A path to faith with science

h.b. said:

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So since the Bible has some truth that can be verified, the rest of it must be true? If that were the case, anytime a liar wanted to deceive someone, all they have to do is tell mostly truth, which makes the rest of their statements are believable, no matter how absurd. I do not believe in talking donkeys. I see little reason to take a book with talking donkeys as fact.

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You don't need to see a miracle to recognize God's existence. You don't have to see a miracle to recognize God's nature. If you did, then god definitely would show you a miracle. Since you don't need to be shown a miracle, and it's required that man shall live by faith then you're excuseless and you're only testing God. The evidence to recognize God isn't something real hard to grasp. It's everywhere and so plain and obvious that it's insulting to ask to see a miracle. People tell themselves they can't see it and they don't. They choose to have no faith.

Do you know that in old times, that the type of stories and genealogies in the bible were read aloud in in the synagogue in Israel? It was also told by word of mouth, every thing was in those days and not just in Israel either. They had all this stuff memorized in their head and they were trained to remember lots of stuff like stories and genealogies and history of wars and everything else because hardly anyone read or wrote. So all the time there were people who were hearing this written history and things and if it was wrong, then lots of people would be saying hey that's wrong.

All of the books of the bible were written by leaders and scribes and people well known about and very visible and information would be much more widely available. For instance the books of chronicles or the books of kings were from the royal palace itself, and would be widely circulated. Especially because another one of scribes jobs was to make copies of existing documents.

With the information there is to know about God, it's enough to have faith. You don't need the bible to know there's the all loving God in the bible. And why aren't you as suspicious about all history? Do you know there wasn't a talking donkey? I know I can't prove something i can't show you, but at the same time you have no way of knowing and the possibility still lies open there could be one in the past. So take care to recognize your bias.

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I *have* to? What happens if I attempt to and find nothing?

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With honestly, humility and faith that won't happen.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "evidence from the heart", I will assume it means Values and beliefs. Obviously correct me if I'm wrong in the assumption. So I look down in my heart (or use my brain, since the heart only feels in a symbolical sense) and come to the conclusion that God's version of morality is immoral to me, then I must be right, right? I mean, the evidence was right there in my heart.

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Not just values and beliefs. Ultimate values. Spiritual Truth. I don't believe that our feelings are in our brains of course. I think there's a good deal to show this is true. Also, something I've noticed. Have you ever noticed that whenever you feel real deeply about somethings, like if you feel very strongly towards a girl of if you're in emotional pain it hurts right in your heart, I mean your physical heart. I find that interesting and I'm not saying the physical heart can feel, but I've thought about it and if there's a designer I think that would be the perfect place to make that connection you know? from the spiritual heart to the beating heart? we we think of the beating of the physical heart, it's very representative of what we recognize as our heart, our center of feeling and of sentient perception.

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Since when do atheists believe in a "spiritual truth"? And how do they contradict themselves with humanism, assuming of course that all atheists subscribe to humanism, which of course they all don't.

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According to the Humanist Manifestos I & II: Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view. The Humanist Manifestos declare:

"These affirmations [in the Manifestos] are not a final credo or dogma but an expression of a living and growing faith." Philosophically, secular humanism is naturalism. Strictly speaking secular humanism does not allow for ultimate morality but adopts a philosophy of ethical relativism. But on the other hand, who of them of them will deny that loving isn't good or helping someone who needs help is not right? Many people have different concept of what they think is the best love, but ultimately we all recognize love as something right, a higher standard that's higher than us all that we are all obligated to follow. But the material universe cannot determine moral Truth . Only sentient beings can recognize that. But then when examined they would be forced to admit that according to their belief in naturalism and evolution they cannot allow a spiritual truth. I know you might say well some people believe in God and evolution but I think that can be easily shown fallacious but the truth is leading evolutionist don't seem to like theistic evolution at all.

Logically, atheists have to provide a moral code from outside of their belief system which which can't provide any. Richard Dawkins even claimed that he was a passionate Darwinist as to how we got here, but a passionate anti-Darwinist when it came to morality.

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An idea of the problem for atheists was illustrated in the famous radio debate between the Jesuit philosopher and historian of philosophy Frederick Copleston and the anti-Christian mathematical logician Bertrand Russell (www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p20.htm):

Bertrand Russell [BR]: You see, I feel that some things are good and that other things are bad. I love the things that are good, that I think are good, and I hate the things that I think are bad. I donâ??t say that these things are good because they participate in the Divine goodness.

Frederick Copleston [FC]: Yes, but whatâ??s your justification for distinguishing between good and bad or how do you view the distinction between them?

BR: I donâ??t have any justification any more than I have when I distinguish between blue and yellow. What is my justification for distinguishing between blue and yellow? I can see they are different.

FC: Well, that is an excellent justification, I agree. You distinguish blue and yellow by seeing them, so you distinguish good and bad by what faculty?

BR: By my feelings.

As Christian apologist Dr. Ravi Zacharias said in The Atheists Challenge, if Copleston werenâ??t such a gentleman, he might have asked, â??in some cultures they love their neighbors; in others they eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Do you have any preference?â?�

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Fr. Copleston vs. Bertrand Russell: The Famous 1948 BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God

Here's what can happen when angry and hurt people believe there is no standard of morality, that they can make their own rules:

How to build a bomb in the public school system

Fallen Icarus said:

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Hi natureisawesome,

Ive been reading your posts and I know a lot of people have responded but i couldn't help adding mine and I hope you'll forgive me

Ill start with a short allegory I heard a while ago from a good friend

Imagine your in a court room, and a trial is taking place, against someone who has committed a terrible act against a loved one you know very well, and against the man accused stands a wealth of evidence, its scientific evidence, statements of accounts from countless witnesses, there is genetic evidence - everything ties in together and makes sense, and the judge is about to call to the jury for a verdict.

The wealth of evidence results in a verdict which to everyone in the courtroom seems a just punishment, to some, closer relatives to the victim, it is obviously not enough.

Yet one man from the crowd stands up and makes a protest about the sentence.

The judge being particularly open minded allows the outburst and asks the man to continue.

The man says "That man is not guilty".

To which the judge responds - "why?"

And the man simply says...

"Because I feel it in my heart".

Is that the way you want the justice system to work? Because in essence, that is what you are asking the scientifically minded people to do, when you continually ask us, to believe that the Bible, is still the infinite truth of the universe and the "word of God".

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But like I said before evidence that is morality and spiritual truth are just as valid if not more so, and this includes atheists. What's wright or wrong? To an atheist something is right because he feels so. He believes that his sense of morality can not be recognition of any spiritual Truth because there is no God. But for a theist, it so much more it's the solid ground of spiritual truth. You wrote that and I though immediately afterwords how that is self-defeatist and you revealed the very weakness of you tried to accuse me of in your argument. Furthermore, recognition of spiritual Truth does not deny evidence in the material world.In fact, one of the main ways of determining the validity of any religion is to compare it to what we observe in the natural world and see if they fit or not.

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Hi Imitator,

I just read your last post and couldn't get my head around your comments about facts and theories.

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Even right now, there is not a single thing in this world which we can state is a fact.

What i can interpret this as is that your saying there is always a way to dispute fact, or so called fact?

I say, if you jump off a 50 story building, when you hit the ground, your heart will stop.

There is nothing we can state as fact?

There's always a way to dispute fact?

Dispute that one.

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I've shown ample evidence of facts. Rock solid facts. Just because you don't want to accept it doesn't make it not a fact. You are. I am. We are. Does anyone question this? How much closer can a think get for you to recognize it's validity? To deny your existence and the outside world is to live in hypocrisy because you fall upon these same axioms every day.

imitator said:

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There was no factor that could be calculated in any form of math or other science that could show the exact time that the lightbulb would cease to function.

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That's simply not true.

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What would a fact mean to us? With even one true, actual fact, that was never unpredictable, that no matter what the scale it was applied to, one could calculate exactly when something would happen, how, and all the other details, we would then be able to find facts for everything else in existence.

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You are thinking. Deny it? You can't. You can't deny yourself.

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Because for this thing to be a truth, certain things must react exactly the same towards it. And for those things to react exactly the same to the truth, other things must react exactly the same. So on and so forth, until you understand the workings of everything because they must all react in a certain way for this truth to be true.

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Huh??

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At this very moment as I write this, the sun could no longer exist, and we wouldn't know for some time to come.

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How do you have any way of knowing that the sun 'could' no longer exist? You don't know it can do anything other that what you know it to do by the observation by which you know it. There is no reason to believe or suggest that it 'could' no longer exist. Your imagination does not count. From all we know and observe in the outside world, and the science thereof the sun will exist. And nothing stands to contradict this.

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Every scientific theory that has been adopted as truth and fact, has at some later period of time, been proven to be inaccurate, or completely untrue.

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absolutely false

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Just because certain things weren't known when you came to your conclusion doesn't mean that you aren't at fault for believing in an untrue conclusion. You are entirely at fault, because if you had looked, you would have seen it to be false.

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......

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But without fail eventually every single "truth" is looked at hard enough that someone sees the "crack in the armor".

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every single one eh?

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Using the logic discussed earlier, it is very probable that anything could happen.

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How do you know this? You say that facts cannot be identified but then say anything can happen as a fact. How do you know? Wouldn't you rather go with the evidence you do have rather than the evidence you don't???

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This would leave us in a complete state of chaos though. If anything can happen at any time, then that would be a textbook case of a chaos state.

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No basis for this either.

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When we look at the developments of science not as facts, but as explanations and rationalizations of occurrences that have a high probability of occurring again

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How do you know?

" It is easier for us to cover chaos and randomness with logic and surety, it allows us to live easier. .......Over time though, if one were to strip away the logic "

You mean the logic you used to write this?

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Logic and sureity can not apply to some things and not others.

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really...

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If one object can react in any way that can not be pinpoint predicted, then the entire truth is lost.

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That's not true.

I managed to read all of it. I finally made it. I don't feel the need to answer your logic and I seriously think you were smoking too much wed on top of other things.

You don't seem to recognize that no matter how close your perception of another thing is it's in the end up to you to accept it's existence (yes it does require willpower). In the end, no matter how much you know it comes down to being reasonable. The only other way is to be all knowing, to know everything that exists or doesn't.

Your mind is all you have. Nomatter which direction you turn, to accept reality or to deny it you still use your perception and judgment skills nomatter where you turn. You have to accept reality. You don't have any other choice.

from something I posted a while ago:

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As far as understanding anything goes, human logic is all we have. Human understanding and reasoning. That's it. If you want to scrutinize our understanding of infinity, then you have to scrutinize our entire thinking process, and well and there's really no way to do that since the only thinking and feeling capabilities you would use to scrutinize your thinking and feeling capabilities are the ones you already have, and those would be in question. And even if you had back up thinking and feeling capabilities, these would necessarily come under question as well. You would come to a dead end and very likely turn to nihilism, but really this can't even be a sure thing for you since your judgment skills you used to turn to nihilism could be faulty
too. Things really just go downhill from there but ultimately you must either face or deny yourself.

Whether you choose to deny yourself or accept your own existence, either way proves that someone or something made the choice to do it - you. Therefore since you do exist, you can be absolutely sure that this much of your judgment skills is practical. You may now proceed to gain your own trust of reality. If you need help doing this I can help you.

If you don't like or trust having personal convictions or having value judgment skills then too bad, there's nothing you can do about it. It's built into you and the only thing you can do if you don't like it or trust it is to tell yourself it's all in your head and live in hypocrisy by using those judgment skills in your day to day life.

Or you can be reasonable and just accept that it is reasonable and practical and wonder how such magnificent sentient manifestations such as love, virtue,courage, beauty,compassion, patience, charity, honesty etc. could be manifested by anything but another sentient being.

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I understand that you don't know exactly exactly what's going to happen in the future. But the evidence we have shows that the universe is not inherently chaotic and all signs show that it will continue to do so. That's evidence. The way you use the word fact you render it utterly meaningless, and necessarily because facts can't only be recognized by a sentient being. You choose to deny them and you fall deeper trying to evade a reality that cannot be evaded.

The fact is you are thinking and you exist and the same perceiption you perceive yuor own existance you also observe the outside world and everything in it according to human reasoning which cannot be evaded the universe and things in it are just as real as you.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

You don't need to see a miracle to recognize God's existence. You don't have to see a miracle to recognize God's nature. If you did, then god definitely would show you a miracle. Since you don't need to be shown a miracle, and it's required that man shall live by faith then you're excuseless and you're only testing God. The evidence to recognize God isn't something real hard to grasp. It's everywhere and so plain and obvious that it's insulting to ask to see a miracle. People tell themselves they can't see it and they don't. They choose to have no faith.

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What's so insulting about wanting to see a miracle? I can say the exact opposite that you just said, and I'd be just as right. You're stating opinions. Besides, you say god is all powerful, so it literally takes *nothing* for him to show me. I've already an open invitation to any God, god, deity or anything of the like to have a conversation with me. No takers so far (besides Flying Spaghetti Monster, of course).

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

With the information there is to know about God, it's enough to have faith. You don't need the bible to know there's the all loving God in the bible. And why aren't you as suspicious about all history? Do you know there wasn't a talking donkey? I know I can't prove something i can't show you, but at the same time you have no way of knowing and the possibility still lies open there could be one in the past. So take care to recognize your bias.

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Do I know there wasn't a talking donkey? No, of course not, it's impossible to prove that something DIDN'T HAPPEN. I realize that nearly anything is possible (which I state clearly and often). if I'm biased for living in reality and realize the possibility of a talking donkey is highly unlikely, then call me bias.

I'll ask you a few questions about a talking donkey. Do you believe that a donkey has ever spoken? And if so, why aren't you be suspicious? If you're not suspicious, would you believe me if I told you that my dog told me that god doesn't exist?

I'm not suspicious of most history because unlike a talking donkey, it's.... what's the word.... believable. The only other books I've read with talking animals were called fairy tales.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

Not just values and beliefs. Ultimate values. Spiritual Truth. I don't believe that our feelings are in our brains of course. I think there's a good deal to show this is true. Also, something I've noticed. Have you ever noticed that whenever you feel real deeply about somethings, like if you feel very strongly towards a girl of if you're in emotional pain it hurts right in your heart, I mean your physical heart.

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Nope. I get mine in the gut. More assumptions.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

I find that interesting and I'm not saying the physical heart can feel, but I've thought about it and if there's a designer I think that would be the perfect place to make that connection you know? from the spiritual heart to the beating heart? we we think of the beating of the physical heart, it's very representative of what we recognize as our heart, our center of feeling and of sentient perception.

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All subjective. I'd say the perfect places for love would be in the genitals or the fingers. It's just my view of the world.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

According to the Humanist Manifestos I & II: Humanism is a philosophical, religious, and moral point of view. The Humanist Manifestos declare:

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I don't care what the definition of humanism is. You stated that atheists subscribe to humanism. A very blanket statement used so that you can further your points.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

Logically, atheists have to provide a moral code from outside of their belief system which which can't provide any. Richard Dawkins even claimed that he was a passionate Darwinist as to how we got here, but a passionate anti-Darwinist when it came to morality.

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Logically, atheists (or anybody, really) don't *have* to do anything. Each person is an individual. What does richard dawkins have to do with anyone else as a person? he's a famous atheist? Big deal, he doesn't speak for every atheist on the planet.

Also, some people may be immoral by my standard, but not by their own. So *logically*, nobody on the face of the earth is required to provide their moral code.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

Here's what can happen when angry and hurt people believe there is no standard of morality, that they can make their own rules:

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I could throw up a link to the spanish inquisition and use that of my basis to describe anyone who is religious anyone believes in a higher power, and what they do when they think their morality is being guided by a higher power. it serves no purpose.

'Faith' is just a nicer word for 'assume'. If you have faith in something for which there is no evidence (e.g., something that can be replicated by others and produces consistent results), then you are just assuming that what you've been told (or what you feel) is the truth. Truth should never be assumed. Question everything, and demand evidence. This is how we stopped thinking that God makes meteor storms to punish the wicked or that women who can swim must be witches.

250 years ago, if they threw you in the river and you *didn't* drown, they burned you, because they had faith that this was God's will, to burn witches, and they had faith that you *were* a witch if you didn't drown, thus making burning the skin from your bones the 'right' and 'moral' thing to do. These are the roads down which faith takes people. Much of the world has outgrown such superstitious nonsense, but it is thriving in the U.S.

Faith in the Islamic model of life and of the afterlife is what drives virtually all the suicide bombings in the world today. They have faith that *their* beliefs are right and yours are wrong. You have faith that they're wrong and you're right. If everyone would just stop with the assumptions and start asking for demonstrable proof, violence would go way way down.

I've noticed that throughout this whole thread no one has even come to mentioning the scriptural prophecies In the original posrt. I'd be interested to hear thoughts on that.

I predicted that you would post again. It's not a prophecy. Even Sylvia Browne gets things right. The best way to do it is to make hundreds of predictions and a few will probably be right.

Many of the prophecies you listed seem to depend on the original 69 seven's prophecy. Numerical prophecies are notoriously easy to manipulate after the fact. If it doesn't work with days, try weeks. If it doesn't work with weeks, try months. If it doesn't work for months, try years. If it doesn't work with years try decades, or multiples of sevens of years, and on and on and on. Even the starting date could easily be readjusted, as there have been attempts to 'rebuild Jerusalem' in *recent* times. Which would push the Messiah date up into the future rather than in the past. With numbers, if you look for patterns, you will find them, even if they aren't really patterns at all. (Ever see the movie Pi? If not, it's worth watching, lots of number-related religiousy stuff.)

As for many (if not all) of the other prophecies, they aren't resolved yet. Was THE Jesus the one that was found in that tomb recently? If so, then perhaps we'll be able to analyze that DNA at some point and see if his mother is there, perhaps who his real father was, whether that was his wife and son also buried there, etc. If any of that proves to be true, that will pretty much invalidate much of the Christian belief system. Of course, many (probably most) Christians will go into denial at that point and cling to their traditional beliefs like a drowning man does a life preserver, which would be interesting to watch.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

That's simply not true.

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Since it worked for you so well, prove it. Wait, you cant? Then I guess I am right, no?

There exists no method to determine the exact period of time at which the lightbulb will die. None. Now sure, in the future, we might find a way, but that doesnt make my statement wrong in any way.

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You are thinking. Deny it? You can't. You can't deny yourself.

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One of the more simplistic philosophical exercises, but a good one none the less. The problem is, the entire "I think, therefore I am" arguement fails to work if you introduce the Dreamer aspect. If we are all part of someones dream, and we didnt actually know it, then we could actually debunk the "I think, therefore I am" line of logic, because your thinking is actually not you thinking, but part of someones dream that they are creating.

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Huh??

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It goes like this. A truth is a truth is a truth. It is true no matter the circumstances, no matter who views it, it is true. Truth/Facts are independant of any one persons reality, they exist, by themselves, and need not anyone to be currently looking at it to exist. They are the same no matter who views them, assuming the person knows what they are looking at. Now if a truth/fact is always true no matter what, if you start breaking down the truth into more and more basic truths, eventually you will find yourself at a level where you can begin to use said truth to prove other truths, by causing interactions with the original truth. That truth/fact is always the same no matter what, so any interactions you cause will have a similar pattern of always happening in them as well. Follow me?

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How do you have any way of knowing that the sun 'could' no longer exist? You don't know it can do anything other that what you know it to do by the observation by which you know it. There is no reason to believe or suggest that it 'could' no longer exist. Your imagination does not count. From all we know and observe in the outside world, and the science thereof the sun will exist. And nothing stands to contradict this.

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Do believe you are making my point for me there. Or part of it at least.

I dont know if the sun exists at the moment. I know that it could no longer exist, based on the theories we have in science currently. But it is impossible for me to know its actual current existance, at this exact moment, without being right next to the actual sun. If the sun was destroyed this very minute, we wouldnt know about it for a period of time. But before that period of time came up, we would all assume that the sun was still working like it always had, and everything was ok. But, it wasnt, there was no more sun, even though everyone would tell you its a fact that the sun still exists.

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absolutely false

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Prove it. Show me an example. Show me one scientific theory that was never based on any other theory that ended up being false or modified in any way shape or form, and that hasnt itself been modified in any way shape or form.

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With the sun example, every single person is at fault who continued to assume the sun was perfectly fine, when it wasnt. You cant claim ignorance as an excuse, the answer was there, if you looked deep and hard enough. But once again, convienence wins out on situations like this, because its such a pain in the ass to do constantly, and the chances of seeing something different are slim, so its considered useless. But that doesnt change that the answers were there for anyone to see if they looked hard enough, they were just too lazy to do so.

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every single one eh?

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Show me a single assumed truth, ie something that was a theory that everyone considered a fact/truth, that hasnt at some point been modified or shown to be incorrect, or wasnt based on a theory that hasnt at some point been modified or shown to be incorrect in any way. Im betting you wont find anything, because as time goes on, and we as a species learn more, we also learn just how little we knew before, and how incorrect we were.

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How do you know this? You say that facts cannot be identified but then say anything can happen as a fact. How do you know? Wouldn't you rather go with the evidence you do have rather than the evidence you don't???

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Probable. PROBABLE. Prob-able. That is, literally, the key word in what I said. I never said it WOULD, I never said it was a FACT, I said it was probable.

Also, facts can be identified, and I dont recall ever stating they couldnt. I said we dont have any facts that we know about currently, although its possible that we are in possession of a truth, and just havent realized it yet. Facts exist, or at least I believe that they do... we just havent found any yet.

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No basis for this either.

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In a reality where anything could happen at any time, randomly, that would be a text book case of a chaos state.

[quoteHow do you know?[/quote]

This is seriously almost like comic relief. You are making my point. How do YOU know that it isnt like that? You dont, but unlike myself, you assume that it is a fact that it always happens like that, but you dont know if it does. I am arguing that we dont know that it is a fact, and on the same hand you are arguing with me saying how do you know its not a fact. If it was a fact, there wouldnt be any question, it would just be a fact.

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" It is easier for us to cover chaos and randomness with logic and surety, it allows us to live easier. .......Over time though, if one were to strip away the logic "

You mean the logic you used to write this?

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You caught me. I use logic and reasoning in day to day life. I imagine if you look around, you might find that others use it to. Shocking, I know, but bear with me here.

And yet again, it sounds like you are trying to help me here, not argue against me. You pointed out that I use logic to try to make chaos and randomness easier to deal with/understand in a sense, which is exactly what I am saying. People use logic and surety to make randomness and chaos easier to deal with and less complicated in general.

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really...

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I do believe it was you, and I apologize if I mixed you up with someone else, that said that the supernatural couldnt exist along side the natural, because of some reasoning involving God. If something is above the laws that govern our universe, if it is not logical, then it would have to belong to something similar, if not, the group of things known as supernatural. Now I would have to ask, how can you question what I said, and still claim that the supernatural cant exist. It has to be one or the other, as far as I can see.

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That's not true.

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I am not sure if you responded to just the clipped quote from that section I wrote or not, but when put into full context, in its entirety, it is very true.

I was stating that you cant have a truth, if you can not pinpoint every last thing about it and be able to explain all of it in some sort of equation or something similar. If you cant state how its going to react, to anything, all the time, with 100% certainty and no chance for it to ever happen any differently, then its not a fact, is it?

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I managed to read all of it. I finally made it. I don't feel the need to answer your logic and I seriously think you were smoking too much wed on top of other things.

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Ill ignore the half cop-out excuse to avoid actually discussing at all what I said, and the fact that throughout everything you said in response, you never did anything but make blanket claims with nothing behind them... Wait, no, I wont. Thats a load of crap, and you darn well know it. If you had no intention of answering my logic, or providing anything to back up your statements in response to what I said, then why bother posting? To make yourself feel better?

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You don't seem to recognize that no matter how close your perception of another thing is it's in the end up to you to accept it's existence (yes it does require willpower). In the end, no matter how much you know it comes down to being reasonable. The only other way is to be all knowing, to know everything that exists or doesn't.

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Do believe that is what they call the classic search of knowledge that man has been doing since our existance. The search to understand everything, be able to explain everything. Sure, not everyone has it, but as a species, we have advanced so far because of it, and will continue to advance as long as we continue to search.

You can choose to accept somethings existance or to not to, but in the end, that doesnt affect its actual existance one bit. If something truely exists, it exists outside of your perception, and is independant of you. Such as, since we are talking about it, truths and facts. They exist independant of you, and wether you choose to accept their existance or not, it doesnt affect their actual existance.

If it only exists for yourself, if it is dependant entirely on yourself, and nothing else, then how do you show anyone else that it exists? And if you cant show anyone else, and no one else can see it, does it truely exist? Before you give that question a blanket yes statement, ask yourself, can you prove to anyone, and everyone, of its existance? If not, then you dont have proof that it exists, you have a strong belief and conviction based on personal perception.

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Your mind is all you have. Nomatter which direction you turn, to accept reality or to deny it you still use your perception and judgment skills nomatter where you turn. You have to accept reality. You don't have any other choice.

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But my reality is different then yours, and yours is different then his, and his is different then hers. So who's do I accept?

And once again, my entire reality, my entire thought process and everything I do, think, and percieve, could easily be a part of some great beings dream. The Dreamer theory is a wonderful thing at debunking people who use the "reality is a fact" arguement. Everything is foiled by the Dreamer theory, granted, but it still proves the point.

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I understand that you don't know exactly exactly what's going to happen in the future. But the evidence we have shows that the universe is not inherently chaotic and all signs show that it will continue to do so. That's evidence.

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No, thats actually not evidence. And where is your facts? Your absolute proof? I mean, if the universe is not inherently chaotic, and it will continue to be as such(it would have to, or else it would have always been chaotic), then surely there must be an easily recognizable and provable fact amoungst it? If it is not chaos, then its order, and order follows rules, and rules are independant of people and perception, and should be definable in things such as or similar to equations. And those equations would indeed be facts, as they would always be that way, with no chance for anything to ever deviate.

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The way you use the word fact you render it utterly meaningless, and necessarily because facts can't only be recognized by a sentient being. You choose to deny them and you fall deeper trying to evade a reality that cannot be evaded.

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The way you, and most of this population uses the word fact, you render it meaningless, and ruin the entire idea of a fact.

A fact isnt a belief, a fact isnt a perception, a fact is a fact is a fact. Its always has been, currently is, and always will be the same. Its independant of everything, and if it isnt actually a fact in one situation or another, then it a fact at all.

Too much these days people use the word fact and truth to describe things that happen in life for which we only have theories, no facts. Science has never found a fact, and you wont find any reputable scientist who will tell you otherwise.

A fact/truth will be the same wether I choose to acknowledge it or not, and me not acknowledging it doesnt mean it cant affect me either. A fact/truth does what it does, without any change, and is independant of everything else but itself. I know I keep repeating that, but its for a reason.

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The fact is you are thinking and you exist and the same perceiption you perceive yuor own existance you also observe the outside world and everything in it according to human reasoning which cannot be evaded the universe and things in it are just as real as you.

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Do I exist? Couldnt I be a part of a dream you are having, or another person is having of us?

There is no proof that I exist. Its easier though, for everyone to assume they exist in a permanent reality that is independant of themselves and others, but there is no concrete proof. There is some nearly irontight theories, for certain, but no proof. Because, honestly, how would you prove that you werent a part of some greater beings dream? Until that can be proven or disproven, there is no way to know for certain. Hence, its not a fact that I exist. Its a strong theory, and a personal belief of my own, but it is not a fact sir. And you have shown that you have failed utterly in understanding what a fact really is. ... the irony.

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Originally Posted by jamstigator

As for many (if not all) of the other prophecies, they aren't resolved yet. Was THE Jesus the one that was found in that tomb recently? If so, then perhaps we'll be able to analyze that DNA at some point and see if his mother is there, perhaps who his real father was, whether that was his wife and son also buried there, etc. If any of that proves to be true, that will pretty much invalidate much of the Christian belief system. Of course, many (probably most) Christians will go into denial at that point and cling to their traditional beliefs like a drowning man does a life preserver, which would be interesting to watch.

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Actually, I would guess the line of logic would be that it was the Devil's work to try to confuse believers. It seems to be the standard when something gets close to being proven utterly wrong in regards to the faith.

Granted not everyone of the religion will believe or use that line of logic. I would imagine it would only be the truely extreme... I think the average believer would be shaken, but wouldnt let it affect how they chose to live their lives before, becuase that is what was important... the lessons it taught on how to live a good life. But who knows, its nigh impossible to predict how a massive group of people would react to a hypothetical situation such as that.

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Originally Posted by natureisawesome

And guess where the story of horus originated from.

Babylon. I know what I'm talking about.

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Nope, they BOTH more likely originated from a single source.

Tammuz and Osiris were both worshipped and based on a much older god.

I don't think the Babylonian Tammuz was the influence for Osiris/Horus - they were around at the same time - about 5000 years ago.

That would make you an old-world creationist then :thumbsup: