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An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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youkrst

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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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Flann wrote:I gave my example of hyper scepticism as christ myth theory.
if someone tells you this story about a virgin born son of god walking on water dying and rising etc etc is not mythology but actually historically true and you reply "hmmm i'm skeptical about that", i don't think you could fairly be called "hyper skeptical"

:lol:

on the topic "An example of how false beliefs are not harmless..."

well certainly i can think of many false beliefs promulgated by local churches here that are demonstrably harmful, both in small ways and in more serious ways.

you do know your unsaved loved ones are going to hell dont you?

but if we see the light and accept Christ, the Saviour that Flann follows, we shall avoid the tragic waste of a life lived in blindness and sin...

for any who doubt the power of the risen Christ in His people... behold....

He has given His people the power of absolute mediocrity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUNQpu2b7Q
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Flann 5
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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youkrst wrote:Flann wrote:
I gave my example of hyper scepticism as christ myth theory.




if someone tells you this story about a virgin born son of god walking on water dying and rising etc etc is not mythology but actually historically true and you reply "hmmm i'm skeptical about that", i don't think you could fairly be called "hyper skeptical"

:lol:
I sort of know the mythicist ideas Youkrst,though it's hard to keep track of the various mythologies and what's supposedly borrowed from where.
At the simplest level of the historic existence and execution of Christ by Pilate I do think it's hyperskeptical. A naturalist would reject the supernatural anyway, but that's another issue.
youkrst wrote:for any who doubt the power of the risen Christ in His people... behold....

He has given His people the power of absolute mediocrity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUNQpu2b7Q
I must have annoyed you with my comments on Christ myth theory.You're taking the idea of cultural wars to another level here.
There's plenty of mediocrity to go round. The postmodernism that calls sharks in formaldehyde and unmade beds art, is perplexing to me.
You couldn't really say that the works of Handel or J.S.Bach were mediocre and Bob Dylan's theism hasn't prevented him from a producing a significant body of creative music and writing.
I'm sure there are atheists with good artistic works too.
Not to just let you off too lightly though,Richard Dawkins ventured into the world of music presentation and you can judge for yourself whether this is musical genius or mediocrity. Maybe you'll like it.
Okay,repeat after me; Mutation in the mind,mutation in the mind,mutation in the ...........
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tIwYNioDL8
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ant

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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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What that actually a Richard Dawkins concert??

Ive seen it all from the new atheists now.
:lol:
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Flann 5
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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ant wrote:What that actually a Richard Dawkins concert??

Ive seen it all from the new atheists now.
:lol:
I think it was the finale to a fairly brief talk he gave on memes,ant. Looking at the credits at the end a lot of people were involved with the visual and sound effects and film footage used.
I've seen another version of this where the guy who put the video up edited it to make it look really absurdly embarrassing, but this one's the thing as performed.
Going by the comments some thought it was terrible while others liked it. I'm biased but I thought it poor musically and lyrically and barely rescued by the visuals. Memes,memes,memes,memes! Genes,genes genes,genes!
youkrst

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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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There's plenty of mediocrity to go round.
of course there is but when a group of people claim to have the risen Jesus in them ie, it's no longer i who lives but christ who lives in me, and then it turns out that their divorce rates seem to indicate that jesus has as much trouble as everyone else does, and apparently being filled with the holy spirit means you pump out crap schlock as much if not more than the unfortunate non chosen ones.

you know what i mean, if you have the holy spirit in you how come you are more naff than people who are supposedly blinded by satan :lol:

the unbeliever can be as naff as he likes because he has made no special claim to be indwelt by god's son.

the christian on the other hand has made a claim

christ lives in me

but when we look for evidence of this risen christ that is peculiar to the christian it's hard to find

i've never seen anything good from christianity that i can't see outside of christianity so what reason is there to accept, as Jesus says in the book

unless you believe i am he you will die in your sins

why should i accept that when i look at people who have accepted christ and find they have nothing that cannot be found outside of christ.
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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With regard to prophecy, I do not believe they represent mysteriously accurate predictions due to supernatural power. I think prophecy represented some process of tapping into subconscious perceptions.

We all know that the subconscious can "see" a pattern, such as a developing traffic accident, and respond to it without any conscious involvement. I have experienced that myself. My idea is that it is possible for a person to develop sufficient trust in evaluations that have no conscious input that the person begins to interpret these as having a divine origin. So they may "feel" that, say, Egypt is not the enemy but Assyria is, or Judah has no inner strength because the rich have been oppressing the poor villagers, without having any careful argumentation to support these intuitions. When enough of these seem to have proven out, the prophet is given "true" status.

A very small proportion of the prophetic literature rose to transcendent heights and became the basis for several renewal movements in first century Judaism, including Christianity. "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," or "I despise the noise of your solemn assemblies" or "by his stripes we are healed" or "the dry bones shall arise and walk" or "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks". These are recognized as capturing something deeper and more abiding than the laws of the temple or the prophetic predictions about Edom and Moab.

I believe Jesus saw deeply into them and, inspired, created both a new relationship with God and a new understanding of Messiah, and then, by living out those insights, overturned the order of the world.
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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Harry Marks wrote:We all know that the subconscious can "see" a pattern, such as a developing traffic accident, and respond to it without any conscious involvement. I have experienced that myself. My idea is that it is possible for a person to develop sufficient trust in evaluations that have no conscious input that the person begins to interpret these as having a divine origin. So they may "feel" that, say, Egypt is not the enemy but Assyria is, or Judah has no inner strength because the rich have been oppressing the poor villagers, without having any careful argumentation to support these intuitions. When enough of these seem to have proven out, the prophet is given "true" status.
It would seem to be rare enough going by the number of traffic accidents,Harry.
I don't see how something like this could account for Isaiah naming Cyrus the Persian king 150 years in advance describing his conquest of Babylon,the return of the Jews from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. And this before the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in the first place.
The higher critics put forth theories to postdate it saying there was a second writer who added the later chapters after the event and stuck it on to the earlier Isaiah writings.
So all the Jews who knew of the earlier Isaiah writings just blindly swallowed this story knowing it was not part of the original?
The whole point of the passage about Cyrus is that the God of Israel distinguishes himself from the impotent pagan idols by prophesying the course of future history.
No evidence is ever offered for this theory of a second later writer and it's based on arguments about form and style but there are perfectly good indicators of uniformity in theme and style.

http://www.bibleresearch.org/articles/a2pws.htm
Harry Marks wrote:A very small proportion of the prophetic literature rose to transcendent heights and became the basis for several renewal movements in first century Judaism, including Christianity. "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," or "I despise the noise of your solemn assemblies" or "by his stripes we are healed" or "the dry bones shall arise and walk" or "they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks". These are recognized as capturing something deeper and more abiding than the laws of the temple or the prophetic predictions about Edom and Moab.

I believe Jesus saw deeply into them and, inspired, created both a new relationship with God and a new understanding of Messiah, and then, by living out those insights, overturned the order of the world.
I'm not sure what you base your beliefs about Jesus on, Harry. The gospels or gnostic writings or something else?
In John's gospel he challenged the religious Jews by saying to them. "You search the scriptures daily,and these are they which testify of me, but you will not come to me that you may have life."
The postdating argument can't be used for Isaiah ch 53 and other passages.
You seem to be saying something a bit different which is that there is a subconscious intuition that can work in a prophetic way.
The prophets though often prefaced their words with; "Thus says the Lord." So they are saying it's not their word or unconscious intuitions that they are relaying.
Sometimes I seem to be giving the Germans a hard time whether it's their higher critics of old or their Nazi past. It has to be said that their response to the Syrian refugee crisis is remarkable and exemplary from a humanitarian perspective.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Tue Sep 08, 2015 4:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Interbane

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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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Flann wrote:I don't see how something like this could account for Isaiah naming Cyrus the Persian king 150 years in advance describing his conquest of Babylon,the return of the Jews from Babylon and the rebuilding of the temple. And this before the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in the first place.
The higher critics put forth theories to postdate it saying there was a second writer who added the later chapters after the event and stuck it on to the earlier Isaiah writings.
The first part is an argument from ignorance. Not being able to see how something is possible does not mean it's impossible.

And you have to show that these prophecies could not be naturalistic in order to show that they were supernatural.

Which is itself an impossible task. Think about it long and hard. How could you demonstrate that these prophecies don't have a natural explanation? Your missing answer here is the end of this line of support for supernaturalism. It honestly can't go any further. Again, think about it long and hard.
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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Interbane wrote:You're missing the forest for the trees. But if we need to discuss the trees - Pasteur said nothing about the impossibility of life spontaneously generating. What he showed is that life does not currently spontaneously arise in complex form. Which isn't what I believe anyway.
So what do you believe about the origin of life,Interbane? If you want to deny Pasteur's law of biogenesis in the past,are you saying that the laws of nature are not uniform or were different in the past?
Interbane wrote:All the genetic information you see today arose through evolution. It's one of the most well explained phenomenon on our planet. If you're referring to what you think of as the "seed" that all life sprang from, then I'd ask why you think it's necessary. Necessary for what?
This is your naturalistic faith but of course you couldn't possibly know this. The reality of the non material nature of information is something you are not really addressing, and the genetic code and biological life do not operate in a random way but are precise and specified.
Interbane wrote:Disbelieve his account? What else would I do with it? The only access I've had to his account is a propagandist article on the internet. Flann, we're talking about a piece of information that serves as one of the cornerstones of your entire worldview. You're out of your mind if you think this story suffices.
You can dismiss Hudson Taylor's autobiography as "propaganda" so he must be lying as well though his life doesn't suggest this at all. He's just one example.
Interbane wrote:The first part is an argument from ignorance. Not being able to see how something is possible does not mean it's impossible.

And you have to show that these prophecies could not be naturalistic in order to show that they were supernatural.

Which is itself an impossible task. Think about it long and hard. How could you demonstrate that these prophecies don't have a natural explanation?
I think if we are honest we know that we cannot tell the future with certainty. Bookmakers worldwide make a nice profit on this basis.
If you can prophesy the future you might want to pay a visit to Las Vegas or bet on the outcome of the next U.S. presidential election.
That could just be a fifty/fifty proposition but even then you couldn't know for certain what the outcome would be. Much less could you provide the kind of specificity as in the case of Cyrus or the messianic prophecies concerning Christ.

Feel free to provide a naturalistic explanation for biblical prophecy. The prophets spoke in the name of the Lord. There are conspiracy theories but these can't account for those they cannot postdate much as they might like them to,so many then deny the historicity of Christ as a final desperate solution.
www.thedevineevidence.com/prophecy_jesus.html
What is really more reasonable here?
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Re: An example of how false beliefs are not harmless...

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So what do you believe about the origin of life,Interbane?
It's impossible to know exactly how life arose. Isn't that what you believe as well?
If you want to deny Pasteur's law of biogenesis in the past,are you saying that the laws of nature are not uniform or were different in the past?
You don't understand Pasteur's law. His law is that life doesn't currently spontaneously arise in complex form. It says nothing about past gradual emergence.
This is your naturalistic faith but of course you couldn't possibly know this.
We're going round and round here Flann. It's not faith, it's based on a tremendous amount of evidence. The causal information of genes increases over time, adding new information as the complexity of life grows. This is not a faith-based conclusion. It's part of the human knowledge pool. Granted, a part you deny, but that's your fault not mine. You're the one abandoning proper method. Because you already have beliefs that occupy the same territory. Faith-based beliefs. You're so incredibly backwards, yet seem incapable of seeing it.
That could just be a fifty/fifty proposition but even then you couldn't know for certain what the outcome would be. Much less could you provide the kind of specificity as in the case of Cyrus or the messianic prophecies concerning Christ.
I could come up with fifty prophecies, then slyly delete the ones that didn't come true afterwards. But this misses the point entirely.

There are endless examples of how prophecy could happen naturalistically. A snarky comment about Las Vegas completely misses this point.
Feel free to provide a naturalistic explanation for biblical prophecy.
For the love of god you're missing the point Flann. It doesn't matter if I can't come up with a naturalistic explanation. Lacking one, you aren't justified in concluding the prophecy was supernatural, because that is a textbook argument from ignorance fallacy, which is a failure of logical reasoning. Does this all sound unfair to you? It doesn't matter. It is what it is, and if you abandon it you're being irrational, abandoning proper method.
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