Atheists psycholgoical Motive to Deny Evidence.

Atheists have a psychological motive to deny evidence for God. Whatever personal biases lead them to become atheists also lead them to struggle agaisnt arguments for God because to acknowledge that means they would have to give up whatever they are hanging on to that led them to deny God in the first place.

This defense mechanism of ruling out proofs is never more observed than in the arguments bout miracles. Here the atheist says "there can be no proof of miracles because any claim of miracle is primiative and violates the prohabition on usign -God did it--as an explaination. thus:

(1)  There can never be any kind of evidence for miracles.

Then the second part of this ttwo step dance comes into paly:

(2) There is not proof for the truth of belief because there's no evidence for miracles.


But wait, they just loaded things up so that any evidence for miracles must auotmatically been understood as wrong, then use the lack of proof as an argument agains the truth content of religion. But by that defition God could be working mireacles all the tmie we just can't ackoweldge it. Anytime you say "God did it" you are violating some little hidden unthoughtout rule they have. Let's look at this and see it clealry in the work of one "Eelectricsketpic" on carm.

This exchange was  preceded by presentation of my miracles evidence:

Lourdes

Protestant

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElectricSkeptic No, we don't. Sorry, but remissions and cures for reasons we don't know do not qualify as miracles. They qualify as remissions and cures for reasons we don't know. I know you need to assume they are miracles - sorry, but that assumption does not make them so. Then you better get out the rest of the iceberg.

 Meta:

yea they have to. The idea that there's some official stamp called "miracle" that would just be so obvious science would have to agree to it and it could never be confused with anything is just silly and childish mythology. it does not exist.

there is no way to determine the difference in something we don't know and a miracle. that's just not the case. Science is a social constrict. The universe does not come with little labels on all natural phenomena that tell us what to think about it.

Naturalism is a paradigm. the paradigm is shifting. Paradigms will do that eventually.

Now what you say is quite false and quick wrong and unthoughtful out.

(1) Remission is not when something vanishes without a trace over night. Most remissions fail and most remissions are slow and leave traces of the problem. When all the symptoms vanish over night that is not remission. not it. not at all.

Charles Anne was dying, he grew a new pair of lungs over night. One day he had an advanced for of TB his lungs were black and ravaged and the very next day they were bran new no trace of any problem. that is not remission!

remission doesn't work that way.

(2) IF we don't know what something is and the only thing we can correlate with it is religious belief, that's a good reason to call it a miracle.

__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElectricSkeptic No, they don't have to. The idea that any occurrence we can't explain just gets stamped 'miracle' is just silly and childish mythology.

Meta:no one said that. I did not argue that anything we can't explain is a miracle. There has to be a connecting link, but the rules of Lourdes has that link all the Lourdes miracles have the link.

ElectricSkeptic

Sorry, it might satisfy you to say "we don't know, therefore goddidit" - it doesn't satisfy anyone else without a desparate need for miracles to happen.

Meta:

you are setting up a sitaution in which there could never be be proof of any kind and then you want to say "see there's no proof." That's because you nixed the possiblity of ever having it.

the Lourdes rules are well thought out to provide a clear warrant for belief that a miracle has happened. of course you need to study some philosophy and stop the bull and propaganda crap that just biases things for the favor of your pet ideology. Do some real epistemology for a change.

the connecting links are there. you are afraid to investigate becasue what it would mean if God is proved. you have a clearly psychological bias against ever seeing anything as proof.

Meta: Naturism is a paradigm

Quote:

Yeah, sure. So you say.

Meta:not an argument.

Actually what this means is he has never heard of Thomas Kuhn. So we are dealing with someone here who doesn't really know the philosophy of science. Trying to wield scientific thinking as a weapon against faith and not well read enough on the issues of science to understand it's relation to knowledge.

Quote:Electricskeptic

No, it's quite true and quite right and thought out.

Meta:no it's missing the connecting link idea.

Very crucial point becuase Lourdes committee doesn't just say "O here's a good outcome God must have done it." Or even "we can't explain it God must have done it" there has to be a connection to God or to faith in some way. It has to be the result of something prayed for in a short period of time for example. There has to be religious affects involved with it. For example maybe the patient saw a vision of the saint while praying. The time frame is crucial and that is reflected in the rules. So it is step up where there is a rational warrant for connecting the events to the divine.

Quote:Electrickskeptic

Actually you are wrong. From http://medical-dictionary.thefreedic....com/remission, various definitions: Remission: - Abatement or subsiding of the symptoms of a disease. - the partial or complete disappearance of the clinical and subjective characteristics of a chronic or malignant disease.

Meta:

"partial" what does partial mean, ever think of that? where in that little mock up of an excuse for a definition does it say that it goes away over niht with no trace at all that it was ever there?

the Lourdes rules are desgned by medical expetrs, the best in Europe and they design it specifically to weed out remissions. I have talked to medical committee people and other doctors and you are wrong wrogn wrong. you are paliln wrong. you are purposely biasing the ansserni a siplistic way to avoid the fat tha no remissio;n ever goes away over night.

growing back a new pair of lungs is not remmission hat's foolish. if we thought about it the way you are no on would have any miracles. anything that onpe would call a miracle you will automatically nix on the grounds that it can't be explained with that term not ever ever ever for any reason becuase do so is to say "God did it." so you hvae it fixed up where God can't ever be credited with it even if he does do it.

If you Jesus come out of the tomb you are say "it's the first natural remission from death ever in human hsitory but you can't God did it!"

says complete but does not give a time frame. The time frame would be crucial and the rules at Lourdes are designed to take that into acocunt.

Quote:Electricskeptic

Not a word about being 'slow' or 'leaving traces of the problem'. In other words, you're wrong.

Meta:yea there is, what you think "partial" means?

show me an example of a guy growing back lungs from advanced tb over night with no trace of any problem ever being there and the doctors saying it happens it is no big deal?

I know or a fact form talking to doctors that is stupidly absurd no doctor would ever say that. I don't care how you twist simple little definition that was not written to answer this issue, but it's not valid.

Quote:Electricskpetic

Sorry, but that is indeed remission. Check a medical dictionary. It would also qualify as a "cure for reasons we don't know", which I also specified in my post.

Meta

no you show me an example of lungs growing back over night.


don't you see the way you have it rigged up there cannot ever miracles? You have errassed the category of miracle form reality then you want to blame religion or not having them!

Quote:Electricskeptic

Umm...the whole 'unexplained' bit means that we don't know how it works.

Meta:we don't' know how it works! We don't know **** form shinola. We are just getting started we are not the big godlike beings atheism tells you scientists are. As an atheist you have learned to worship science and to see scientists as gods in which lab coats and they are really just blind naked apes groping in the dark.

Quote:Electricskeptic

That's the type of thinking that led primitive man to think thunder was Thor rattling his hammer. Sorry, but "we don't know" is not a synonym for "goddidit".

Meta:no it' snot becuase they (meaning primitive religious people) didn't set up rules to test the outcome by. When we use the reules science gives us it proves miracles happen. It's proved it countless times. I just showed you 65 examples.

but you can't accept that because it means you are going to hell (in the fundie thinking which you dread and your life is motivated to keeping at bay). so that means you can't ever seek the truth because to acknowledge the truth means you have to give something up.

so you have contributed this simplistic little situation where no evidence can ever admitted to be for miracles. Sterno type religion as primitive and so forth so anything that counts for religion is primitive and can't be taken seriously, and all you are really doing is just setting up a complex field of biases as a self dense mechanism to protect yourself from having to give up the will to God.

your logic is abysmal. Because you are aruging from incredulity "I refuse to believe it so it can't be true."

They are so terrified of being primitive and believing mythology (which they don't understand anyway) that they are willing to set up the most transparent system of biases and ideology and to close off free thinking which they claim to love. Is it any wonder atheism is so shallow? I really don't see who would want to identify with such shallow nonsense..


one little final twist to the story. Antother little arogant hate group minon who had come on a few days ago with the typical arrogant "i'm here to sluoghter the stupid Christians" attitude, and was promptly reduced to craying and whining. "you are not smarter than me! you are not! you are not!"

He tries an age old West Texas Debater's poly:

Originally Posted by otto

I forget where I read it, but this is a classic Pseudoscience trick: When you are losing your argument, or want to shout down the opposition, inundate the conversation with excessive information so the other person has to take excessive time and energy to read through it and check all claims. Meanwhile, the you can sit back and keep saying "but you didn't respond to all my points".

If the quote wasn't you, it had your name on it (Joe Hinman). You can understand my confusion.

Meta:

Your inability to handle a large flow of data is a bad debater's tick. blame big words, logic you have not studied, names you have not read, ideas you haven't been exposed to yet as tricks. make it out that the proficient researcher is pulling a fast one that way the fact that you are outgunned on evidence and can't deny the logic is missed.

that way winning the debate becomes a liability. It would be better to lose the debate that's the way to win.

It's called "West Texas Debater's ploy" because in the old days West Texas has the worst debate in Texas. They were legendary for being dumb and out of it  and unable to keep up the fast pace of presentation (meaning they couldn't talk fast--in them thar days back in high school debate that was a real big deal).  Going to a tournement in West Texas was considered a waste of a weekend.

They could come to our tournaments be totally humiliated becuase they would present about one card for every 10 that we read. Then they would go "he's talking fast and reading lot o evidence and I can't keep but it's a trick." They are basically saying "the fact that he's a better debater by modern debate standards is just a trick, the truth I'm really winning because I can't keep up."

Now the truth is I really think that aspect of debate is stupid. We should be able to slow down and dwell on a price of evidence until we really understand what it's doing there. But this is a message board. We are not talking, so there's no pressure to talk fast here. the truth is this guy doesn't' want to go to the trouble of researching the arguments he wants to ignore them becuase he doesn't care about truth anyway.