Not that I have a problem with this in theory but, perhaps just to play devils advocate, I think this can be a dangerous line of thinking.

I will start off with a quote from a movie a quite enjoy. The setup is two guys discussing the best way to get out of a precarious situation. Guy1 poses a possible solution to which Guy2 responds, "can't be done."
To which Guy1's retorts, "The person who says it can't be done is always interrupted by the one who just did it!"

I think historically this is bore out time and time again. Then there is Socrates who said I know I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.

As I said, in theory what you said sounds good, but more often than not people too dogmatically cling to what they "know" to the point that they are unwilling to explore or be open to anything else.

I have met with nothing less than grace and insight and of the few people I have had the chance to chat with, I can seriously offer them nothing less than a deep felt gratidude and thanks. I really don't understand what relevance age, sex, gender, creed, colour, or what have you, has to do with critical reflection and enquiry, and find it disappointing that perhaps some folk are still addressing and distinguishing and judging others on these grounds.

You wanna know what my problem is with this site and the writers I have had the pleasure to talk with?

It's their damn prolificity and virtuosity! It's that there is so much activity going on here, so many great writers, thinkers, threads and posts.

Thinking about this positively, I realise that I am really quite a superficial, slow and banal thinker, and need time to absorb what is being said, if only to add a little contribution. But on the downside, what I can muster generally comes too late. By the time I've thought of some meaningful post, or reply the thread has bounded on in other dimensions and insights. I just can't keep up and fear that I am permanently derailing threads, or offering crappy posts.

Paraphrasing GoshisDead back on page one, I guess I'm your authentic spanish male, the quixotic idealist, tilting at his windmill, and enjoying it like only a crazy donkey riding spaniard can!

I am reasonably sure you will take this in the spirit in which it is intended. Grammatically, it is one who really hates faith, not one that really hates faith. Many people for whom English is their native language get this wrong. And so, in the future, it may become correct to say "that" in such a context, but for the moment, it is still incorrect.

In such phrases, one properly uses "who" for people, and "that" for things.

Thus endeth the grammar lesson.


As for hating faith (when defined as "belief without support of evidence"), what could be a better mark of virtue than that? For why, see:

The Ethics of Belief

Yay for me falling directly in the middle of the bell curve!

Pyrrho;163369 wrote:

When considering what is and what is not possible, some people know more than others, and those who know more will sometimes appear closed-minded to people who know little or nothing. This is due to the idea of epistemic possibility. What is epistemically possible is dependent upon a particular individual's state of knowledge. It may be that a complex contradiction, for example, may not be recognized as a contradiction by someone, and so it may be epistemically possible for someone. Basically, the less one knows, the more things are epistemically possible. This explains why people who know little or nothing about how science works often imagine all sorts of silly things are "possible". But those who know more recognize that many things are not possible, and so they are not "open" to those ideas that are known to be impossible. To someone who knows absolutely nothing, everything seems possible.

Not that I have a problem with this in theory but, perhaps just to play devils advocate, I think this can be a dangerous line of thinking.

I will start off with a quote from a movie a quite enjoy. The setup is two guys discussing the best way to get out of a precarious situation. Guy1 poses a possible solution to which Guy2 responds, "can't be done."
To which Guy1's retorts, "The person who says it can't be done is always interrupted by the one who just did it!"

I think historically this is bore out time and time again. Then there is Socrates who said I know I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.

As I said, in theory what you said sounds good, but more often than not people too dogmatically cling to what they "know" to the point that they are unwilling to explore or be open to anything else.

By the time I've thought of some meaningful post, or reply the thread has bounded on in other dimensions and insights. I just can't keep up and fear that I am permanently derailing threads, or offering crappy posts.

The problem occurs when people claim to know things that they do not know. If one uses good judgment, one will know that it is possible to be in error about something, and so one will be willing to consider new evidence. But that does not mean that one never comes to any preliminary or tentative conclusions, and it does not mean that one should waste time with every crackpot idea that one encounters. If there is no real evidence presented for something against which one has evidence, then it ought not be believed. If I were to say, that every night, I fly around my bedroom, as I find it relaxing before going to sleep, would you believe me? Suppose I had a witness or two to this miraculous event. Would their word be enough for you? The simple fact is, people often expect others to take ridiculous ideas seriously when they have no solid evidence in favor of their claim at all. And they expect a new refutation every time some crackpot idea is expressed. That is exceedingly unreasonable of them, and they ought not expect it. If someone is putting forth an idea that is such that there is general evidence against it, they need to put forth some solid evidence before anyone should take them seriously. Think where we would be if instead of working on new problems, every scientist took the time to investigate every silly claim that every fool and charlatan made. Do you seriously think that would be a good use of their time? Do you like having the products of modern technology? You would not have them if everyone wasted their efforts refuting already disproven theories that are presented without any real evidential support.

Here is a thread that might interest you, as it deals with an outrageous claim:

http://www.philosophyforum.com/lounge/general-discussion/8876-walking-water.html

Now, do you think that anyone should bother with a serious attempt at refuting the claims made? Do you really need to do that, when it is obvious how such a thing may be faked? If it were real, it could be done in front of witnesses in all sorts of public places, and it would then be either confirmed or shown not to work. But it would be a total waste of time to try to look into every crackpot story that is put forth, when they have not presented any real evidence in favor of it.

If the people making the video mentioned in the thread at the link above kept to their story, and refused to ever do it again, how would you go about proving that they were wrong in what they stated? Can you prove that they did not walk on water? Or are you going to tell us that you believe the story, or believe that it is possible?

The reason why I brought it up is because the original poster is from the UK and seemed to try to make a link between close-mindedness and arrogance on the forum to being predominately a phenomenon with members from the U.S.

Lets say I posted a thread asking what the community thought of members in general without specifically pointing them out. Then I went on to write: there are many members on the forum that are Dutch. Some of them are total jacka$$es and some others are total ninnies. But I am not saying that I am any better and I'm probably worse than that.

It is the way that the original poster posted his comments. He seems to have an agenda in the way he constructed his post.

I don't necessarily disagree with your first half.

As far as miracles is concerned I would first wonder why anyone would think that something which could be classified as a miracle should be infinitely repeatable? For if it were, would it not then cease to be a miracle?

A miracle need be nothing more than something which happens to which
the cause is hidden. And God can work miraculously through natural law.

Secondly, and in terms of personal testimony, I would say if God is responsible for miracles, should they exist, then it seems perfectly reasonable, to me, that any miracle would have been specifically purposed for those who witnessed said miracle.

Next, There are countless things that I'm sure you have not personally witnessed yet you believe. Eventually you either have to believe what someone tells you, what you hear, what you see, what you touch, or what you taste, or what you think, otherwise nothing will get accomplished in that direction either. If scientists had to personally witness everything they believed do you seriously think that would be a good use of their time? Do you like having the products of modern technology? You would not have them if everyone wasted their efforts personally testing things which were told to them through the personal testimony(or written documents) of colleagues.

Lastly, the whole idea that testing or having more people view something, I don't see, where that would make a difference. Skeptics will still be skeptical and those who believe don't even need to witness it. There are still those who don't believe we ever went to the moon and those who still believe that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill JKF. This same argument holds for those people who say, if God is real then why doesn't He show Himself. Yet, nothing in their life or testimony leads me to believe that they would even believe their own eyes if God did show Himself. There have been countless miracles performed over the years but a countless number of people yet these events are not accepted or at least not accepted as miracles. Look up the Six Day War miracles sometime and read of all the accounts of miracles that took place in that war. Course I know it will not suffice for anything.

Though the Being to whom the miracle is ascribed, be, in this case, Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions, in the usual course of nature. This still reduces us to past observation, and obliges us to compare the instances of the violation of truth in the testimony of men, with those of the violation of the laws of nature by miracles, in order to judge which of them is most likely and probable. As the violations of truth are more common in the testimony concerning religious miracles, than in that concerning any other matter of fact; this must diminish very much the authority of the former testimony, and make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered.

We have observed many times that human testimony is in error, but we have not observed many times miracles occurring. So we can easily say which is more likely to be the case in any particular instance. Most people, though, do not reason properly about such things, and instead go with what they want to believe. In other words, they engage in wishful thinking instead of taking a clear-eyed view of the matter and judging according to the actual evidence.

well this just seems kind of fallacious in the sense that you are saying we have not observed miracles because the people who have observed miracles are wrong.

but your overall sentiment I can agree with to an extent..

As far as the Hume quote the only sentence I really take issue with is his last , "....and make us form a general resolution, never to lend any attention to it, with whatever specious pretence it may be covered. ", especially the NEVER part.

If that is his opinion, then even if a real miracle were to occur it would be dismissed. This is what I was getting at with saying nothing will convince a skeptic, even his own eyes. It would also seem that repeatability is a key factor in his opinion and if that is the case fine. Take your miraculous car for example. If you do have a car that can teleport you from place to place, then maybe that is a miracle, and I'm not going to sit here and say, if you've seen it happen, that it's not, but it only effects me to the extent that I can be a part of the miracle. That's why I said that if God is a miracle worker then each miracle can be specifically and exclusively for those who are there. If your car never teleports when I'm around, that doesn't discount the fact it may still teleport, but that being the case, it becomes trivial to me personally while remaining quite important to you.

Suppose I were to tell you that I teleport myself to various places, simply by willing myself to be there. Would you believe me? It is a simple and straightforward question. Upon what basis would you decide whether the story is true or not?

Pyrrho;163909 wrote:

Suppose I were to tell you that I teleport myself to various places, simply by willing myself to be there. Would you believe me? It is a simple and straightforward question. Upon what basis would you decide whether the story is true or not?

It depend on if I had reason to believe you were lying. If I did not, then I wouldn't discredit your experience, but would not really concern myself with it unless I was able to witness it. If I couldn't this wouldn't necessarily mean you were lying but it would be trivial to me in the sense that it wouldn't matter if you were or were not lying since it doesn't effect me in any way and I obviously cannot be a part of it.

What do you mean by, "wouldn't discredit my experience"? Are you saying that you would believe me? Or are you saying that you wouldn't believe me, but would not say so?

To get at whether you would believe the story, suppose you and kennethamy (to select someone who I think would not mind being used in this example) were to come over to my place next week to witness this miracle of mine, and suppose kennethamy today proposes a wager on whether or not I am genuine. Would you be willing to bet that I can do it? If not, doesn't that tell us that you really don't believe my story, even though you are reluctant to say so?

I just mean that my having not seen it happen doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

Therefore, having not seen it myself, I would not say you are lying but would probably reply something like , "Great, but it doesn't mean anything to me."


Assuming I had no reason previously to doubt the validity of your character, it would seem, to me, to be no different than my buying a PowerBall ticket every week. A long shot.....certainty a miracle is a rare occurrence.

Speaking of which I'm starting to think the Power Ball is like The Running Man starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in that, if you recall in the movie, they tell everyone about these 3 "winners", Whitman, Price, and Haddad, when in actuality all 3 were killed. Or maybe the movie The Island starring Ewan McGregor but I digress...

The point is, my betting or not betting on you would not change the fact that your claim is a long shot.....or at least involves a rare enough occurrence to make it a tough bet even if you were my best friend. Like I said you could be telling the absolute truth and yet, it is not a repeatable thing. I wouldn't bet on a game of Russian Roulette either but that doesn't mean that I might not be chambering the empty round.

Compared to other forums I frequent, some of the users on here are really weird.