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 
“The explanations offered by neuroscience are interesting, but they fail to address what we really want to know.”
Brandon, if you are talking about whether god exists or an afterlife, I guess we’ll just have to wait until we’re dead (and that’s no guarantee), unless a god/creator presents itself to the whole world before the sun engulfs the earth. Until then, I can only surmise that it’s a brain phenomena primarily due to death anxiety, indoctrination, (sometimes neurological disorders and brain injuries) and for some, an overwhelming urge to be acknowledged, feel special, personal development, and strengthen prosocial behavior.
I do think religion has benefits as in community, but neither religion, nor belief in god, is necessary to have community, to be prosocial, for personal development, and/or to curtail death anxiety.
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Paul Tillich, a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher, argued that anxiety of non-being (existential anguish) is inherent in the experience of being itself. Put simply, people are afraid of their own non-existence, i.e., their death. Following a line that was also related to Kierkegaard and Freud, Tillich says that in our most introspective moments we face the terror of our own nothingness. That is, we “realize our mortality” that we are finite beings. What can sustain finite beings is being itself, or the “ground of being.” This Tillich identifies as God. (from NewWorldEncyclopedia.org)
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So, I’ll give you my opinion. You’re going to have to draw the line at hard evidence. You’re going to have to differentiate between believing in your own vision and rejecting any sort of god-sense or tendency to believe in afterlife on grounds that we don’t have hard evidence for it.
I’m pretty sure that’s what we’ve all been saying. There’s a substantial lack of hard evidence for the existence of a god. Now, some may point to the universe and say that it requires a creator and that may be sufficient evidence for them to believe. But it is certainly not hard evidence.
The difference, as I see it, between theists/deists and atheists is that theists/deists need or want hard evidence that a god doesn’t exist while atheists need or want hard evidence that one does exist in order to believe. The fear of ‘without faith it is impossible to please God’ is enough to push some people over the edge of the need for hard evidence. Some sort of ‘experience’ might be enough to push some people over that edge. The existence of a cherished ancient text which seems to point to a tradition of belief in a deity might be enough for some. It’s hard to say. But I think that is the main difference – which way you lean in the need for hard evidence.
I’m hard pressed to say that a deity that requires sacrifice in order to satisfy it’s demand for holiness who has created a hell for those who don’t believe in the sacrifice exists without some hard evidence. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
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There is tons of evidence for a whole other realm.. how do the scientific, empirical evidence people explain THIS??
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2014/09/25/pkg-police-officer-claims-ghost-caught-on-camera.koat.html
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I’ve seen that video several times. I’m not convinced it’s a ghost. I have tons of questions about it, starting with is this media that had been recorded onto before. Sometimes if something is taped over something else you get those ghost images. There might be a whole host of explanations for it.
I really haven’t researched this particular incident that well. Having said that I think scientific, empirical evidence people agree wholeheartedly that there are other dimensions. Hence the multiverse.
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I realize that there could be possible explanations.. but what are they? It’s like turning the atheist’s argument around.. what would it take for you to believe it’s something of a supernatural source? Clearly, video will never be enough.
An interesting point is that according to the Bible, they aren’t ghosts.. they are demons… and it seems that in any group of random people, someone has a personal story today. It’s getting harder and harder to explain it away.
I think most people believe in a spiritual world. There’s something that is “fueling” us other than food. That something can’t be replicated by humans.. other than the natural way of course.
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Victoria, saying that religious belief is “brain phenomena primarily due to. . .” is precisely giving a mechanism without addressing whether the belief is true or false. And, that’s assuming that’s there’s any credibility to these simplistic mechanisms in the first place.
Also, the same thing can be done to atheists. Is atheism not a brain phenomenon? Are there not psychological factors involved in the commitment to this belief?
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Where does it say in the bible that the images on the video are demons?
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Ruth,
Yes, you, Nate, Howie, Dave, and probably others. I didn’t think I was educating anyone. 🙂 What I am trying to do is minimize the psychologizing or at least framing it appropriately.
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Anaivethinker – your last line about atheism being a commitment to belief. I’m amazed at that sentence. Surely you see the problem with this. Atheist is a NON-belief – in god(s). A big difference. Theists are the ones who have ‘beliefs’ (isn’t that what faith is? – believing what you know ain’t so); atheism is, by definition, an absence of a belief system.
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“Where does it say in the bible that the images on the video are demons?”
2Cor 5:8 6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
And there is no scripture that suggests we roam the earth after death.
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Ruth, I just read the article by Michael Shermer . I have been in electronics all of my adult life. Yes there are several explanations for what happened to the radio. An old transistor radio would have electrolytic capacitors which dry out over time. If this was the case, it would take the radio much longer to come on if at all. I won’t bore you with electronic theory, but this was a coincidence not a grandfather turning his radio on from the grave. 🙂
I would suggest Michael Shermer take the radio to an electronics expert. But that would ruin story. 🙂
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Carmen, that’s not true.. you DO believe in the “system” of evolution.. or some other explanation for our existence. You choose to believe without empirical evidence just as Christians choose to believe without empirical evidence.. (empirical by atheist definition).
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I guess it just comes down to whether you could accept a natural explanation or not. While the police department apparently claimed there could be no technical glitch that caused that I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion. There could have been a flaw in that particular partition on the recording. Or, since that whole video is so fuzzy maybe it was bigfoot. Proof at last! Or, wait, another grainy video.
But if you already believe in ghosts or demons perhaps you prefer to allow this footage to confirm your bias? *shrug*
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KC,
I would suggest Michael Shermer take the radio to an electronics expert. But that would ruin story. 🙂
Actually, this was my thought. Did it shake his skepticism to the core? It doesn’t appear to have converted him. I think it warms their hearts to think it was her grandfather ‘keeping watch’ over her so they prefer not to know a natural explanation. Or at least just not seek one out.
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While we may subscribe to the theory of evolution we only believe that which has been proven about it. And when the evidence leads to a different conclusion than the one previously drawn we are able to change our opinions along with it. That doesn’t constitute a belief in any “system” other than scientific method. We believe the scientific method works because it has been proven. As far as a belief in a mechanism, there isn’t one. We don’t know. There are hypothesis but until one is proven through the scientific method one doesn’t ‘believe’ in it.
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No Kathy, there is NOTHING in the bible that says the images in the video were demons. The scripture you quoted doesn’t mention demons at all, nor does it say anything about a video.
This was your original statement: … according to the Bible, they aren’t ghosts.. they are demons.
You are making a statement based on what you think the bible means, but not what it says.. This is the point that we have been making all along.
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There was no video when the Bible was written. Why do you always turn debate into silliness?
Why aren’t you debating about the existence of God instead of technicalities of something you claim to not even be true?
My statements ARE what I think is the truth.. I’ve never claimed otherwise. If you disagree, show the scripture that supports your claims.
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“But if you already believe in ghosts or demons perhaps you prefer to allow this footage to confirm your bias? *shrug*”
Just trying to have a civil debate about an interesting topic.. have you or someone you know ever had a mysterious experience of this nature?
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Ruth,
There is no empirical evidence that we evolved from another species. Atheists have to make a choice to believe in macro evolution. It’s no different than people choosing to believe in God.
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I watched that police video a few times. It could be a spider or some other bug crawling across the lens of the security camera.
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My statements ARE what I think is the truth
according to the Bible, they aren’t ghosts.. they are demons.
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Just trying to have a civil debate about an interesting topic.. have you or someone you know ever had a mysterious experience of this nature?
One of my uncles swears he saw an apparition of a werewolf. He already believed in ghosts, paranormal activity, aliens, and werewolves before he saw this. Yes, he is batshit crazy.
Aside from that one night while I was sleeping I felt a presence. I could have sworn someone was standing over me. I opened my eyes and saw what looked like the lit screen of a cell phone and a rather tall silhouette walking away. I opened the drawer to my nightstand, took out my gun, and crept through the house looking for the tall, dark stranger. I didn’t even wake my husband. I checked all the windows and doors and they were all locked just like I’d left them. When I got back into bed my husband woke up and I told him what happened. He laughed and said I must have been dreaming. I’m sure that’s what it was. One of those lucid dreams that Brandon was talking about earlier. I never once thought it was a demon or a ghost or anything remotely paranormal or supernatural. I simply thought it was an intruder.
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@ Dave,
I thought moth.
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@carmen
Atheism is just another -ism which does make it a particular committed outlook or belief. People aren’t atheism by default, they are just nothing by default. You had to have looked into theism and actively rejected it to become an atheist, and this takes a commitment. Of course, it’s not faith or the type of commitment that a Christian theist makes, but it’s a commitment nonetheless. It’s like committing to not drink sugary drinks. It does take some energy and thought to do even though it’s a rejection.
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