Victor Stenger's Straw God Arguments

The arrogance of man is no where more apparent than in the works of atheism. We have noticed over the last few years atheism has gotten stupider as it has grown more arrogant. Nowhere is this more than in the many tendencies to treat God as a big man in the sky and try to subject him to scintific analysis. This is a move that most thinkers of the century would have laughed themselves silly over. Anyone with half a brain wold have said "don't thse idiots know what all of us know as elementary, you can't second guess the nature of the divine by insisting that God operates under rules like a biological organism? Dawkins is a major pervayer of this garbage but Victor Stinger is even more so. Stinger, in his God the Failed Hypothesis, is the genius who stated the "who created God" thing, one of the hallmarks of atheist ignorance.

The method is super simple. Stenger does mess with trying t probe the heavens or reaching beyond our tiny little expousre to the world on this dust mote, he does it the "obvious way" by creating a straw man argument for God then knocking it down.


Simply Einstein
Reviews: Stenger's God, The
Failed Hypothesis.

says Victor Stenger in "God: The Failed Hypothesis." The book is subtitled, "How science shows that God does not exist." Chapter by chapter, the author shows that the existence of God would suggest certain realities in the world that would be verifiable by scientific inquiry. But the data don't support these would-be realities, thereby providing evidence that no God exists.

Stenger, retired professor of Philosophy at University of Colorado and of Physics and Astronomy at University of Hawaii, is successful in this line of reasoning because of his clearly stated definition that he is not just talking about any kind of god, but specifically the capital-g God of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

^ "Conspicuous by His Absence". Skeptic. April 4, 2007. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-04-04.html. Retrieved 2007-10-17.

"Stenger lays out the evidence from cosmology, particle physics and quantum mechanics showing that the universe appears exactly as it should if there is no creator."

How does he reckon it should if there is no God? He constructs his own fundamentalist driven version of what God would e like. Of course he has no knowledge of that. It's really a disproof of the atheist big nightmare of the fundie God not a real disprove of anything valid.

Beyond that, which is a deal braker--becasue how you set up the iquiery in the first place determines everything-- there are other criticisms. For example his take on the issue of prayer studies. This is also proof of the "fortress of facts" concept which I am always pointing out that atheist ideology teaches. No atheist has of yet accepted the notion when I point it but it's clear that they argue from it all the time. The idea scinece gives them a big pile of facts but we believers have no facts.

Simply ibid

For instance, he tackles the question of the efficacy of prayer, in which the followers of these faiths fervently believe. If God exists, he argues, prayers could be shown to have been answered, using verifiable, replicable studies. And indeed, such studies have been conducted, with universally negative results. (Some studies, which supposedly yielded positive results, used flawed methodology and thus the conclusion is dismissible.) "If prayer were as important as it is taken to be by Jews, Christians and Muslims, its positive effects should be obvious and measurable," Stenger concludes. "They are not. It does not appear - based on the scientific evidence - that a God exists who answers prayers in any significant, observable way."

The idea that the other 14 studies that found prayer works* had "methodological flaws" but we don't say what they are, is really crucial. The real issue is the one thing that dogged those other studies which otherwise were fine was the issue of control for outside prayer. Think about it, you have two groups one is prayerd for and one is not. If the prayed for group does better that's an indication that prayer works. The problem is the people in the control group (the one's not prayed for) know people in life. The people they know might well be praying for them. The people not in the study could easily say to themselves "well old Fred needs help, he said not pray for him but he's just not a believer I'll pray anyway." Or some people pray for "everyone in the hospital" and so on. There's no way to control for outside prayer.

The irony is back in the day (the 90s) when the other studies (Byrd, Harris, Targ) were going around the atheist were arguing "you can't control for outside prayer." That was the atheist argument. The new studies were attempts to control for outside prayer. The problem is there is no way to prove that it worked. Now taht those studies show prayer didn't have an effect the atheists argue "you can certainly contorl for otuside pryer." Now I came to the conclusion that you can't. When the next study shows that prayer works they atheist will switch again, maybe i will too. The truth is just think about it, how could one ever eally control for outside prayer? What about mystics and great spiritual people who pray for everyone in the world. Billy Graham once said that every morning he prayed for everyone in the world. How could one ever be certain that the control group was selaed off form that prayer?

The assumptions that Stenger has to make to make his straw man work is that God is exactly as he wants him to be. The reviewer at Simply Einstein (ibid) defends him against the charge of straw man.

The logical purist may object that one can't "prove a negative," that one can no more disprove God than disprove the existence of Santa Claus or an invisible unicorn in the backyard. But the fact that most people do believe in God while rejecting the latter two is part of the point. Given no real reason to believe in Santa Claus or invisible unicorns, people reject such beliefs. Yet they hold tenaciously not only to belief in their God, but specifically to the tenets that their religion teaches about him. It is really these tenets that Stenger is addressing. By showing that they are wrong, like the efficacy of prayer or the notion that God fine-tuned the universe specifically for the sake of existence of humanity, the author demonstrates that belief in God is equally unfounded.

Yet this is not much of a defense. The so called "tenets" are self selected to be one's he picks out that he thinks he can beat. No religious creed or Bible passage commands us to believe on the basis of the fine tuning argument. No scientific argument can disprove the notion that God has fine tuned the universe to bear life. The only thing science can prove about fine tuning is that we can't prove it. On the other far greater scientists than Stenger say his arguments agaisnt fine tuning are not so good. The person answering mail for John Polkinghorne (formerly physicist at Cambridge second only to Hawking, who retired to be a Christian minister) says:

Stinger did some marginally useful scientific work but his claims are far too dogmatic. As for his suggestion that Anthropic Fine tuning is a non-problem because of his simplistic program MonkeyGod that purports to simulate universes and “show” that anthropic universes are commonplace, I know of no serious cosmologist who takes this seriously. Martin Rees’s “Just Six Numbers” is a good guide to the real science.

Polkinghorne himself says: I have read several of the books expressing the current outburst of militant atheism, but not the two you mention. My impression is that they are polemical rather than presenting reasoned arguments of a truth-seeking kind, and that they largely depend upon attacking caricature distortions of religious belief.

Others find the straw man to be Stenger's usual method, such as David Sharf, received his Ph.D. in 1986 from Johns Hopkins University, in the philosophy of physics. The title of his dissertation was: Quantum Mechanics and the Program for the Unity of Science:

Stenger—a retired physicist who is leveraging his scientific background to try to discredit anything and everything that smacks of spirituality—doesn’t respect his intellectual opponents enough to get their positions right; in some instances he appears to deliberately misrepresent their views; and, most important, his own reasoning is characterized by unremitting carelessness. Moreover, there is a method to his carelessness—it enables him to systematically avoid addressing the tough arguments of his opponents. Hence we find him frequently setting up a straw man by misrepresenting the debate as a simple matter of science and reason versus superstition. Once having defined this as the issue, all he needs to do is assume the attitude of an outraged scientist and heap on the ridicule. But if he had done his homework and taken the trouble to really understand the science and logic supporting quantum spirituality, he would have discovered that it is harder to dismiss than he had imagined. Indeed, the more carefully—and yes, critically—one considers the issues, the more one finds quantum spirituality to
be eminently worthy of serious consideration, as a plausible and measured approach to the most long-standing and intractable questions at the basis of science.

Stenger doesn't deal with what I consider to be the major God arguments, the ground of being stuff of Tillich and Schleiermacher. Like most of the cult of atheism he's in thrall to his own version of science which is laced with metaphysics. Like most of them they think they are being scientific and philosophical when they denounce philosophy and theology and talk about how scinece is the only form of knowledge, then they are bringing ontology in through the back door to put fiber into their world view. Stenger's straw man making is standard procedure for the new atheist. They are always spitting out some line with a dashing air of how theology is stupid so they don't have to read it. They know it's stupid even though they haven't read any. The whole point of showing they haven't read is usually becuase they are getting the ideas wrong but they never seem to care.

Is Christianty Dying Out? Part 2: Will We Lose the Next Generation?

The other day on a message board an atheist confidently asserted to me that Christianity will be gone in one generation. He asserted that the next generation is going to just leave chruch in mass and that will be the end of it. He also asserted that studies by Ken Ham proves this scientifically. He talked like Ham is an atheists but he's actually a Christian minister and his goal is stop the mass defection.The implicit correlary to the guy's argument is that if they are leaving chruch they are becoming atheists.


Already Gone: Why your Kids will quite chruch
and what you can do about it

If you look around in your church today, two-thirds of the young people who are sitting among us have already left in their hearts; soon they will be gone for good.

This is the alarming conclusion from a study Answers in Genesis commissioned from America's Research Group, led by respected researcher Britt Beemer. The results may unnerve you - they may shake long-held assumptions to the core-but these results need to be taken seriously by the church. Already Gone reveals:

Why America's churches have lost an entire generation of believers

The views of 1,000 twenty-somethings, solidly raised in the church but no longer attending-and their reasons why

Ham's studies are real and the results are troubling.

NNYM post

"Are we losing Teens

before graduation?"

Are we losing teens while they are still right in front of us?

According to a study by Ken Ham, founder and president of Answers in Genesis, we’re losing the next generation of believers before they even graduate from high school (details here).

He found that:

• 95 percent of 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. Only 55 percent went to church during high school. And by college, only 11 percent were still attending church.
• Nearly 40 percent of the surveyed twentysomethings first had doubts about the Bible in middle school. Another 43.7 percent said they first doubted that all of the accounts and stories in the Bible are true during their high school years. Only around 10 percent said they first became doubtful about the Bible accounts during college.

What do you think? Are we losing teens, even while they are still attending church?

The issue in the min of the atheist is that atheism is going to grow and replace Christianity as the major world view. We do need to be finding reasons why this is happening and work on keeping young people interested in the faith. For me that does not translate into going to church per se. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to stop chruch. My concern is just for now that this is not the end of belief in God or even of Christianity by any means. This atheist is making the same mistake that pollsters make in assuming that non chruch affiliation means atheist. It does not. The young people still have a great deal of belief.

by Metacrock on Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:59 am

from the Pew article about their study linked in the article Fleet quoted:

Pew Forum Religion Among the Millennials

Yet in other ways, Millennials remain fairly traditional in their religious beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center surveys show, for instance, that young adults' beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people today. Though young adults pray less often than their elders do today, the number of young adults who say they pray every day rivals the portion of young people who said the same in prior decades. And though belief in God is lower among young adults than among older adults, Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty at rates similar to those seen among Gen Xers a decade ago. This suggests that some of the religious differences between younger and older Americans today are not entirely generational but result in part from people's tendency to place greater emphasis on religion as they age.
A Note on Sources
and Methods

This report is based on data from a variety of sources, including Pew Research Center surveys, which are used primarily to compare young adults with older adults today. General Social Surveys and Gallup surveys are used primarily for cohort analysis, which compare young adults today with previous generations when they were in their 20s and early 30s. While the surveys explore similar topics, exact question wording and results vary from survey to survey.

Present-day comparisons are made between adults ages 18-29 and those 30 and older. By contrast, the cohort analysis define generations based on respondents’ year of birth. There is significant - but not complete - overlap between the two approaches. That is, in the present-day analysis, depending on the year of the survey being analyzed, some in the 18-29 age group are actually young members of Generation X (defined here as those born from 1965 to 1980) and not true members of the Millennial Generation (defined here as those born after 1980).

In their social and political views, young adults are clearly more accepting than older Americans of homosexuality, more inclined to see evolution as the best explanation of human life and less prone to see Hollywood as threatening their moral values. At the same time, Millennials are no less convinced than their elders that there are absolute standards of right and wrong. And they are slightly more supportive than their elders of government efforts to protect morality, as well as somewhat more comfortable with involvement in politics by churches and other houses of worship.

It's a big mistake to think that young people represent the same views they will hold in middle age. It's common that their rates of disaffection for traditional affiliation will be higher in youth than in middle age.


Notice on the chart at the bottom of the page on the Pew article it shows the percentages for young people. the total for 18 to 29 is 68%. That's the general Christian category. Meaning all Christian groups taken together. Note: the chart is showing not the percentage of identification but the percentage of young who accept Bible as literal word of God!

Total for over 30 81%

18-20

for Evangelical 22%

Mainline 12%

30+ 27

19 respectively.

The older group always has a higher level of identification to the group. Look at the chart it's true across the board.

What we see above shows that Generation X is increasing (somewhat) it's identification, we find that the older generations are always more identified with an institution or tradition than young people. young people in America still possess the core values necessary for Christianity.

Notice that the charts in the article from the blog were not about the percentage identification but the percentage of young people believing the Bible is literal and inerrant. When the Pew article shows us their worth with young people we find 18-30 is still above 60%. It goes up as the ages go up. What this tells us is, it's not slipping that far with the youth and it's not hopes that they will come back as they get older.

The actual figure (pew) of percentage of disaffected is 22% and that does represent a doubling of the 70s. The 70s were the "Jesus freak ear" the great revival the Charismatic movement began. We should not expect that to be the norm of participation of youth a religious tradition. So we really shouldn't care the current era to the 70s. There is cause for concern and the disaffection I would think is lately due to hypocrisy. There is always going to be hypocrisy in the chruch, the Regan era galvanized the fundamentalists for the right wing making it worse.

The pew study shows an age distribution for religious traditions. There is a table. It shows that among 18-20 year olds 31% are in the unaffiliated category. While in 30-49 year old group 40% are in the unaffiliated. In other words the unaffiliated went down 10% between those two age groups. That means fewer young people are unaffiliated. why is that not the end of unaffiliated?


None of this indicates dying out of Christianity.

Here's an exchange on my board with a guy called "Ophir's Gopher"

OG

It's definitely morphing into something unrecognizable and far more liberal.

Meta:
I doubt that. O am I know it will eventually. Its' done it before. A Christian Palestine in 332 would not recognize a Christian from England in 1242, who would not recognize a Christian in Teas in 1852 who would not understand or recognize me and I believe.

There was a time when the average popular conception of Christianity was that you had to die for your faith to go to heaven. change is not death. It doesn't' matter how it changes the reality of God is there.

OG

That was my point all along. Perhaps these religions aren't dying. Maybe only the dogmatic/fundamentalist core is collapsing. either way, it's incredibly interesting to watch and certainly nothing to be threatened by or depressed about. This is a good thing, and I'm priveledged to see it happening.

Meta

Yea, I'll go along with that.



That's what I think it shows. It's the rigid fundies who are declining. While the stats in Seminary they told us about showed the Methods were in big decline and the charismatics growing that's affilciation with membership, but the figures at the same time indicate that the ideas about religion are changing. They are not changing in the sense that young people are becoming atheist. Yes they are disillusions with fundamentalism and with churches. That doesn ot equate to giving up belief in God.

quick glance at carm

Here's an honest appeal I made on carm to the atheists to actually discuss ideas rather than try to insult personal wounds on individuals. How will these "free thinkers" respond? First I pointed out a local contradiction. Then I though in an appeal to reason.

Meta:

I see a thread that says "God is losing on CARM" the idea behind it is that the arguments the atheists have are better they win the arguments.

Several people in worming out of debating me have said "debate is no good, it doesn't prove anything."

the kind of argument we have that the first comment refers to is not as systemic or rule governed thus not as orderly or valid as a formal debate. So if winning those arguments means that atheism is winning that would mean that debate would be an even better way to know truth.

debate is better because you have to be a gentleman and not insult and not get off on tangents.


If the first statement is true (atheists winning) then the second statement (debate is no good) can't be true. this is a contradiction.


In reality it's my feeling that it's sophomoric to worry about who is "winning." We should not be seeking to show "i am smarter" but merely to find truth.

I am truly not seeking to just beat up on people to show how smart I am. Yes it's a habit I've gotten into through the need to defend myself. Yet it's a bad habit and one I'm trying to break.

I would rather discuss and learn than to "win." I suggest that worrying about who wins is sophomoric.

I want discussion not competition. I assume I can learn form anyone.


If one is really intelligent one will learn form any and all encounters with other humans.

Madmax:

Your persecution complex is far beyond ridiculous.

Assuiedave

Debate WITH accompanying evidence is how we decide court rulings. It is good enough for our justice system, it is good enough for us all.

Gentlemen don't repeatedly infer that the other person is silly either.


As I stated above, debate with accompanying evidence is sufficient. So if the debate your debaters were referring to in your op was lacking in said evidence, then that debate was likely "no good".

You are only average in intelligence Meta - you are just experienced at your form of debate, giving you the self-delusion of above average intelligence.

Meta:

gentle don't' deflect the augment form reaosn to belittle individuals every chance they get. Gentlemen don't pu up websites saying "people who agree with me have IQ's than those who don't." Gentlemen don't mock and ridicule the sacred beliefs of others just because they disagree with them.

gentlemen don't substitute lies and innuendo for study methodology. they don't pretend to know all about a whole body of academic work when they have no read a single study in that body of work.

Not a single one of you has ever made a single ethological analysis of any study.

My IQ is 142. that's not average. You have no knowledge of me. you dot' know who I am or who my family is. you have no knowledge of my history. you are totally wrong about that. your judgment is based entirely upon your need to bleieve that you are smarter than religious people because you hate yourself and you hate god for making you as you are.

why you would think that my op which open and honest an invitation to friendship and discussion needs to met with ridicule and abasement and putting down is just so telling. you are the epitome everything I'm denouncing aren't' you?

you don't want discussion you don't want friendship you need desperately to prove that you are smarter than religious people.

Keith

Imagine how many case of carpel tunnel syndrome the Christian God could prevent by coming down from the sky once a year to visit his earthling children so that atheists and Christians would not have to type for hours on end debating his existence. The Christian God obviously does not care about carpel tunnel syndrome which proves he does not love us.

what does this tell us students? they immediately go for the jugular and attack the person rather than answering the contraction.

they have this grappling contradiction there but instead of answering it they go "you are not good. yo ear a no goodnkci,k you are bad, we don't like you." that's not an answer is it?

they can't answer it.

being an atheist is not about thinking or reasoning it's about hate.

Is Christianity Dying out? What do the Stats REALLY show?

Many atheists seem agree with this idea, it's the fruit of bogus atheist social sciences.

On my board Doxa Forums

by Ophir's Gopher on Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:10 am

I never thought I'd witness it in my lifetime. We're actually witnessing the death of the major fear-based religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's fascinating and beautiful to behold these creeds collapsing under the weight of dogmatic fundamentalism and completely untenable perceptions of reality. Pick any Abrahamic religion, and I can explain how it undid itself and why, at least in its current state, it cannot gain back any of the momentum it had. These modes of belief are dying; if they are not dying then they are simply evolving into extremely liberal beliefs that are a vapor of what they once were.

On poster sites an article, from Daily Kos Blog "Beleif in God Pumbits among younger generation."
by Ukit

Sat Apr 17, 2010 at 01:17:48 PM PDT

In reading the article one can see things are not always what they seem.

that article quotes my Pew study and shows a rise from 90s to the oughts. So it's actually going up for generation X. That's going to be important latter. At this point observe the optimism of atheists in the past have led them to misread studies:

CARM (02/28/2008)

a thread called

"Good News--New Study supports rising tide of non belief!"


The Study in Question is the Pew Forum on Religion and public Life study

Title:

U.S. Religious Land Scape June 28, 2008.



Great news--new study supports the rising tide of Nonbelief

The Pew Center for Religion and the Public Life just came out with a new large poll on religious affiliations in the U.S. http://religions.pewforum.org. Tally up the numbers, and you'll see that Christians make up about 76.8 percent of the U.S. population, and those with no affiliation (atheists, agnostics, don't identify with any religious group but may consider themselves vaguely "spiritual") was 16.1 percent. Another .8 percent said the don't know or refused to answer--since that is not what any God-fearing religious person would say, I would add it to the "No Affilation" side of the ledger. Rounding, we have Christians as 77% and the non-religious at 17%. All other religions are in the low single digits.

The study overall found that people move around quite a bit religiously and a large percentage don't have the same religion as their parents. However, the "no affiliation" group was clearly growing and were losing far few people than they were gaining. The non-belief crowd is like a slow rising flood--there was a time we would have been in the low single digits, but now we are up to 17% overall and are an even higher percentage of the young. With each passing generation, more and more people are considering themselves as non-religious.

In my lifetime, I expect to see this number get up to 25% or more overall, and my kids could see a USA where the majority of Americans are finally secular rather than religious in their world view. Hallelujah!




Despite the positively stated title and the exultation in the closing line, some atheists actually said "no claim has been made."

he's trying to claim atheism at 17% this is such folly. They are assuming affiliation is synonymous with belief in God! So clearly foolish and when one examines the study the breakdown of unaffiliated the actual number given to atheist population in America is 1.6%! they are counting anyone not a Christian as an atheist! He failed to read the decimal.

(for the first page of the study).




This study actually shows atheism shrinking as the research I have done previously indicated it was at 3% of US pop. they have at 1.6%.


I find atheists doing this all the time. I've seen them count all of Buddhism as atheism so they can say they are a major world religion. IF they really believe they are right, why aren't they just content to be right? why do they take such solace in bogus inflation of numbers? Gallop shows more people in Japan are Christian than ever before.

The category of "non affiliated" leaves room for religious belief. but to be fair, he wasn't just ignorant of what decimal points do. The whole category happened to be 16% and the atheists 1.6% so he was going by the category, not taking out the decimal.

still, he should have known.


*Adherents.com = 4% U.S. Pop is Ahtiest


Adherents.com shows Atheists at 0.4% of U.S. Population.


Atheist 1990 adult pop: 902,000 2004= 1,272,986 Percentrage of Pop = 0.4%

a note on this statistical table says:



*Gallup polls show 6% U.S. Pop with 3% error


Gallup organization

finds 6% atheist in U.S. 2008, within 3% margin of error this agrees with the other polls.

May 9-11, 2008.

Which of the following statements comes closest to your belief about God -- you believe in God, you don't believe in God, but you do believe in a universal spirit or higher power, or you don't believe in either? (findings: 6% say Neither, 78% believe in God, 15% beleive in universal spirit, 1% no opinion).

*Pew Study at top = 1.6% U.S. Pop

2004 total population numbers were calculated by multiplying each group's percent of the total adult 2001 population (207,882,353) by the 2004 total population (using the June 1, 2004 U.S. Census Bureau extrapolated estimate of 293,382,953 total Americans). The U.S. Census Bureau total U.S. population estimate for 2000, based on the actual 2000 Census, was: 281,421,906. The U.S. Census Bureau total U.S. population estimate for July 1, 2001 was: 293,655,404. The adult (ages 18 and over) population estimate for July 1, 2001 was: 220,377,406. The total adult population for 2001 used in the 2001 ARIS study (apparently counting only adults aged 21 and over) was: 207,882,353. For 2001 figures, see: 293655404http://www.census.gov/popest/states/asrh/SC-est2004-01.html. This method of extrapolating the 2004 total population of each religious group from the 2001 adult population of each group does not factor in differences in the average number of children per adult for each religious group.

___________________________________

new piece:


More Christian Found in Japan


While stats on Christian population have been underrated! New study finds more Christians in Japan than previous thought.

Moe People Claim Christian Faith in Japan

By
Audrey Barrick
audrey@christianpost.com
Sun, Mar. 19 2006 10:24 AM ET


The latest Gallup poll revealed a much higher percentage of Christians in Japan compared to previous surveys, including a surprising high number of teens who claimed the Christian faith.

More People Claim Christian Faith in Japan


Japanese people walk along Omotesando, a fashionable street in Tokyo, March 8, 2006. The latest Gallup poll revealed a much higher percentage of Christians in Japan compared to previous surveys, including a surprising high number of teens who claimed the

In a country where only one percent is Christian among those who claim a faith, findings from one of the most extensive surveys of the country ever taken showed a Christian population of six percent. Meanwhile, the most popular and traditional religions – Buddhism and Shintoism – suffered declines.

Of the 30 percent of adults who claimed to have a religion, 75 percent considered themselves Buddhists, 19 percent Shintoists and 12 percent Christians, according to the Gallup Organization. Japanese youth revealed even more alarming statistics. Of the 20 percent who professed to have a religion, 60 percent called themselves Buddhists, 36 percent Christians and Shintoists.

"These projections mean that seven percent of the total teenage population say they are Christians," said George Gallup Jr. who called the numbers "stunning."

The study - the single largest study ever attempted, according to the social scientists in Japan - examined preteens, teens, young adults, adults and seniors.

"When they saw the design of the questionnaire, Japanese experts argued that the Japanese would never answer the socially delicate and/or the highly personal questions," said Bill McKay, project research director. "However, it was our professional hunch that the Japanese were ready to talk and when they did they told us more than we had asked for. The data is the most revealing look behind the face of Japan and shatters many WWII myths of the Japanese culture."

McKay is also one of the producers of a documentary that is slated for release later this year. The poll was conducted in association with American Trademark Research and MJM Group in 2001 for use in the documentary.

"In my 50 years of polling, there has been no study that I would consider as important as this one, because it provides insight into a fascinating culture," said Gallup.

Delving into more specific attitudes, the poll also found a note of hopelessness in the responses to questions related to morality, spirituality and general views about life.

"And there is little evidence of eternal hope, although a considerable number do believe in some form of life afterlife," noted Gallup. And "there is little belief in 'absolutes,' and this is true across the all-generational groups."

In comparison to teens in the United States, Japanese teens showed a pessimistic outlook on life. Previous studies found that 85 percent of teens in Japan wondered why they existed while 22 percent of U.S. teens had the same thought. Additionally, 13 percent of Japanese teens always see a reason for their being on Earth compared to 76 percent of teens in the U.S, and 11 percent of Japanese teens wished they had never been born while 3 percent of U.S. teens wished the same.

Within an estimated population of 127.4 million in Japan, academics estimate that 20 to 30 percent of adults actively practice a particular faith, but the Agency for Cultural Affairs reported in 2003 that 213,826,700 citizens claimed a religion, according to the U.S. Department of State's latest International Religious Freedom Report.

Christians, please help boycot the ridicule artists.

I've been trying for years to start a serious boycott of atheists on message boards. we should just totally refuse to talk to them as long as they play their little stupid games of mocking and ridicule.

Look at this little game they play. They ask a serious question, then you try to answer it they just mocking. Of course the carm admins have to bear a huge load of the guilt becuase they wont stop it. I stopped all such behavior on my boards. No one my boards ever asks that way. That's becuase I said in the very beginning "I will not allow this." Of cosrue the price I pay for that is that I have very few active members. Yet most of them highly intelligent so we have great discussions and no pissing contexts.

On carm thread:
"why is God good."

It has just occurred to me that when arguing for the existence of God, his moral perfection is just kind of assumed. The standard god arguments give you a bare theistic god, which could be completely benevolent, malevolent, or some where in between like us. I would say it appears the latter is true.

So I am interested, what arguments or evidence do Christians have for a maximally good god?

Occam tried a brilliant answer about eternal values being simpler, but it needs his defense badly because I don't understand what he's thinking, it sounds like he has some thought behind it. He's not around to defend it. So I made my own answers:


Meta:

Lance, one doesn't have to extract all of one's beliefs about god from whatever argument one uses to argue for the existence of God. It's not like that argument becomes the whole religious tradition in itself. it's just a beach head for belief its meant to replace beliefs. I think that assumption may come from the assumption that philosophy is like a scientific experiment and it's done to determine how things turn out. Of course that's a false assumption.

philosophical arguments are just arguments. We assume God is good in Christian tradition as part of revelatory truth about the nature of God. then we do our own correlation bewteen the argument and the God of the tradition.

the philosophical argument is just a attempt to give the non believer some sort of stepping stone through which he/she can grasp the belief. What we already got through phenomenological means.

Immediately the hate Metacrock squad begins their little antics.

Accelerator:

That makes sense to me. I use philosophical arguments to help a-Leprechaunists to understand my relationship with the Great Leprechaun who lives on the moon.

I resort to shame:
Meta:

Of course you are think you really made a big clever point but all I see is when you are confronting with thinking you fold up and start insulting because you can't really unction on an intellectual level can you?


this guy ask a question. I tried to answer it. so that make really really stupid because I believe something Soyuz don't' believe hu?

that's an excuse to mock if you are real stupid and you can't think about the issues.

stupid people resort to mocking ideas they can't comprehend.


you want this level of animosity don't you? You don't want meaning and understanding because you know that atheism can't compete intellectually with real ideas.

he continues:
Accelerator

If you had the Great Leprechaun in your life you wouldn't be so hateful. I know you don't believe me, but that's because you haven't had the same phenomenological experiences that I have had.

then we are off to the races, it's becoming a rieicule gauntlet, meaning a feeding frenzy of similar stupidity.

Deist
(who is no deist)

Has anyopne ever proved that you didn't have a Great Leprechaun in your life? How can they say he doesn't exist iof they can't disprove him. A certain Chaplain here using that reasoning, and if he can use it, I don't see why you can't. Mormonism was started with just one guy, whom "god" chose to reveal himself to. Now, Mormons, who fall under the protective Christian umbrella, number in the millions. Their apologists make a very compelling case, too. The Great Leprechaun? Is he as mean as the Christian God?

He's just continuing the taunt and no mention of the serious attempts to answer the question.
Of course this is because they can't answer it. They can't deal with ideas. The atheist movement doesn't exist to answer questions and find turth, it exists to give the members a feeling of power when they bully the targeted hated group (Chrsitians).

We are only giving them the opportunity to play their little games when we try to engage them in real discussion.

there's this one called "phizzel" who just spits back song lyrics at me as it fo say "you are usless you can't think you are not worth a real response."

phizzal

If God exists and is omnipotent then he sets the moral standard. To question his moral perfection would imply that there were a set of moral guidelines that he had to follow himself and that would mean that he wasn't God. If God were to, say, decide that it was morally justified to eat tacos made of babies then eating tacos made of babies would be morally justified.

One of the most compelling reasons against the Christian God, IMHO, is Christian mistreatment of homosexuals. In our modern society there is absolutely no practical reason that homosexuals should not be allowed to do as they please but God abhors them so to even condone what they do makes you a Godless heathen who will burn in hell since you are disagreeing with God.

in response I said this, which I meant as a totally serious comment:

Christianity is a hospital. The patients in this hospital sometimes, when they start getting better become cocky and start thinking they are superior to all the people who have not gotten treatment yet. So that's a human mistake because the hospital treats humans, so the patients getting are still human.

That doesn't make the hospital bad or the treatment unnecessary.

God doesn't set the moral standard arbitrarily. It's based upon his character of love.

in my foolish little foolish thinking that is being magnanimous to admit that we are sick. Not enough for little selfish monster who has to have it all his own way.

he says:

Drunk driving is no joke
It is no accident
Drunk driving can get you into a collision
It can also get you killed for the gravedigger

-Wesley Willis

that's the only response he makes to me. To me that just says he is not looking for answers he' just a little game playing monster who can't think. We should be boycotting these guys becuase we need to cut off their supply endorfins. they get high from bullying Christians. so let's stop giving them Chritians to bully.

Atheist Outdoes His Movement in Stupdity.

atheist study theology

Someone who doesn't list his name, writing on a blog called "Why Evolution is True" wins the prize for stupid atheist tricks. He's talking about how he's reading theology, so he knows it's really stupid becuase he's reading it so he sees it's stupid. How does he know it's stupid? He doesn't understand it! Of course, if you don't understand it then it must be stupid. It can't possibly be that you haven't learned enough to understand what it's talking about can it?

Under the tutelage of the estimable Eric MacDonald, I have spent several weeks reading Christian theology. And so far, I have learned only three things:

1. I am spending my middle age reading drivel about beliefs that have no basis in fact. This seems a total waste of time. I could be reading books about real things instead.

2. Theologians can’t write. A lot of what they have to say is postmodern or obscure bafflegab, and I’m starting to believe that this obscurantism is deliberate because of reason 3 (below). I have for example, just opened my book (An Introduction to Christian Theology, edited by Roger A. Badham) to a random chapter, which turned out to be “Process theology and the current church struggle” by John B. Cobb, Jr. (Process theology holds that god is not immutable but changes over time, and so does his creation, not totally under his direction.) And there I find this, in a discussion of Alfred North Whitehead (one of the founders of this “school”):

But each occasion transcends the causality of the past by responding to it with more or less originality. This requires that physical prehensions are supplemented by “conceptual” ones. Thus, in addition to prehending past events, an occasion also takes account of possibilities ingredient in those events or closely related to them. Just how it relates these possibilities to the actualities it feels is its “decision.” That means that in a situation that is inherently indeterminate, there is a determinate outcome Other possibilities are cut off.

Believe me, the book contains paragraphs far more obscure and pretentious than this one. Can you imagine reading this stuff night after night? Do you see why my head feels about to explode? Eric, why are you doing this to me?

3. There seems to be no “knowledge” behind theology, and I haven’t learned anything—not even any clever philosophy. One gets the strong sense when reading theology (and granted, I am biased) that everyone is just making stuff up.

Get that last paragraph. Weeeeeeellll dogies Uncle Jed, there ant no learn'n's thar cause I ant learned nutt'n.

Of course he doesn't know who Alfred North Whitehead was because only an idiot uneducated hick would think there's NO learning behind something Whitehead helped to start. Whitehead was an atheist and Bertram Russell's partner in Pricipia Mathematics which is one of hte most advanced books ever written. what a fool one one have to be to make such dumbass assumptions.

Can't we see at this point what's going on? This is a movement of little unlearned louts who are angry as hell because learned people are getting away with something by being learned. They are just rebelling against against education. It's not about religion it's about hating learning. What kind of fool would assume that the whole 2000 year old tradition is transparent and if you don't get it and tape into it anytime you read any product of it then there's nothing there?

I'm telling you, I went ot seminary for three years. I studied process theology. It's utterly idiotic to say there's no learning there. The problem with it is clear too much learning. It's not transparent becasue there's so much there you need a full four year education in general liberal arts and scinece just to understand enough to be a beginning. The quote he uses above I guess sounds like gibberish to him. It has a meaning. I agree that process theology is bad about off putting language and dense think paragraphs with huge antecedent principles that have to be drug out which lie hiding behind innocent seeming phrases. A lot of seminary work seems designed to put off the unwary the uncommitted. I would echo that as a criticism of modern theology, it's the opposite of inviting, it's off putting. Yet it is just pure stupidity to say there's no learning behind it. Especially since his reason for saying it seems to be that the stuff isn't transparent to him; it doesn't even dawn on him that it might just because he's far enough along in educational achievement to understand advanced ideas. How does this guy respond to non theological philosophy?

Judging from the fact that he seems to think that proving evolution true is disprove of God, and that any sort of criticism of religion is a proof of evolution (the title the blog "why evolution is true" presumably refers to all the material on the blog) indicates that he doesn't know shit from shinola about theology or religion. One must know a lot of philosophy to understand process thought. One needs Hegel to understand process, and Hegel is pretty complex. I would be willing to get this guy has never read a page of Hegel of Whitehead.

The quote listed above is no the starting point for process. Before one can understand that quote one must learn a vocabulary specific to the process theology. "Occasions" are a specific concept for the process thinker. They deal with the appearance of entities in reality. What we are talking about here is sub atomic particles.

Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia
of Western Theology
Alred North Whitehead
Editor: Derek Michaud,
incorporating material by
David L. McMahon (1999).

Whitehead's metaphysical vision is grounded in the primacy of experience of the world. It thus seeks to unify in one conceptual scheme the perennial problems of the One and the Many, subjective and objective reality, and dynamic and substantive understandings of entities. The experience to which Whitehead looks is not merely the sensory experience of self-conscious organisms. Rather, such experience is seen as a rather complex and high-order manifestation of an even more fundamental form of experience. This primordial experience is the experience of becoming and of creativity, the experience of the world as a process in which each individual participates. It is an experience of both profound relationship, of contingency, of the dependence of the self upon the cast history of our cosmic epoch. Yet it is an experience which is subjective. While conditioned by the past, the individual experiences freedom in self-determination. Subjectivity and creativity are the fundamental characteristics of reality.

The fundamental constituent of reality for Whitehead is the actual occasion, sometimes termed the actual entity or occasion of experience. "'Actual entities' - also termed 'actual occasions' - are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real" (PR, 18). Actual occasions constitute the basic fabric of our reality. The laws which govern our reality, indeed time and space itself, are the products of the history of actual occasions in our cosmic epoch. Each occasion is an atomic and concrete entity. A useful analogy for the actual occasion is the pixel on a computer screen. The broader patterns are made up of individual points. Each point has an existence, a facticity of its own, but each also contributes to the elaboration of more complex structures. Reality is the coming into existence of such occasions. The world thus envisioned is dynamic, bubbling over everywhere with outbursts of creativity. Hand in hand with this vision of a dynamic reality grounded in actual occasions is the ontological principle. Whitehead states this principle in a variety of ways: "All real togetherness is togetherness in the formal constitution of an actuality" (PR, 32); "It is the principle that everything is positively somewhere in actuality, and in potency everywhere" (PR, 40). Perhaps the clearest explanation is Whitehead's simple assertion that, "The ontological principle can be summarized as: no actual entity, then no reason" (PR, 19). That is, to be real and to exert influence is to exist in an actual entity. As we shall see, the ontological principle is fundamental to the necessity of God in Whitehead's system.

From there my understanding of process is too weak to disclose the rest of the quote. What I do know is the stupidity of starting with that quote. One can make mathematics seem pretty stupid by starting with the advanced stuff.

E = mc2 what does that mean uncle Jed? that's just a bunch of hanckern's after what ant never was.

The new atheist movement is about ignorant uneducated people taking revenge upon educated people for their success. They lean to worship science and vest everything in scinece as the only form of knowledge, since they know nothing of philosophy, literature, art, or any other matter, they must tell themselves they are brilliant for hating God (atheism is about low self esteem) then they must wind up hatted education and wanting to destroy liberal arts. Their rebellion agaisnt religion and theology is just the place where the rubber meets the road in their lives; that's where the educated have rubbed their noses in it.

Here's a pretty intelligent article about Whitehead's ideas by someone who understands them and isn't reading them just to put them down.

from that article:

At Cambridge, Whitehead's formal studies were quite focused. He writes that "during my whole undergraduate period at Trinity, all my lectures were on mathematics, pure and applied. I never went inside another lecture room. But the lectures were only one side of the education" (Whitehead 1947, 7). Whitehead cultivated a coterie of close friends in a variety of disciplines, and they would spend their nights in lively discussion of a wide range of topics. Whitehead became particularly enamored of philosophy, claiming to have committed sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason to memory, and writing that "I have never been able to read Hegel: I initiated my attempt by studying some remarks of his on mathematics which struck me as complete nonsense" (ibid.).

Whitehead was awarded a fellowship at Trinity and began to teach there in 1885. He would continue to teach there, eventually rising to the position of Senior Lecturer, until 1910. During his tenure, Whitehead would make two acquaintances which would greatly influence his personal and intellectual development. First, in 1890, Whitehead married Evelyn Willoughby. The impact of Evelyn's presence in his life has often been cited by admirers and biographers, although it is perhaps best to let Whitehead speak for himself on the subject.

Yes there ant no learning behind Whithead feller's work. He's just one of stupid theology guys whut ant never been to school, like I have with my amazing six grade edgeamacation.

Stupid Monkey Responds

atheist reasoning is circular: like
a dog chasing it's tial

He starts out by saying "you are dense" to me. It turns out he's saying it because he doesn't know what circular reasoning is, so he's just saying that since I don't cow tow to a bunch of badly understood atheist slogans such as "the believer has the burden of proof" which had nothign to do with the circular reasoning issue. Now he comes back demonstrates even more ignorance about the major points of contention for Atheistwatch.

Stupid Monkey

Another comment that you made that I must address is that atheism is an ideology. Although you have (or claim to have) a PHD in theology, I see things still have to be defined for you.
An ideology is a set of aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare Weltanschauung), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical tendencies (see Political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society.

Ideology is more than aims and beliefs. I have actually quoted other sources in defining it.


Wiki defeines it as:

i·de·ol·o·gy/ˌīdēˈäləjē/

Noun:

A system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that forms the basis of economic or political policy: "the ideology of republicanism". The ideas and manner of thinking of a group, social class, or individual: "a critique of bourgeois ideology".

That's hardly the most authoritative. I did say nothing that would contradict the idea that ideology is a set of ideas and aims. He's actually to criticize my understanding of it knowing about my understanding of it.

Webster's online:

Definition of IDEOLOGY

1

: visionary theorizing

2

a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program

— ide·ol·o·gist \-jist\ noun

See ideology defined for English-language learners »

See ideology defined for kids »

This is a far cry from his assertion that atheism is just the absence of a belief. Take his definition of ideology asw ideas and aims, that's more than just the absence of a belief. So when I say that atheism is an ideology am I contradicting his definition? No, nor is his definition an argument agaisnt my assertion that atheism is an ideology. they have a set of ideas and aims that they are working to enact, the destruction of religion, and the totalitarian control of ideas and thinking in relation to reality.

this whole website is proof that atheism is an ideology. All one need do is read the site to see that I've proved over and over again.

Atheism is simply a nonbelief in a deity.

that's bull shit. I've disproved it over and over again. Go the ideology page on my site "on the Barricades" where I list the greatest hits of Atheistwatch.

Ideology of the New Atheist Movement
Marxist writer for the Guardian points out the
New Atheist Ideology.

Clear and Present Danger
atheist attitudes toward mocking and ridicule of opponents
cross references on "Atheist hate and bullying."

Orwellian Atheism
several articles on how atheist propaganda uses
language and it's similarity to George Orwell's
totalitarians.

Atheists Use Mocking and Ridicule as Brian Washing
This is how they brain wash on message board, through the use of
mocking and ridicule.
see more on mocking and ridicule as brain washing under organized
hate and bullying.

That's it, plain and simple. What sir, I ask you, does this make you believe atheism falls into this category?

I have proved that it does. read the articles. read the website. The several hundred spots on this blog from a gain patchwork that proves it.

Please don't make the common mistake that most do. Do not combine things like Secularism, humanism and Naturalism to atheism. Can atheist be those things; yes. Are they mutually exclusive to one another? The fact that you think they are shows your ignorance no matter what level of education you claim to have.

That's just part of the propaganda of atheism to deny their complicity. Obviously those are all the same. Who are naturalists? they are atheist. what philosophy do atheists share? naturism. Most of they are humanists although there are anti- humanitist atheist. There is no orgaized clearr cut philosophy of naturalism in America. So that' just a catch all phrase and mos of the people it would apply to are atheists.

The rest of your comment is nothing but blathering ranting about social atheistic agendas with nothing to back it up. Small minded insults from a small mind.

You have such a great track record of ignoring ideas and not getting the point, when you say this it's a sure sign you don't understand. you are just erasing the evidence fo my view probably.
You can't deal with something that's over your head so like a child you call it stupid and tell it to get a life, that way you don't have to read about it.

Now on to your original blog post. Yes you have a point; circular reasoning and burden of proof are NOT the same thing. Yeah, duh! The contrived example you give of atheistic circular reason is set up specifically to put one point of argument in a light that favors your point of view and is not a real representation of an argument. The argument would go more like,

well Duh that's the point I was making! That was the issue I was dealing with. It's pretty wide spread since it covers the whole naturalistic rejection of miracles, SN and anything not naturalistic and not in their ideology.

you come on with that stupid atheist all purpose attack "you have the burden of proof." which is misapplied because that does not mean that anything I say it automatically unproved. Secondly, becuase it's not true except the rare circumstanced that I claim to be able to prove something. The burden of proof for any argument is always with the person who asserts the argument. A lot of atheists think the believer in God always has the burden to prove God exists before rationality can attributed to that person as a whole. That's errant nonsense. It applies if you say "I can prove God exits."

If you say "God does not exist" you have the burden to prove he does not exist. He who asserts an argument must prove that argument!

Atheist: "there is nothing beyond the materiel realm. There are no proof of the SN, No evidence for God, no nothing.

Believer--Here's some, here's a whole pile facts from which one might deduce the existence of God.

Atheist: "those can't be evidence for SN or for God." <--this is the change. The question is then, what pile of fact do you have. Show them to me.

Your base has a structural fallacy and you know it.

nope that is the way the conversation had developed on message boards over and over again. I've done it hundreds of times. I've been arguing with atheits on boards since 1998 and I've had conversation at least several hundred times.

I do find it hilarious as you sit there on your computer (which science has given you)

this is anther stupid little bromide atheists use. ti's meaningless but they think it's cleaver. that in itself should prove they are intellectually inferior to Christians. why should I be grateful to science as though it's some kind of god or deity giving me a blessing of the computer? If the atheist world view is true, there's no deity called "science" to be grateful too, and there's no deity of fortune that conspired to make computers. There's only human intelligence that figured it out. There's more to that statement. their basic reason for making it that they think it backs the fortress of facts. They are saying "hey this is proof that we have the scientific facts on our side becasue we can prove science works, since we have this gadget and ou can't prove God works becuase God believers didn't make computers. (which is an assertion they can't prove).

The basic assumption here is (1) science gives them a fortress of facts, works for them and not for believers.

(2) that the fortress of facts proves they have all the facts on their side.

(3) science is somehow atheist.

All of these concepts are fallacious. Science is not a fortress of facts, it's not intrinsically atheist it's not anti-religious and it doesn't' prove anything about the atheist world view that computers work.

If we want to be grateful for scinece let's be grateful to God who gave us brains so we can invent scinece and discover his creation.



Here's a statement me makes that's going to confirm my assertions about his statements above.

and knock the validity of it. Is science the only truth? Perhaps not for there are no absolute truths. But for practical reasons, yes science is the only truth that can be validated and tested. Your belief in jeebus cannot be. Atheism is not a belief, religion or ideology.

where is your proof that there are no absolute truths? He who makes an argument prove it. So where is the proof? "Science is the only truth that can be validated and tested." This is a total misunderstanding of the nature of scinece. We validate scientific concepts through verification and falsification because we can't prove them. That's what Popper says about scientific proof, all we can really do is disprove we can't actually prove anything. Science is not a big fortress of facts. The fortress of facts concept is selective. It excludes facts and scientific work that disproves atheist concepts. When you find something like the 300 studies that prove religious participation is good for you they dismiss them compelled without investigation.

but the whole argument I originally made about circular reasoning of naturalism also proves this. They are not disproving miracles, they aren't proving that miracles don't happen, they are dismissing miracle claims dogmatically because they don't jibe with their ideology of naturalism. He does nothing at all to disprove this. All he's doing is diverting our attention form the original issue by inserting the stand athist propaganda slogans about being grateful to scinece.


then to prove how cleaver he is he profanes the name of his savior which is in emulation of Homer Simpson. That's a fitting comparison, this guy who doesn't understand the issues he's playing into is so proud to bel ike Homer Simpson.

The fact that you state an atheist agenda is purely absurd. Let me ask you this. Scientist have been looking for the answers for centuries now. As it is not a perfect system, yes findings are changed and reevaluated on the facts and evidence that are in existence. Science is fluid in its pursuit of knowledge, not static.

This bull shit betrays a total ignorance of scinece. The idea that scinece is looking for some batch of propaganda called "the answers" implies that there's some single set of truths that open up the universe for us and explain everything. He's already ruled that out by saying there's no absolute truth. When blessed by the scientific quest this conglomeration of non absolute turth somehow becomes 'the answers!" what does this mean but that they have an ideology!

That is not scinece. Science has not board of elders that set's out a unified quest for "the answers." That is ideology. Convoluted, historically tainted, derivative of 1939 world's fair reasoning.

If any evidence was good enough to be viewed as life changing, where are the peer review papers, the journals etc.

In the journal articles that I site obviously. You might try reading the evidence for a change. It's in a little thing I like to "old no 7." No 7 on my God argument list, argument co-determinate.

Research Summary

From Council on Spiritual Practices Website

"States of Univtive Consciousness"

Also called Transcendent Experiences, Ego-Transcendence, Intense Religious Experience, Peak Experiences, Mystical Experiences, Cosmic Consciousness. Sources:

Wuthnow, Robert (1978). "Peak Experiences: Some Empirical Tests." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18 (3), 59-75.

Noble, Kathleen D. (1987). ``Psychological Health and the Experience of Transcendence.'' The Counseling Psychologist, 15 (4), 601-614.
Lukoff, David & Francis G. Lu (1988). ``Transpersonal psychology research review: Topic: Mystical experiences.'' Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20 (2), 161-184.

Roger Walsh (1980). The consciousness disciplines and the behavioral sciences: Questions of comparison and assessment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 137(6), 663-673.

Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar (1983). ``Psychedelic Drugs in Psychiatry'' in Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, New York: Basic Books.

Furthermore, Greeley found no evidence to support the orthodox belief that frequent mystic experiences or psychic experiences stem from deprivation or psychopathology. His ''mystics'' were generally better educated, more successful economically, and less racist, and they were rated substantially happier on measures of psychological well-being. (Charles T. Tart, Psi: Scientific Studies of the Psychic Realm, p. 19.)

Long-Term Effects

Wuthnow:

*Say their lives are more meaningful,
*think about meaning and purpose
*Know what purpose of life is
Meditate more
*Score higher on self-rated personal talents and capabilities
*Less likely to value material possessions, high pay, job security, fame, and having lots of friends
*Greater value on work for social change, solving social problems, helping needy
*Reflective, inner-directed, self-aware, self-confident life style

Noble:

*Experience more productive of psychological health than illness
*Less authoritarian and dogmatic
*More assertive, imaginative, self-sufficient
*intelligent, relaxed
*High ego strength,
*relationships, symbolization, values,
*integration, allocentrism,
*psychological maturity,
*self-acceptance, self-worth,
*autonomy, authenticity, need for solitude,
*increased love and compassion

I don't mean papers written here and there by creationists (which I understand that you claim you are not), but the articles and studies done by main stream science?

None of them are creationists junior. I am not a creationist. you have to learn to think so stop pretending like your enemies are all the same villain. All you need to do is label someone and you win the argument. that's doesn't work when you come up against a real scholar. so you have to actually do some reading here. All the studies I site are done by psychologists, not creationists, real actual social scientists and they are all published in valid academic journals, all 200 of them.

Scientists would be winning Nobel prizes for showing the existence of god or any deity for that matter.

That shows total ignorance of the way science works. You know scinece only through atheist slogans. Many nobel winners are Christans or other believers in God but no one does scietnific work to prove the existence of God because Go dis not in scietnifc domaon, that's understanding flat out. If you knew anything about science you would know about domains. God is in philosophy domain not scinece. God is the basis upon wihc reality coheres that means he's too be to be empirical. God is not a thing in creation he's not naturalistic so he can't be an object of empirical research.

Religion has never had a leg to stand on by itself. It attaches itself to social and political venues to make itself seem correct. Alone, it falls apart.

that's the atheist propaganda ideology that you are reciting. you don't know what it means but it's a slogan derived form the ideology of scinece. It's based upon the fortress of facts misconception it's just total bull shit.It has no facts to support it because all the alleged facts of the fortress are merely propaganda slogans.

The kicker is you are saying that is just an example fo the same kind of circular reasoning I was talking about to begin with. You are merely asserting on the basis of past dismissal that nothing had been established. that's the becasue the evidence was ignored in the first place. It's just circular reasoning.

StOoPiD MoNkEy Displays Typical Atheist Ignorance.

On the post the circular nature of atheist ideology this character calling himself "StOoPiD MoNkEy chimes in to show us that he doesn't know what circular reasoning is.

his comment:

This example of circular reasoning that your attribute to atheist does not work. What exactly was the evidence that the theist presented. Personal experience perhaps? If that is the case, well then yes...that is not evidence. Please remember, the burden of proof is on those making a positive claim. As far as CARM goes. It has been shown already that Matt Slick is full of it and most of, if not all, his arguments have big issues with them.

Here we see the problem immediately. He's reciting slogans form the atheist propaganda wagon without thinking about how they apply or what they mean. For example who has the burden of proof has nothing to do with weather or not the argument they make is circular. The only issue in relation to circular reasoning is "does the premise rest upon the conclusion." I'll show momentarily that in the case I discussed it does. That's a totally separate issue form who has the burden of proof. He says the example of circular reasoning doesn't work but then he doesn't bother to say why. He goes off reciting propaganda slogans and doesn't deal with the issue.

Of course he recites the ignorance programed into him by his atheist brain washers, that personal experience can't prove anything. That has nothing to do with the circular nature of their argument, which is what my blog spot was about.

here is the post in question.

The Circular nature of atheist ideology

Atheism wants to pass itself off as "scientific." So they cling to the scienistic idea that science is the only form of knowledge. They truncate the nature of truth to that which can be produced by their own methods. Anything else they reduce until they lose the phenomena. So at that point atheism can't have truth all it can have is circular reasoning.


atheist: "there is nothing beyond the materiel realm. There are no proof of the SN, No evidence for God, no nothing.

Believer--Here's some, here's a whole pile facts from which one might deduce the existence of God.

Atheist: "those can't be evidence for SN or for God."

Believer--why not?

Atheist: Because there can't be any such evidence.

Believer--how do you know that?

Atheist: because there aren't any


Beleiver--what about the stuff I just presented.

Atheist: I disproved that, it can't be evidence because there isn't any.

that little hypothetical exchange Demosthenes the circle in the reasoning, the premise rests on the conclusion because he starts form the premise that there can't be any proof for SN because it's SN and that doesn't issue in proof. The proof of that statement is that based upon excluded all examples, there are no examples. That's obviously circular reasoning; the conclusion is the same as the premise.

it doesn't make any difference if other aspects of theistic argument are wrong or badly done that who has the burden of proof is irrelevant to circular reasoning. he's not even thinking about logic as a subject of it's own, but just as an aid to further propaganda..

(1) Atheists selective rule out as 'fact' anything that doesn't match the ideology.

(2) Atheists reduce to a point of losing the phenomena any phenomena that stands against the ideology.

(3) Atheists use mockery and ridicule to shut down any discussion that is not in line with the ideology.

(4) Atheists exclude from reality any form of knowledge would give results contrary to the ideology.

(5) Atheists construct a false paradigm of knowledge based upon scientistic (not scientific but scientistic) assumptions.

(6) All thinking must be filtered through the ideology of atheistic sceintism.
__________________


Here's the rational, logical, factually oriented rebuttal of an atheist on CARM

NWRT- not worth responding to. And nothing you've written here changes that. I'll start taking you more seriously as an intellectual once you start addressing our actual arguments.

Go back and look over what you just wrote- now apply it to yourself. You do nothing but post ridiculous arguments (like your little "co-determinate" joke), insult people when they present legitimate disagreement, and present strawman versions of atheist's positions. Why on earth would anyone be interested in trying to have a genuine, serious discussion with you?

I asked him what's ridiculous about it:

I've explained it to you a million times- strong belief is not controlled for. And, true to form, you've only answered your strawman version of my argument.

Holy Irony Batman, doesn't this actually prove what I was saying? I have 300 studies he has 0. He decides this 'strong belief' which he can't define without a single study to back it up. Isn't this really a case of declaring my fact to be "no facts" because they differ form the ideology?

A Typical Atheist Hate minute

this is the only way they can deal with the facts when they disprove their world view. The issue is Lourdes. They are demanding that miracles can't happen. Present evidence of Lorudes of course they have to crush that immediately. They begin demanding that it has to be bad evidence and pretending that it's all Vatican sources when in reality it's fro reporters.

this is with Steve Smith the idiot I debated who publishes the rag Berminham Free Press and who has written so many hate males to my blog. He's now going under "Blondie" because he was banned, but he also put up a page on me calling my mother a whore. He's really such a brilliant mature adult thinker.

CARM, today, no 11

Meta:

Here is my description of what's going to happen:

here's the little mocking ridicule. instead of examining the facts and argument logically.

first they insist it has to be wrong because otherwise they would be wrong so that cant' be true. then they start ridiculing the opponent he's so stupid that he can't see that have to be right.

the meantime the opponent who they ridicule for being so stupid has presented a huge amount of data proving his point and they just laugh at it and call it names and then they tell themselves this makes them thinkers!

so now what do we see:


Originally Posted by Metacrock

guy's dying. his lung's ravaged by TB. he's prayed for , his lungs grow back over night. That's totally inexplicable by any natural means.

Bull Shitter Smith

explain it then if you disagree.

I would love to get some evidence for this. The same kind of evidence one would expect from any extraordinary claim. Not some conspiracy theory about how the medical community is hiding all this evidence of miracles like the government is hiding all the UFO evidence.

Just some regular proof.

he says he wants "regular proof" so what does he do when he get's it:

Meta:

just to prove that I didn't make up the existence of the case there was documentation for it. it's not on the site anymoer but if you really wont to prove it you an get the way back machine and prove it.

Society for the Little Flower (Website) FAQ (visited 6/3/01)
St. Theresse of Lisieux

http://www.littleflower.org/therese/faq.html#4

"Regarding St. Therese, in 1923 the Church approved of two spontaneous cures unexplained by medical treatment. Sister Louise of St. Germain was cured of the stomach ulcers she had between 1913 and 1916. The second cure involved Charles Anne, a 23 year old seminarian who was dying from advanced pulmonary tuberculosis. The night he thought he was dying, Charles prayed to Therese. Afterward, the examining doctor testified, "The destroyed and ravaged lungs had been replaced by new lungs, carrying out their normal functions and about to revive the entire organism. A slight emaciation persists, which will disappear within a few days under a regularly assimilated diet." These two miracles resulted in Therese becoming beatified."

"Once she was declared Blessed, it took only two years for the necessary next two miracles to be approved. In 1925, two cures had been investigated and judged to be supernatural, through the intercession of St. Therese. The first involved Gabrielle Trimusi from Parma, Italy. Gabrielle had suffered from arthritis of the knee and tubercular lesions on the vertebrae. The final cure involved Maria Pellemans of Schaerbeck, Belgium. Maria suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis which had spread, as Therese's illness had, to the intestines. The diagnosis of pulmonary and intestinal tuberculosis was made by a Dr. Vandensteene, who also examined Maria after she came back from visiting Therese's grave. The doctor testified, "I found Miss Pellemans literally transformed. This young woman, out of breath from the least movement, moves about without fatigue; she eats everything given to her, with a very good appetite. The abdomen presents no tender point, when formerly the least pressure produced severe pain. All symptoms of tubercular ulceration of the intestine have disappeared." In reports predating Maria's return to health, two other physicians confirmed Dr. Vandensteen's diagnosis of pulmonary and intestinal tuberculosis. On May 17, 1925, Therese was officially declared a Saint by Pope Pius XI."


I know that's not as good as having the X-Ray. The next best thing is that I spoke with someone who has seen it and knows it's true.

MODERN MIRACLES HAVE STRICT RULES

BY DAVID VAN BIEMA


"The paradox of human miracle assessment is that the only way to discern whether a phenomenon is supernatural is by having trained rationalists testify that it outstrips their training. Since most wonders admitted by the modern church are medical cures, it consults with doctors. Di Ruberto has access to a pool of 60 - "We've got all the medical branches covered," says his colleague, Dr. Ennio Ensoli - and assigns each purported miracle to two specialists on the vanquished ailment.

They apply criteria established in the 1700s by Pope Benedict XIV: among them, that the disease was serious; that there was objective proof of its existence; that other treatments failed; and that the cure was rapid and lasting. Any one can be a stumbling block. Pain, explains Ensoli, means little: "Someone might say he feels bad, but how do you measure that?" Leukemia remissions are not considered until they have lasted a decade. A cure attributable to human effort, however prayed for, is insufficient. "Sometimes we have cases that you could call exceptional, but that's not enough." says Ensoli. "Exceptional doesn't mean inexplicable."

"Inexplicable," or inspiegabile, is the happy label that Di Ruberto, the doctors and several other clerics in the Vatican's "medical conference" give to a case if it survives their scrutiny. It then passes to a panel of theologians, who must determine whether the inexplicable resulted from prayer. If so, the miracle is usually approved by a caucus of Cardinals and the Pope.

Some find the process all too rigorous. Says Father Paolino Rossi, whose job, in effect, is lobbying for would-be saints from his own Capuchin order: "It's pretty disappointing when you work for years and years and then see the miracle get rejected." But others suggest it could be stricter still.

There is another major miracle-validating body in the Catholic world: the International Medical Committee for the shrine at Lourdes. Since miracles at Lourdes are all ascribed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, it is not caught up in the saint-making process, which some believe the Pope has running overtime. Roger Pilon, the head of Lourdes' committee, notes that he and his colleagues have not approved a miracle since 1989, while the Vatican recommended 12 in 1994 alone. "Are we too severe?" he wonders out loud. "Are they really using the same criteria?"

try to follow an issue for more than a few sentences. this quote says that the medical guys are good and they follow the rules, which are good.

Leadership

Franco Balzaretti

Vice Presidente Nazionale -
Associazione Medici Cattolici Italiani (AMCI)
Membre du Comité Médical International de Lourdes (CMIL)

http://www.leadershipmedica.com/scie...10balzaing.htm

"And therefore, in this case it will be possible to close the medical report supporting a “certain and medically unexplainable” recovery, only when:

1) The diagnostics and authenticity of the disease has been preliminarily and perfectly assessed;

2) The prognosis provides for an impending or short-term fatal outcome;

3) The recovery is sudden, without convalesce, and absolutely complete and final;

4) The prescribed treatment cannot be deemed to have resulted in a recovery or in any case could have been propitiatory for the purposes of recovery itself. These criteria are still in use nowadays, in view of their highly logical, accurate and pertinent nature.

They undoubtedly and straightforwardly set out the standard features of an unexpected recovery and have actually made it impossible to put forward any objection to any form of lack of scientific exactitude on the part of the medical practitioners belonging to the Bureau and to the LIMC. The rigour of the Lourdes medical practitioners, whose scrupulousness throughout the years has been centering on the suddenness of recoveries, on the relative effectiveness of the therapies administered, on the objective evidence of the disease found, or on the shorter or longer length of the monitoring period (depending on the disease), has always been exemplary and appreciated by all the Diocesan Canonical Committees that have been called to express their opinion.

Compliance to such criteria has corroborated the seriousness and objectivity of the former Bureau des Constatations and, today, it continues to guide the Comité Médical International de Lourdes, whose conclusions have always represented an indispensable expert’s piece of evidence generating and motivating any further canonical judgements required to acknowledge the real Miracles amongst the thousands of recoveries ascribed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes."

Bull Shitter Smith:

Do you have any idea what qualifies as an objective source?

he linked to some ridiculous page about shape shiting Lizzards. Does he show why source is Bad of course not. He assumes it's Vatican but it's not. Van Beama is not. He's assuming anyone supporting my position has to be wrong. It's a reporter and a major guy on the medical committee. He also ignores the fact that the medical committee is independent of the Vatican and that they have skeptics on the committee. He's just arguign from incredulity.


Originally Posted by blondie For one thing I didn't ask about Lourdes. Secondly, do you

have any idea what even qualifies as evidence?

I have stated many times as an example, the most widely documented miracle in the history of the world is the Hindu Milk Miracle.

that's stupid to say he didn't ask about Lourdes. that's my evidence. he asked for evidence. Hindu Milk miracle is fallacy of guilt by association. there's no basis for thinking that becasue one thing is a fraud that all things like it are. this is the typical sort of piss poor logic they use.


then the little bugger says:

Originally Posted by blondie

Where is this evidence of the guy growing his lung back overnight?

up at the top stupid. that's proof they don't read the material. I put it up but of course they don't need to read it because whatever it says they are just going to deny it.

atheists can't think they are argue from incredulity and that's all they do. who the hell would want to be part of that dumb person's convention?