Challenge: I'm willing to convert if.......

[Madsaac]

Thanks, but I'll pass. Say I'm copping out or whatever you like.
I will address this, however:

No, I can't see why. On what rational basis does someone establish doubt of a reported miracle when he lacks first-hand knowledge? Without first-hand knowledge, it is not equally as rational to establish trust of the reported miracle? Certainly there must be some evidence-based foundation for either doubt or confidence, right? If so, what is it?

​

What shunyadragon said.

However, the evidence-based foundation is that no normal 'sane' person has ever seen a miracle, there is no evidence of one ever happening, so there is plenty of doubt. That's rational.

And, where does the first hand knowledge come from, ones own subjective experience? That's irrational.

 

[danieldemol]

I suggest you read the documentation of the cases first.

How did they eliminate that possibility?

Also let's assume the supernatural for a brief moment, how do you know for example that it is reincarnation as opposed to a psychic kid with the ability to channel the dead, or a demon projecting a false memory into the mind of a child?

It really seems to me that until you've observed *how* the information was transmitted we can at best only say we don't know how it was transmitted. Leaping to our preferred religious conclusion seems unwarranted.

It would be great if you watch the you tube video which I linked where these things were extensively discussed.

For reference I have quoted your video.

I'll note that it was a discussion between two believers in reincarnation as opposed to a discussion with a scientific panel of skeptics which was less than impressive in my view.

In it the psychologist says such things as they were unrelated or in a small number of cases they were from a different country, so that means once again that the means of transmission of information is *unknown*, not that it is ruled out as being material in nature in my view.

He says ESP does not explain birthmarks but doesn't explain why it doesn't. That is called handwaving not being "extensively discussed" in my view, and if he mentioned demon projection I must have missed it.

In it he talks about hope for a larger self, seriously?? What place does hope have in a scientific allegedly evidence based discussion.

If we have a reincarnated spirit why only memories at 2-3 years old, shouldn't memories start at the point of reincarnation and be accessible for as long as the soul is reincarnated? He mentions the brain changes that occur at 3 years old, but doesn't explain why these would override the current access of the spirit throughout the reincarnated life to it's past life.

Also you talk about this "research" as if it should be accepted seriously, does that mean that you accept the implications of it for your religious beliefs that reincarnation rarely occurs and usually only in those who meet a violent or tragic end?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Anyone can prove that the miracles of any kind in the major religious texts, actually happened.

Yes, that's right I am happy to become a Christian or a Muslim.

I'ld say that it would depend.

Showing a certain event actually happened, doesn't necessarily automatically demonstrate the proposed / asserted causal chain.

For example, take the resurrection of Jesus for example.
Let's say that for some reason we manage to conclusively prove he was crucified and then nevertheless was demonstrably alive and well days / weeks after the fact.
There could be any number of explanations here. For example, we have examples TODAY of people that were considered dead and then turned out not to be dead at all. Sometimes even during the funeral service. Like Bella Montaya for example. Declared dead TWICE and shocked her family by knocking on her coffin from the inside during her funeral.

The "miraculous" part of events concerns the causal chain. So it's the causal chain that must be demonstrated, not just that the event occurred.

Having said that, if we assume for a moment that it's actually the religion itself that is demonstrated to be accurate... then I would idd believe that a god exists.
Would I then become a christian / muslim / whatever? I'm not sure.

I would accept that the god exists. I don't know if I would become a follower / worshipper. That entirely depends on what parts of the scriptures are accurate descriptions of this god. Most certainly, the scriptures can't be literally true as written. The facts of reality simply demonstrate plenty of such literal things to be simply false (genesis, the flood, exodus, etc).

If the god of the bible turns out to actually exist AND his character depiction of the bible is accurate.... then I would consider the dude to be a celestial all powerfull Kim Jong Un.

I don't think I'ld be capable of "worshipping" and "loving" such a monstrous, barbaric entity.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The function of authentic religion is to create a strong and good human being with good moral value systems, fit to perform his allotted duties in life. This is a miracle in itself.

Science can enhance the knowledge of the material world, create skepticism about religious mythologies and is useful in eradicating superstition, but it is not capable of providing a moral dimension to humanity.

"divine command theory" is not a moral system.
An actual morality that is worth following, is a morality that is based in evidence, reason and intelligent discussion.

The "morals" we find in traditional theistic religions are products of the time they were written down: barbaric, primitive, ignorant and assertions from authority.
I would not want to live in a society that holds such "morals" as the standard of how to live.

All of the world's wmd's were created by scientists and engineers.

So were all the meds and things that allowed us to tripple life expectency.

Also, to quote Neil deGrass Tyson when he was asked if it bothered him that "scientists" are always painted as the "bad guys" in movies: it's a scientist that creates skynet; it's a scientist that creates the killer virus; it's a scientist that creates the wmd that ends the world: it's the scientist that creates the killer robot;....

His response was: "You know.... when the dust settles and the curtain opens... there is always a politician who's ordering and funding that research".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Since I was healed while in the hospital by Jesus Christ, so I don't need to prove anything to myself or others.

This reminds me of a sketch by a stand up comedian (don't remember who) who was talking about how ungratefull it must be to be a doctor.

If you fail to save a patient, you get blamed and perhaps sued by the patient's relatives.
And if you succeed in saving the patient, those same relatives will say "ow, thank god!"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It's a matter of faith. Do you really think that anyone can prove that something happened (or not) more than 2,000 years ago?

Do you need "faith" to accept that Julius Ceasar was stabbed to death by a bunch of senators during a senate session?
Do you need "faith" to accept that Julius Ceasar conquered Gaul?
Do you need "faith" to accept that a meteor hit in what is now Arizona some 50.000 years ago?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is like trying to prove evolution. There is no way to go back in history and view what happened.

You don't need to go back in history to demonstrate evolution.
Extant DNA is all you need.


Sorry - couldn't let this one slip.

The same is true of the Bible miracles. So the question is what evidence is there to support the concepts. For me I hear from God so that is a better source since He was there and knows all things.

Mmmkay

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The doctors were unable to cure my severe asthma attack. A pastor prayed "Jesus, heal this man" and I was instantly healed.

You let that sink in.

You're unable to accept what actually happened. Your unbelief has blinded you.

And the muslim was healed when someone prayed to Allah.
And the hindu was healed when someone prayed to Visjnoe
And the <whatever> was healed when doing <whatever> voodoo ritual.


Correlation - causation. Learn the difference.



Also a good example of "counting the hits and ignoring the misses".
MILLIONS of people are praying to "jesus" (or other deities) to save their children, loved ones, what-have-you... only to see them die agonizing deaths.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

By definition, a "miracle" is not provable. The term refers to an inexplicable (unexplainable) event that provides a very positive result. One cannot "prove" what one cannot explain.

Your request is not logically coherent.

So, it's just an argument from ignorance....

"we can't explain it, therefor miracle"

 

[ajay0]

The "morals" we find in traditional theistic religions are products of the time they were written down: barbaric, primitive, ignorant and assertions from authority.
I would not want to live in a society that holds such "morals" as the standard of how to live.

What were the barbaric, primitive and ignorant assertions of Buddha and Mahavira ? They did not advocate any holy war and emphasized nonviolence and mindfulness . How does these become primitive !

 

[SalixIncendium]

Also you talk about this "research" as if it should be accepted seriously, does that mean that you accept the implications of it for your religious beliefs that reincarnation rarely occurs and usually only in those who meet a violent or tragic end?

From what I gather and what I've watched in the video so far is that there is no implication that reincarnation rarely occurs, but that memory or impressions of past lives are usually associated with a traumatic death.

To expand on this, you are more likely to remember the day you got into a car accident and the circumstances surrounding it than you are to remember what you had for dinner on 2 November 2006.

 

[sayak83]

For reference I have quoted your video.

I'll note that it was a discussion between two believers in reincarnation as opposed to a discussion with a scientific panel of skeptics which was less than impressive in my view.

In it the psychologist says such things as they were unrelated or in a small number of cases they were from a different country, so that means once again that the means of transmission of information is *unknown*, not that it is ruled out as being material in nature in my view.

He says ESP does not explain birthmarks but doesn't explain why it doesn't. That is called handwaving not being "extensively discussed" in my view, and if he mentioned demon projection I must have missed it.

In it he talks about hope for a larger self, seriously?? What place does hope have in a scientific allegedly evidence based discussion.

If we have a reincarnated spirit why only memories at 2-3 years old, shouldn't memories start at the point of reincarnation and be accessible for as long as the soul is reincarnated? He mentions the brain changes that occur at 3 years old, but doesn't explain why these would override the current access of the spirit throughout the reincarnated life to it's past life.

Also you talk about this "research" as if it should be accepted seriously, does that mean that you accept the implications of it for your religious beliefs that reincarnation rarely occurs and usually only in those who meet a violent or tragic end?

Firstly, it is not a discussion among two believers. The psychology podcast is a popular podcast that discusses many aspects of current cutting edge psychology research and the host is himself a practicing psychologist and not a "believer" whatever you mean by it
https://youtube.com/@ThePsychologyPodcast?si=BKYAQ5_HKXGiYc4L

Second, you are talking about the part where the host and the guest speculate about possible mechanisms. Yet, none of the mechanisms have to be true for the phenomena itself to be true. The phenomena itself that quite of lot of children remember past lives for a period of time and among them there are a good fraction whose memories can be verified. And this has been extensively documented with a lot of care to eliminate false positives. I was speaking of the efforts to eliminate false positives by the researchers from their documentation.
Third. There is nothing unscientific about posting a non materialistic paradigm within science as long as it's effects are observable. In quantum mechanics, the QBism approach considers information as the primary realm of scientific study and hence seeks to move science away from a materialistic ontology to a purely information centric worldview where information is a primitive prior. Methodological Naturalism does not imply that the outcome of such an approach will lead to ontological materialism.
Fourth. It is unnecessary for me or anyone else to support some explicit theory explaining past life memories. I only need to note that good quality scientific investigation has shown the prevalence of veridical past life memories which provide evidence for the existence of rebirth after death (at least for some people). I can also note that this is currently unexplained in any mechanistic materialistic paradigm while some non materialistic paradigms have predicted the occurrence of such phenomena. Hence, by Bayesian logic, the current evidence provides support for these latter paradigms and weakens support for the materialistic paradigms.

 

[1213]

I'm talking about the miracles that happened in the bible

In my opinion that life was created as told in the Bible, is one of the greatest miracles.

 

[Koldo]

Of course you can. You will have to be a trained sociologist or psychologist obviously. But if you are, and if you independently investigate over a period of a few years a reasonably good sample set of reincarnation claims and conclude by a discussion of the case studies that none (or statistically insignificant number of them) pass the bar of being genuine cases...then that does put a big question mark on Tucker's or Stevenson's work.
So you can indeed falsify this work by doing such an investigation (or at least a scientist can).

You didn't answer my question.
How do I avoid someone claiming that I simply didn't come across any legit case but that Tucker did?

 

[shunyadragon]

Yes, you may be right regarding the stacked deck analogy but I'm happy that you agree there is no proof concerning gods, miracles and religious beliefs.

Maybe a "hand wave" is all that is required if the argument is purely subjective.

Remember, powerful organisations have been built upon this subjective view, which is a little frightening?

Incomplete concerning mypost. This just confirmed the points I made in the previous posts you dodge.

 

[shunyadragon]

In my opinion that life was created as told in the Bible, is one of the greatest miracles.

Good thing you qualified this with "In my opinion."

This belief is based on ancient tribal scriptures is worse than @Madsaac.

It is an impossible mythical scenario.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What were the barbaric, primitive and ignorant assertions of Buddha and Mahavira ? They did not advocate any holy war and emphasized nonviolence and mindfulness . How does these become primitive !

I said "traditional theistic religion".

 

[shunyadragon]

It's a matter of faith. Do you really think that anyone can prove that something happened (or not) more than 2,000 years ago?

In a lake in Japan we have over 150,000 years of individual annual lake sediment with annual spring pollen layer that we can directly observe happening every year today.

We can specifically date recent and ancient events in the year they occurred such as volcanic eruptions and atom bomb use in each individual annual layer. Dating the individual layers has confirmed various radiometric dating methods for 150,000 years.

Careful with your logic on time. If you stonewall on the evidence we could not know what happened yesterday, 100 years ago or 2,000 years ago, By the way, the evidence of geologic records of the earth in the past 2000 years that can be confirmed by the lake sediment layers including the Huaynaputina volcanic eruption in,1600 AD in South America. The largest eruption in the past 2,000 years.

 

[shunyadragon]

​

What shunyadragon said.

However, the evidence-based foundation is that no normal 'sane' person has ever seen a miracle, there is no evidence of one ever happening, so there is plenty of doubt. That's rational.

And, where does the first hand knowledge come from, ones own subjective experience? That's irrational.

Incomplete citation to justify your agenda. Please DO NOT FO THAT!!!!!!!!!

 

[sayak83]

You didn't answer my question.
How do I avoid someone claiming that I simply didn't come across any legit case but that Tucker did?

I don't understand what you are asking. Can you rephrase.