I don’t see how “atheism” is “lack of belief“ - as the word clearly means “not-God-ism”.
While I’m no Protestant, the general “tone and timbre” of American Christianity, while starkly divided, was actually doing pretty darn bangin at ordering societies up until the 20th Century
Even when explaining the Jews - the Jews WROTE THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Do you not think it's reasonable to ask where they got this information and how they decided upon it?
But they never look into how the Jews do things. And consider it all "divine" when it's not. It was a bunch of Jews sitting around arguing until they all decided someone had won the argument. The entire jewish religion starts out with Abraham arguing with god and "winning the argument".
This is the basis for their whole religion - this is your old testament. It has nothing to do with divine beings from the sky.
Even if it were true that the OT were ahistorical (a claim I highly doubt), it misses the point entirely.
The OT was written centuries before the Incarnation of Christ, and was positively stuffed with Messianic Prophecy that wasn’t fulfilled until hundreds of years after all the authors had died. No merely-human agency at any level could possibly pull that off. That’s its actual significance
That's like saying "That last domino can't possible fall just because someone pushes over the first domino."
That’s not at all what it’s like; nobody human could possibly have steered events like the God-Man being born in a specific town, to a specific virgin. One doesn’t get to decide things like that about their own birth.
Yeah I don’t know what to tell you. Shepherds and peasants and fishermen don’t really have a lot of ability to steer the sorts of narratives that rulers pay to have written down
Pretty sure we’re talking past each other; I’m referring to OT Messianic Prophecy
So you might want to get interested in how they decided what was in the Torah, and what they mean by "God"
I’m not sure I understand why you’re claiming to know so much about “Kabbalah” being sourced “word-for-word” from the “Torah”. Are you an authority on jewish mysticism ?
I called them "Kabbalah Jews"
I didn't say it was sourced from the torah, I said the OT was.
And I'm reasonably well versed in some of the Kabbalah, enough to know it's a system, and that yeah, you can engineer systems to fall like dominos as you see fit.
So if the OT was sourced from the Jews, you might want to work out how they came about those things. And it was because of the arguments the rabbis use to do everything they do.
This is a fun discussion and I’ll get back to it when I get the chance; not blowing it off or anything 😆
So please set me straight if I’m missing something. You’re arguing roughly that:
The Messianic Prophecies of the OT are an elaborate, kabbalistic sort of shell-game, with the Gospel writers penning their “fulfillment” in a largely fictional account around a man being called “Jesus Christ”.
That this was the ultimate aim of the writers of the specific Prophecies - to which they employed many tricks and puns in order to project their intention centuries into the future, where they figured they’d be “unlocked”.
Am I missing anything here ?
However, through Kabbalah you can harness energy in particular ways to use to manipulate people, yes. And the Kabbalah is itself a macrocosmic system of logic as well.
This is where you get your Nostradamus's, etc. It's not magical, it's logical.
Like, in retrospect, if we created electricity, would AI become the logical conclusion?
Keep in mind they created the movie Metropolis (with the thinking robot) back in the early 1900's. Is this not a logical conclusion we could surmise from actions taken in the past?
Kabbalah is the same thing but on a very human level. I'm sure there's tonnes of it I know little about, but that's the way it is supposed to work.
Okay, I’m not going to deny any of that, at all. I’m totally open to the possibility that Isaiah, say, was “forecasting” certain things through “kabbalistic” word-and-number play - which the Gospel Writers seven-hundred or so years later “decoded” - illuminating them as to how properly to ”fulfil the Prophecy” with their fictional account of the God-Man Jesus Christ. Sure, why not ?
So, by now, because it’s already been “decoded”, it should be pretty easy to find a few examples, right ? Do you happen to know of any ? Sincere question: what was the specific forecast and how was it fulfilled ?
Surely there must be many of these. In fact I know of a few off the top of my head.
It is in some ways - very biblical.
God is within you and all around you. <- it takes this very seriously.
If god is logic, why not do the logic inside yourself? This is the root of Kabbalah.
It's not some devil worship or something. I wouldn't suggest that kind of thing.
It's certainly not Christian - I'll give you that. But this is also why I had a rant the other week about my suspicious nature of Hitler and was talking about inflection points - I'm talking about the logic of it all.
@thefinn @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd
Numerology is not logical for physics and chemistry predictions
Numerology does not enable you to understand what will happen based on physics
Numerology is a language to send secret messages to specific individuals that know the code without the rest of the public that sees the message understanding the intended meaning
@thefinn @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd
How can you claim to know so much about the Kabballah but so little about numerology
Are you telling me the Kabballah is nkt full of numerology
I don't practice it.
@thefinn @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd
What would anyone "do" with it? Isn't it just some kind of jewish mysticism?
As far as I can tell, kabbalah is just one of many in the jews’ bag of tricks to hoodwink the gullible goyim
You were the fucker going on about mystical nonsense that can't really be proven earlier. "I believe because I believe"
And that's not flimflam?
I've seen shit that would make you question reality itself, but I don't believe in people levitating and climbing the walls. Not without proof. And the proof should be easily gotten, but we don't because <reasons>. And that's not good enough.
Yeah, that's something I'd pretty much have to see with my own eyes. I haven't experienced anything like that, and I don't know what to make of people who say that they have.
It's not a protestant thing. Like ok, just get me some video. Half the world will fucking come and be baptised. But they don't.?!?!
@zeke @h4890 @Sovereign @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Hmong people told me things were levitating when they worked with demon possessed people
If you talk to either Hmong Christians or Hmong Animists they will tell you supernatural sounding stories
@shortstories @zeke @Sovereign @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
I actually _have_ heard about supernatural things from people in iceland. Yet... the common factor is... it's always stories, it's never repeatable, and it never happens in the vicinity of scientific equipment, and of course, I've never seen anything myself.
It's highly unlikely any evidence could be presented which you would accept, even if you witnessed it personally.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Me witnessing it personally is not evidence, unless I could replicate it, at will, in front of cameras, equipment, etc. My first respons, lacking that, would be to question my sanity and go to a psychologist. ;)
I agree, you have a point here!
Well there’s always reddit; you’d fit right in 😆
@KingOfWhiteAmerica @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Excellent! You made Jesus happy today! ;)
If you discount eyewitness testimony as evidence, you're not going to win many court cases. It's all we have for historical events.
> would be to question my sanity and go to a psychologist.
I believe Shakespeare said it best: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
You are wrong. We are not talking a legal process, we are talking scientific evidence.
You must learn the difference between evidence in a legal court, and the evidence that science requires.
Before you know this, you cannot understand the arguments I make.
I don’t honestly remember what this thread is about; is this the one about demonic possession, still ?
Who knows? I'm not going to try to find out.
It makes me laugh how almost the entirety of online discourse around debated topics not accepted in the current establishment turns into ”you don’t understand what Science is!”
Which, as I have a BSEE, I can only laugh at. Engineering is, after all, "Applied Science".
I understand both what science is and its limitations.
On the internet, it’s relatively easy to cultivate a persona of hard-bitten science-driven skeptic that only believes things that are experimentally verified, replicated and peer reviewed. Pretty much nobody actually lives that way; and anybody that did would be painfully retarded since most of ordinary life doesn’t work like that.
@KingOfWhiteAmerica @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
This is incorrect, and this is dependent on the question under discussion. The question was if demons exist, and what evidence should support that. The conclusion is that they do not exist, and that no empirical evidence in the scientific tradition has been presented, and thereby
@KingOfWhiteAmerica @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
the science side won the arguments, since the spiritualists, could not present any evidence.
There was this computer science student from a country near India who had a very loud debate with other computer scientists who were creationists and said that you have to believe in evolution and I do not care if you are christian there are Christians that believe in evolution
And he took almost no biology being a computer science student and it was hilaripus how much faith he put in professors representing a field he did not study
And the faculty got mad at the noise
You have to carefully define evolution in that case, but in general, yes.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Ahhh... that explains it! You have never studied philosophy of science, and probably never worked as a scientist. It is very common for engineering types to believe that they are better scientists than scientists while having no idea about academic science, how it is done or its underlying assumptions.
That would be false, and I know it better than you do.
> and probably never worked as a scientist.
That would be true. I had to make a living.
> It is very common for engineering types to believe that they are better scientists than scientists while having no idea about academic science, how it is done or its underlying assumptions.
That is also false.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Thank you for admitting I'm right. 😎
And now you simply resort to lying.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Thank you for admitting I won the argument. This takes strength of character!
This isn't an argument. It's a vain effort to try to teach you something you're apparently completely incapable of understanding.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Incorrect... this is your way to retreat with dignity. I am actually trying to teach you something and make you stop believing in ghosts.
Keep the ad hominems coming boy! ;)
@KingOfWhiteAmerica @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
I think perhaps it has run its course.
If you can't trust eyewitness evidence, you can't trust the evidence science collects, as by definition it must be witnessed and interpreted by the scientists.
> You must learn the difference between evidence in a legal court, and the evidence that science requires.
So you define evidence to suit your requirements? There is no difference. Science merely requires replication of that evidence.
> Before you know this, you cannot understand the arguments I make.
What I understand is that your arguments don't apply to reality, but to some small subset of reality that you carefully define.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Science is not based on eye witness accounts, it is based on falsifiable hypotheses, and repeatable and verifiable experiments. There is a reason that a scientist just "seeing" something is not counted as empirical evidence. Countless scientists have seen things which were mistakes or they misinterpreted the evidence.
Without eyewitness accounts you can't conduct a "verifiable experiment."
Even if you have automated machinery record the results, they can't be interpreted until someone examines them. And the moment a person examines the results you're back to eyewitness accounts.
> Countless scientists have seen things which were mistakes or they misinterpreted the evidence.
And? How were they verified as mistakes or misinterpretations. Oh, that's right, but the "eyewitness accounts" of other experiments.
You're understanding of metaphysics is laughable.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Ahh... send the ad hominems, excellent way to know I'm winning!
As for metaphysics, go and read a little Wittgenstein and then you can come back.
Nope... we're talking models, predictions, and verifications.
That we can see and observe
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
things in the world is just childish nitpicking for the purpose of this conversation, and I will disregard it.
Just as you do reality when you find it inconvenient.
If you think lying is winning, then yeah I guess you are.
It is the factor of eyewitness accounts that makes it science.
The key component of the scientific method is the falsification of hypothesis. A hypothesis is a just so story, actual science runs experiments to try to prove it wrong. If it is not yet proven wrong it is a working hypothesis.
BTW less than 1% of so-called science experiments actually seek to invalidate the hypothesis. Almost all seek additional data, a.k.a. eyewitness testimony, to support the hypothesis.
Almost all science is not science.
@Snidely_Whiplash @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
This seems to be similar to James arguments, and I've successfully countered them, so won't do it again.
No, an hypothesis is not the same thing as a story. The bible is not a hypothesis. As for whta science is or is not doing right now, has nothing to do with the argument or question at hand.
It’s really an awful lot like trying to convince a blind man that “red” or “green” are objectively real. Very similar. You won’t be talked out of its denial, at that’s fine - it’s really nothing you need to worry about 😆
Not during his life at least.
You've lied about countering them and succeeded in your own mind.
What’s funny to me about it; we know color exists, in spite of a stubborn blind man‘s insistence it doesn’t. So said blind man certainly won’t concede it’s existence simply because we’re all clearly conversant in the paradigm. But the only apparatus in existence that can change that is given solely at God’s discretion.
@James_Dixon
Incorrect, so you're the nigga here.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
I use the standard of evidence that the scientific method, the worlds most successful method of explaining the world, has defined.
Clearly you still seem to have difficulties understanding that questions about nature is not a court process. It is not. It is a scientific question, and therefore it demands scientific evidence.
Without understanding the limitations of the scientific method.
> Clearly you still seem to have difficulties understanding that questions about nature is not a court process.
Clearly you have difficulties understanding what is evidence and what is not. And this discussion has not been about nature, but about the supernatural. Which, by definition, is not nature.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Incorrect. You sir, are the one who believes scientific evidence is equivalent to evidence in court. Let me assure you, it is not.
Also you have misunderstood the thread completely. The claim was that demons and other such entities exist. Empirical evidence was asked for, and not given, so the scientific side won the argument.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Since we are material beings and science is the way we describe the world and its phenomena, there is no limitation there, since the material world is all that exist.
Evidence to the contrary has not been presented, so again, I win.
A statement which cannot be proven. 🙄
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Of course it can. Not only that, it can be falsified too! Show me the matrix, the brain in a vat, the other dimension, the demon, or what not, and I'll happily admit I was wrong.
As it is, there's plenty of empirical and repeatable evidence that the world exists.
One experiment you can try is to bash your head in with a rock.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
If the material does not exist, you'll be fine.
I don't believe. I know. You're the one trying to limit reality to some small segment of it that you'll accept.
@James_Dixon @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
Incorrect. I'm the one embracing reality while you seem to enjoy fairy tales. Grow out of it nigga!
@Snidely_Whiplash @shortstories @Sovereign @zeke @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
You can start here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method and here plato.stanford.edu. Enjoy!
He asked if you could define it, not if you could to point to a definition by someone else.
All that is left is the experience itself. If that experience is strange enough, happens often enough, in different ways, and in such a way that other, more natural explanations fail (as it did with me and those with me), you are left with profound information you are incapable of adequately sharing with others. It can be frustrating, and ultimately, very isolating. I no longer expect anyone to believe what we saw and experienced. I rarely even bother telling anyone about it. I have to be content in knowing that it actually happened, and that that knowledge makes me even more alone than normal.
Really, it's better for you if you never have such an experience. Part of me envies you. Your world is more normal, more predictable than mine.
Knocked that waaaay out of the park (as usual). 🥂
@shortstories @zeke @Sovereign @GoonPatrol @James_Dixon @Kalogerosstilitis2RevengeoftheJunta @KingOfWhiteAmerica @multiversal_gangstalker @thatfightnerd @thefinn
So for me, I consider it nothing but stories until empirical evidence is presented, at which point, it becomes an interesting investigation into the unknown.