old testament,go ahead..its not something id'e engage myself in.
brindow1 2 months ago
@brindow1 You obviously did not understand what I was saying, carry on in your delusions. You're not worth my time.
afluffymango 1 month ago
@afluffymango Hit a nerve did I ?
brindow1 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@brindow1 "But if theiests wish to delude themselves and believe in something that isnt there,its their business." you've essentially claimed God doesn't exist. Congratulations! You now have a burden of proof!
afluffymango 2 months ago
By experience, if you mean He actually showed up and had coffee with you and your friends, sure, you can know Him then. I bet He'd tell you lots of interesting things, maybe even show you a small miracle or two.
If it's anything else, it's delusional thinking. You could just as easily and truthfully know Odin, Thor, Shiva, Vishnu, Allah, and Mithra as you could know Yahweh.
ChipArgyle 4 months ago
So basically, the whole point of this video is that human brains are remarkably efficient at hallucination, misinformation, and cognitive bias. Everyone suffers from this, including the smartest and the sanest. Granting all this, Christians will still argue that a "personal experience" of God is perfectly legitimate evidence for His existence anyway, despite the fact that such experiences are reproducible across a wide range of circumstances.
*GROAN*
AntiCitizenX 8 months ago
@AntiCitizenX For any reason you give me to doubt the reality of my religious experience, I can give a parallel argument to doubt the reality of the external world.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
Psychological intrusions mimic the experience of an external agent giving nonverbal instructions inside your mind.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX I must confess I'm not sure what you're driving at here.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
You asked for a reason to doubt the reality of religious experience. I have given you a perfectly natural mechanism that mimics the exact symptoms of a common religious event. The "still small voice" of the Holy Spirit can be perfectly replicated by the phenomenon of the psychological intrusion. Everyone experiences these things all the time under varying contexts, religious or otherwise.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX When I see my computer here, you can explain that in physiological terms as far as what's going on in my brain. It doesn't undermine the reality of my experience. Explaining what's going on in my brain when I see my computer in front of me isn't reason to doubt that my computer is in front of me. LIkewise, if you explain what's going on in the brain when a person has a religious experience, or give it a name and call it a "psychological phenomenon," that doesn't undermine it.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
" that doesn't undermine it."
It actually does When a naturalistic explanation exists for an apparently supernatural phenomenon, there is no longer any justification for attributing the event to a supernatural cause. Not unless you think God likes to hide himself in events that are indistinguishable from the background noise of human perception.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX It seems that whenever I have any experience, natural or supernatural, that something would be going on in my brain. Simply describing what's going on in my brain during prayer doesn't make the experience less real. That doesn't "explain away" the experience. It simply describes a process that's going on in my brain while it's happening.
God is not "hidden," but is on display in the radical contingency of nature. And yes, that would include the contingency of brain events.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
"Simply describing what's going on in my brain during prayer doesn't make the experience less real."
Correct. But it does make the experience less supernatural. You cannot attribute something to God when there is a naturalistic process at play. Apples fall because of gravity, not because angels are pushing them down. Something very real indeed goes on when you pray, but it has nothing to do with telepathic communication to some magical sky fairy.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX God is not a magical sky fairy, but rather what Thomas Aquinas called ipsum esse suum subsistens, the sheer act of existence itself. You have no idea how silly you sound when you say that. It's a straw man, which tears down a God which no Christian I know believes in, and therefore only insults instead of contributing to conversation.
As God is ipsum esse, we need not drive a wedge between the natural and the supernatural. God can work through something like brain processes.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
"You have no idea how silly you sound when you say that."
This is kind of ironic coming from someone who calls God "the sheer act of existence itself." Such a statement is not even wrong or illogical. It is literally incoherent. It sounds really cool and yet means nothing at the same time. How do you even physically justify such an idea?
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX If there is an incoherence, in what I've said, go ahead and demonstrate it.
"How do you even physically justify such an idea?"
I'm not sure what you mean by "physically justify." If you think that the act of existence itself could be physical, you haven't yet grasped the nettle of what I'm saying. But the claim can be justified: by the argument from contingency.
Say what you want about the idea of ipsum esse, it has nothing to do with a "sky fairy"!
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
I don't know any way to sugar-coat this, so I'm just going to be blunt. The argument from contingency is by far one of the stupidest arguments for God ever conceived. If you honestly buy into that sort of nonsense, then there is absolutely no point in having a discussion with you. Physical evidence means squat to you, and you apparently can't tell a nonsensical supposition when one stares you in the face.
Thanks for your time, but we're done now.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX Wow, no argument, just assertions and insults! Very typical of the new atheists.
If you'd like to see a serious, intelligent atheist engaging with the argument from contingency in a very substantive way, check out Bertrand Russell's debate with Copleston.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
@Mystagogia87
There are 10,000 atheists on YouTube who would be more than happy to argue with you over contingency. I am not one of them. I have read the contingency argument and studied it. If you're the kind of person who finds that kind of garbage compelling, then truth obviously does not have much meaning to you.
AntiCitizenX 4 months ago
@AntiCitizenX From what you've written on your channel, you seem interested in de-converting people. Here's a hint: simply insulting people's intelligence isn't very persuasive. I also question how much you mean your comment about keeping discussion civil.
Since you said that God cannot be part of a natural process, I really don't think you've yet understood the "garbage" of the contingency argument. The imagined argument you're rejecting is probably one that I do, as well.
Mystagogia87 4 months ago
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@Parliament45 "By whose standard do you interpret what is real as opposed to what is not real?"
By inductive reasoning, and experience, which is commonly held, and generally verifiable by the equivilent senses in others of my species if need be.
Have you got the guts to actually offer a position here? Or to answer a straight question?
I'll ask again, are you arguing for solipsism? Or what the hell is your point?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "You still revert back to statistics and materialistic empiricism"
Again, an ad hom rather than a response on the issue!! Have you actually got a point??
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "I just want to understand 'greater likelihood"
OK Out of a total of a hundred, what would chances of the grass being magicked my goblins on SOME occasions - In relation to the observed and understood natural causes.? Would you say 50/50?
What is the likelihood ratio of some mystic cause rather than the only testable explanation which has ever been available.
How wild does an explanation have to be, with a better one available, before you could surmise it was wrong?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "............you neglect to respond to my more substantive inquiries"
By who's standard do you deem enquiries substantive?
I directly responded to every comment of yours I could find. I explained my position on my original point which you took exception to, and even went along with your red herrings when your credibility suffered on the original point.
I gave you an opportunity to answer the same question rephrased so you could understand it's fallacy. You refused to answer it!
.
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45" You think you impress people here because you use " ten-dollar" words"
Oh....So that's it!!....Sorry if my vocabulary is a tad above your head......I guess that explains why you've been resorting to ad homs, and non sequitor crap, rather than relevent academic arguments based on my critique of some points in this video eh? Lol!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "I propose that it might be better to engage others from an honest place inside yourself. Your arguments are vapid"
What an arrogant statement from someone who can't present a coherant proposition at all, nor even offer an argument without resorting to ad homs! - Lol!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45"You ask me to explain your own assertions? It is you, not me, who has to explain your own assertions." Time to remind you again - MY assertions (admittedly provocative) responded to the fallaciously false dichotomy offered by this video YOUR assertions are aimed at me, You accused me of bias with my goblin analogy of these presuppositional claims.
If you find something wrong with it , let's have it? Shit, or get off the pot!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
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@Parliament45 *" Yes, you do. you preach your empiricism"
Ha ha!! - Are you actually suggesting that universally repeatable empirical observation needs to be preached or believed on "faith" - With the same intensity of indoctrination as religious claims of the numinous??
Are you sure you're not a solipsist?? There are times when even skepticism becomes too fantastic - Lol!!!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "Again, you present a dichotomy, forcing the entire discussion into an "either/or' explanation"
OK. So explain the difference between these? : - 1.It is possible that goblins make the grass grow sometimes, even though we know that it is often the result of known natural forces?
2. It is possible that "experiences" are the cause of a previously unproven super natural force, with no more verification than any fantasy, and though we know of other well observed and documented causes?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "Again, you present a dichotomy, forcing the entire discussion into an "either/or' explanation"
Yes!! - And that is exactly the fallacy I was responding to in this video. don't you see that it's even a ridiculous assumption that these are anything else but illusions from within the psyche??
This video dismisses that greater likelihood almost with certainty to instantly posit that they are supernatural events.. They are not called "possible hullucinations ( a known factor).
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 . "You use rationalism and empiricism to make dogmatism"
I don't, but can you think of anything better to be dogmatic about than what we can observe with our own senses, or reason with our own induced knowledge of the patterns we ALL understand, universally, as reality?
Are you one of this who would suspend knowledge, even on what we all agree is reality? A solipsist??
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "It's not really about that. i do not assert anything as true"
This video does, and dismisses more feasible possibilities without good cause.
You accused me of drawing an assumption from the ONLY two which this presuppositional video threw out to be considered. I was deliberately playing their game - I didn't read any dissention from you regarding this video!
Do you really think it's 50/50 likelihood between psychological disorder and "divine intervention" with these claims?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "That is the difference. I am not a religious person. I was engaging you not over the content of the video, but on your manner of knowing"
I repeat, this video makes the claim of knowledge, My claim challenges misbalances in the feasibility evaluation of both possibilities.
Let's apply the the same degree of evaluation to another dichotomy: Is it more likely that known forces of nature makes the grass grow, or in some special cases, is it the goblins at the bottom of my garden?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 This video isn't positing "unknown" as an explanation. (and you don't seem to be either". There is nothing open minded about this, You are dismissing the ONLY explanation with a history of testability ( Hullucination, phychological manifestations), in favour of the ONLY other, (far less feasible) horn in this false dichotomy you're offereing ("god did it") .
And anything which is not verifiably impossible ("God", and a square circle are good examples) are verified possibility.
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "You speak as a child would speak"
This brings home the astounding arrogance and hypocrisy in you, and your defense of this vid.
IT posits the false dichotomy, not me, and not in an open minded way.
It dismisses, without evidence or reason, the most rational explanation, in favour of a mystic cause.
When I deliberately and provocatively opt for the ONLY previously verified possibility, of the ONLY 2 on offer, you accuse me of making an assumption.
Who's being childish here??
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45" You are not here to teach or learn or discuss; you are here to argue"
However you want to describe my methodology, my purpose is to get you to think within the disciplines of testable reality, instead of automatically positing the supernatural as the certain cause of what is unknown to you. I would refer you to Ockham's razor as a good rule of thumb when seeking explanations.
We know and recognise what hullinucinations are, until someone want's to claim a divine cause it seems.
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45"You do not engage me to discuss, but to refute and argue"
I would remind you that it was YOU who engaged me, and YOU who attempted to refute MY comments. I merely defended my opinions. You don't want to discuss. As with every religious dogmatist, you want to preach. "I imagine I am not the first in your life to have told you this."
Yes, but never by anyone who is honest with themselves - Only by people who premise unsupported, or unknowable dogma as undeniable fact- Lol!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "Until you get over that disposition, you will never know much about anything."
I would get over my "ignorance" far quicker when people stop assuming things are defined as something( in this case supernatural experience) when there is no discernable evidence, even to the perciever, that they are not something else(hullucination). These are unsupported claims made without evidence.
Once again, "God" is being defined as the cause on this video!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "even a real spiritual experience could be experienced as fantasies"
There you go again with that presupposition that there could be is such a thing as a REAL spiritual experience!! - Lol!
Was it an accident or did you try to sneak it in? - Lol!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 ""as with any other non existent entity!" <---------------you show a bias here"
And you show a circularity, as these are the evidence offered for the existence of an unknowable entity with no reasoning or evidence to support the declared claims for its existence.
For my part, I use the term "non existent" with the same (albeit philosophically incorrect) dismissal, as I would claims of alien abductions or goblins etc. It's my assessment of the degree of their likelihood.
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "A Buddhist who never heard the name of Allah or Mohammed is not going to interpret a spiritual awakening in a way that leaves him certain that Allah or Mohammed has touched him"
Correct! Doesn't that explain the nature of the assumption that is made? These people are quite clear about which "god" is responsible.....Also, atheists agnostics, nor anyone else without any strong emotional investment in the a particular religious discipline, aren't known to have these "experiences".
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "My entire premise of my responses to you is that inability to measure and quantify something is no proof at all of that thing's non-existence."
Then why describe them as religious experiences? Note that these are religious apologists making the assumption, not scientists!.
When can we claim that "God" is really talking to us?
For example, if Abraham and Jepthah were recieving real godly messages to kill their kids, why were John List and Andrea Yeats hullucinating ? Who decides?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "They are not objectively testable! "
No, they are not, are they?? - Not even to the person making the claim!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 I object a bit to your imposing your standard of truth on them in return."
I object to your objection that unsupported claims of events which are beyond everyone's experience of reality, are anything but fantasy or hullucination
We all have the same biological apparatus with which to ascertain reality, How dare you claim extra perception without demonstrating that it exists?
Do you really think a "creator"would deny an extra sense to some people, just to deny them "redemption " ?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "The problem comes in when we call someone delusional when they are not"
I think someone making an unverifiable claim of the supernatural, which is also unverified EVER, by anyones inductive experience of reality, which the "perciever" cannot demonstrate the reality of, even to Him/herself, is a pretty good indication of someone who is likely to be delusional! - Lol!!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 ""Can you cite..." , again, how would you test such things?"
Exactly!! So why claim it ever happened?? I treat these claims with the same respect as I (or you no doubt) would have for claims made by a junkie, drunk, or fanciful person who claimed to have been visited by space aliens, or leprechauns. The validating evidence is the same. The likelihood that they are true is the same.
On that basis, please feel free to claim they actually happened!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "It is just safer and more reasonable to say that you don't know rather than "these things cannot be so.". !
Absolutely ANYTHING could, concievably be true or false, short of a logical or mathmatical contradiction. It is a question of degrees. What I asked you is:- What is LIKELY to be true?
Did something REALLY happen, which claims and requires human sentience, which is unverifiable by other independent sentient experience, and has nothing to distinguish it from hullucination?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
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@Parliament45 "Therefore you are left with only two possibilities; to deny without being able to disprive or to admit that you do not know."
Let's be clear on what you are saying here:
Do you claim a seperate sentient (god given?) apparatus, in some living biological beings, which allows them/you to assertain an DIFFERENT reality which other organicically dependent beings can't witness?
Surely you can test this with predicatability and falsifiability?
After all, isn't this the REAL world?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 spiritual realities cannot perhaps be measured with material apparatus."
Then they can not be measured at all - as with any other non existent entity! Therefore they have same lack of validation! We ALL have the same, well understood apparatus with which to observe and assertain reality. If you want to claim to have a a different insight to see something, which others present cannot see, the burden of evidence is on you to convince, even yourself, that you're seeing reality!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "It has been repeated.....it is simply something you have not experienced"
Can you cite any repeatably testable evidence that these experiences happened in reality, to any objective observer?
While you're at it, can you explain why someone who has actually hullucinated, has less right to claim their own experiences as real than you, or anyone else who makes these claims? Where is the distinction?
Aren't ALL delusional people certain that their delusions are true?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
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@Parliament45 "They are designed to not be verifiable materialistically"
Then they are not "designed" at all!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "Therefore you are left with only two possibilities; to deny without being able to disprive or to admit that you do not know
If you wish to quibble such, "I do not know" is an assertion I will make unreservedly, even, to the minutest degree, about observations that can be verified- But my certainty is more reasonable in such a case.
Are you prepared to admit, the greater degree of probability, that an unverified, uniquely personal, event is no more than fantasy or hullucination?
Tobytrim 8 months ago
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Tobytrim 8 months ago
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@Parliament45" It has been repeated.....it is simply something you have not experienced"
Nor apparently, can it be demonstrated that anyone else has, or can!
Tobytrim 8 months ago
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Tobytrim 8 months ago
@Parliament45 "No, of course not! Reality is real regardless of anyone's imagination about it?"
Good! - Then we agree on that. Using the same reasoning, imagination is imagination regardless of how much we want to convince ourselves it was real.
If one person's "experience" is unrepeatable to someone else, with the same axiomatic logic and sensual apparatus, it is reasonable to suppose it to be, at best, a personal hullucination of the claimant?
Tobytrim 9 months ago
Sometimes these characters are fun to listen to- Lol!! - They really think they can say what they like, and have it accepted, without any kind of objective validation whatsoever.......Such bloody arrogance!
Take William Lane Craig here....... He is so convinced he had a "REAL" experience that he can only verify it happened, by by making a career of using offensively dishonest sophistry and equivication, posing as reason, to verify what he allegedly "experienced"!!
Tobytrim 9 months ago
@Parliament45 "They are designed to not be verifiable materialistically."
Ha ha! - So it would seem!! - Just imagining them up makes them real eh?
Tobytrim 9 months ago
God throughly tries every son He receives. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? All he has in the flesh, for to live he must die to the flesh and be born of the spirit.
You cannot do this with the bible, Jesus died to redeem us from the curse of the law. He fulfilled the law and sent back the Holy Ghost to lead us.
THE BIBLE IS THE MARK OF THE BEAST.
BIBLEisMARKofBEAST 9 months ago
The mind can't adjudicate the reality of a spiritual experience. How is the mind going to accept being God?
winstono75 10 months ago
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
MrMonkeyInk 10 months ago
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The brain is equipped with reward circuits and, due to evolutionary constraints, those deliver whether their owner is right about something of just happened to believe that. Being religious to a large degree means shamelessly taking advantage of that.
Happyascanbe1 11 months ago
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Happyascanbe1 11 months ago
No burden of proof to invalidate "religious experiences" is necessary.
The fact that they are illusions is evident in their lack of verifiability, and that the occur with many gods, and many versions of the same monotheistic god, and always the "god" of which the individual concernerned was previously familiar with, and usually indoctrinated towards.
Tobytrim 1 year ago
There is too many self experiences to take it seriously. I can make up my own god and have the same experience so i reject personal testamonies as proof of superbeings.
wachnathan 1 year ago
It is idiotic to think that we "know" it all and to make "claims" that another must "prove" anything based on their life experience is egotistical. This attitude is a sign of true ignorance. If we all just sat in a state of acceptence that we have much to learn a lot of this futile arguing over what "reality" is would cease. We all have varing experiences and just because you and I have differing experiences doesn't make one superior over another - it should just be respected for what it is.
AKAwisher1 2 years ago
the burden of proof is on the idiots with these enormous outlandish claims.. think about it... a supreme transcendant non changing ultimately powerful being that answers your prayers and finds his way into your heart... oh and he burns u in hell if u don't accept him, but he loves you.
lukeism2 2 years ago
William Lane Craig is the Man!!!
ChiefClickClack 2 years ago
he is a good man, but my opinion is... he just shuffles words to try and make HIS god exist.. 1 of about a million gods invented.
lukeism2 2 years ago
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@ChiefClickClack " William Lane Craig is the Man!!! "
The " crazy " man....
He just said that a genuine experience of god is self authenticating???
Delusion is self authenticating Will..
You da man.
Roper122 1 year ago
entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
:P
TrannyAcid 2 years ago
adstanra,
I think it is difficult to have these discussions here. Why don't you message me and we can talk more through messaging or email?
semperadlucem 2 years ago
imagine a conversation bt atheist(A) and theist(T) Mohamed Atta.
A- Why did you do that to the WTC?
T-God commanded me to
A-how did you know it was God
T-Allah revealed himself to me through personal experience. I felt alive and he tranformed me.I knew it was him( personal experience). He told me to fight against god-less western influence pervading the world.( rationalisation). The plan fell into place..it was a miracle( noteing the hits)
A-but all those people killed!
adstanra 2 years ago
T-yeh that was unfortunate..but they are infidels...and there are good reasons for the suffering..Allah does not do anything for good reasons!( good reasons and rationalisation).
this is how personal experience can lead to rationalisation...and error.we are all prone to this..which is why science tries to eliminate subjectivity with placebo control groups,peer review and publication and always takes the negative skeptical stance..prove the null-hypothesis conta Swinburne.
adstanra 2 years ago
The key sentence here is "this is how personal experience CAN lead to" to these types of terrible beliefs.
Any approach CAN be misused and abused. Science itself has been misused and abused. I don't think we dismiss all supposed religious experiences because a handful of nutjobs think God told them to do violence. As for science: we don't rely on science for religious epistemology, we look to philosophy and reason, not empirical verification. How could you test God in a lab?
semperadlucem 2 years ago
you can't because god doesn't exist
lukeism2 2 years ago
brilliant
lukeism2 2 years ago
the main problem with this is that all religions excite these experiences..even those from our past that we now know to be false.Religious memes can do this. If you were to ask any suicide bomber they too would say that they have experienced the transforming power of God...so apprently have mormons, catholics, hindus,muslems and even scientologists. Swineberg is wrong. It would be very bizaar for a God to reveal himself in such a nebulous way.
adstanra 2 years ago
adstanra,
This doesn't make him right, but for the record, the philosopher you are so casually dismissing, Swinburne, is at Oxford and among the most notable contemporary philosophers. Why do you think that because there are different religious experiences that therefore none of them are real? If there can be a revelation from God, couldn't there be many false experiences as well due to either error or deception? I see no problem. And how bizarre & nebulous that the atheist experience is true?
semperadlucem 2 years ago
i mean that Swinburne is wrong to assume that these experiences should be assented to until evidence to the contrary arrives. We have massive amount of evidence that these experiences occur all the time, in mutually exclusive religions and even in non-theistic situations. a good feeling that a human attributes to diety is not usually diety.All religions casually dismiss the expetiences of other religions..assuming they are not diety..this IS the proper default position conta Swineburne.
adstanra 2 years ago
How does one know that any particular experience is really from God? Humans have demonstrated our adeptness at this sort of thing, earnestly believing the experience to be real( usually the experience is interpreted culturally)...Why would God reveal himself in such a nebulous way. All religions have shown adeptness at rationalisation.The atheistic experience is based upon theory building through verification and falsificaction and takes a skeptical orientation. It has proved very sucessful!
adstanra 2 years ago
adstanra,
I am not anti-science. And science is not the same thing as atheism, as you suggest. I love science. That said, contrary to what you say above, I think that strict verification and falsification theories of knowledge (also not synonymous with science) are UNSUCCESSFUL. I will post a video soon on this--but have a look at the failure of the verificationist theories of meaning. Search for logical positivism to learn more. This theory of knowledge has been abandoned.
semperadlucem 2 years ago
What has been abandoned by science is the idea that we can aquire knowledge through revelation...It has no epistemological value...it might conclude that there is a diety or that we are one with brahma, or that mohamed is Allah's prophet or that a book was inspired by God...but is this really knowledge? One might retreat to an esthetic life thinking one is aquiring knowledge..become a munk. these experiences must give way to science and reason..skepticism and doubt are good things!
adstanra 2 years ago
adstanra,
Swinburne also finds that there is good evidence for theism and Christianity. I follow this also. I'm not sure about the experience alone, but when you couple the experience with the other good reasons, I think there is a powerful case for believing. I do think an experience alone technically justifies belief. That is, an atheist has the burden of proof with respect to the reality of someone else's experience. And if you love falsification, you shouldn't have any problem with this.
semperadlucem 2 years ago
And if we accept your default position, isn't that basically the same thing as deciding, in advance of ALL experiences, that God couldn't possibly exist or be revealed to a person?
Example: God appearing to you in Glory: "Adstanra, I'm real. This is your evidence!"
Adstanra responds: "No God, you are something I ate last night. The default position is that experiences like this are false. I can never believe, no matter how powerful and evidential an experience of God is." THAT seems absurd!
semperadlucem 2 years ago
what?... the atheist doesn't have the burden of proof... we don't say that there's an invisible sky daddy who intervenes and creates the universe. ffs!
lukeism2 2 years ago
I have just heard a similar story from a muslem aquiantence....how he had an experience that changed his life. He is fillied witht the joy of Allah.He just knows that Allah is one and Mohamed is his prophet. i have had catholics explain similar things. And after I agreed to read the book of Mormon and read it and found nothing to it personally, the mormon asked me if I had prayed to God while reading to reveal to me it's truth.He told me how God had revealed to him that the book is from god.
adstanra 2 years ago
wow, many interviews from many high-level philosophers. great stuff!
Pumbaelo 2 years ago
Nice to see a very young William Lane craig here! Id say about mid-late 90's how about you guys?
geoffreyefloyd 2 years ago
ow yeah :), he still got his beard (H)
GGDFan777 2 years ago
haha ya, i've seen and read most of his stuff including everything on reasonable faith, dvds and books and debates. this is like, in between his debate with frank zindler and peter atkins 1993-1998 probably no later than that. but ya he looks a little older now, there is a big difference between 50 and 60 obviously :(
geoffreyefloyd 2 years ago
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geoffreyefloyd 2 years ago
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haha ya, i've seen and read most of his stuff including everything on reasonable faith, dvds and books and debates. this is like, in between his debate with frank zindler and peter atkins 1993-1998 probably no later than that. but ya he looks a little older now, there is a big difference between 50 and 60 obviously :(
geoffreyefloyd 2 years ago
90's for sure
Christianjr4 2 years ago