atheists Claim they Want Empirical Data...

I have been touting several hundred studies on religious experience for some time now. The number varies because there are many studies and I have not seen most of them (or course since I can't go get 300 studies and read them all). I began using a ball park figure rounding it off at 300. That was 300 studies that show long term positive effects of religious experience ("mystical" experience). Then I found two sources that each went through a litany of studies show these positive effects. I counted the number in the two sources and lo, it was almost 300. So I counted more form a couple more sources it was 350.This was by combining the bibliographies of
Jayne Gackenback, Krishna Mohan, and Loukoff and Lu. I had to hammer in the concept because the tendency of atheists was to just ignore all those studies completely. Most of the time they would act like their opinions out weighed all the studies. There is a huge body of data that is good scientific data and confirms the greatness of religion. This is completely ignored by atheists so I had to hammer the idea home to them. Of course they still can't accept it so the became resentful. During the past year I've began saying 200 studie. That's closer to the mark. They are all ball park, and it dependent upon how liberal you want to be in defining them. 200 is a conservative estimate.

One of the major things they did was spot the discrepancy between what I used to say "300" vs the new number 350. Well I'm just lying because there are two different numbers. It never dawned on them maybe I found more! Since the number is ball park anyway there are a good deal more I could include. I could probably get it up to about 2000 without damaging the truth too much; that would include studies on religious participation and physical health, these are not included in the 350. Lukoff and Lu found a thousand entries for studies that show positive effects of religious experience, they narrowed that down to a hundred maybe, or maybe 50 for their literature search. That was the early 80s so have been a lot more sense then, but a large of those would have been non applicable because they used of one the early search engines and they weren't very refined. In College debate we used an even earlier version (1977). Looking for things on ultrasound as medical diagnostic tool (it was pretty new then) and got stuff on the sexual tendencies of flat worms.

Be that as it may, the atheist attacks upon these studies have remained pathetic. of course we are dealing with people on message boards, so we run the gamut of who is out there. Some on CARM (where I will not longer post) have attacked my studies in my absence. Since I wont post there anymore, it's safe to attack them. Their attacks are confined to non methodological knit picking. They do not present one single valid scientific criticism about the nature of the science involved. The major stock issues that one would use in attacking social science studies would be arguments about replication, sample size, data base, randomness of the sample, representativeness of the data base or the sample, as well as arguments about controls and double blinding. None of this has ever been advanced. Nor has atheist ever bothered to look up one of these studies. Now in this latest round one tried to do that and upon not finding a certain one on a certain search engine just gave up assumes they are all bad. Atheists tend to treat these studies as though they are all one studies. There's this one group of studies called 'the 350 studies' so that if one is bad they are all bad. If they can't find one then none of them exist. These are not valid approaches. There are not just 350 studies, that's the number of the ones' I've either found, or found mentioned in some other source. Attacks upon the bibliography and the one compiling it (Gackenback) are not valid methodological attacks. Some studies are better than others, so some of the 350 might suck, that doesnt' mean all 350 studies are not good. Another trick they have played is to attack Gackenback's bibliography (the studies are bad because they are listed in a bad bibliography) based upon other sources listed in it. For examlpe, she sites De pock Chopra. They don't even bother to find out whey she sites him. She might be saying he's a complete idiot for all they know, they just indulge in classic guilt by association and conclude that because she quotes Chopra and Hood, then Hood but be in the same league Chopra.

So let's move into the specific arguments in this last round:



phoenix702 (on CARM)

Metacrock relies on some less than credible sources
Metacrock is always talking about his "350 studies" as empirical evidence, but many of them are most definitely NOT "empirical" and of low quality. Let me post this another thread on Meta's sources....

Of course he's judging their "low quality" by the fact he could not find a couple on the only social science search engine he bothered to look for. He has no concept of how many of the 350 are good or not good. But 350 is a lot of studies. Air Bags were determined to be valuable and began to be put on cars on the basis of just three studies. 350 is a lot of studies. If only a few are really good that's all that matters.

Btw I could not find studies by Abraham Maslow, C Wright Mills, Warner and Withers, or the All state Air Bag study on that same search engine. So it failed to turn up some of the major thinkers in the social science field, or any of the three studies that established air bags as valid. Moreover, you have to be a member to use the index. So is Phoenix a member? Or did he just put the title int he search box on the top left of the home page. If that's all he did then he wont get anything, that's not how you use the index. You can't just start using it. What he's really complaining about though, when you boil it down is that these studies are not in JAMA or NEJM because those are the kind of sources you get on SSCI. But they don't index psychology articles, and especially not psychology of religion articles.

Now here's an interesting acid test. show me some of the big atheist studies on that sight? Can you show me Zukerman's study indexed in SSCI? I don't think so. But most atheists have no trouble accepting Zucerman as scientific (even though most sociologists do have trouble accepting his crap as scientific).

SSCI is not the only index and it's not the only social scinece index. It is not social abstracts and there's also Wlson Social Abstracts and a couple of others.

then he quotes me to set up the basis for attacking Gackenbak's bibliography:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Metacrock View Post
I found 50 more since I first started saying 300.

I first started using that figure about three years ago.

You can count the core list yourself if you wish. Look at the Gackenback bib and the Mohan bib. those two together. make up a huge chunk.
50 more?! Like Gackenback? I've looked at just her "bib" that you are flogging here as evidence and I've got to tell you if that additional 50 is of the same quality as the Gackenback "bib", the you haven't got much.

Then he responds:

Phoenix: Since you have posted these studies and refer to them multiple times in your posts, let's look at them. One good indication of the quality of the work is where it is published and very little of what you list comes from peer-reviewed, quality SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) journals.

That is aburd. you don't prove the Scottish journal is not peer reviewed. It's stupid to think they are not peer reviewed just because they are on a bibliography with Depoc Chopra. Most of them are coming from major journals. Two of the major sources in the early days (80's) were from Journal of Transpersonal psychology. That is clearly one of the major journals in the field of psychology of religion (a field know nothing about, most of them of them have never heard of it). Wuthnow (who did the first rigorous methodological procedure for such a study) and Nobel (who was lauded for her huge data based--at the time huge, 2,400) were both published in that source. These are some of the major studies in the early period.

here is a swath of Mohan's bibliography. tell me what is wrong with these sources?

Adams, N. (1995). Spirituality, science and therapy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 16 (4), 201-208.

Allman, L.S., Dela, R.O., Elins, D.N., & Weathers, R.S. (1992). Psychotherapists attitude towards mystical experiences. Psychotherapy, 29, 564-569.

Anson, O., Antonovskay, A., & Sagy, S. (1990). “Religiosity and well-being among retirees: A question of causality”. Behaviour, Health & Aging, 1, 85-87.

Atchley, R.C. (1997). “The subjective importance and being religious and its effects on health and morale 14 years later”. Journal of Aging Studies, 11, 131-141.

Ball, R.A & Goodyear, R.K. (1991). “Self-reported professional practices of Christian psychotherapists”. Journal of Psychology and Christianity. 10, 144-153.

Balodhi, J.P., Chowdhary, J.R. (1986). “Psychiatric concepts in Atharva Veda: A review”. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 28, 63-68.

Begley, S. (1998, July 20). “Science finds God”. Newsweek, 132, 47-52.

Bergin, A.E. (1980). Psychotherapy and religious values. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 48, 95-105.

Bergin, A.E. (1983). “Religiosity and mental health: A critical reevaluation and meta analysis”. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 14, 170-184.

Bergin, A.E. (1991). “Values and Religious issues in Psychotherapy and mental health”. American Psychologist, 46, 394-403.

Bergin, A.E. & Payne, I.R. (1993). “Proposed agenda for a spiritual strategy in personality and psychotherapy”, in E.L. Wothington, Jr. (Ed.). Psychotherapy and Religious Values, (pp. 243-260). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.

Bhagawad Gita. (1905). Translation by Besant, A. & Das, B. London and Benares: Theological Publishing Society.

Blaine, B., Crocker, J. (1995). “Religiousness, and psychological well-being: Exploring social psychological mediators”. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1031-1041.

Brown, L.B. (1994). The human side of prayer: The psychology of praying. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.

Canda, E. (1988). “pirituality, religious diversity, and social work practice”. Social Casework: The Journal of Contemporary Social Work, 69 (4), 238-247.

Canda, E. (1995). “Existential family therapy: Using the concepts of Victor Frankl”. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, 76, 451-452.

Caroll, S. (1993). “Spirituality and purpose in life in alcoholism recovery”. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 54, 297-301.

Carlson,R. & Shield,B. (1989). Healers on Healing. Los Angels: Tarchet.

Chekola, M.G. (1975). The concept of happiness (Doctoral dissertation). University of Michigan. (1974). Dissertation Abstracts International, 35, 4609A.

Courtenary, B.C., Poon. L.W., Martin, P., & Clayton,G.M. (1992). “Religiostiy and adaptation in oldest-old”. International Journal of Aging & Human Development. 34, 47-46.

Culberson, C.E. (1977). A holistic view of joy in relation to psychotherapy derived from Lowen, Maslow, and Assagoli (Doctoral Dissertation). Dissertation Abstracts International, 38, 2853B.

He goes on:

I have a major problem with your strong reliance on Jayne Gackenback's unpublished, hence non-peer-reviewed work (a literature review). Gackenback claims that, dreaming gets one in contact with the Vedic Consciousness. This kind of "I'm-A-True-Believer " rif should be a real red flag that her work on this topic is unreliable due to her bias. Samples of your heavy reliance on this very dubious source:

Strong reliance. I don't quote her as a study. I used her bibliography. See this is the Bib attack I spoke of earlier. It's just the height of stupidity to think that because a source is on a bibliography with a bad source that somehow taints the good source. Foolish. But there's nothing wrong with Gackenback anyway, she's a fine researcher, but her main area is sleep research and that tends to be a bit on the edge. She does, therefore, have an association with some less than sterling publications. But this in now way impends upon the sources she sites becuase she didn't' do the studies. I've done a mountain of research on this topic and I know the major studies are. Here's was the first bibliography of the topic that I found. Bedsides all that she accounts for less than half of the studies. Her biboliogrophy was done in 92, so most of her studies are old. But that doesn't make them bad because the same results have been coming in for four decades. Mohan contains almost half the sources and his bib starts about 92 and goes to 2004.

Then he tries to attack Gackenback herself, as though that means anything on her big must be bad.

Phoenix:

The following taken from the Gackenback bib: http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/cehsc/ipure.htm

1. Transpersonal Childhood Experiences of Higher States of Consciousness: Literature Review and Theoretical Integration. Unpublished paper 1992 by Jayne Gackenback.

Why are you using UNPUBLISHED work here?

I'm not! I'm using her bibliography. The publication of her article has nothing to do with the publication of the items on her bibliography. Don't you even know what a Bibliography is? Secondly, it is published, on her website. She has a degree, she's a professional researcher, she was the editor of a journal, so why doesn't her website count?

The is NOT scholarly (you're so fond of lambasting others for not being scholars that I find this tendency to cite this dubious kind of work and THEN claim that you have "empirical evidence" to be most ironic.

It's not scholarly. What's scholarly is to act like I'm quoting her when I'm only quoted sources she sites! Your just doing guilt by association, that is not a valid methodological attack. Really none of the attacks he makes have anything to do with replication, representation, randomness, or control.

2. She cites Alexander (really fond of him, she is), but what is she citing? One book, two unpublished manuscripts, and two publications in The Lucidity Letter====>The Lucidity Letter, is a non-professional publication, hence non-peer reviewed==>Guess what, Gackenback is the past editor of this low-quality journal, and Alexander is her bud (more on why this is a problem).

Lucidy letter was a professional publication. It wa snot an academic publication. i'm sure you don't know the difference. Again, her quotations from Alexander do not make his study bad. that's really idiotic to think it does. Moreover, it's total stupid to think that a book is a scholarly source. Yes books are still valid scholarly sources. A studyin a book is still a study. Alexander is a good source. It's not that uncommon for scholarly sources to quote unpublished material ether. You can find that being done all the time. Being unpublished doesn't make the findings go away.l Yes publication is important, and you are right about that,but a book is publication.

He gives this URL which is to Lucidity letter. I'm not sure why he sticks it out there.

{http://www.sawka.com/spiritwatch/tableof.htm}

Phoenix:

Now let's look at her citation partner Alexander. He publishes in Modern Science and Vedic Science that is published by guess who, The Maharishi University of Management Press, another turn in the SAME circle of "True Believers" in Vedic Consciousness). What we have here is a citation circle (never a good sign) that you cite as support which consists mainly of an unpublished papers that reference other non-peer reviewed literature in a "I'm-A-True-Believer" citation circle.
{http://mumpress.com/p_h.html}

This is one study out of the pack (349, or so left to go). He's also deciding what a citation circle is by assuming that the Academy in India is going to work by the same procedures as ours or that they must be inferior because America is the only country that really knows science. He doesn't present any material to prove any problems with this source. He's just guessing. His assertion that I use Alexander as some kind of support is unfounded. He's in the mix of the 350 that doesn't' mean I've singled his stuff out as any particular support for anything.


Phoenix:

3. Not only so we have a "I'm-A-True-Believer" citation circle, but she cites frauds like Deepak Chopra!. Really Meta, this is a serious source and we are to take someone who cites this snake-oil salesman as believable?
{http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/longcomments/moonbat_anti_evolutionist_deepak_chopra}

see there it is. I've seen this before. She sties a bad source (do we know what she says about him? does she say he's good? we don't know) but that means all the sources she sites must also be bad. That's just plain stupid. Because the major studies like Wuthnow and Nobel and Lukoff are sites by the major people such as Hood. So this means nothing as a methodological attack. Nothing more than guilt by association. What are we really being asked to believe about Gackenback? Only that she found some good studies and some bad ones. That's not hard to believe. If the source I site were not on her bib, had I not told the CARM idiots that there were there, they would never have known it. Then they would have no argument against the studies at all. Because notice: he still has not read a single study and has not made a single mythological argument of any one source.

4. Gackenbach now cites herself (round and round in this citation circle we go!).

that is not a citation circle. you need to learn more about social science research. Quoting herself is a total logical thing to do since she did studies. It has nothing to do with otehrs quoting her. You can't show a single source that she quotes quoting her. That's a circle is stupid.

1. Gackenbach, J.I. & Moorecroft, W. (1987). Psychological content of "consciousness" during sleep in a TM subject. Lucidity Letter, 6(1), 29-36. b. Gackenbach, J.I. (1988). The psychological content of lucid dreams.
2. In J.I. Gackenbach & S.L. LaBerge (Eds.), Conscious mind, sleeping brain: Perspectives on lucid dreaming. NY: Plenum. (NOTE: The low-quality Lucidity Letter, again!)

5. Not content with these non-SSCI journals ( Lucidity Letter and Modern Science and Vedic Science), Gackenback also cites:

* the Journal of UFO Studies. (you've got to be kidding me...this is serious science!) (non-SSCI)

This is rich and hilarious. I've sen this stupid mistake made by atheists before. He wants you to think that Gackenback is an idiot because she quotes something about UFO studies. That would mean she must believe in UFO's right? But since she is a sleep researcher she's quoting to show that there is a similarity between waking dreams and UFO abduction descriptions. This was back in the late 80s or early 90s when that was not so well known. Rather than supporting belief in UFOs she is actually demonstrating the cause of abduction scenarios as waking dreams, meaning she's agaisnt UFO abduction. She has done the valid scholarly thing and quoted her source, she had quote a crazy source to show that the idea is crazy right? so what's wrong with that?

Let's also say something about his crap on the SSI. Social Science Abstracts is the most authoritative source for social scinece studies. The search engine he found, SSI is not. So he's just making stupid assumptions. I know from having published an academic journal that the indecies do not have people running around looking for good stuff to index. You have to apply to them. Not all do that because it doesn't always fit what you are doing. Just not being in a certain index is not proof that your publication is no good.

* the Scottish Journal of Religious Studies (non-SSCI)
* the Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion ( non-SSCI).
* another non-SSCI journal, the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research
* The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (non-SSCI) that publishes papers from the likes of Ram Dass . {http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ramdass}
* a doctoral dissertation from the Dept. of Neuroscience of Human Consciousness, Maharishi International University (back to the citation circle)

This is nothing more than ideological pandering. Most of these journals are find and he has no real reason for saying they aren't. I don't know why we should expect a Scottish journal to be in an American index. Ram Dass is a popularizer but that doesn't mean everything he does is bad. He does have a major degree from an Ivy league university. He was involved scientific work before he went native. This guy is just assuming that religious structures have to square with secular academia or with western academia and they don't. I would consider Ram Dass to be half backed. I always have.But that doesn't mean anything, because Gackenback quotes him and he is capable of doing some good. Its' silly to judge academics in other countries by American standards. as though they don't have their own standardizes.

again these are things Gackenback quotes, that doesn't mean the 350 studies are in this pile. He has not showen that one of these is from the same group.

6. Gackenbach, J.I. & Bosveld, J. (1989). Control your dreams. NY: Harper & Row
You identified her popular book as a serious academic work. A popular book is NOT a a serious academic work that one relies upon as evidence for ones case. (Gackenback also cites her own book in her work).

where did I do that? I said she's a serious sleep researcher. Just because she does a popular books mean she's not. Lost of major academics have done popular things. Dr. MacFarland did a coffee table book on Japan and he was the major expert on the New Religions of Japan. This has nothing do to with her study on religious experince or on her bibliography.

The point here is that there is a pattern to the stuff you cite and it is not a good one. The vast majority of them are a joke...unpublished, non-peer reviewed, from joke journals like the UFO rag, and/or as part of strongly-biased citation circle (so much for you "empirical evidence"). If this is a representative sample of what you have, I am totally underwhelmed. Why don't you try writing a paper yourself, using the sources you have cited on your web-site as evidence and see how far you get having it published in a reputable SSCI journal?

the pattern is the bald faced lie you are telling. The pattern is you are mining quotes. You looking at the stuff that makes the case of guilt by association. none of the things you site have anything to do with the 350 studies. The studies you are looking at deal with her sleep research. I don't know if you even have hold of the right bibliography. You are just playing game.s Taking things out of context and trying to make a big muddle. you don't know the scholarly world well enough to discern good from bad.

Now this is just a scan of the "Gackenback bib". I do hope that her work isn't typical of the rest of the now "350" (up from the "300" studies).

you have not yet proved that it's typical of even one of them. you haven not demonstrated that one of them is the 350. You are doing nothing more than playing guilt by association.

Your 350 studies, if they are like the Gackenback lot in their quality, they are NOT going to come close to substantiating the claims you are trying to wringe for them, e.g., God as "co-determinant". Quantity is no substitute for quality.

now you are mixing two different concepts, the studies are not about the co-determinate. that's from schleiermacher not the studies. You don't know anything about quality. You are merely playing guilt by association. He learned the term "citation circle" so he wants to use it a lot.

The point here is that I am NOT saying every one of your studies are like many of those from Gackenback. The question is what will you have is anyone ever puts your source under any kind of

scrutinyyou have not done that yet stupid. all you've done is to assault her bibliography and her work in other areas and tangential associations that have nothing to do with the issue.

* What will you have left once one throws out the low quality stuff?

you have not yet demonstrated a single thing wrong with a single study.

* Will what you have left really support the sweeping assertions you are making with it? They don't now IMO (C&P "linky" to why I don't think so below) ({http://www.christiandiscussionforums.org/v/showpost.php?p=4008464&postcount=56})

why are they sweeping? you have no concept of what they are based upon or what backs them up. Over all about 2000 studies show that religions good for you. why is that such a amazing claim? only because you are brain washed. you are a zombie brainwashed by a hate group.

What I hope you see, Metacrock, if you read this, is WHY we are having problems with your claims. This is NOT an attempt to make you feel bad, attack your self-esteem, ridicule you or Christianity, etc.

this is not why you are having problems. it has nothing to do with the studies, and no one ever went to this much trouble before, not that you haven't done a totally pathetic job.

all he does is play guilt by association and go off on a tangent trying to build a list of criteria for validity that is not used in academic circles. the search engine he sites is not the only source of valid scientific work. Again he treats the whole 350 as though ti's one thing. If one study has a problem the whole thing is bad. the De Pok Chopra stuff and Ram Dass study he sites has nothing to do with the 350 studies, they are not part of that batch. He's just more atheist stupidity not understanding how to do real social science work and using buzz words and half understood concepts. but they do not mount a single methodological attack.

a loot of his attacks have to do with things he doesn't like. he doesn't like religion so any research about meditation and dreams and things that strike him sas supernatural he atomically dismisses as stupid and bad.


Remember also that he doesn't even look at or mention the Mohan bib, Lukoff, or Voyle, Wuthnow or Noble. so these account for well over half, maybe 2/3 of the studies I use. So he's only getting at a fraction of them. Most of the arguments he makes are guilt by association.

Materlialist Reduction of Religous Concepts

two recent posts on CARM. These are not typical of all atheists but they are typical of a certain segment who I think just can't stop liberalizing metaphors and can't understand concepts.

Originally Posted by Dr Pepper

The existence of God all boils down to a few simple questions. What is it? Where is it? When is it? and Why is it?

Meta:you guys keeping to reduce God to psychosocial dimensions. you are still trying to make God a thing in creation. God si not a thing in creation. It's senseless to reduce God the physical. Physical is a illusion. it's a product of mind. God is not physical, physical is a product of God's mind.

there is "there" there. God is nowhere and everywhere.

DP:

What is it? God can't be composed of matter and or energy since this is the stuff the makes up the universe and God created it. So what kind of non material stuff exists that can make matter and energy from nothing? In this regard how does said stuff end up thinking and behaving in ways similar to animal life on our planet, specifically human beings. With over a million separate species why pick human beings to give special consideration?

Meta:

matter is not the basis of reality. mind is the basis. Matter is just another for of energy science tell us this. Mind is energy. So everything reduces to mind.

DP

Where is it? We are unable to detect it using any kind of electromagnetic, gravitational or energy output with any known instrument mad by man. Some humans report a mental contact but an equal number do not. Those reporting mental contact can show no physical evidence to indicate from where the contact originates other from within the human brain.

Meta:

this sounds like a hot shot point but it's really quite childish. Do you realize that there is no "beyond" space/time in a physical sense? No one thinks there's a big room some place that space/time is spinning around in. there is essentially no phsyuical place "off the beach ball" so to speak. I had a book by a philosophy of scinece guy named John Powers who says there is guarantee that there's a physical realm beyond space/time. a Mathematical realm does not prove it's a physical realm.

If God is all encompassing mind and the physical world is an idea in that mind then God is in all things and above all things and doesn't have to be anywhere.

When is it? The universe appears to have expanded from a single point some 13 billion years in the past and this expansion is accelerating even today. What existed before this expansion began we know not. Maybe nothing, maybe something we simply do not know. Where does God fit into this scenario? If God existed before the big bang how long did it wait to start the universe expanding from whatever it expanded from.

Meta:

this is childish ignorance. everyone knows it's just common knowledge that beyond the event horizon of the big bang one moves (if one could move there) beyond time. So Go dis beyond time. you can't ask "when?" there is when beyond time. that's like saying "before time." it's wrong.

If everything must have a cause or beginning then when did God begin to exist or to create stuff? Just 13 billion years ago? Forever is a long time even for a God.

Meta:

quote the law that says this? It's a ill conceived notion. God did not begin. why can't you get the concept in your head/ God had no beginning. just like the ICR you use to excuse your lack of a final cause. God is eternal. Of the bottom line is the notion applies to everything natural or everyting not necessary needs a cause. not everything you can name including God? God is obviously excluded. You don't include the cause in talk of effects.

say it with me now "God has no beginning he is eternal, he has always been."

DP

Why is it? Why does the universe need a God? If the universe actually began expanding for an unknown reason and this expansion produced the universe we see today with the properties that allows life to exist why do we need a God? Why couldn't matter and energy simply react as it does to produce what we see it doing?

Meta:

why is a meaningless question. you believe in brute facts. you don't ask why when you argue for the bogus notion of an impersonal origin for the universe. you don't need a when when you try to shove in a meaningless excuse of an origin to compete with God. why do you demand a why for God?

all the whys resolve in Love. why create? to love. my die on the cross, for love. why be good, becuase its loving.

InfiniteHopes' 10k challenge!

I'm no James Randy to offer 1mil. But I can spare 10k. But, I'm also a gamer (I injoy board/card games) I dont gamble per say, but I'm not opposed to it. So, I will bet my 10k agenst yours if you would care to wager on an outcome - but I do not think anyone will "take my bet"
So, forget betting - I'll just offer the 10k ($10,000) to anyone who can show some way to afferm that the "supernatural" "spirtual" "sprits" "ghosts" "devils" "demons" "angels" "God" "god" "Gods" "gods" "afterlife" "heven" or "hell" actualy exist by using any of the below:

1: Emperical evedance.
2: A repeatable test.

For the next catagory, I will offer $5,000.
You can get this money if you can offer up a logicaly sound decitive augment whos premices are KNOWN TO BE TRUE. And that does not fail any of the logical rules of persanary diolouge, no falacys alowed! Do this, and I'll paypal you the 5,000.

--

I asked The amazing Randy if he had studied the Lourdes miracles? He said no he had not. So you have no evidence that they included. they are not seeking his money so why would they? So this childish challenge is not any kind of proof against Christian miracles. It is telling as a sign of the times that these materialists lump the "real deal" of God's grace in with "para normal" fraud.

What does it mean that someone is willing to make a bogus comparison like this??

This is actually the atheist fortress of facts at work. We have this big pile of facts and you can't disprove it you have no facts of your own. Of cousre I demontarted the disproof of the fortress of facts in my two part debuncking the athesit fortress of facts.

For Reality Snitch: my thoughts on religion and evolution

Reality snitch sent commence in response to my article on "Dawkins is not a great scientist."

Reality Snitch:

Richard Dawkins is a scientist. He has a doctorate in philosophy. He employs doctors and reports back there findings as fact. These facts then go through a "christian" collander and are then deemed as pro- or anti- christian.

I didn't say he's not a scientist. I didn't say he doesn't have a Ph.D. He's not a great scientist. Atheists talk about him as though he's Einstein and he's not. I said the hge stack of degrees he has are mostly honorary. Mostly they give thouse in exchange for speaking at commencement.

Reality Snitch:
Also, I would like to point out that the two discoverers of DNA, Rosalind Franklin and James Watson, were both atheists. So, before using all this convenient scientific analegy to prove an otherwise ridiculous point is plain typical. Typical of christians to try and back up there religious beliefs with scientific discoveries that have been in no way linked or creditted with god.
I would like to hear your views on evolution if you are willing to write a blog about it.

Hard to tell what he thinks he's saying here. First he thinks the fact that Watson and Franklin (it was actually Krick who worked with Watson it's debatable weather Franklin should be counted or not--what was the religious view position of Krick?). I don't know what real difference it makes weather they were atheist or not. That does not make science some sort of atheist enforcement mechanism. I don't know what means by "scientific analogy." He then lapses into stereotyping and Christian bashing. Chriristians are stupid they say stupid things so therefore I must be stupid too. He thinks that pointing out Christians contributions to scinece is trying to link the discoveries to God. I have no idea what all the cheap apologetics people get up to. The most often made argument is simply that Christians have contributed to science so there's anti-scientific about Christianity per se.

He asked for my views on evolution. I don't calim to be an expert, I understand fairly well for a layman.I'm a Darwinian. I don't have any big radical notions about I just am pretty mainstream in terms of what's taught in public schools and state universities. I think what he reallyk wants to know if how I reconcile Genesis with science? I would think, based upon what he said so far, what he really wants to hear is that I'm some wild eyed YEC so he can make fun. Sorry to disappoint I don't even see how a creationist can be a scientist. You have to have an open ended outcome to be a scientist and if a creationist ever came to the conclusion that evolution happened he would be out of the club. So that means their conclusions have to be pre set.

How do I reconcile Genesis and evolution? When I was a kid I tired to do that by taking Gensis in a highly metaphorical way. After going to a very liberal seminary it dawned upon me that this is totally unnecessary. We can understand Genesis not as "metaphor" but as "mythology."

to understand this please read my essay on Biblical revelation. I ask the reader please read the whole thing. I will post part of it here now:

"The Bible is Just Mythology"

The most radical view will be that of mythology in the Bible. This is a difficult concept for most Christians to grasp, because most of us are taught that "myth" means a lie, that it's a dirty word, an insult, and that it is really debunking the Bible or rejecting it as God's word. The problem is in our understanding of myth. "Myth" does not mean lie; it does not mean something that is necessarily untrue. It is a literary genre—a way of telling a story. In Genesis, for example, the creation story and the story of the Garden are mythological. They are based on Babylonian and Sumerian myths that contain the same elements and follow the same outlines. But three things must be noted: 1) Myth is not a dirty word, not a lie. Myth is a very healthy thing. 2) The point of the myth is the point the story is making--not the literal historical events of the story. So the point of mythologizing creation is not to transmit historical events but to make a point. We will look more closely at these two points. 3) I don't assume mythology in the Bible out of any tendency to doubt miracles or the supernatural, I believe in them. I base this purely on the way the text is written.

The purpose of myth is often assumed to be the attempt of unscientific or superstitious people to explain scientific facts of nature in an unscientific way. That is not the purpose of myth. A whole new discipline has developed over the past 60 years called "history of religions." Its two major figures are C.G. Jung and Marcea Eliade. In addition to these two, another great scholarly figure arises in Carl Kerenyi. In addition to these three, the scholarly popularizer Joseph Champbell is important. Champell is best known for his work The Hero with A Thousand Faces. This is a great book and I urge everyone to read it. Champbell, and Elliade both disliked Christianity intensely, but their views can be pressed into service for an understanding of the nature of myth. Myth is, according to Champbell a cultural transmission of symbols for the purpose of providing the members of the tribe with a sense of guidance through life. They are psychological, not explanatory of the physical world. This is easily seen in their elaborate natures. Why develop a whole story with so many elements when it will suffice as an explanation to say "we have fire because Prometheus stole it form the gods?" For example, Champell demonstrates in The Hero that heroic myths chart the journey of the individual through life. They are not explanatory, but clinical and healing. They prepare the individual for the journey of life; that's why in so many cultures we meet the same hero over and over again; because people have much the same experiences as they journey though life, gaining adulthood, talking their place in the group, marriage, children, old age and death. The hero goes out, he experiences adventures, he proves himself, he returns, and he prepares the next hero for his journey. We meet this over and over in mythology.

In Kerenyi's essays on a Science of Mythology we find the two figures of the maiden and the Krone. These are standard figures repeated throughout myths of every culture. They serve different functions, but are symbolic of the same woman at different times in her life. The Krone is the enlightener, the guide, the old wise woman who guides the younger into maidenhood. In Genesis we find something different. Here the Pagan myths follow the same outline and contain many of the same characters (Adam and Adapa—see, Cornfeld Archaeology of the Bible 1976). But in Genesis we find something different. The chaotic creation story of Babylon is ordered and the source of creation is different. Rather than being emerging out of Tiamot (chaos) we find "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Order is imposed. We have a logical and orderly progression (as opposed to the Pagan primordial chaos). The seven days of creation represent perfection and it is another aspect of order, seven periods, the seventh being rest. Moreover, the point of the story changes. In the Babylonian myth the primordial chaos is the ages of creation, and there is no moral overtone, the story revolves around other things. This is a common element in mythology, a world in which the myths happen, mythological time and place. All of these elements taken together are called Myths, and every mythos has a cosmogony, an explanation of creation and being (I didn't say there were no explanations in myth.). We find these elements in the Genesis story, Cosmogony included. But, the point of the story becomes moral: it becomes a story about man rebelling against God, the entrance of sin into the world. So the Genesis account is a literary rendering of pagan myth, but it stands that myth on its head. It is saying God is the true source of creation and the true point is that life is about knowing God.

The mythological elements are more common in the early books of the Bible. The material becomes more historical as we go along. How do we know? Because the mythical elements of the first account immediately drop away. Elements such as the talking serpent, the timeless time ("in the beginning"), the firmament and other aspects of the myth all drop away. The firmament was the ancient world's notion of the world itself. It was a flat earth set upon angular pillars, with a dome over it. On the inside of the dome stars were stuck on, and it contained doors in the dome through which snow and rain could be forced through by the gods (that's why Genesis says "he divided the waters above the firmament from the waters below”). We are clearly in a mythological world in Genesis. The Great flood is mythology as well, as all nations have their flood myths. But as we move through the Bible things become more historical.

The NT is not mythological at all. The Resurrection of Christ is an historical event and can be argued as such (see Resurrection page). Christ is a flesh and blood historical person who can be validated as having existed. The resurrection is set in an historical setting, names, dates, places are all historically verifiable and many have been validated. So the major point I'm making is that God uses myth to communicate to humanity. The mythical elements create the sort of psychological healing and force of literary strength and guidance that any mythos conjures up. God is novelist, he inspires myth. That is to say, the inner experience model led the redactors to remake ancient myth with a divine message. But the Bible is not all mythology; in fact most of it is an historical record and has been largely validated as such.

The upshot of all of this is that there is no need to argue evolution or the great flood. Evolution is just a scientific understanding of the development of life. It doesn't contradict the true account because we don't have a "true" scientific account. In Genesis, God was not trying to write a science text book. We are not told how life developed after creation. That is a point of concern for science not theology.

How do we know the Bible is the Word of God? Not because it contains big amazing miracle prophecy fulfillment, not because it reveals scientific information which no one could know at the time of writing, but for the simplest of reasons. Because it does what religious literature should do, it is transformative.

Atheists use Mocking and Ridicule as Co-ersion (Brian Washing)

Mocking and ridicule are acts of hate. To mock ideas is to stifle thinking. It's true that some ideas worthy of ridicule, the problem is that accepting such a standard replaces thinking in the minds of those who don't like to think. Thus all one need do is ridicule and idea and the groupies accept the mocking as judgment that the idea is no good, one need to think about the idea. Stupid people and ignorant people always mock things they don't understand. When mocking and ridicule replace real thought in a community then the mere presence of ridicule is enough to stifle thought on the subject.
thus ridicule takes on a hateful aspect, it is the work of the lynch mob. Mocking and ridicule are nothing ore than mob rule.

More and more atheists advocate ridicule as a valid approach. That's nothing more than an excuse to stifle thinking among ignorant people.

planet atheism oct 21 2010

Why Criticism and Mockery are Important

Published

by

Staks

on October 21, 2010

.

Yesterday I talked about the perception that criticism and mockery is often considered going negative. Today I want to talk about the value of criticism and mockery. Quite simply, it is how we learn.
When presented with an idea (good or bad) we have to think about the idea. Sometimes we don’t do that or we don’t think deeply enough about the idea. This is where someone else comes along and points out why the idea is poor by criticizing the idea. Their criticism may or may not have merit, but at least now we can think about those criticisms.
Sometimes however, ideas become deeply held beliefs and regardless of how valid the criticism might be, we still reject that criticism and cling to the belief. We might even insist that the belief be taken seriously and believed by others on insufficient reasoning and/or evidence.
This is where mockery comes in. When people refuse to take our deeply held beliefs seriously, we might dig in deeper in trying to get people to take our beliefs seriously. The more people mock the belief, the more we are confronted with the criticisms of the belief and he more we must try to deal with those criticism if we still expect our beliefs to be taken seriously.
Mockery is withheld as a last form of criticism for those who refuse to have their ideas criticized. It is more dismissive of the idea and usually only comes in when the particular idea is really ridiculous and worth mockery. It is a message that, “hey, your idea has way too many criticisms and is just so ridiculous that is really isn’t worth taking seriously at all.”

The problem is, you can't allow that becuase people have a hard time distinguishing a truly absurd idea from something they don' know about. Atheists don't' want to learn about theology anyway. There will be times when one can't help but mock something, to actually employ it as a strategy even a last resort is just creating an environment of hatred and negativity.

Ridicule becomes a form of atheist brain washing. Daylight Atheism argues that it's a valid and effective means of changing people's attitudes. They don't seem to concerned with the ramifications the effectiveness of it seems more important to them. In fact this guy tells how his own conversion include being ridiculed out of his beliefs.

This was around my last year of high school. I was surfing Internet chat rooms when I saw someone in one of them give an offhand reference to the site Things Creationists Hate by Bob Riggins, a sarcastic list of things that contradict creationist belief - everything from sand piles to the apostle Paul.
I read the whole page the first time I saw it, and I was hooked. I went back several times in the following weeks, reading new things as the author added them, and then branched out into exploring other websites, including some with a snarky and irreverent attitude towards religion (there was one I remember called Fade to Black, now defunct). I wasn't yet an atheist at that point, but it got me to realize that claims made in the name of religion could be questioned, even mocked - and that was what set the stage for my subsequent deconversion.
I bring this all up because, yet again, there's an ongoing tiff with an accommodationist - in this case the astronomy blogger Phil Plait - who's chastising the skeptical and atheist community for being excessively vitriolic and insulting:

"How many of you here today used to believe in something - used to, past tense - whether it was flying saucers, psychic powers, religion, anything like that... [and] no longer believe in those things and became a skeptic because somebody got in your face, screaming, and called you an idiot, brain-damaged and a retard?"

It's hard to disagree with the point as he phrases it, but the problem is this: Plait never said who, specifically, he was talking about. In fact, he made it a point not to cite any specific examples. This makes it very difficult to evaluate the merit of his argument, and raises the suspicion that he's just throwing up an inflammatory straw man. I don't know very many skeptics whose approach consists of getting in people's faces and screaming insults at them. But I do know many skeptics who mercilessly mock ridiculous beliefs, who argue using snark and sarcasm, and who forthrightly call irrational nonsense what it is. Is Plait talking about them? Is he talking about me? Where, specifically, does he think the line is? His argument isn't helpful if it doesn't answer these questions.

What they are really describing here is actually the Atheist Brain washing process. A bunch of thugs pick out weak lonely people who need friends and support, mock them and ridicule them make them feel like shit then give them a sense of belonging when they give in. This is as anti-intellectual as you can get. It's nothing more than thugs forcing people to change their minds. I put it on a par with torture. Its' a very tame for of torture. Ridicule can cause people to commit suicide. Ridicule can scar one for life. These people are thugs and there basically just admitting to be psychological kidnappers.

one comment on Daylgiht Athest says:

Thomas Paine obviously disagreed with Plait and his writings certainly utilize ridicule (a lot):
"The hinting and intimidating manner of writing that was formerly used on subjects of this kind [religion], produced skepticism, but not conviction. It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think." (from a letter to Elihu Palmer)

Comment #1 by: EvanT | August 30, 2010, 6:34 am

Thomas Paine (ass though he was) did not just ridicule everything. He reserved his ridicule for his oppoents policies in politics, he didn't' try to ridicule all of philosophy, all of theology, all of literature, as many many atheists do.

Not all atheists agree of cousre. There are dissenting voices that council not to mock and ridicule. Paul Kurtz of the Free Thinking Blog (Center for Inquiry part of the atheist propaganda echo chamber) has some intelligent things to say about it.

It is one thing to examine the claims of religion in a responsible way by calling attention to Biblical, Koranic or scientific criticisms, it is quite another to violate the key humanistic principle of tolerance. One may disagree with contending religious beliefs, but to denigrate them by rude caricatures borders on hate speech. What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way? We would protest the lack of respect for alternative views in a democratic society. I apologize to my fellow citizens who have suffered these barbs of indignity.

His readers disagree:

Randy on Tuesday September 29, 2009 at 4:10pm

Two problems I have with this post:
(1) Nazi reference, already in the second paragraph. Really, do we need to go there every time?
(2) “What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way?” I nearly fell off my chair. This happens on a daily basis, in all media, and usually is not meant as a lighthearted joke either.

The old "they do it to us so we can do it to them." I never hear atheists ridiculed in the media. I think he's confusing general sense of disagreement and cultural unacceptability with actual ridicule.

wandering on Tuesday September 29, 2009 at 5:19pm

It is not dissimilar to the anti-semitic cartoons of the Nazi era.

There is a great difference between denigrating a living person, or an existing nation and a mythical god/leader of religion. A person has rights; God, Jesus and Mohammed have no rights.

What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way?

How is drawing Jesus an insult to anyone that is not Jesus, and the drawing of the pope, an insult to anyone that is not the pope? People have no rights to be insulted on the behalf of a third party, just because they believe something about that party…

Those are thoughtless and stupid comments because Jesus and Mohamed are not just abstract ideas. To a lot of people they are cherished beliefs, and more, they are friends, they are people some people love. when you ridicule Jesus you are hurting me. It hurts me deeply and offends me deeply to see Jesus ridiculed. I equate Jesus with the basic symbol of all that is good and holy. To mock and ridicule that is totally evil. It requires only a modicum of brains to understand the ability to distinguish between the cultural construct of Jesus the icon of the good and the religious doctrine that the man of Nazareth was incorante logos. Not that mocking the logos would not also be offensive to me, but respecting Jesus as a cultural icon does not mean accepting the doctrine of the Trinity.

We can see clearly that atheism flourishes on mocking and ridiculing. it's my theory that they equate that with their intellectual superiority. As the studies indicate atheists have poor self esteem, they feel anger and frustration toward people who feel loved by God. They love the sense that they superior to these people because they can mock and ridicule what they don't understand. They use it as a tool to hijack people's brains and force them to give up their beliefs. They probably have to find boarder line people to work that on. Those are have low self esteem, struggle to feel accepted by God, have no support group need a sense of belonging. Being mocked and rejected creates the desire to be accepted by their persecutes and then the sense that one has finally ache-ivied belonging when one renounces the hated beliefs is enough to bring people into submission. Free thinkers, O yea, they are free thinkers. Free thinkers really bleieve in forcing people into submission don't they?


another one

Another comment on Daylight atheism and it's so telling! This guy recounts his forced conversoin (he gave up the faith because they made him feel stupid) it's so telling:

As usual, Dawkins is correct, and I offer myself as Exhibit A. The whole reason I'm an atheist, the reason that Ebon Musings and Daylight Atheism exist, is because of those websites which made me realize that religious beliefs could be poked fun at. Ridicule has its uses: If skillfully deployed in an argument, it can be more persuasive than anything else - nothing gets someone on your side like making them laugh. It helps break down the stifling aura of solemnity and respect that religions have convinced themselves they deserve, and that they use to smother legitimate criticism. And it communicates, more eloquently than any cool and dispassionate argument ever could, that it's okay not to believe this stuff!

As ususl of course Dawkie is right he as to justify going to hell. He has to make himself feel better about blaspheming and damning himself. When I say that I mean form his fundie point of view no mine.Obviousy he has a ot cognaitvie dissonace to overcome. How did Festinger say we over cogitative dissonance? By becoming more committed to the new commitment, even in the face of disproof.

Look at what he says:the reason that Ebon Musings and Daylight Atheism exist, is because of those websites which made me realize that religious beliefs could be poked fun at. Ridicule has its uses: The dulcimer was effective. He was co-erced and now this cheerful attitude because he has to rationalize going to hell. now look what he says:

If skillfully deployed in an argument, it can be more persuasive than anything else - nothing gets someone on your side like making them laugh.


Ends justify the means. As long it works. so if it works to thereaten to kill people then we can do that too. He's just putting a happy face on being a thug.

here an atheist takes a dissenting view

Dawkins is not a great scientist

Dawkins is not a great a sciensit

I am not saying that he is not accomplished and I'm not saying that he doesn't have a Ph.D. Yes he has one, yes knows a lot about biology. Of course more than I do. He is not Galileo, he's not Darwin, he's not Einstein what he had contributed to scinece (if anything) is more in the line of popularizing and PR than real science.

I'm not even saying that he hasn't done real scinece but he's not a big name for work in scinece. His work in "real scinece" is a little better than mediocre.

Before I go into that here's a little something for Hans to ponder. This is the second time I've found a Left publication attacking New Atheism. the other was in the Guardian (the one in New York). How do you figure it Hans? I see totalitarian written over New atheism and in reality the left overs of the left oppose it.

here's the "about" statement form the journal State of nature where I find the anti-Dawkins article:

"State of Nature is a quarterly online journal of the Left. Its focus is on world politics, global economics, history, philosophy, social theory and the arts. It stands opposed to the capitalist economic order and the imperialist ambitions of the world’s great powers. It remains committed to the development of protest movements and the construction of a radical alternative to the status quo."

does that mean Dawkins is status quo?

quote:

"As a whole generation of biologists has been indoctrinated to believe that selfish-gene theory is serious science, we should put the Dawkins-as-intellectual scenario to rest forever."

State of Nature

Selfish kinship altruism is a minefield for the Dawkins camp, for they are forced to come up with explanations for numerous processes that don’t fit the model. Dawkins’ rather unconvincing explanation for our kindness to strangers for example, is that this is a “Darwinian mistake”, a useless (in Darwinian terms not his) misdirected extension of our feelings of kinship. [4] This is almost painful; a classic case of making the data fit the theory. Surely we can come up with a better explanation for altruism. Let’s start by examining kin selection, which undoubtedly plays a role in evolution, but which, when presented as being driven by individualism is a fantasy based on a falsehood. The simple reality is that we co-operate with others because we are social beings. We co-operate closely with kin because, well, they’re closest to us! (This really is kindergarten stuff, isn’t it?) Kin altruism can be more simply and believably explained, from a purely biological viewpoint only, as insurance for assistance at a time of future need, which rules out gene influence entirely.

Detailed information about the origin of life is not altogether conjectural; it’s still possible to speculate as to what took place and why. It’s likely that the first spark of life was a singular event, was not repeated. [5] If that’s the case, then all living things are related, for they have a common ancestor, this being confirmed by the presence of DNA in all organisms and the astounding level of genetic material shared among seemingly disparate species. (46% of your genes are found in yeast, 99% in chimps.) This makes a nonsense of kin selection based on selfishness, for when natural selection first kicked in (when the first organism reproduced) all organisms were closely related, there was no basis for differentiation. It’s still nonsense if we look at the situation eons later. High level co-operation with close kin is not mysterious; it has no hidden agenda, no devious ulterior motives. It’s no more than a perfectly natural consequence of varying levels of kinship. Take the example of a sinking ferry. The passengers that are strong swimmers will take their nearest and dearest to safety. If they have energy in reserve they will return to help others. This is not a “Darwinian mistake” as Dawkins would have us believe, for in the final analysis the other passengers are also close kin. Closer that is, than an owl or a toad, for these are also related to humans if we go back far enough. So we don’t need flimsy, unconvincing, manufactured absurdities to explain altruistic behaviour. There’s a perfectly plausible reason for our emotional ties to strangers; we’re all related!

he's also a Meusium curator not a a research scientist. Look at the description of his job in Wiki

"and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.[2]"

that's like saying he's a PR man. "In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularization of the"

a popularize. a popularizer is not a real scientist.

once when I made this arguemnt they showed me a bunch of stuff from his honorary degrees. honorary degrees are not earned. those are not Ph.D's he does have one but most of his degrees are not Ph.D.'s most honorary doctorates are given in exchange for endowments or speaking at commencement. that is not indicative of great scientific work.

William Lane Craig is closer to being the real thing for philosophy than Dawkins is for science.

about the additional resurrectoins when Jesus rose

Originally Posted by Magritte

According to Matthew, immediately upon the death of Christ, the following happens:

52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Is this meant to be taken literally? If not, does it imply the resurrection of Christ is also not meant to be taken literally?

If it is meant literally, is the event corroborated elsewhere? It isn't in the other gospels and I'm not aware of any historical sources that reference it.

Thanks!

That particular event doesn't have to be true for the claim to be literal. The point of the resurrection in terms of Messianic lore is that Messiah was supposed to control the keys ot life and death. In the last day he would raise all of fallen Israel from the dead. So Jesus is called (Paul) "first fruit form the dead." It's like saying "to prove he is Messiah he'll raise himself." then this (probable) embellishment is added becuase it just seems right, Messiah is going to raise all of Israel he raises himself first so he also raises others with him. That's most likely the way the redactor saw it.

Having said all of that the event can be real and the fact we don't have a record of it is in no way evidence that it can't be real.

There are all kinds of happens throughout time that are not recorded in history.

*they had no press, no school of journalism, no philosophies of how to report things, no sense that reporting mattered.

*no in search of, no Ripple's believe it or not. no nothing.

*they didn't even have news papers.

*no evening news at 11.

*It doesn't indicate it was more than a handful of people. So like 10 people raise up and come out of graves, stare in wonderment at each other then wonder home in different directions.

who is going to report it and to whom do they report?

Atheist Propagdna at work:Answering Ex Christain Net on "who is Arrogant?"

 An article by WizenedSage (Galen Rose) On Ex Christian net ~"Who is Arrogant?" from
5/13/12

 This article struck me because it employs every bad atheist cliche and it's a like a step by step playbook of the atheist ideology. It shows ever bad move philosophically, third rate logic, ridicule bad mouthing, the atheist template. It's a text book example of the athist ideology and the kind of propaganda it foments. The proper classification for this text is "propaganda." Its unimaginative, makes nothing but unsupported assertions an evokes every stereotype I've talked about.

It appears to be fashionable these days to call atheists arrogant. Over and over we read how Dawkins is arrogant, Hitchens perhaps even more so, and Sam Harris is clearly just a “know-it-all” with an attitude problem. In fact, if you read the postings on this site for a bit, you will “learn” that we un-famous atheists are arrogant, too.

My first question would be why is this person writing about which side is more arrogant? Dawkins and Harris are clearly arrogant becuase they think they don't have to know theology to call it stupid. They think they are so right they don't have to concern themselves with little details like logic or truth. I've certainly quoted enough atheists form Message boards, no one really doubts the arrogance there. Why is this such a challenging issue for this perosn? I suggest it's because WS knows that the major edifice upon which the atheist ideology rests is bravado and being snide and arrogant and belittling religious people. Now he (?) turns to the assertion that "they are  picking on us because we are unpopular. This is something atheist dred wth horror. They really believe in appeal to popularity and they can't get over the fact that they are so unpopular.

Now, if expressing an unpopular opinion means that one is arrogant, then we have no defense. But, let’s look at a typical dictionary definition of the word: “Arrogant; having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance, merit, ability, etc.; conceited; overbearingly proud.”

 No expressing an unpopular opinion doesn't make you arrogant. Being a jerk and thinking you know it all even about things you don't even study makes you arrogant.

That part about “having or showing an exaggerated opinion of one's own importance, merit, ability,” catches my eye. Isn’t it Christians who claim they are god’s “saved?” Talk about “one’s own importance!” Isn’t it Christians who claim they KNOW which is the real god and what he wants from us? Mightn’t that be an exaggerated opinion of one’s abilities? I certainly wouldn’t claim the ability to identify a real god, with any certainty. So who is the arrogant one, here?

Of course this is a famous old saw of atheism. The attack on religoius people as arrogant becasue they dare to believe in salvation. If you don't down in the pit and wollow with the pigs then you are arrogant. the person who wants to be right with God must be mean and ei l and think they are better. That is so typical of poor self esteem. I've already published articles on studies showing that atheists have low self esteem and those who have negative God images first had negative self images. The person with low self esteem sees the desire to hold oneself in a positive light as arrogant. So the atheists is sensitive about arrogance and sees in the Christian belief and faith in the security of salvation because they have no such  security.

While the Christian claims he KNOWS with certainty that Bible-god is the one true god, I humbly submit that different people have claimed thousands of different gods to be the one true god, we know for certain that thousands of those were false gods, and so I have no confidence that I could do any better spotting the real god than those people did. Do you not see the difference here? The very fact that men have followed thousands of false gods convinces me that we humans are hopeless when it comes to identifying which gods are real and which are false.

Here's another thing they wont allow anyone to wonder, to investigate or to come to their own conclusions. Just the fact that Chrsitians have their own beliefs and don't accept uncritically the atheist template is grounds for reducible. Ahteists believe there's only one form of knowledge, empirical science (as long as it agrees with the atheist template, when it doesn't it's not science). So there's on form of thought that is permissible that is along the lines of the template.

But the Christian brushes all that aside, because he knows. And how does he know? Because people told him so, or he feels it, or both. The Bible tells him which is the real god, though how the Christian can tell the Bible is the real “holy” book and not one of the others, like the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, etc., he seems unable to explain. But, generally this doesn’t trouble him because he feels the presence of the one true god within himself. How he knows which god it is that he feels must remain a mystery.

Here we see the attempt of the atheist to evoke divide and condor. There are other religious groups than Christianity (of cousre atheism is no against them it's only a hate Christian God club). They continually try to use teh fact of other faiths as a wedge to drive doubt into the faith. How do you know those other guys aren't the true ones? Of course they have no real answer themselves. If you give them an answer they baulk because they don't care about facts they just assert on that any difference a prori invigilates Christianity. They also wont allow Chrsitians to know anything. I'm sure WizenedSage (o there's o arrogance there is there!??) would assert that I never read the Bhagavd Gita. While I would assert that WS has not read it. I have. I read it in high school the year I became an atheist myself. If the onlyk reilgion in the world was Hinduism and there were atheists rebelling agains tit they would call the Bhagavad Gita a pile of made up crap. yet they expect Christians to fear it. To be beaten by it and to laps into mistimed daze at the question "How do you know this is not true" while they themselves have no trouble assessing it as a Bull shit.

'
  Fort the record I think the Gita is very interesting and has some great features, I like it. I don't fear it and I don't worry that it might be true faith. Having interesting features don't make it the true faith.

Now we come to the real hatred of William Lane Craig this one fo the atheist cardinal rules. Thou shalt bad mouth Craig.

William Lane Craig speaks of the “self-verification” of the Holy Ghost within himself being sufficient proof of god for him, and most Christians would buy this. Call me a nit picker, but I have a problem with anyone claiming they can feel the truth. I have first-hand experience on this issue which convinces me that these people are just fooling themselves. I once felt the presence of a god, and constantly “conversed” with this god inside my head. I no longer feel that presence. Obviously, god either exists or he doesn’t, and my feelings have never been able to prove it either way because my feelings have been on both sides of the issue. In other words, my feelings failed to prove anything. Now, who is the arrogant one? Is it Craig, who claims he can feel truth, or me, who has no confidence in his feelings as a test of truth? It seems that old adage applies here: Faith means never having to say you’re wrong.

No small wonder that this foolish person can no longer feel the presence of God. what a fool1 to know God and feel the presence of God which the greatest thing then give it up for what? third rate arguments and bad logic. bad mouthing apologists he's never read.  I have to doubt that this person had a very stong sense of God's presnce. William James says that mystical experience is on a continuum at the shallow end is very tenuous feelings. This is end this person was in exclusively. No one who went into the deep end would use as justification for giving it up such shallow regurgitation of mindless pablum. There's nothing profound here. He doubts the feelings wow! original. amazing. Of cousre he is totally unread when it comes to the sources that undersign religious experience. I have 200 studies that up the profound effects. For a quick summary of what these tell us and the God arguemnts I make from them see here, and here.

Many Christians are so arrogantly certain that they have the truth that they have no interest in studying further. Many will deny evolution, although they obviously have never read anything on evolution that wasn’t written by creationists.

This is just more badmouthing. Atheist have to believe that Christians don't study. who has the 200 stuies? them or me? who went to the trouble to research them? I did. not them not the atheist they are content to lave the thinking at the surface and assert that experiences don't mean anything. I'm the one who did the research and forged ahead and found the empirical basis for God arguments.

Also, home schooling is apparently on the rise in America today. Why? Because many Christian parents don’t want their children exposed to unapproved information. Christian parents and preachers seem to be insisting that what people “knew” 2,000 years ago is more important than anything man has learned since. Most Christian congregations encourage their members to avoid marrying outside the faith, and some even frown on members even mingling with non-Christians. There is a pattern here. It appears that Christians are so sure they have the truth that they often actively avoid gaining further information. It seems to me that if one truly wants to find the truth, the real truth, then he should follow the path containing the MOST information. Isn’t this obvious?

Then the author throws in a bit of irrelevant bombast about home schooling of all things. Obviously WS was from a fundie background and has been traumatized by fudies. It's mostly fundies that home school. My concept is neighborhood schooling. I would have them in homes the city would pay for real teachers and group kids by their neighborhood have small classes of 10 or so. but who cares? what does this have to do Christians being arrogant? He's gonna find a way to make it look arrogant.

I find that most of the atheists I know are hungry for information. A great many are science enthusiasts and are well read in world history. Tellingly, many atheists are also surprisingly conversant in theology. Now who are the arrogant ones? Are those who are constantly seeking more information and revising their opinions really the arrogant ones? That was a rhetorical question – no answer necessary.

o yea they are so hungry for information tehy screen all source of knowledge that don't support their views. They know so much about science but only the science they can use. they bad mouth my 200 studies and have said all manor of stupid things against them. the one they have not done (apart from reading one) is to actually make a valid methodological attack. This becuase the scinece worshipers are lousy scientists. A lot of science types are actually ghettoized by their own fields they don't know much about things outside their fails. most atheist are really controlled by others in their tinging.they are brain washed to think knowledge is a narrow line of only empirical scientific facts that agree with them.


let me be clear I am not a creationist! I 'm not talking about that. They don't like social scinece because that often backs up the value of religion. They don't like anthropology for the same reason. Science gives a bunch of disconnected facts about the psychical world. It's easy to hear that without having one's world view challenged especially if that world view is materialist. It's easy to imagine on has a great fortress of facts backing up one's few just in terms of evolution, which they mistaken take to be a refutation of God.

So, Christians are convinced they have the truth because they have been told this (by the Bible, preachers, parents, etc.), or they feel it, or both, while atheists suspect there is no god. Now, I don’t know of any atheists who think they can prove there is no god. They merely believe that gods are extremely unlikely, like dragons are unlikely, and so they don’t believe in them.

Having beliefs is what makes for arrogance, and they want to pretend "we don't have beliefs we have facts." That's just the propagandist aspect of the fortress of facts. The truth is scinece doesn't prove things. (see Karl Popper).

For myself, I don’t believe in gods because I know I cannot trust my feelings to identify the truth, and I don’t know why I should be able to tell a real god when I see one, any more than those millions throughout history who have worshipped thousands of false gods. Did I say, “when I see one?” Yes, and I meant to say that, for that is exactly the problem, you see. All gods are invisible. How convenient.

What can be made of the fear of personal feelings? Most atheists have this few of them are so forthcoming about it. It's like saying "I am a sinner help me  I can't trust myself." This is one of the first steps in being brain washed. When people are brain wahsed they are made to feel that they can't trust thesmelves or their own judgement so they must rely on the leader or the group to tell them what to think. This si very rue of atheist. The most amazingly huge joke is the world world is attaching the label of "free thinker" so the atheist slaves. They are s free in their thinking as moonies. This fear of feelings works by a dichotomy of psychology. They cut the human experience in half and say "the feeling part is wrong and bad and can't be trusted, but the intellectual pat is good." the reason is because they are pumping them up with false bravado by giving them a bully rush form mocking and ridiculing the opponents. they feel big, improtant, and powerful so they confuse that with feeling wise and and smart and learned. In reality this is more of an emotional response than is the feelings of God's presence. The sensitive nature of feelings presence is not emotion. It's sensitivity to a form of cognition not well understood. The feeling of being somebody because we can bully others is an emotion feeling, not a learning or intellectual feeling it invovles no intellectuality.




Atheists actually scoff at intellectuality because it often invovles more than must empirical science. They can't accept anything else as knowledge. To them literature, art, philosophy is just 'making stuff up."



In the last paragraph WS asserts that he is not arrgoant. If you are not arrogant what else woudl you ay but:

It is because I am NOT arrogant that I make this proposal. It is because I recognize that I cannot prove whether there is or isn’t a god. Think about it: why in hell should we humans suffer, generation after generation, for our gullibility - simply because some god can’t or won’t prove that he exists such that we can all agree on it? 

 This is the essence of arrogance. This person is pretending that He/she is somehow in possession of enough learning to understand a connection between belief in God and human suffering no one else sees. I don't see any reason why belief in God makes people suffer. I don't see how not believing would elevate suffering. It didn't wore the people under the rule of Mao or Pol Pot. The phrase "why the hell should we humans suffer...simply because some God wont prove that he exits." How does this follow? People suffer becuase they prove God exits? Or is it because they believe in God? How would God making himself known beyond a doubt make people stop suffering? The implication is that it's due gullibility. I don't really know how that works. I don't understand why the almost universal belief that God is proved (most people believe) doesn't stop it if God's discourse of himself would.

 then he whines which I think is  a sure sign of arrogance:

This is a lousy, unfair deal, and we should simply refuse it. And what kind of perverse, arrogant god would fault us for refusing to beat each other up over gods any longer, while he refuses to prove decisively that he exists?

 What is a lousy deal? What would refusing to believe in God do to stop suffering? or will it teach god a lesson? so the God isn't there can be blackmailed into stopping the pain if we refuse to believe? Could atheists really be that convoluted? How does God fault us for  refusing to beat each other up? It seems t me it's the opposite. God doesn't want to beat each other up, and says so. So how are we suffering for that? Why imagine God is faulting us for it?

This article is typical of the atheist template. It asserts a lot of things as religious beliefs that most religious people don't' believe. It tries to blame religion for everything. It displays jealousy and arrogance and pride and hatred masked as a quai thoughtful lip service to love of learning.

Atheist Propoganda on Prayer Studies: Controled Studies vs Emprical Miracles

We can always expect atheists to be on prowl to mock and ridicule prayer. They really have no choice to but reject it and clutch at straws to keep from believing the thousands of stories that come out every years of answered prayers. They have to reject it. It's only their ideology that prevents their addition that they have no intention of examining the facts. A particular study has been bandied about as "proof that prayer doesn't work." This study is ironic because to accept it's validity they actually must accept the validity of previous studies that show prayer does work. Since atheists are usually pretty dishonest they can't distinguish between different kinds of evidence, so they act as though this one studies disproves even empirical results.
Friendly Atheist

Study Concludes Intercessory Prayer Doesn’t Work; Christians Twist the Results

Posted by Hemant Mehta in General on May 15th, 2009 |

I was reading an article in Christianity Today and one of the paragraphs made me do a double-take. I couldn’t believe anyone was actually writing it… it was incredible how much fact-twisting was going on.
First, a bit of background.
It’s no surprise that prayer can have a positive effect on those who believe in it. If you pray, it can relax you and make you feel better. If you know others are praying for you — that others care about you — you feel better and your body might actually respond to that positivity. None of this has anything to do with a god answering (or even listening to) the prayers. It functions more like meditation. Prayer can have a calming, healing effect for those who buy into it.
But what happens when others pray for you and you are unaware of it? To no atheist’s surprise, this has never been shown to work.
This idea has been tested repeatedly — usually, the studies have flaws. And even when the results show that the intercessory prayer has no effect on anyone, those who believe in it will look at the hits and ignore (or rationalize) the misses.

Funny he should mention flaws, because that's going to be a key issue with me. The so called "faults" he's talking about are mainly about the inability to control for outside prayer. The irony is back ten years ago when there were about 14 studies that proved prayer worked,* the major athist argument was you can't control for outside prayer. These were all done the same way, double blind and so on. The major atheist argument was that you can't control for outside prayer. The study athesits now run around touting as a disproof of prayer is one that is invalidated by the same argument it depends upon controlling for outside prayer. Rather than understand that if they accept their anti-prayer study they have to drop the major argument against Byrd and Harris and the pro-prayer studies, they try to invalidate the pro prayer studies on irrelevant grounds that basically amount to guilt by association.


Here's the "big study" that disproves all prayer:
also from the article above:

Three years ago, a multi-million-dollar, controlled, double-blind study was conducted to test intercessory prayer.
The Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) found two major results:
1) “Intercessory prayer had no effect on recovery from surgery without complications.”
2) “Patients who knew they were receiving intercessory prayer fared worse.”
Fared worse?! Even I was surprised by that. So were many Christians — this didn’t sit well with them.

This new article from Christianity Today, though, offers a rationalization I’ve never heard before. You can tell they’re really straining to find a silver lining…[this is quoting Christianity today]

Ironically, STEP actually supports the Christian worldview. Our prayers are nothing at all like magical incantations. Our God bears no resemblance to a vending machine. The real scandal of the study is not that the prayed-for group did worse, but that the not-prayed-for group received just as much, if not more, of God’s blessings. In other words, God seems to have granted favor without regard to either the quantity or even the quality of the prayers. By instinct, we might selfishly prefer that God give preferential treatment to those who are especially, deliberately, and correctly prayed for, but he seems to act otherwise.[end quote]

True to his character, God appears inclined to heal and bless as many as possible.

This prefectly rational explanation the atheist calls a "rationalization." Of cousre he does, his ideology demands that he not think reasonably bout it but that he use it to attack. That's what atheism is about. Nothing could be more reasonable. What the quote actually says is that we can't study prayer the way we would a drug in a field trial. The reason the mystical experience studies I use don't make this mistake is becuase they have the sense to study the effects, they don't try to get inside the experience itself. These studies must actually assume that we can control God's will and control for what God does as well as for outside prayer.

What do I mean by outside prayer? The study has two groups, experimental group and control group. You blind the study so that neither the participants nor the researchers even know who is in which group. That way they wont treat them differently based upon expectations. So in this case it means the control group is not prayed for the experimental group is prayed for. Then you look to see if there is a difference. Back ten years ago when I used to argue these studies all the time I was actually rationalizing the answer on the control because I felt it was so important to have studies since atheists are always flapping their gums about no empirical proof. I was rationalizing. It was only latter that I was able to force myself to take a good hard look at the rationalization and then I stopped using the arguments. But the current crop of atheists are not willing to face the honest truth. How can you double blind and say no one in group A will be prayed for? How can you know people not connected with the study aren't praying for them? Their friends know they are sick. How can we be sure no one of them has one friend, or how can we know one guy on the freeway doesn't pray for everyone in the hospital every time he passe it on his way home form work? Christians do things like that. So there's no way to ever control for outside prayer.
Friendly Atheist man wants to Claire its' Christianity today that is rationalizing but look at his own rationalization. He's twisting the facts, as surely as he says Christians do. He has to ignore the problems of controlling for God's will and for outside prayer. He's twisting because the says the pro prayer studies have flaws but he's not begin honest about what they are. He is in a catch 22. He must either give up his study and admit you can't control (his study depends as much on controlling outside prayer and Byrd or Harris did). If he denies the problem and says they can control for outside prayer then he must accept that Byrd, Harris, and at least eleven other studies show that prayer works.*
Friendly Atheist above:

So the fact that the prayers had no effect on the sick? Don’t think about that, say Gregory Fung and Christopher Fung, the authors of the article. Instead, they want you to consider that prayer works because the un-prayed-for people didn’t die a horrible death.
That’s one way of ignoring the evidence when it’s staring you in the face.

What's obvious here is that the concept of double blind prayer study is a problem. Not prayer that is disprove, clearly , it is the ability to conduct a double blind and control for the will of God and outside prayer. One of the major problem with atheists taking this is a rationalization is that they don't know what prayer is about. They think prayer is just for getting stuff if it doesn't get you somethign one time then it doesn't work. This is because they refuse to study about the meaning of Christian theology or to understand what Christianity is about. Since they don't want to know they can't figure out what they are doing wrong with the criticize the wrong end of prayer. Far from disproving prayer this study disproves the ability to study prayer as thought it's a drug that has to work every time.

Friendly atheist:

There’s gotta be a perfect analogy for this somewhere. What comes to mind?

to be honest what comes to my mind first is that you are not idiot. I suppose that would be one of those uncalled for comments that is sure to send Hermit comment the comment box. But he did ask.


The better method of "proof" for prayer is empirical evidence. Prayer is something that can be studied empirically in terms of result so we don't need double blinds. There are no cotrols on them anyway so they can't be good double blinds. Empirical is better because it's there, if you have the evidence its' obvious. There's another atheist argument, one that says we just look at the good stuff and ignore the misses, that's "hit rate."

"Paradoxical" on CARM

I think it gives them the notion that they "could" have some control over things that are beyond their control. By way of just one example, I think they know that they personally can't control whether or not a loved one dies, and it is comforting to think that a being can grant that loved one a reprieve. If that loved one is deathly ill, and the believer prayed very hard that he or she would live, and he or she recovered, the believer chalks it up to a prayer being answered, and spreads the news so that others can feel empowered by this being that he and his friends believe in. This gives solace to society as a whole, and is useful to the human psyche. Humans don't want to think that life is random and there's nothing they can do to change what will be. Since they are not God, they want to think they can have a direct pipeline to Him and have him grant favors. That is the next best thing to being God, and gives that person perceived power that they wouldn't otherwise have without the prayer belief.

It matters not that billions and billions of prayers go unanswered or ignored. If there was even just ONE person out of a billion that got well after prayer, that would be all a believer would need. As for the outher 999,999,999,999, either they didn't pray enough, pray right, or it was God's will.

My opinion is that prayer gives humans the illusion of power that they do not possess by using an imaginary God to give it to them

The problem here is it doesn't take into account empirical miracles and it doesn't consider the complexity of veriables. In other words you don't need the hit rate because you are not dealing with something that is supposed to happen every single time. You are dealing with a will that can decide case by case if it wants to work or not. If scietnfiic studies on partcial excellorators had a theory about sub atomic pascals having minds of their own there would be no way to study them and no one would have evdience for the existence of any of them. Its' only when we can assume a stable situation that we can study it. That's why we have to go case by case. If a cause violates what we know nature on it's own produces then, and only then, do we have reason to believe there's really evidence of answered prayer. God goes case by case deicding if he wants to act. So we must go case by case deciding the chances of this or that happening according to probability. The veriables are far too complex to ever expect to be able to analyze the outcome short of something that really challenges our understanding of how nature behaves.

A leg is broken. We pray, we x-ray, the leg is not broken anymore. Within a half an hour the leg went from broken to not broken, this is something nature just doesn't ever do in our experience. That would be empirical evidence of a miracle. It would require a double blind. It wouldn't even try to control for anything because it doesn't have to. The only thing it would control for is making sure the X-Ray is not a fraud. I don't now of a case this dramatic but I do know of several that are close enough that they count as evidence of prayer working. The scientific study of miracles at Lourdes, France, the shrine to Mary of the Catholic chruch is very good. The ruels are strict and they are administered by major medical researchers of Europe.



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?"

Reported by Greg Burke/Lourdes
Copyright 1995 Time Inc. All rights reserved.The Lourdes miracles are a good argument. They are much stronger than those double blind studies. There are a lot of good arguments and good info available on my miracles page on Lourdes. (Don't pronounce the s). There are also protestant miracles. There are three main prolems wtih this info:

(1) it's old
(2) It's assocaited with a faith healing ministry, the faith healer (Kathryn Kulhman ministry)
(3) book's out of print although recently has been re-pulished in a new form that I have not seen.** Kullman ministry asked Dr.Richard H. Casdraoph to verify several of the healing and he uses his his entire staff of medical technicians and consulting doctors to help. This is not as well founded as the Lourdes miracle committee, but it's not bad.

The Casdroph book goes into great deatail on every case. Since these were not the actual patients of Casdroph himself, there are 3 tiers of medical data and opinion; Casdroph himself and his evaluation of the data, several doctors with whom he consulted on every case, and they very from case to case, and the original doctors of the patents themselves. The patients gave their permission and were happy to provide the medical data on their healing since they were all people who had written to the Kulhman ministry with words of their healing. Not all of them were healed immediately in the meeting. Some were healed latter when they got hom.Naturally no one had a x-ray machine standing by at the faith meeting to crank out results like a x-rox copy, so all of them took some period of time to see the results. Not all of them were toally healed immediately. But all the cases were either terminal or incurable and all of them, within a year, returned to full health and pain free existences.

Dr. Richard Steiner, of the American Board of Pathology, head of department of Pathology Long Beach Community Hospital reviewed several of the slides. William Olson, American Board of Internal Medicine and head of Isotope Department at Long Beach Community Hospital, and several radiologists form that Hospital also consulted on the rest of the cases.


1)Reticulum cell Sarcoma, right pelvic bone.
2)Chronic Rheumatoid Arthritis with Severe Disability
3)Malignant Brain Tumor (Glioma) of the left Temoperal lobe
4)Multiple Sclerosis
5)Arteriosclerosis Heart Disease
6)Carcinoma of the Kidney (Hypernephroma)
7) Mixed Rheumatoid Arthritis with Osteoarthritis
8)Probable Brain Tumor vs Infarction of the Brain
9)Massive GI Hemorrhage with GI shock (instantly healed)
10)Osteoporosis of the Entire Spine

All of these people were totally healed of incurable or terminal states. The one commonality they all have is that they were at some point prayed for by the same person, Kulhman. Let's look at a few examples:

1)Lisa Larios: Cell Sarcoma of the right Pelvic bone.

Larios didn't know she had cancer. She had developed a great deal of pain in her pevis and was confined to a wheel chair, but the doctors had not found the evidence of the tumor at the time her mother took her to hear Kulhman. Yet, when Miss Kulhman said "someone over here is being healed of cancer, please stand up" she stood up without knowing why. She had already started feeling a strange heat in that area and had ceased to feel pain. She went up onto the stage and walked around without pain. She was than "slain in the spirit" which is that odd thing when the healer pales his/her hand on the forehead and the person falls over in a faint. It took some time to receive the next set of x-rays becasue she only learned after the meeting some days latter that she had cancer. Than the next set of x-rays showed vast and dramatic improvement. It would still be some time,almost a year, before her pelvis was completely resorted. But she did return to full health. The Catholics wouldn't except this miracle because it could be confused with a normal remission. The power of suggestion can be ruled out because the heat started before she was called to the stage, and because she didn't even know she had cancer, but responded to a call for healing of cancer. The first dramatic improvement which was immediate within a few days, and walking on the stage is not characteristic of remission. Casdroph has the medical evidence from several hospitals to which she had been taken.

3)Mrs. Marie Rosenberger: Malignant Brain Tumor.

"Three things make this case an exceptionally excellent example of divine healing. 1) medical evidence of the case includes biopsy proof of the malignant nature of the tumor. The slides were obtained from Hollywood community Hospital and reviewed by the head pathologist at Long Beach community Hospital who confirmed the diagnosis of malignant astronomical or glioma class II. 2) When the healing occurred Marie Rosenberger was down to 101 pounds and was expected to die."

The healing began to manifest immediately and by the next morning was evident. She received no further drugs or medication from that point on. 3) The third thing that makes the case good is the long term nature of the healing. Her diagnosis was in 1970 and by the time Casdroph wrote the book in 76 she was still healthy and happy with no sign of the disease since the healing (which was in 1971 one year after the diagnosis).


8)Anne Soults: Probable brain tumor vs. Infarction of the brain.

"This lady's brain abnormality was well documented by the standard diagnostic techniques and she was seen by man specialists. Electroencephalographic study was performed in each of her hospitalizations.The repeat study dated January 6th reported 'abnormal EEG suggesting left temporary pathology, there is no significant change since 12/27/74.'...the clinical impression was that of brain tumor and her symptoms suddenly and completely disappeared following a visit to the Shrine service."

When she went to the service an unknown christian placed his hands on her shoulders and prayed for her. The symptoms immediately vanished and subsequent tests found that the abnormality had disappeared. This is not normal remission. Remission does not mean that the symptoms immediately vanish.

9)Paul Wittney Trousdale:Massive GI Hemorrhage.

Trousdale was a prominent civic leader and builder in California in the early 70s. On December 12, 1973 he was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Sana Monica with massive hemorrhaging which required many transfusions.His wife called Reverend John Hinkle to his bedside, they prayed and he was instantly healed. All the medical values returned to normal and he went on to live a normal and productive life, engaging in athletics and sports. Subsequent examinations revealed no abnormalities.

10) Delores Winder: Osteoporosis of the Complete Spine.

"Mrs. Delores Winder presents us with an unusual case of severe, chronic, disabling pain secondary to Osteoporosis, which her physicians tried to relieve by five different spine operations. The patients symptoms had begun early in 1957. By 1962 she had worn a full body cast or brace of some sort...although at the time of her healing she was in a light weight full body plastic shell. Although she did not believe in instant miraculous healing she attend a lecture by Miss Kulhman in Dallas on August 30. 1975.She was miraculously healed beginning with a sensation of heat in both of her lower extremities.She has been resorted to full health, wears no barce or support, takes no medication and has completely normal sensations in the lower extremities. This is unusual becasue the spinathalamic in the spinal cord had been interrupted on both sides, and in such cases the resulting numbness is usually permanent."

The real problems that I have with atheists and they way they deal with prayer is they can't bring themselves to modrate the criticism. It's either out and out mockery or they feel they have to totally accept. They don't seem to regard keeping their mouths shut until the evidence is really good as an option. They also make no effort to understand the point of prayer. they can only deal with the surface level. They can't make the effort to understand what prayer is and thus undestand why the answers are not rationalizations, but they only want to focus on one thing, the surface level, did you get what you want? it never occurs to them that's not the point of prayer. I will deal with these factors and more next time.

*one study has been disproved. Wirth the study on invetro, Wirth himself has been proved to be a fraud. That's where atheists argue guilt by association. I've seen them try to invalidate the studies that Wirth wasn't even connected with.

**