IIzO wrote:Basically , Seth has a belief about everything he don't know , but heard something about.

I'm just waiting to hear him admit that he thinks the Tooth Fairy might be real.

That's the corner he's backed himself into now.

Seth wrote:

byofrcs wrote:....Humanity is like a gambler placing a chip on one of any number of propositions. Each generation gambles on what it thinks is the best position. Many atheists are standing back from the table and some atheists are walking away from the table or never even got into this game to start with.

Nope. Everybody plays except the mentally deficient and the theistically ignorant. Everybody puts down a bet, and nobody wins. But everybody thinks they might win.

You missed one group - those that build the games. That's what we do - we build new games which eventually everyone else gets to play.

Seth wrote:

keypad5 wrote:

Seth wrote:

As you insist, that does not preclude evidence coming to hand at some future point. But more importantly than that, our current understanding of the world does not require any extra entities like Odin.

And this is the "necessity" canard that is a fallacious argument that presumes that merely because some phenomenon (like evolution) CAN be explained by naturalistic processes, that this means it WAS produced by naturalistic means EXCLUSIVELY.

It's rather ironic that this "canard" came from a Franciscan theologian, Bill of Ockham.

You need to read Ockham's Razor a bit more carefully, because he does not claim that the simplest answer IS the answer, merely that all things being equal, the simplest answer has the highest likelihood of being correct. It's a rule of thumb, not a scientific certainty.

And therefore it's a canard to employ it?

thedistillers wrote:

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Well if there is no God, and hence humans were not created in the Imago Dei, what reason is there to think atheists, or us humans,

Excuse me, but did you just imply that atheists are not humans? Please leave this place.

... are worth more than cockroaches?

Indeed, what reason? Who says we are? But more to the point, worth more to whom? To cockroaches, cockroaches are probably worth more than humans.

Why don't we treat humans equally as cockroaches?

Because we are humans and not cockroaches.

Seth wrote:...theistically ignorant.

I am trying to work out a meaning for that expression that makes any sense at all. Since/If god/dess/es do not exist, what's not to know?

Shuggy wrote:

thedistillers wrote:

mmmcheezy wrote:Aw, how cute. We atheists are cockroaches now!

Well if there is no God, and hence humans were not created in the Imago Dei, what reason is there to think atheists, or us humans,

Excuse me, but did you just imply that atheists are not humans? Please leave this place.

... are worth more than cockroaches?

Indeed, what reason? Who says we are? But more to the point, worth more to whom? To cockroaches, cockroaches are probably worth more than humans.

Why don't we treat humans equally as cockroaches?

Because we are humans and not cockroaches.

There is another reason; I have a theory that when a species discovers that it has evolved then it should remove itself from all ecological niches that place it in competition with other species to give them a chance to evolve further.

This is why we should not treat cockroaches as the same as the human species.

So Seth, essentially you admit that the likelihood of Odin existing (he doesn't have a hammer BTW, Mjollnir was Thor's hammer) is pretty much zero, given that we have no evidence to support his existence. Therefore you have no positive belief in Odin, and presumably any other of the Norse pantheon. So far we agree. Can I take it that you also have no belief in the existence of Quetzalcotl, or Osiris, or Zeus, or indeed any other deity? Oh, except your one god that is? And can I take it that your lack of belief is due to a lack of evidential support for these so-called deities? If so, we agree again! And the Tooth Fairy? Does a lack of evidence lead you to reject her existence too?

Equivocation of the meanings of the word "Belief"* from Seth in 3, 2, 1...






(*An opinion is not equivalent to a religious belief, even if both can be described using the same word)

chairman bill wrote:So Seth, essentially you admit that the likelihood of Odin existing (he doesn't have a hammer BTW, Mjollnir was Thor's hammer) is pretty much zero, given that we have no evidence to support his existence. Therefore you have no positive belief in Odin, and presumably any other of the Norse pantheon. So far we agree. Can I take it that you also have no belief in the existence of Quetzalcotl, or Osiris, or Zeus, or indeed any other deity? Oh, except your one god that is? And can I take it that your lack of belief is due to a lack of evidential support for these so-called deities? If so, we agree again! And the Tooth Fairy? Does a lack of evidence lead you to reject her existence too?

As far as I can see, the arguments come down to things like:

1. Absence of any evidence does not prove something doesn't exist.

Okay fine. But that's just the last ditch fallback position of desperation. If there were a scrap of evidence, nobody would do that. It also makes any belief equally valid: Odin, Zeus, the Easter Bunny, Rudolf, etc.

2. The evidence is everywhere but our own biases prevent us from seeing it.

So for example, someone recovering when everybody thought they were a goner. But we inherently don't believe in the supernatural and don't count that as evidence.

First, as a lot of us are former believers, an inherent dismissal of the supernatural fails miserably. We don't believe it anymore because of a complete failure to see the slightest evidence of it.

There was a youtube video, apparently gone now, where someone used his mother's 'miraculous recovery' as evidence of God, specifically his god, of course. When asked if it would be evidence God doesn't exist if she had died, he said no because there is a natural course of events. When asked if he believed in unicorns, he said no he didn't because there isn't the slightest evidence that they exist. Strangely, he didn't just assume they exist and say that his mother's recovery proved their existence. Frankly, it is theists who have the double standard of evidence (as if there were any evidence).

I also come back to feats of God in the Bible that there would be massive evidence of had they happened- unless we rewrite "God" into a shy entity that doesn't want anyone to know about him in which case the biblical defender has jettisoned his entire belief system to 'prove' his belief system.

There's arguments like, "Just because we know about epilepsy and schizophrenia and know medication keeps people from hearing those nasty voices doesn't prove that there isn't real demon possession." Yes, yes, we get it. Minus a scrap of evidence for the theist point of view and a mountain of verifiable evidence for the non-theist view based upon reality, theists will continue to believe what they *wish* to believe while crying "That's what you are but what am I?" and continuing to insist that people who reject things that have no evidential support are just like them.

The OP Fails, Fucking Yet Again.

It's not up to God to give evidence for his existence.

It's up for the all too human Claimants to give evidence for their Claims.

Seth wrote:This is a tautology. There is zero evidence that anything supernatural exists because the premise of the statement is that supernatural things cannot exist. The circularity of the argument should be easily perceived. If a thing is supported by (scientific) evidence, then it is ipso facto not supernatural. If it is presumed to be supernatural before the test of evidence is made, then it will never be discovered to be natural because the bias is towards rejecting the proposition because it's...well...supernatural.

This is one of the most common atheistic canards which boils down to "God does not exist because theists claim god is supernatural, and since nothing supernatural can exist, and theists have not presented any scientific evidence that a supernatural god exists (nor could they because he's supernatural) God cannot exist because he's supernatural and there is no such thing as supernatural gods." It's tautology piled on circularity.

Exactly, Seth, but this is not the scientists doing. It was theologians' doing, to exclude "empirical science" from investigating God, and allowing the wibblers to keep up their fucking jobs.

So yes, Supernaturalism is indefensible from any scientific point of view, by very definition, but this characteristic, far from being "outstanding", "amazing", etc., it's exactly the opposite: it shows how blank, how empty the set really is, since it's about propositions that are, all of them, unfalsifiable. Meaning, they can make shit up, everytime, and we couldn't tell the shit from the piss, ever.

Should we accept this state of affairs as a good manner of speaking, a good language effort? A meaningful proposal for the truth? Of course not. It's all a vacuous set. It's like the set of X defined by the equation X = X, it can be anything.

IIzO » Mar 29, 2010 1:03 am wrote:Basically , Seth has a belief about everything he don't know , but heard something about.

Very good! This is true of everyone, you see. We all take a proposition like "does the Tooth Fairy exist," and we examine it to one degree or another. First, we have to determine if we understand the terms; what is a Tooth Fairy? What is meant by "exist?" If we have no information about the concept "Tooth Fairy" our reaction is "What is a Tooth Fairy?" Having gained some information about what a Tooth Fairy is, we then apply our general knowledge about the meaning of "fairy" and "exists."

All of this thought can happen very quickly, and at each stage we are developing confidence in the truth of the various propositions associated with the question. Some confidences may be high, such as "teeth exist," and some confidences may be low, such as "fairies are generally thought of as mythical creatures." Some propositions are knowledge, such as "teeth exist" because they are subject to immediate rigorous proofs, and some remain beliefs because they are not. At some point we reach a final, if lightly-held belief about the overall question "does the Tooth Fairy exist." That belief will come down on either the yes side or the no side of the fulcrum based on our beliefs and knowledge of the sub-propositions. Very rarely, if ever, will our belief fall precisely on the fulcrum and be precisely balanced between belief and disbelief. One might think that landing on that fulcrum would make one an a-tooth-fairyist, but it would not, because having information about the propositions associated with the core question, and having given them consideration, one forms beliefs about the various propositions, which means that one cannot hold "no belief" or be "a-tooth-fairyist." One may potentially be balanced on the fulcrum between belief and disbelief, in rare cases, but that is a balance OF BELIEF, not a lack of belief.

chairman bill » Mar 29, 2010 2:08 am wrote:So Seth, essentially you admit that the likelihood of Odin existing (he doesn't have a hammer BTW, Mjollnir was Thor's hammer) is pretty much zero, given that we have no evidence to support his existence. Therefore you have no positive belief in Odin, and presumably any other of the Norse pantheon. So far we agree. Can I take it that you also have no belief in the existence of Quetzalcotl, or Osiris, or Zeus, or indeed any other deity? Oh, except your one god that is? And can I take it that your lack of belief is due to a lack of evidential support for these so-called deities? If so, we agree again! And the Tooth Fairy? Does a lack of evidence lead you to reject her existence too?

Yes, confidence in the proposition that Odin exists is low. The same is true of all other deities, confidence is low. There are no exceptions for me as you suggest. I have very low confidence in proposition that God(s), or the Tooth Fairy, exist.

I do, however, hold beliefs about those propositions.

As to the OP, there is no reason why any god, if he/she/it exists, should provide evidence. But then again there is no reason why he/she/it could not do so. My belief in this regard is that if God (any of them) exists, he/she/it must have a distinct reason why he/she/it is NOT revealing scientifically verifiable evidence of existence. Since the notion of God infers a thinking being that can make deliberate choices about doing so, I cannot therefore conclude with any certainty that God does NOT exist based on a lack of scientifically verifiable evidence, because that absence of evidence may be deliberate evasion of detection, and therefore cannot be rationally viewed as evidence of God's absence or non-existence.

So, confidence in the proposition of God(s) existence remains low, but it is not zero confidence.

rJD » Mar 29, 2010 2:26 am wrote:Equivocation of the meanings of the word "Belief"* from Seth in 3, 2, 1...






(*An opinion is not equivalent to a religious belief, even if both can be described using the same word)

But an opinion MAY be religiously practiced.

Seth » Mar 29, 2010 6:41 pm wrote:

rJD » Mar 29, 2010 2:26 am wrote:Equivocation of the meanings of the word "Belief"* from Seth in 3, 2, 1...






(*An opinion is not equivalent to a religious belief, even if both can be described using the same word)

But an opinion MAY be religiously practiced.

How does an "opinion" get practised, religously or otherwise? Even allowing this, since the different meanings of the word "religious" as a verb and "religion" as a noun have already been pointed out, you've just changed which word it was that you were equivocating, not the bad argument of equivocation itself.

Moonwatcher » Mar 29, 2010 10:19 am wrote:

chairman bill wrote:So Seth, essentially you admit that the likelihood of Odin existing (he doesn't have a hammer BTW, Mjollnir was Thor's hammer) is pretty much zero, given that we have no evidence to support his existence. Therefore you have no positive belief in Odin, and presumably any other of the Norse pantheon. So far we agree. Can I take it that you also have no belief in the existence of Quetzalcotl, or Osiris, or Zeus, or indeed any other deity? Oh, except your one god that is? And can I take it that your lack of belief is due to a lack of evidential support for these so-called deities? If so, we agree again! And the Tooth Fairy? Does a lack of evidence lead you to reject her existence too?

As far as I can see, the arguments come down to things like:

1. Absence of any evidence does not prove something doesn't exist.

Okay fine. But that's just the last ditch fallback position of desperation. If there were a scrap of evidence, nobody would do that. It also makes any belief equally valid: Odin, Zeus, the Easter Bunny, Rudolf, etc.

No, it's a perfectly logical and rational conclusion. Indeed, it's a fundamentally essential conclusion for any scientifically logical mind to make. The reason that some people take a more positive position of active disbelief in such things is because they superimpose their personal biases about the consequences of holding a neutral belief about the subject of the existence of God(s). Atheism does this to a particularly high degree, and many atheists hold their active rejections of any sort of theistic notions with great fervor and devotion, and become practically apoplectic when this active rejection is even questioned or debated. They see it as such an obvious truth, and they make biased assumptions about religious belief at such a deep level (like Dawkins excoriation of religion in TGD), that they are often completely unable to examine the matter rationally and logically, and without emotion, and discover that when viewed in an unbiased and logical manner, the question of the existence of God becomes nothing more than an unknown, and that nothing positive, either for or against the proposition, can logically be said. We simply do not have the evidence to either prove or disprove the existence of God at this point.

This is not the agnostic position that we CANNOT know this, ever, because we WILL know for certain whether God exist when our knowledge of the universe(s) is perfected.

2. The evidence is everywhere but our own biases prevent us from seeing it.

So for example, someone recovering when everybody thought they were a goner. But we inherently don't believe in the supernatural and don't count that as evidence.

First, as a lot of us are former believers, an inherent dismissal of the supernatural fails miserably. We don't believe it anymore because of a complete failure to see the slightest evidence of it.

Right. But the key is "failure to see." As in "failure to perceive." That is different from "non-existence of evidence."

There was a youtube video, apparently gone now, where someone used his mother's 'miraculous recovery' as evidence of God, specifically his god, of course. When asked if it would be evidence God doesn't exist if she had died, he said no because there is a natural course of events. When asked if he believed in unicorns, he said no he didn't because there isn't the slightest evidence that they exist. Strangely, he didn't just assume they exist and say that his mother's recovery proved their existence. Frankly, it is theists who have the double standard of evidence (as if there were any evidence).

But, you see, he had evidence; his mother's recovery. That may in fact be evidence of God's existence, or it may be evidence of some heretofore unknown biological disease mechanism that cause recovery. But it's evidence of something, whereas he was right in saying that there is no evidence of unicorns. The question now is "why did his mother recover?" Medicine is chock-full of "miraculous" recoveries that doctors are at a complete loss to explain. Does this prove God exists? No, but it may be EVIDENCE that God exists.

I also come back to feats of God in the Bible that there would be massive evidence of had they happened- unless we rewrite "God" into a shy entity that doesn't want anyone to know about him in which case the biblical defender has jettisoned his entire belief system to 'prove' his belief system.

Unless one knows that God reveals himself only to believers these days.

There's arguments like, "Just because we know about epilepsy and schizophrenia and know medication keeps people from hearing those nasty voices doesn't prove that there isn't real demon possession." Yes, yes, we get it.

Do you? Or is it merely sarcasm.

Minus a scrap of evidence for the theist point of view and a mountain of verifiable evidence for the non-theist view based upon reality, theists will continue to believe what they *wish* to believe while crying "That's what you are but what am I?" and continuing to insist that people who reject things that have no evidential support are just like them.

Well, if you ask Catholic exorcists, people who have actually claimed to have exorcised demons, they will tell you it's very real and not merely a manifestation of schizophrenia or epilepsy. I'm not sure that science has done a very good job in examining such cases and verifying that either schizophrenia or epilepsy was the actual cause. The Vatican, on the other hand, spends quite a bit of time examining such events, and is purported to have detailed records of them that they claim prove that demon possession does occur, or so they say. I have no way of knowing the truth about demon possession, but one cannot accurately say there is no evidence. There is evidence, but the question is how credible and accurate is that evidence and does it support the proposition that demon possession occurs? I think that often, science tends to religiously avoid even acknowledging such events, much less pursuing a scientific explanation for them, as a result of a fundamental anti-theistic bias in most scientists.

Luis Dias » Mar 29, 2010 10:35 am wrote:

Seth wrote:This is a tautology. There is zero evidence that anything supernatural exists because the premise of the statement is that supernatural things cannot exist. The circularity of the argument should be easily perceived. If a thing is supported by (scientific) evidence, then it is ipso facto not supernatural. If it is presumed to be supernatural before the test of evidence is made, then it will never be discovered to be natural because the bias is towards rejecting the proposition because it's...well...supernatural.

This is one of the most common atheistic canards which boils down to "God does not exist because theists claim god is supernatural, and since nothing supernatural can exist, and theists have not presented any scientific evidence that a supernatural god exists (nor could they because he's supernatural) God cannot exist because he's supernatural and there is no such thing as supernatural gods." It's tautology piled on circularity.

Exactly, Seth, but this is not the scientists doing. It was theologians' doing, to exclude "empirical science" from investigating God, and allowing the wibblers to keep up their fucking jobs.

Nonsense. No one is preventing science from investigating God but scientists. They choose not to do so for many reasons, not the least of which is that when someone actually does so, they tend to have their scientific careers destroyed by the scientific establishment.

So yes, Supernaturalism is indefensible from any scientific point of view, by very definition, but this characteristic, far from being "outstanding", "amazing", etc., it's exactly the opposite: it shows how blank, how empty the set really is, since it's about propositions that are, all of them, unfalsifiable. Meaning, they can make shit up, everytime, and we couldn't tell the shit from the piss, ever.

[/quote]

Back to the tautology. It doesn't matter what theists claim about God. Dawkins himself said that the question of whether or not God exists is absolutely a question of science. Either God exists or he doesn't, and science will eventually be able to make a determination in that regard. Perhaps not right now, but eventually. What theists claim about God should be ignored in favor of constructing experiments to determine the existence and nature of God independent of what they claim.

Very good! This is true of everyone, you see. We all take a proposition like "does the Tooth Fairy exist," and we examine it to one degree or another. First, we have to determine if we understand the terms; what is a Tooth Fairy? What is meant by "exist?" If we have no information about the concept "Tooth Fairy" our reaction is "What is a Tooth Fairy?" Having gained some information about what a Tooth Fairy is, we then apply our general knowledge about the meaning of "fairy" and "exists."

Unfortunately for your argument i stop at "what is a thooth fairy" and until i have satisfactory input of what is it "ACTUALLY" , ill stop at "what is that?" and hold no ontological views that go further than "it is a proposition" wich is not a belief but a fact.

All of this thought can happen very quickly, and at each stage we are developing confidence in the truth of the various propositions associated with the question. Some confidences may be high, such as "teeth exist," and some confidences may be low, such as "fairies are generally thought of as mythical creatures." Some propositions are knowledge, such as "teeth exist" because they are subject to immediate rigorous proofs, and some remain beliefs because they are not.

What they are generaly tought of do not really help.

At some point we reach a final, if lightly-held belief about the overall question "does the Tooth Fairy exist." That belief will come down on either the yes side or the no side of the fulcrum based on our beliefs and knowledge of the sub-propositions.

I have no final belief about the Tooth fairy.It is a concept that have no justification outside the realm of concepts , until i find one .

Very rarely, if ever, will our belief fall precisely on the fulcrum and be precisely balanced between belief and disbelief. One might think that landing on that fulcrum would make one an a-tooth-fairyist, but it would not, because having information about the propositions associated with the core question, and having given them consideration, one forms beliefs about the various propositions, which means that one cannot hold "no belief" or be "a-tooth-fairyist." One may potentially be balanced on the fulcrum between belief and disbelief, in rare cases, but that is a balance OF BELIEF, not a lack of belief.

I don't form beliefs about propositions i form hypothesis , without any way to test them i simply don't try to validate one or another.I have no reasons to believe that fairys do not exists , as i have no reasons to believe they exists...blatantly put the only thing i can say about the proposition is that i know the proposition and this isn't a belief its a fact .

The trouble with scientific research into the existnce or not of gods, is that the usual response to anything that successfully argues away God is met with assertions about God that make his/her/its existence unfalsifiable, and so outside the realms of science.

[quote="[url=http://www.rational-skepticism.org/viewtopic.php?p=96062#p96062]Seth » Mar 29, 2010 2:05 pm[/url
As far as I can see, the arguments come down to things like:
1. Absence of any evidence does not prove something doesn't exist.

Okay fine. But that's just the last ditch fallback position of desperation. If there were a scrap of evidence, nobody would do that. It also makes any belief equally valid: Odin, Zeus, the Easter Bunny, Rudolf, etc. [/quote]

No, it's a perfectly logical and rational conclusion. Indeed, it's a fundamentally essential conclusion for any scientifically logical mind to make. The reason that some people take a more positive position of active disbelief in such things is because they superimpose their personal biases about the consequences of holding a neutral belief about the subject of the existence of God(s). Atheism does this to a particularly high degree, and many atheists hold their active rejections of any sort of theistic notions with great fervor and devotion, and become practically apoplectic when this active rejection is even questioned or debated. They see it as such an obvious truth, and they make biased assumptions about religious belief at such a deep level (like Dawkins excoriation of religion in TGD), that they are often completely unable to examine the matter rationally and logically, and without emotion, and discover that when viewed in an unbiased and logical manner, the question of the existence of God becomes nothing more than an unknown, and that nothing positive, either for or against the proposition, can logically be said. We simply do not have the evidence to either prove or disprove the existence of God at this point.

On the level of semantics and philosophical arguments, this is quite true. But I have yet to see the proponent of such ideas apply the same standard to Santa, the Easter Bunny and unicorns in any practical sense.

This is not the agnostic position that we CANNOT know this, ever, because we WILL know for certain whether God exist when our knowledge of the universe(s) is perfected.

I think the position is more that we cannot know some abstract entity doesn't exist because there is no evidence. In the strictest sense, we can never prove that something isn't real due to lack of evidence. But its arguing philosophical versus practical definitions. The various god-believers hold not one iota of belief that Santa exists. I find it hard to believe that anyone accepts any possibility that the Easter Bunny exists simply because one cannot absolutely prove it doesnt.

There are also situations that are not 'no evidence'. There are deities and other creatures that have numerous alleged actions that there is evidence did not happen.

You are simply taking something that is a starting point (let us consider that something might be true and test it) and making that starting point all there is. C.S. Lewis, in response to the "Can God make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it?" argument, said that nonsensical things that are pure semantics do not become logical just because we attach "God" to them. Likewise, in the practical sense, a person can only be expected to seriously consider the "Well, there's no evidence but you can't ever absolutely prove its not true so there" argument to a certain point.

Right. But the key is "failure to see." As in "failure to perceive." That is different from "non-existence of evidence."

Yes and when the circular 'evidence' is presented, the theist generally says, "See, I presented evidence and you aren't open to it. You just don't believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn because you don't want to believe."

Do I think the laws of physics will change tomorrow? Possible but not very likely due to billions of years of stability. Do I think someone will come up with some sort of argument to prove Christianity, for example? If we assume any sort of literalism, the stuff that would have to be explained is astronomical. But I definitely don't think it will happen due to the failure to do so to date. [Insert "failure to do so is your opinion and there is all sorts of circular evidence" here].

But, you see, he had evidence; his mother's recovery. That may in fact be evidence of God's existence, or it may be evidence of some heretofore unknown biological disease mechanism that cause recovery. But it's evidence of something, whereas he was right in saying that there is no evidence of unicorns. The question now is "why did his mother recover?" Medicine is chock-full of "miraculous" recoveries that doctors are at a complete loss to explain. Does this prove God exists? No, but it may be EVIDENCE that God exists.

It may be evidence that unicorns exist. It may be evidence that green, polka-dotted invisible martians drinking vanilla milkshakes in my room exist. It may be evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. So, you genuinely and honestly hold out any possibility, however remote, that any of these things exist- not as a semantic/ philosophical exercise or a delusion but actually exists?

I also come back to feats of God in the Bible that there would be massive evidence of had they happened- unless we rewrite "God" into a shy entity that doesn't want anyone to know about him in which case the biblical defender has jettisoned his entire belief system to 'prove' his belief system.

Unless one knows that God reveals himself only to believers these days.

This is just Sagan's Dragon illustration. Keep changing the nature of "God" or the dragon or whatever and rewriting it to stubbornly maintain your position while actually drastically changing your position. Its a game I see five year olds play. "No you can't see him."
"You didn't say he was invisible."
"Well, I'm saying it now."
"But a minute ago you said I'd see him."
"Well, now he's invisible."

I'm glad empirical science didn't spend too much time on this sort of 'logic'. I'd have died from appendicitus decades ago while they were arguing how many angels could dance on the head of a pin while pointing out that not being able to see them doesn't prove they don't exist and being able to see the pin doesn't prove it does exist.

There's arguments like, "Just because we know about epilepsy and schizophrenia and know medication keeps people from hearing those nasty voices doesn't prove that there isn't real demon possession." Yes, yes, we get it.

Do you? Or is it merely sarcasm. [/quote

Its both. I understand the argument.

Well, if you ask Catholic exorcists, people who have actually claimed to have exorcised demons, they will tell you it's very real and not merely a manifestation of schizophrenia or epilepsy. I'm not sure that science has done a very good job in examining such cases and verifying that either schizophrenia or epilepsy was the actual cause. The Vatican, on the other hand, spends quite a bit of time examining such events, and is purported to have detailed records of them that they claim prove that demon possession does occur, or so they say. I have no way of knowing the truth about demon possession, but one cannot accurately say there is no evidence. There is evidence, but the question is how credible and accurate is that evidence and does it support the proposition that demon possession occurs? I think that often, science tends to religiously avoid even acknowledging such events, much less pursuing a scientific explanation for them, as a result of a fundamental anti-theistic bias in most scientists.

I wouldn't disagree with any of this. But I think science did explore some of these issues. They clearly examined cases of demon possession. if they hadn't, they would not have discovered the physical and measureable symptoms of it that allowed them to device medical cures, which included curing 'demon possessions' that could only be cured through prayer and fasting.

Again, its not just the vast abstract picture. Its the details that also matter.

Oh wait. I can play this game too.

Actually, they are only suppressing the symptoms. The demons really won't be cast out except through prayer and fasting. It helps too if there is a pig nearby.