What was your religious circumstance, when you embraced Atheism?

aidan24326

kelly1 wrote: »

That's a bit rich! Haven't you closed your mind to the possibility that there is a supernatural explanation. Why do you stubbornly resist this possibility?

It's not stubborn resistance, simply a refusal to believe in something for which there is no evidence. Now you will tell me that there is evidence of course, but I find it strange that in matters of religion people like yourself can accept a standard of 'evidence' that you would would not accept in other areas of your life, most certainly not if you were on trial accused of a serious crime.

I don't really feel that I need proof that God exists but I have spoken with one woman who blessed a man with an incurable brain tumour with a relic of St. Dominic and he was cured inexplicably.

Again your standards of evidence are not within a million miles of what we would normally accept as evidence in real life. Is the story exaggerated? Was his tumour really incurable? (apparently not!). Was the man about to recover anyway? Was her presence and her blessing with the relic just a coincidence? You'd really have to come up with a bit more than 'a woman told me'. It's natural that she'd like to think her blessing did the trick, but we have no way of knowing that it did.

If you call the Irish Padre Pio office they'll tell you that miracles happen all the time following blessings with Padre Pio's glove.

I'll bet they will! In all honesty what else are they going to say Noel? That he's a cad? A glove can somehow transmit the healing powers of god into someone's body? Why doesn't god just do it himself? Why this hocus pocus glove act?

robindch wrote: »

More likely your mouse is trying to tell you something -- edit your post and take a look at the box of 14 icons under the message edit box. Set the 'post icon' to be 'no icon' and the irritable face will disappear.

I thought you couldn't change emoticons in an edit. And it is indeed my mouse doing strange things, jumping across the screen uncommanded.

kelly1

aidan24326 wrote: »

It's not stubborn resistance, simply a refusal to believe in something for which there is no evidence. Now you will tell me that there is evidence of course, but I find it strange that in matters of religion people like yourself can accept a standard of 'evidence' that you would would not accept in other areas of your life, most certainly not if you were on trial accused of a serious crime.

OK tell me this. If you saw a cat scan of someone's brain and you could clearly see the tumour or an xray of someones lung and the next day it was gone according to another scan, would you really honest believe this was down to natural causes? Think of the complexity of cells and the number of cells and think how complex a change this would be to occur naturally.

aidan24326 wrote: »

Again your standards of evidence are not within a million miles of what we would normally accept as evidence in real life.

I realize that it's not concrete proof that there is supernatural intervention but wouldn't it give you serious pause for thought? Why asssume that there is some magical property of the body that we've yet to understand? Isn't that a leap of faith in itself?

aidan24326 wrote: »

Is the story exaggerated? Was his tumour really incurable? (apparently not!). Was the man about to recover anyway? Was her presence and her blessing with the relic just a coincidence? You'd really have to come up with a bit more than 'a woman told me'. It's natural that she'd like to think her blessing did the trick, but we have no way of knowing that it did.

All of these things are a factor but when miracles are investigated, by the Vatican at least, it's done scientifically by qualified doctors who don't say that a miracle occurred but that there is no scientific explanation.

aidan24326 wrote: »

I'll bet they will! In all honesty what else are they going to say Noel? That he's a cad? A glove can somehow transmit the healing powers of god into someone's body? Why doesn't god just do it himself? Why this hocus pocus glove act?

The practice of using relics does have a biblical basis. In the acts of the apostles people were stealing parts of the apostles clothes and being cured by blessing themselves with them.

kelly1

aidan24326 wrote: »

It's not stubborn resistance, simply a refusal to believe in something for which there is no evidence. Now you will tell me that there is evidence of course, but I find it strange that in matters of religion people like yourself can accept a standard of 'evidence' that you would would not accept in other areas of your life, most certainly not if you were on trial accused of a serious crime.

OK tell me this. If you saw a cat scan of someone's brain and you could clearly see the tumour or an xray of someones lung and the next day it was gone according to another scan, would you really honest believe this was down to natural causes? Think of the complexity of cells and the number of cells and think how complex a change this would be to occur naturally.

aidan24326 wrote: »

Again your standards of evidence are not within a million miles of what we would normally accept as evidence in real life.

I realize that it's not concrete proof that there is supernatural intervention but wouldn't it give you serious pause for thought? Why asssume that there is some magical property of the body that we've yet to understand? Isn't that a leap of faith in itself?

aidan24326 wrote: »

Is the story exaggerated? Was his tumour really incurable? (apparently not!). Was the man about to recover anyway? Was her presence and her blessing with the relic just a coincidence? You'd really have to come up with a bit more than 'a woman told me'. It's natural that she'd like to think her blessing did the trick, but we have no way of knowing that it did.

All of these things are a factor but when miracles are investigated, by the Vatican at least, it's done scientifically by qualified doctors who don't say that a miracle occurred but that there is no scientific explanation.

aidan24326 wrote: »

I'll bet they will! In all honesty what else are they going to say Noel? That he's a cad? A glove can somehow transmit the healing powers of god into someone's body? Why doesn't god just do it himself? Why this hocus pocus glove act?

The practice of using relics does have a biblical basis. In the acts of the apostles people were stealing parts of the apostles clothes and being cured by blessing themselves with them.

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

...Why? Are emotions invalid or worthless?

They cloud judgment. Not invalid or worthless its good to listen to them and healthy too, the downside imho is that they are easily manipulated when someone yearns for something. Sometimes we fantasise and fail to bring things into reality and external forces prey on that. What I was suggesting that you that it would be interesting if you took the "love"/emotional aspect out of how you thought about your deity. I would however expect you not too and thats fine but you'll always be fighting a losing battle in here.

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

OK tell me this. If you saw a cat scan of someone's brain and you could clearly see the tumour or an xray of someones lung and the next day it was gone according to another scan, would you really honest believe this was down to natural causes? Think of the complexity of cells and the number of cells and think how complex a change this would be to occur naturally.

Say for instance that the tumor was cured by god could god not just be a superhuman trans dimensional mater manipulating alien. Its the old god of the gaps argument all over again.

kelly1 wrote: »

I realize that it's not concrete proof that there is supernatural intervention but wouldn't it give you serious pause for thought? Why asssume that there is some magical property of the body that we've yet to understand? Isn't that a leap of faith in itself?

Why assume god did it? Why would he permit someone to get a tumor in the first place if he knew he was going to cure it anyway? Stargate provides theories just as satisfying about instant healing etc. Blessed be the lord Jack O'Neil roflkopterz.

kelly1 wrote: »

All of these things are a factor but when miracles are investigated, by the Vatican at least, it's done scientifically by qualified doctors who don't say that a miracle occurred but that there is no scientific explanation......

...that they know of. Like Cro-Magnon man may have had no idea what the hell was going on with lightening. :eek:

aidan24326

kelly1 wrote: »

OK tell me this. If you saw a cat scan of someone's brain and you could clearly see the tumour or an xray of someones lung and the next day it was gone according to another scan, would you really honest believe this was down to natural causes? Think of the complexity of cells and the number of cells and think how complex a change this would be to occur naturally.

I realize that it's not concrete proof that there is supernatural intervention but wouldn't it give you serious pause for thought? Why asssume that there is some magical property of the body that we've yet to understand? Isn't that a leap of faith in itself?

I would reserve judgement. In any case I'm not qualified to talk about the minutiae of cell physiology. I'm not a doctor nor a biologist. I would accept that there are things which are not easily explained by science, sometimes there are no answers. But I prefer to think that's because science, medical science in this case, hasn't figured it out yet. A tumour disappearing in the manner you've described would be a bit strange, but strange things do happen. And it was pointed out already that spontaneous remission of caner isn't even all that unusual.

Are they caused by a supernatural influence? I really don't know, and I can't be any fairer than that. I just know that there's usually a simpler explanation, and very often once something has been properly scientifically explained it turns out to be not so mysterious after all.

All of these things are a factor but when miracles are investigated, by the Vatican at least, it's done scientifically by qualified doctors who don't say that a miracle occurred but that there is no scientific explanation.

Which is exactly the right thing to say. Lots of things don't have a scientific explanation yet, but might some day. We don't know what kind of amazing discoveries the future will bring.

studiorat

kelly1 wrote: »

OK tell me this. If you saw a cat scan of someone's brain and you could clearly see the tumour or an xray of someones lung and the next day it was gone according to another scan, would you really honest believe this was down to natural causes? Think of the complexity of cells and the number of cells and think how complex a change this would be to occur naturally.

I'd have a good look at that x-ray machine. And a quiet word with the operator too.

Zillah

Anyway, even if we have no explanation for a tumor vanishing, that supports nothing except the fact that the have no explanation.

Dave!

But... but... GOD!

aidan24326

Dave! wrote: »

But... but... GOD!

And round and round it goes!