So I’ve decided to bring the “Kathy” series to an end. However, we’ve had some fun in those threads when the conversation has gone off into interesting tangents, so I’d like to keep that part of it going for anyone who’s interested. These new threads will no longer focus on Kathy or the things we were discussing with her. So thanks for your time, Kathy! Take care.
There are no real rules for these threads. But to kick off the conversation, I’ll go back to the discussion on Paul that a few of us were having. Laurie views Deut 13 as a prophecy about Paul, so why don’t we take a quick look at it?
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.
I can see how one could apply this to Paul. However, I can also see how Jews could have applied it to Jesus as well, especially if he was claiming divinity for himself. And I’m sure this could have applied to lots of people during Israel’s history. Why should we think it’s pointing to Paul specifically, and why wouldn’t it also apply to Jesus?
Finding Truth 
“we don’t have a credentialed book for the existence of ‘magic’“- just as we don’t have a credentialed book on the existence of a god, any god. We have a book full of concocted fables, plagiarized stories, fallacious history, inaccurate cosmology, unsubstantiated hearsay and delusional soothsaying.
“Just as you all point out.. what was once thought of as God being angry (thunder) now has a scientific explanation.” – not involving a god, glad we finally agree.
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arch, “if it feels good, do it!”
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arch,
I was going a bit crazy with the videos before 🙂
But yeah I agree that just being a people pleaser does more harm than good, since what pleases some people might be straight up harmful. For example, say a guy wanted me to shove two grapefruit’s down my shirt and poke a polar bear with a pencil…sure it might please them, but its not helpful for me or the polar bear.
or the pencil for that matter, if the pencil somehow developed sentience while it was in my pocket
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@Ryan,
N℮üґ☼N☮☂℮ṧ had some very good responses to your questions. I’d like to add some more insight.
Some of what you describe in your comments reminds me of the movie “A Beautiful Mind” – a wonderful movie that I highly recommend, not just for this topic but also if you enjoy a movie that cuts to the heart of life and relationships.
How would a person like the main character of that movie who believes he sees people who do not exist know if they are real when the experience is utterly real? The point is that our minds are very powerful at tricking us into believing invisible things exist, as N℮üґ☼N☮☂℮ṧ detailed. There are ways to help but none of them can be foolproof. Some of these are:
– confirming with many others that your experiences are happening at the same time.
– keeping abreast of investigative studies on the subject
– seeing a medical professional if you believe you have personal empirical (visual, auditory, etc.) experiences with beings that others suggest are not there.
Now I have never had any experiences that others describe as “supernatural”, so for me I compare my knowledge of how I know that my close friends and family exist. I suggest you go through that thought process. Seriously, that’s not intended to be insulting, because I think a lot of people don’t really sit down and think through the reasons that they know why their friends and family exist. For me there are many reasons I can think of for believing that and to suggest that any of them do not exist would be ludicrous for me (even if I get into a nasty fight with any of them and perhaps wish they didn’t exist). There are mountains of empirical ways I could confirm they exist if I really needed to, and many others confirm with me that they exist (yes, I realize that the weird theoretical possibility is there that nobody at all except my mind really exists, but if that’s the case then the whole discussion is pointless).
The existence of spiritual beings without bodies, including the idea of some all powerful creative God does not come anywhere near to the experience I have of knowing my friends and family exist. It is completely like night and day. There is no way for me to empirically prove it, scientific studies (as I’ve linked to above) fall far short of empirically proving it, and reports of any effects from these beings do not go beyond anecdotal and when investigated fall far short of the kind of standards we all agree to when investigating other things in reality, one example being whether or not medical procedures are effective.
That’s my own way of seeing this. What are your thoughts on that?
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arch, if I had to choose between you and Nate, I’d go for Nate,
no offense, but you look just like a dried up old fossil!
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Hi Howie,
I’ve seen the movie, one of my favourites 🙂
But say for example a person is blind, or deaf, or both like Helen Keller.
What evidence do they have that the people around them exist?
– touch,
-sensation,
– smell ect.?
Okay, but we’re here interacting through Nates blog.
what evidence is there to validate I exist to you?
– pictures (gravatars, profiles)
– consistent traits and personality picked up through interaction,
– inductive and deductive reasoning,
but also a type of trust is involved, even with the unavailability of using one or more senses to validate this.
just typing some thoughts 🙂
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portal, there is no proof of your existence,
we’ve all seen the matrix,
that we can agree on.
one thing we can be sure of,
whatever “being” may or may have not “created” Kathy,
it will never be accused of being “intelligent”
that we can also agree on.
yeah, I’m just throwing a few thoughts out there myself. 🙂
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so even if one or more senses are closed off to interaction, this does not deny the existence of someone, why would God be an exception to this?
this is the case whether your interacting on-line, or your senses have been damaged/diminished like Helen Keller…
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Okay, but we’re here interacting through Nates blog.
what evidence is there to validate I exist to you?
– pictures (gravatars, profiles)
– consistent traits and personality picked up through interaction,
– inductive and deductive reasoning,
but also a type of trust is involved, even with the unavailability of using one or more senses to validate this.
Yes, a type of trust is involved. But is it full trust? Anything you’d stake your life on? Anything you’d stake even a small wager on?
I tend to take what people say here at face value and believe what they say about themselves. But were I to need for any reason to interact more personally with any of them I would likely require more tangible evidence about who they say they are. And this is coming from someone who married a person they met on the internet. 😉
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Ruth,
I get what your saying 🙂
but trust is what leads to that tangible evidence right?
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I like Helen keller,
wanna know why?
she rhymes with Kathy’s pastor,
Felon Keller.
http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/domestic-extremism-terrorism/c/backgrounder-bill-keller-and-liveprayer.html
portal, I like watching the videos,
what are the chances of Nate making a new conversation where videos are welcome,
that way the non video people can be at ease.
yep, that is right, Kathy’s pastor, I think some of you already know, is listed as a domestic terror group.
the bitch is evil and that’s all there is to it. 😉
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Paul,
I don’t plan on stopping the you tube candy, as long as its relevant though 🙂
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Excellent thoughts Ryan! My answer to your second scenario is going to sound weird but I believe it is epistemically sound. My confidence that you exist is actually less than my confidence that my friends and family that I interact with “face to face” exist. I also have had empirical experience with computers and their capabilities so I can form a reasonable conclusion that you exist, rather than that the responses are coming from thin air or even from some artificial intelligence (although I worry that in our near future this will not be as easy to decipher). If I wanted to I am guessing I could confirm your existence further if I hopped on an airplane. But, yes my confidence is still less.
Ok, so maybe you get my drift – my confidence in all facts / assertions fall along some continuum of confidence levels. Isn’t this the best we can do?
The questions you are asking can actually be extended to extreme or absolute Pyrrhonian skepticism, but then this becomes impractical. Practically speaking we need to make our best shot at what is true, even though nothing is foolproof as I said before.
Following your reasoning fully through would also say that we shouldn’t rule out the existence of Allah, Vishnu and Krishna since many people have experiences of these beings.
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I seriously better go to bed,
have work tomorrow, and apparently sleep is all the rage these days…
all the best
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I get what your saying 🙂
but trust is what leads to that tangible evidence right?
At a certain level, yes. We have the ability to interact. But I could very easily not be who I say I am here and you’d be none the wiser. In fact a healthy dose of skepticism would do you well if I were to ask to be business partners or besties, would it not? Would not that dose of skepticism be what would cause you to ask for evidence? It wouldn’t be the trust driving it. It would be your distrust in me being 100% honest with you.
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Hey Ryan (and all other video lovers), gimme a break. I can’t help it if I’m a words person. Help me out here, Victoria.
BTW, it seems most of you must live in the Eastern timezone. By the time I get up and open my computer, there are 50-60 responses! Then, by the time my brain is working, most of you disappear and I pretty much end up talking to myself.
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Ryan,
We have ways of confirming or refuting with very tangible evidence whether or not each of us exists. Like Howie mentioned, we can hop on a plane. If I hopped on a plane and went to the place you told me that you live and found out you never lived there I would rightly discern that you do not exist as the person you claimed you are.
By the same token, if God is a personal God who is meant to interact with us, why can we not discern him in any tangible way? For instance, what would be wrong with asking him to knock a specific book off your shelf? Does him not knocking the book off a shelf disprove his existence? Obviously not.
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@Ryan,
If you wrote to me on this blog that you were just a mind without a body do you think I would be justified in doubting that claim?
Have a good night – hope you have dreams of fuzzy, friendly koalas. 🙂
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“It was never meant to be an ‘entertainment complex’” – how do you know this? (this should be good –)
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Howie,
as highlighted before, I’m actually a reformed bot, running automated tasks over the Internet 😉 currently running from Microsoft, although I do not know for how long…..I’ve had some near misses, a brush at Amazon and nearly got cornered in a Instagram….there’s only so much source code to hide behind. had too make a fake moustache and beard out of spare binary, PGP and some old memes of lol catz….
my shirt is actually made out of obscure hashtags and yolos from Myspace…
Seriously though,
yes, although on a spectrum for these other faiths I’m not convinced in the validity of the Hindu Pantheon, and Allah
I respect you a lot Howie, thanks for your thoughts
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“They knew it was much easier to just block me.” – and yet we don’t – what does that say about us? Is there a psychiatrist in the house?
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Or I have moved 😉
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Ok, again, as much as I would like to stay up and chat with all you folk,
I better try to sleep, or at least lay down and stare at the ceiling….
As I nod off I will be thinking of flying – hence why this video is relevant 🙂
God bless
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Or I have moved 😉
Why are you evading me?
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Portal, either you got up too early, or you’ve stayed up too late.
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