On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:07:09 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> In other words, you not only would have to have the same message
>> delivered, but you'd have to have identical interpretations.  Given how
>> many ways people interpret something that many consider to be as
>> important as the Bible, I think that's unlikely.
> 
> Well, yeah. Unless it's *GOD* delivering the message. See my point?

Well, yes - I have all along.  :-)

But God identified how?  (And thus the circle begins again)

> Of *course* anything that would convince me of the existence of God is
> going to be unlikely. That's why I'm an atheist. :-)

True enough. :-)

>> Why does it have to be Christians, though?  How's about Buddhism?
> 
> That's fine. I don't think Buddhists are theists, tho. Or, at worst,
> they worship someone who said "don't worship me."  However, I'll happily
> admit I know very little about buddhism.

I think that was my point; the reason we debate about the Christian God 
is because it's a common point of reference.

>> Again, though, there would be interpretive questions.  Word for word in
>> what language, for example?
> 
> The language of the Torah, of course.

So biblical Hebrew, then?

> You ask me what would convince me some God is real. I give a list of
> miracles that do it. You complain that the miracles are too unlikely.
> Well, yeah, that's why they're miracles.

Not so much that they're too unlikely, but that they are vague enough as 
to take anything that fits the criteria and say "well, it happened, so 
therefore it wasn't improbable enough".  See the difference?

>>> (See the "Giant's Star" novels.)
>> 
>> Will have to look them up.
> 
> Brief plot starter: Explorers on the moon find a 50,000 year old human
> skeleton in a space suit in a cave on the moon, with alien life forms in
> ration packs in the backpack. Much hilarity ensues while trying to
> figure out how that could have happened.
> 
> The first book was the best, but the two sequels aren't too bad.

Cool, on my reading list.  It's been far, far too long since I read 
something like this.

>> There again, you defined it as a return, not the Rapture, armageddon,
>> or whatever word fits.  "Return to earth" is exactly what the Mormons
>> believe happened.  So again, it's a question of definition and details.
> 
> Yes. Granted. And while the Mormons think he already returned, all the
> Christians think he already came back to life, too. Note I didn't say
> "Jesus having returned to earth in the past."  I said "Jesus returning
> to Earth."

Sure, but none of that particularly implies rapture.

>> Didn't Jim Jones claim that he was Jesus?  How would one prove that
>> someone claiming to be Jesus was in fact Jesus?
> 
> Miracles. Rapture. All the stuff that's supposed to happen when Jesus
> returns to earth.

To those who died in those set of events, if you asked them now, they 
probably would define the events as rapture.  JWs believe, as I recall, 
that only a select few will get into Heaven, so looking at the number of 
people who died in those events, it could well be said that the rest of 
us are in hell and those few were saved.

Obviously, I'm not saying that's the truth, but that is a point of view 
that could be argued, and could be discounted by the likes of you or me 
because we simply don't believe it to be true.

>> I don't think it's "We understand" but "we have faith that there's a
>> reason for it".  There's a big difference there.
> 
> That's fine. But then don't accuse me of being irrational, if I don't
> agree with the faith.

I never would.  I think it's bollocks myself.  At the same time, though, 
I think we all have had the experience at one time or another of knowing 
something but being unable to articulate it in a way in which our 
"audience" can comprehend.

>> Some people believe that, yes.  And I think that's nuts, and in
>> situations where someone puts their child's health at risk for that
>> belief, that's when society needs to step in.  It's one thing for an
>> adult to make that decision for themselves; quite another IMO for them
>> to decide that about someone else.  Falls under my "as far as my nose"
>> (or perhaps "others' noses" is a better analogy) rule for letting
>> people believe what they like.
> 
> I'll personally disagree on this one. Sometimes, you're just f'ed, and
> that's necessary for a free society.

Perhaps, but you'll note that I didn't say it was government's role, but 
society's role.  I think an important part of a decent society is to 
recognize bad things happening and to say "hey, that's bad" and to do 
something about it.

That is why, as a society, we have laws.

>> Well, yes and no.  But the situation set up is one that requires the
>> question be asked, because religion is defined in so many different
>> ways to different people.  It need not be organised,
> 
> Fair. Again, I'm talking miracles. You're not going to convince me by
> saying "See, those three people who believe in FangleMork, the god of
> blue tomatoes, all share this wonderful trait in common."

To someone who believes in FangleMork, though, whatever it is that they 
describe as a miracle is going to be a miracle to them.  It's all in the 
perspective.  That's one reason why I like the Adams quote about not 
being able to see or know what someone else sees or knows.

>> and I don't think I've ever met two who defined their beliefs in the
>> same way.  But they certainly can be very religious people, too.
> 
> Sure. But you just lumped them all together, right?

Ah, perhaps I did. <g>

>>>> I'm not saying it has or hasn't been met in this instance, but it is
>>>> arguable that the stated requirements of the proof are vague enough
>>>> that you can come back and say "that doesn't count" when such a
>>>> counter was made.
>>> See above.
>> 
>> Well, the devil *is* in the details, no? ;-)
> 
> Not really. When something like this actually happens, show it to me.
> Then we'll worry about the details. If it's not statistically unlikely,
> then no, it won't be too convincing.

Well, kinda the converse of something that our ex-chimney sweep said to 
my wife - when the tornado hit Salt Lake City several years ago, it 
caused a lot of damage near a gay bar downtown.  He said that it was 
because God hates gays, because the likelihood of a tornado in a major 
metropolitan area is very improbable (which is true - too much heat 
radiating from the city to allow tornadoes to form) and at a high 
altitude, tornadoes are already quite improbable.  The fact that it 
touched down within several hundred yards of this particular gay bar was 
sufficiently improbable, that he said it MUST have been because it was so 
unlikely to happen.

He was informed of two things upon sharing this "revelation" with us:  
First, that he was doing the last job for us he'd ever do for us, and 
second, that God missed.  Instead of causing death and destruction for 
the people in that bar, "he" caused the death of an innocent out-of-
towner who was setting up for an outdoor retail convention in the parking 
lot across the street, and then the destruction of part of the then-under-
construction LDS general conference center, including the "miraculous" 
non-death of a worker in a crane that was folded in half by the force of 
the tornado hitting the crane he was working in.

Statistically speaking, all of those events are quite improbable, yet it 
happened.

>>> Again, it has to be big enough to be statistically unlikely. If you're
>>> going to say *this* church is the only church for its entire religion,
>>> then sure, that can happen.
>> 
>> See, that's the problem with it.  Big enough to be statistically
>> unlikely becomes difficult to quantify consistently.
> 
> Not especially. That's what statistics are for.
> 
> There was a volcanic eruption a few years ago in Hawaii. The flow came
> down, burned out a small town, carefully split and went around the
> shrine to Pele (the volcano goddess), and came back together and trashed
> the rest of the town.  I found that pretty convincing.
> 
> If this happened with every eruption, I'd start to wonder if there's
> something more to it.

Fair point.

>>> I think you know what I'm getting at. You're just arguing that I
>>> haven't provided enough details.
>> 
>> I do know what you're getting at - and my list actually would be very
>> similar.  I just know, though, that the response from someone who is
>> truly religious is going to poke those kinds of holes in the required
>> proof.
> 
> Uh, you know something? I don't really care. In my experience, trying to
> describe the scientific basis for your beliefs to someone trying to
> convince you their religion is right just doesn't work. The logic isn't
> there.

Agreed, because belief isn't logical.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be belief, 
it'd be fact-based.

>> We're not so different in points of view, Darren - I hope you do see
>> that.
> 
> Sure.
> 
>> I hope this has been an enjoyable conversation for you, it has been so
>> for me.  This sort of discussion gets me thinking and analyzing about
>> what I think and believe, and I enjoy that immensely for some reason.
> 
> Sure.

OK, good.  It's sometimes difficult to have a discussion like this and 
know that it is being approached from both perspectives in a non-
emotional way.  (I'm probably not saying that the best way I could, just 
kinda struggling for the right words for some reason)

> There's also the other fun kinds of conversations: "Do you believe in
> Life After Death?"
>     "Sure."
> "Then you *are* religious."
>     "No, why would you say that? Can't there be LaD without God?"

Heh, yes, that's true enough.  (The "fun conversation" aspect, not the 
content).

> "Do you believe in UFOs?"
>     "Sure. They just aren't alien space ships. They're unidentified."

Ah, Dennis Kucinich.... :-)

> And it constantly amazes me the number of people who try to support
> religion by pretending organization of structure is unimportant. That
> there must be some physical "thing" that represents the difference
> between a live person and a dead person, beyond how the parts are
> positioned.

Well, some people do seem to have the need to think "there's got to be 
more to it than what I see", and I don't have a problem with that up to 
the point that they try to convince me that if I just studied harder/
prayed harder/did whatever they do, it'd be revealed to me as well.  I've 
got my own understanding of the universe based - I think like yours - 
around what I can observe or logically infer from what I observe.

And such understanding is open to adjustment as new facts become apparent.

Jim

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