blue triangle wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

blue triangle wrote: Now, the truth is that although I've always supported religion since I gave up atheism, I'm uncomfortable with a lot of what religion does and says, including my own religion, Christianity.

Again, I don't believe you were ever an atheist.

As I stated, believing is seeing. You don't don't believe I was ever an atheist, so you don't see what's in front of your eyes. You'd rather believe this is some huge wind-up, or me trying to take the metaphysical high ground. Thomas, I was an atheist from the age of 11, when I had a little epiphany at Sunday school, when they tried to tell me that Methuselah lived for 969 years, until a vision I received at the age of 38. That's 27 years of atheism. I was an agnostic atheist at points; but most of the time I was a fairly convinced atheist. I hesitate to say gnostic atheist, but very, very close to it. The issue was settled for me by my early thirties - life's a bitch and then you die - and I accepted it.

That's some worthwhile detail, BT, but the details about your circumstances when you had your 'vision' are missing, and even if you gave them, I'd take them with a few grains of salt. You'd have to tell us how many years beyond your epiphanic vision at 38 you've been at this, but I think that's an unfair request for personal detail that no one here would be obliged to respond to.

So your circumstances are going to have to remain in the realm of anecdote. It's not that I don't believe that you had some sort of epiphanic vision, but I don't accept that such events are supernaturally delivered. I accept that people just get too stressed out and capitulate to anxiety, sometimes in the way you claim to have done.

It doesn't bother me that life's a bitch, and then you die. It's pretty horrible what happens to a lot of people when age catches up with them, in their 50s of sudden heart attacks (not a bad way to go, if you have to go early) or in their late 80s with COPD. Yet others victimized by no other than genetics are early victims of diabetes.

What's scary about living is all the ways things can go wrong. Somebody gets a mole on her back that she doesn't know about and suddenly her body is riddled with metastasis. That's how Eva Cassidy went, far too young.

It doesn't matter, BT. You have to keep the "life is short" part well in mind. Whatever goes wrong won't last long, although it might seem it at the time. If you don't have that kind of self-possession naturally, building a theistic house of cards is only going to be a plaster over the irritation. There are meds for anxiety that actually change the way your endocrine system functions.

Sendraks wrote:Maybe if someone's first language was that of dolphins, I'd be willing to generously concede that this might impact on their ability to both marshal arguments and write coherently.

Funny you should mention dolphins. Dolphins catch about 7 out of every 22 fish they hunt. Now, if you turn 7/22 around, you get 22/7, which is a rather fishy pi. Apparently the proportion of fish is split fairly consistently between salmon, haddock and prawns, which spookily enough provides the main fishy ingredients for a fish pie.

Cito di Pense wrote:

tuco wrote:You are fucking crying that I derail thread about nonsense.

I agree, tuco, that was a fucking mistake. Those who know how to do it properly simply ignore your posts, as happened in this thread, where you were even commenting more or less on topic:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/islam ... l#p2396919

I'll remember to do that next time. Sorry for the irritation.

In time when the so-called migrant crisis, Islam, Islamic radicalism threatens foundations of the EU, threatens ignorant people through assholes with cool haircuts and without, someone starts a thread where there is at least remote chance to learn something positive about Islam, unlike the usual how Islam is not religion of peace, how veil is oppression of women even those who want to wear it or what some fucked up imam somewhere said. And you compare it to this thread, to this nonsense. Nonsense no serious researcher spends time and energy on.

No irritation or rather irritation well worth. This tells me more than your eloquent posts about nothing.

blue triangle wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

blue triangle wrote: Now, the truth is that although I've always supported religion since I gave up atheism, I'm uncomfortable with a lot of what religion does and says, including my own religion, Christianity.

Again, I don't believe you were ever an atheist.

As I stated, believing is seeing. You don't don't believe I was ever an atheist, so you don't see what's in front of your eyes.

I quite like this.

-Believing is seeing
-Therefore if you haven't seen you shouldn't believe.

Question: Has Thomas seen you be an atheist?

I repeat, I posted one sentence without addressing anyone and I was quoted, told I was seeking attention and derailing. Indeed, dont not quote me, ignore me. Then re-think the hypotheses of attention seeking and derailing.

I would like to see evidence for that claim, attention seeking behaviour.

tuco wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

tuco wrote:You are fucking crying that I derail thread about nonsense.

I agree, tuco, that was a fucking mistake. Those who know how to do it properly simply ignore your posts, as happened in this thread, where you were even commenting more or less on topic:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/islam ... l#p2396919

I'll remember to do that next time. Sorry for the irritation.

In a time when the so-called migrant crisis, Islam, Islamic radicalism threatens foundations of the EU, threatens ignorant people through assholes with cool haircuts and without, someone starts a thread where there is at least remote chance to learn something positive about Islam, unlike the usual how Islam is not religion of peace, how veil is oppression of women even those who want to wear it or what some fucked up imam somewhere said. And you compare it to this thread, to this nonsense. Nonsense no serious researcher spends time and energy on.

No irritation or rather irritation well worth. This tells me more than your eloquent posts about nothing.

Glad you could get that off your chest, whatever it was. There's a reason nobody knows how to respond to what you think you're saying. It's because, no matter how hard you try, you can't say it. As somebody else has pointed out to you, problems with syntax and grammar should not prevent you from making yourself plain. You don't have a clue what it is you want to say, beyond your repeated insistence that numerology of scripture is not important compared to European politics. Each to his own, tuco.

You're also not managing to read irony, except that I sincerely AM sorry to irritate you, because your inarticulateness is only your most obvious problem. It's pointless to respond to your posts because you're all broadcast and no reception, and that has little to do with your difficulties in a second language, especially given the prior observation that reading is easier than writing in a second language.

Alan B wrote:In post 593 of the "Can personal experience be evidence of the paranormal?" here, I posted the following:

It is the sole responsibility of the theist to provide material evidence of the existence of a ‘god’. The atheist does not need to take any active part in this process but to just metaphorically ‘sit back’ and watch the theists tie themselves in knots.

So far, BT's efforts are confirming this.

The onus is upon the theist to provide evidence of the existence of the god or gods in which they have a belief. This evidence must be peer reviewed and acceptable to believer and non-believer alike. If this evidence is accepted then non-belief and belief with respect to the existence of a supreme deity or deities will be made redundant since they will replaced by knowledge gained by direct observation.

So far, no evidence has been presented.

That's simply a statement. I have presented evidence, which I see you have not engaged with, as I would have expected someone with your background to do.

It is common among theist believers to assume that their belief system imparts ‘knowledge’ to the individual that they then claim is ‘evidence’ that their deity (or deities) exist. They then try to back-up this claim by presenting additional ‘evidence’ – usually in the form of ‘sacred’ or ancient writings – that ‘prove’ that their belief-driven claim is true (usually at the expense of other beliefs). This is delusional.So far, BT's efforts have done nothing to dispel this.

My answer was that the knowledge imparted was numbers from which can be inferred the transcendentals pi and e, and the physical constant alpha, all to fairly high degrees of accurary (excepting the valid point made by others here that they are the first few digits of each number, rather than the numbers themselves). Pi could (just) have been encoded deliberately, but e and alpha could not have been. Furthermore

1. The pi and e 'estimates' are in error by equal and opposite amounts, in each case the error in about 1 part in 90000.

2. A simple arithmetic sum ('pi + e') is therefore in error of the true value by only around 1 in 800000.

3. The Alpha 'estimate' is in error by around one part in a million.

4. Considering the sum of the 'estimates' of pi + e + alpha, we find it in error of the true value by about 1 in 20 million.

5. The numerical sum of Genesis 1.1 is 2701, 37 x 73 and a unique triangular number.

6. The sum of John 1.1 is 3627, 39 x 93 and a plinth upon which triangle 2701 can be placed to create triangle 6328, the 112th triangle. 'YHVH Elohim' in Hebrew gematria has a numerical weight of 112.

7. There are many more mathematical wonders therein. A search of Vernon Jenkins' website will show them.

Does none of that interest you? Instead of calling it 'numerology', wouldn't you consider the possibility that it is information?

What I believe it to be evidence for is the interaction of this putative 'non-physical mind' with physical reality, through what religionists call 'divine inspiration'. Physicists like David Bohm and Jack Scarfatti have speculated/hypothesised that this non-physical mind is pure information (omniscience), transcending time and space (omni-presence) and able to interact with physical reality (omnipotence). Now THAT could be the snark itself.

Numerology is crap.

Simple unsupported assertion.

It only seems to be 'workable' with the Latin alphabet and the decimal counting system.

Why do you say that? It certainly 'works' with Hebrew and Greek in the same way. they stand or fall together.

If BT is trying to 'prove' that a god or gods exist by using the Christian Bible and numerology, then the same 'technique' must be valid for all past cultures and their sacred writings since this god is (or gods are) universal for all sentient lifeforms past and present throughout the known universe (allegedly).

I agree. Who said it was just Hebrew? Or the Christian Bible? Muslims say that the number 19, important to them, is encoded within the Quran. And I am not trying to prove anything. I don't think it can be done. I'm trying to show you evidence of the existence of this non-physical mind. If it was pure information as Bohn asserts about his 'implicate order', wouldn't numbers such as pi and e be expected? They are the two most important transcendental numbers in mathematics. Isn't alpha important in physics and the number quantifying the strength of the interaction of light and matter? Let there be light! Yes, I know you need more than this, but if you have any curiosity at all, wouldn't it be interesting to find out a little more? There is more, although in a sense you don't need it.

“If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.” - William James

To base one's assertion on a single source used by a single belief system is a nonsense when 'dealing' with a universal deity (or deities) that theists claim to have existed for all eternity.

Who is basing it on a single source? That's all I've shown you so far.

Can one get the same, er, 'results' with the Traditional Chinese Character Set and their ancient counting system or Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs with their counting system?

Perhaps, but that has no bearing on whether this is a result or not.

The fact that some religions are centred around a single God should have no bearing on other religions that believe in multiple gods when attempting to find material evidence for the existence of any of them.

Some Christians will, and have, claimed this is proof of the literal truth of scripture. I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's evidence for the interaction between a non-physical mind and physical reality that you asked me to provide. Now sir, your refutation please.

Thommo wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

Again, I don't believe you were ever an atheist.

As I stated, believing is seeing. You don't don't believe I was ever an atheist, so you don't see what's in front of your eyes.

I quite like this.

-Believing is seeing
-Therefore if you haven't seen you shouldn't believe.

Question: Has Thomas seen you be an atheist?

I don't claim to be an atheist.

blue triangle wrote:What I believe it to be evidence for is the interaction of this putative 'non-physical mind' with physical reality, through what religionists call 'divine inspiration'.

Well, then you're just going to have to take a step back, because the kind of 'evidence' you claim to have is one you don't know how to characterize, except to say you 'believe it to be evidence of X' where X is not very well-defined and doesn't fit into any existing theory.

When scientists use that kind of language, they're trying to fit an existing observation into some existing theory, rather than to say that their re-evaluation of an existing observation requires the development of a new theory into which they were trying to fit the observation. You'd say that 'divine inspiration' is not a new theory, but then, nobody ever connected the word 'evidence' to the words 'divine inspiration' quite the way crank theories proving God tend to do it.

Your approach is entirely ad hoc, because there's no precursor theory to this putative 'non-physical mind' except by analogy with evidence of localized minds such as those found in human brains. You wouldn't fucking know what to call it if you didn't have this existing theory of brain-mediated mind that people take pretty much for granted.

Thommo wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

Shrunk wrote:

Fenrir wrote:You'd do a lot better if you didn't wave around ignorance of probability quite so freely.

You only have one bible to sample. You can only sample it once.

The probability of rolling 6 sixes in a row is exactly the same as that if rolling any other specific combination, say 155263 or 443614.

Funnily enough your claims for god are exactly the opposite to the arguments used by the "probability of reality is 1 in a really big number therefore god" crowd.

Even funnier both arguments are equally fallacious.

If I understand correctly, among the many errors BT makes is concluding from the (correct) premise that you are more likely to pick the one red ball out of nine in ten tries than in one, that it is less probable for the first ball you pull out to be red than for the tenth one. In each case the odds are 1/9.

I agree. What the fuck are you guys trying to pin on me now?

blue triangle wrote:I said that if you run a large number of trials with different texts, you would expect a clustering of hits at around verse 90000.

blue triangle wrote:As for your second assertion, using the binomial formula, I reckon the following odds for hitting 31415 in 20000 verses, 40000 verses, 60000 verses, etc, up to 200000 verses

p (20000) = 0.176
p (40000) = 0.283
p (60000) = 0.341
p (80000) = 0.365
p (100000) = 0.366
p (120000) = 0.353
p (140000) = 0.330
p (160000) = 0.303
p (180000) = 0.273
p (200000) = 0.244

The maximum probability is at just over 90000 verses in. In other words there is a gentle distribution curve with the peak there (and a positive skew, as expected when the minimum is zero and the maximum infinity). So I have to insist you're wrong there. In other words, if you tested text after text you would see that there would indeed be a clustering of hits at around 90000 words (assuming you had texts that long). It's more gentle than I expected, mind you.

I don't see what's to pin. He accurately described a mistake that's been made, repeated and elaborated upon.

I'm *hoping* that one of your later posts was an acknowledgement that this mistake had been identified.

We'll get to that.

But first, have you admitted to your arithmetical error yet?

Sendraks wrote:

blue triangle wrote:

I don't claim to be an atheist.

Don't lie, especially not in such close proximity to a post where you claimed to be an atheist for the greater part of your life.
You are no longer an atheist but, we have no evidence that you ever were an atheist.

As you say, seeing is believe.
Has Thomas, at any point in your life, ever seen you be an atheist?

Thanks for the laugh! Now, take your paranoia and your distrust and whatever else you keep beside the lint in your pocket and go away.

Cito di Pense wrote:

tuco wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:

tuco wrote:You are fucking crying that I derail thread about nonsense.

I agree, tuco, that was a fucking mistake. Those who know how to do it properly simply ignore your posts, as happened in this thread, where you were even commenting more or less on topic:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/islam ... l#p2396919

I'll remember to do that next time. Sorry for the irritation.

In a time when the so-called migrant crisis, Islam, Islamic radicalism threatens foundations of the EU, threatens ignorant people through assholes with cool haircuts and without, someone starts a thread where there is at least remote chance to learn something positive about Islam, unlike the usual how Islam is not religion of peace, how veil is oppression of women even those who want to wear it or what some fucked up imam somewhere said. And you compare it to this thread, to this nonsense. Nonsense no serious researcher spends time and energy on.

No irritation or rather irritation well worth. This tells me more than your eloquent posts about nothing.

Glad you could get that off your chest, whatever it was. There's a reason nobody knows how to respond to what you think you're saying. It's because, no matter how hard you try, you can't say it. As somebody else has pointed out to you, problems with syntax and grammar should not prevent you from making yourself plain. You don't have a clue what it is you want to say, beyond your repeated insistence that numerology of scripture is not important compared to European politics. Each to his own, tuco.

You're also not managing to read irony, except that I sincerely AM sorry to irritate you, because your inarticulateness is only your most obvious problem. It's pointless to respond to your posts because you're all broadcast and no reception, and that has little to do with your difficulties in a second language, especially given the prior observation that reading is easier than writing in a second language.

Again unsupported claims, mere opinions or bollocks. Show your working out, let me see the evidence.

How come I am no reception? Because I refuse to bicker like you do? That is what you do here, bicker. I have no reception for bickering indeed. I am interested in issues, data, knowledge .. how the world works.

And when I post one sentence, I get attention of Cito di Pense who comes here to bicker.

Let me also present hypotheses about your reaction to that one sentence:

A guilty conscience is a self-accuser.
He that has a great nose thinks everybody is speaking of it.

Pick one.