Athiest are the ultimate free thinker?

[Spendulus]

....
Didn't find a leg but do found a nose.
....

I know a guy that went right into the heart of darkness (A "miracle maker" well known, on stage) and debunked the scam and con game, in public, as the scam was being performed.

He did that at considerable personal risk.

Not impressed with your blabbing about miracles, dude. The way that progress is made is to look at the alleged "miracle" and ask how it could have been a scam. Then, clue by clue, reconstruct the way it was done. Then reveal it publicly, and call the people out as scammers, as appropriate.

Houdini debunked a lot of this crap, also. Many others have. But then, new suckers are born every minute.

[Spendulus]

....
Didn't find a leg but do found a nose.
....

I know a guy that went right into the heart of darkness (A "miracle maker" well known, on stage) and debunked the scam and con game, in public, as the scam was being performed.

He did that at considerable personal risk.

Not impressed with your blabbing about miracles, dude. The way that progress is made is to look at the alleged "miracle" and ask how it could have been a scam. Then, clue by clue, reconstruct the way it was done. Then reveal it publicly, and call the people out as scammers, as appropriate.

Houdini debunked a lot of this crap, also. Many others have. But then, new suckers are born every minute.

And now I'm wondering is there anything more boring in this Universe than you? And man, you won't be happy with my conclusions.

That would be another irrefutable hypothesis...

However it remains that debunking the liars and the cheats who prey on the gullible in the name of religion, is a contribution that all the magical thinking and fantasy world religiosos should appreciate.

And it is as far as I am aware, always the work of athiests.

[TECSHARE]

There is an inherent flaw in atheism that most people don't seem to realize. Personally I have more respect for Agnostics. At least they admit that they don't know. Atheism is just yet another iteration of a religion. Atheism is the BELIEF that there is no God. There is no proof of the existence or nonexistence of a deity. People choose to believe one over the other, but it is just yet another system of beliefs.

Atheists exhibit a lot of the same patterns found in other religions. They thing their beliefs are the best and everyone else is wrong. They proselytize. They fund-raise. They gather in groups to discuss and spread their beliefs. Their priests are "scientists", and their God is the government.

Atheism is a lack of belief that there is a God.

It is not the same as a belief that there is no God.

Apple and oranges. 

PS. Most atheists are not making claims.  Although, some, myself included, are convinced that there is no God due to the lack of any physical evidence.

Yes, Atheism by its definition makes the claim that there is no God. This is a belief based on JUST AS MUCH empirical data on the belief that there is a God, that being no empirical data. It is not apples and oranges it is oranges and oranges.

[michaelkelly8798]

....
Didn't find a leg but do found a nose.
....

I know a guy that went right into the heart of darkness (A "miracle maker" well known, on stage) and debunked the scam and con game, in public, as the scam was being performed.

He did that at considerable personal risk.

Not impressed with your blabbing about miracles, dude. The way that progress is made is to look at the alleged "miracle" and ask how it could have been a scam. Then, clue by clue, reconstruct the way it was done. Then reveal it publicly, and call the people out as scammers, as appropriate.

Houdini debunked a lot of this crap, also. Many others have. But then, new suckers are born every minute.

And now I'm wondering is there anything more boring in this Universe than you? And man, you won't be happy with my conclusions.

That would be another irrefutable hypothesis...

However it remains that debunking the liars and the cheats who prey on the gullible in the name of religion, is a contribution that all the magical thinking and fantasy world religiosos should appreciate.

And it is as far as I am aware, always the work of athiests.

You are free to believe what you want, I won't bother to try to change your mind. Whatever you want to believe is fine.

You've made a serious claim, when you make such a claim you must have arguments to backup what you say. You must agree with me it's kind of foolish to say every seller is a scammer if you are scammed by one seller. That analogy is not smart. Second of all, please let us know how clue by clue you can reconstruct the "tricks" this pastor is performing, I'd love to read that. Specially when he has random people he approaches perform the miracles he performs by just repeating his words? Oftentimes friends of the person the healings are performed on? I wanna read your thoughts on it.

[Spendulus]

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You are free to believe what you want, I won't bother to try to change your mind. Whatever you want to believe is fine.
....

It's not for you to say. It makes no difference to my what you try.

....
You've made a serious claim, when you make such a claim you must have arguments to backup what you say. You must agree with me it's kind of foolish to say every seller is a scammer if you are scammed by one seller.

Pretty funny, actually, for you to say it is I that make the serious claim, when in fact it is the one purporting to do miracles that makes the serious claim.

When you assume the posture of the moral high ground, try not to engage in rampant lying. That is what you do when you impute to me, the phrase "every seller is a scammer." That's your words, made up in your fantasies. But then, perhaps you were simply in error.

Second of all, please let us know how clue by clue you can reconstruct the "tricks" this pastor is performing, I'd love to read that. Specially when he has random people he approaches perform the miracles he performs by just repeating his words? Oftentimes friends of the person the healings are performed on? I wanna read your thoughts on it.

Start with the basics, then. Are you familiar with the scientific method?

But carefully think this over before continuing, because you have already lost this argument, and I don't care to make you look foolish.

[ATMD]

I like Lennox's explanation for how God and science are perfectly compatible.

"The success of science sometimes leads people to think that because we can understand the mechanisms of the universe, then we can safely conclude that there was no God who designed and created the universe in the first place. This reasoning commits a logical error in that it confuses mechanism and agency.

Consider a Ford motor car. It is conceivable that someone who was seeing one for the first time and who knew no science might imagine that there is a god (Mr. Ford) inside the engine, making it go. Of course, if he were subsequently to study engineering and take apart the engine, he would discover that there is no Mr. Ford inside it. He would also see that he did not need to introduce Mr. Ford as an explanation for its working; his grasp of the impersonal principles of internal combustion would be enough to do that. However, if he then decided that his understanding of the principles of how the engine worked made it impossible to believe in the existence of a Mr. Ford who designed the engine in the first place, this would be patently false. Had there never been a Mr. Ford to design the mechanisms, none would exist for him to understand. It is equally mistaken to suppose that our scientific understanding of the impersonal principles according to which the universe works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in the existence of a personal Creator who designed, made, and upholds it."

-John Lennox

[michaelkelly8798]

....
You are free to believe what you want, I won't bother to try to change your mind. Whatever you want to believe is fine.
....

It's not for you to say. It makes no difference to my what you try.

....
You've made a serious claim, when you make such a claim you must have arguments to backup what you say. You must agree with me it's kind of foolish to say every seller is a scammer if you are scammed by one seller.

Pretty funny, actually, for you to say it is I that make the serious claim, when in fact it is the one purporting to do miracles that makes the serious claim.

When you assume the posture of the moral high ground, try not to engage in rampant lying. That is what you do when you impute to me, the phrase "every seller is a scammer." That's your words, made up in your fantasies. But then, perhaps you were simply in error.

Second of all, please let us know how clue by clue you can reconstruct the "tricks" this pastor is performing, I'd love to read that. Specially when he has random people he approaches perform the miracles he performs by just repeating his words? Oftentimes friends of the person the healings are performed on? I wanna read your thoughts on it.

Start with the basics, then. Are you familiar with the scientific method?

But carefully think this over before continuing, because you have already lost this argument, and I don't care to make you look foolish.

I know what I say will make no difference, that's why I'm not gonna try to convince you of anything. Fanatics do not reach conclusions, they are drawn by enthusiasm, they have a lot of interest in the liking of a particular group that's why they are closed to do logical reasoning. I'm not lying, this is just an analogy to the explanation you made trying to prove wrong the person doing the miracles, my point was you can't make this type of claims based on the fact someone else was proven wrong. Since you stated you had to deconstruct the miracle to prove it as a scam, I gave you the opportunity to deconstruct what the pastor was doing and you still haven't said a word about it. You talk about the scientific method when you are basing your WHOLE believe system in a theory that you haven't proved to be true. You are just following the crowd, you believe whatever you are told when you yourself haven't done any experimentation, that's not difficult to do, you don't have to be very smart to do this. You can attempt to make me look foolish, I don't care, my arguments will do the job of proving you wrong, it's easy to make a fool of yourself when you have no arguments to win a discussion. And believe me I'm not trying to insult you, this is not my intention, I'm just trying to make you see your error.

[Spendulus]

Second of all, please let us know how clue by clue you can reconstruct the "tricks" this pastor is performing, I'd love to read that. Specially when he has random people he approaches perform the miracles he performs by just repeating his words? Oftentimes friends of the person the healings are performed on? I wanna read your thoughts on it.

Start with the basics, then. Are you familiar with the scientific method?
...

(A)...Since you stated you had to deconstruct the miracle to prove it as a scam, I gave you the opportunity to deconstruct what the pastor was doing and you still haven't said a word about it.

(B)...You talk about the scientific method when you are basing your WHOLE believe system in a theory that you haven't proved to be true.

(A)  You did not answer my rather simple question. Regarding my question, you must have an understanding of the scientific method before you can understand how a miracle may be falsified. Here is a brief explanation.

Reference https://explorable.com/falsifiability

Falsifiability is the assertion that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.

For example, someone might claim "the earth is younger than many scientists state, and in fact was created to appear as though it was older through deceptive fossils etc.” This is a claim that is unfalsifiable because it is a theory that can never be shown to be false. If you were to present such a person with fossils, geological data or arguments about the nature of compounds in the ozone, they could refute the argument by saying that your evidence was fabricated to appeared that way, and isn’t valid.

Importantly, falsifiability doesn’t mean that there are currently arguments against a theory, only that it is possible to imagine some kind of argument which would invalidate it. Falsifiability says nothing about an argument's inherent validity or correctness. It is only the minimum trait required of a claim that allows it to be engaged with in a scientific manner – a dividing line between what is considered science and what isn’t. Another important point is that falsifiability is not any claim that has yet to be proven true. After all, a conjecture that hasn’t been proven yet is just a hypothesis.

(B) This is something (again) that you impute my having said that I did not say. In the previous case where I questioned whether you were lying, you responded "I'm not lying, this is just an analogy to the explanation you made trying to prove wrong the person doing the miracles." Is that the case here also?

Here is an example of a magician who as part of his act routinely performs "miracle healing."

https://www.secrets-explained.com/derren-brown/miracle

Through the power of God, Derren heals members of his audience from chronic pain, bad eyesight and other health problems.

Explanation:

This is done through a mixture of suggestion, social pressure, placebo effect, cold reading and magic. The most obvious example of using magic is his trickery with improving/impoverishing eyesight. For example, when Derren makes an audience member 'lose' his eyesight, he simply shows him a different page in the booklet than he showed to the camera and the audience. The words on that page are actually just gibberish and the participant reads them correctly, giving an illusion that he cannot read normally. With the lady who 'regains' her eyesight, Derren simply shows her really large letters.

Con artists doing miracle healing use the magician's tricks of "cold reading" and "hot reading" to put their scams over on the naive people in the audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

Do you have any questions?

[Michal_open_source]

For the topic question, which I found a bit silly I would rather say not atheists are free thinkers but agnostics which take all possibilities into consideration.

[Spendulus]

....It is equally mistaken to suppose that our scientific understanding of the impersonal principles according to which the universe works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in the existence of a personal Creator who designed, made, and upholds it."

-John Lennox

That's pretty well articulated, but it is lacking. It shows for example how someone can go into science and keep their religious faith. It is lacking because it focuses on one narrow style of religious faith. May I propose an alternate?

"....It is equally mistaken to suppose that our scientific understanding of the impersonal principles according to which the universe works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in the existence of three thousand gods under the all powerful Zeus who working both alone and in concert designed, made, and upholds it."

Let's not obfuscate fairly simple things with big sentences and long winded arguments. Okay?

[ATMD]

That's pretty well articulated, but it is lacking. It shows for example how someone can go into science and keep their religious faith. It is lacking because it focuses on one narrow style of religious faith. May I propose an alternate?

"....It is equally mistaken to suppose that our scientific understanding of the impersonal principles according to which the universe works makes it either unnecessary or impossible to believe in the existence of three thousand gods under the all powerful Zeus who working both alone and in concert designed, made, and upholds it."

Let's not obfuscate fairly simple things with big sentences and long winded arguments. Okay?

Well if we are to entertain Lennox's quote, then we have to understand his world view. He studies ancient gods and claims that they all have theogeny, or an origin story, they are in effect "created gods". They are not eternal.

The "God" word in his definition (and mine) is the creator of this universe. The creator is himself not created, he is eternal. God also has no gender, I use the pronoun "he" because it is conventional. Whether there is more than one creator is not the point, for the sake of our discussion, let's equate God with "the creator of this universe". So it doesn't matter whether his name is Zeus or Jack or Daisy.

My point is I believe that there is an intelligent designer of this universe, this world didn't come from nothing, and I call this intelligent designer "God".

[michaelkelly8798]

Second of all, please let us know how clue by clue you can reconstruct the "tricks" this pastor is performing, I'd love to read that. Specially when he has random people he approaches perform the miracles he performs by just repeating his words? Oftentimes friends of the person the healings are performed on? I wanna read your thoughts on it.

Start with the basics, then. Are you familiar with the scientific method?
...

(A)...Since you stated you had to deconstruct the miracle to prove it as a scam, I gave you the opportunity to deconstruct what the pastor was doing and you still haven't said a word about it.

(B)...You talk about the scientific method when you are basing your WHOLE believe system in a theory that you haven't proved to be true.

(A)  You did not answer my rather simple question. Regarding my question, you must have an understanding of the scientific method before you can understand how a miracle may be falsified. Here is a brief explanation.

Reference https://explorable.com/falsifiability

Falsifiability is the assertion that for any hypothesis to have credence, it must be inherently disprovable before it can become accepted as a scientific hypothesis or theory.

For example, someone might claim "the earth is younger than many scientists state, and in fact was created to appear as though it was older through deceptive fossils etc.” This is a claim that is unfalsifiable because it is a theory that can never be shown to be false. If you were to present such a person with fossils, geological data or arguments about the nature of compounds in the ozone, they could refute the argument by saying that your evidence was fabricated to appeared that way, and isn’t valid.

Importantly, falsifiability doesn’t mean that there are currently arguments against a theory, only that it is possible to imagine some kind of argument which would invalidate it. Falsifiability says nothing about an argument's inherent validity or correctness. It is only the minimum trait required of a claim that allows it to be engaged with in a scientific manner – a dividing line between what is considered science and what isn’t. Another important point is that falsifiability is not any claim that has yet to be proven true. After all, a conjecture that hasn’t been proven yet is just a hypothesis.

(B) This is something (again) that you impute my having said that I did not say. In the previous case where I questioned whether you were lying, you responded "I'm not lying, this is just an analogy to the explanation you made trying to prove wrong the person doing the miracles." Is that the case here also?

Here is an example of a magician who as part of his act routinely performs "miracle healing."

https://www.secrets-explained.com/derren-brown/miracle

Through the power of God, Derren heals members of his audience from chronic pain, bad eyesight and other health problems.

Explanation:

This is done through a mixture of suggestion, social pressure, placebo effect, cold reading and magic. The most obvious example of using magic is his trickery with improving/impoverishing eyesight. For example, when Derren makes an audience member 'lose' his eyesight, he simply shows him a different page in the booklet than he showed to the camera and the audience. The words on that page are actually just gibberish and the participant reads them correctly, giving an illusion that he cannot read normally. With the lady who 'regains' her eyesight, Derren simply shows her really large letters.

Con artists doing miracle healing use the magician's tricks of "cold reading" and "hot reading" to put their scams over on the naive people in the audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading

Do you have any questions?

No questions, just that we are running in circles. Why run around the bush when you can give a concise answer?

[Spendulus]

....

My point is I believe that there is an intelligent designer of this universe, this world didn't come from nothing, and I call this intelligent designer "God".

Oh, I see. Well, perhaps that is your point now, but it was not with the prior post and quote. However, your prior post along with this belief are consistent. I certainly know scientists who are devout Christian/Muslim/whatever and do not see any conflict between their beliefs and science.

Yes, this world did come from pretty much nothing. It was all compressed into pretty much nothing before the Big Bang.

[tvbcof]

I'm an atheist and many of my friends and family are also.  I can assure you that very very few of them are 'free thinkers', though it is not uncommon for them to believe they are, and sometimes by virtue of their atheism itself.

Currently I find that some of the people I respect the most in terms of being 'free thinkers' are are least mildly religious.  They tend to be unafraid to 'admit' their religiosity, but at the same time they rarely lean on their beliefs to inform their thinking and rhetorical arguments.  Most of the time I don't know that they are religious for a long time.

I've come to feel that being mildly religious gives people a certain freedom from certain constraints and lets them analyze with at least a different if not a lesser burden of baggage.  It is abundantly clear why more totalitarian forms of government are adverse to organized religion, or at least religions that are outside of their control.  There is a strong correlation between atheism (and especially militant atheism) among my friends/family and obedience/affection for the socialist state apparatus.

[Spendulus]

...
No questions, just that we are running in circles. Why run around the bush when you can give a concise answer?

Well, that's the fourth false thing you have said so far in this discussion.

There has been no such thing. Perhaps you don't understand or care to, and just wanted me to elaborate on the many scammers, present and past, that pose as preachers?

It's curious you wouldn't appreciate the good work such people do...

[michaelkelly8798]

....

My point is I believe that there is an intelligent designer of this universe, this world didn't come from nothing, and I call this intelligent designer "God".

Oh, I see. Well, perhaps that is your point now, but it was not with the prior post and quote. However, your prior post along with this belief are consistent. I certainly know scientists who are devout Christian/Muslim/whatever and do not see any conflict between their beliefs and science.

Yes, this world did come from pretty much nothing. It was all compressed into pretty much nothing before the Big Bang.

haha this guy is hilarious! Please someone explain to him something can't be created from nothing. Matter can't be destroyed or created but just modified. The big bang theory was founded by a catholic priest who was a creationist. Man you need to have less imagination and more deductive/critical thinking.

[michaelkelly8798]

...
No questions, just that we are running in circles. Why run around the bush when you can give a concise answer?

Well, that's the fourth false thing you have said so far in this discussion.

There has been no such thing. Perhaps you don't understand or care to, and just wanted me to elaborate on the many scammers, present and past, that pose as preachers?

It's curious you wouldn't appreciate the good work such people do...

It was easier to say what in what he did was a trick or an illusion. I read what you sent, placebo and preassure and all that. But the guy is doing exactly the opposite. I was just hoping to see what was a scam on the miracles he performed.

[michaelkelly8798]

I'm an atheist and many of my friends and family are also.  I can assure you that very very few of them are 'free thinkers', though it is not uncommon for them to believe they are, and sometimes by virtue of their atheism itself.

Currently I find that some of the people I respect the most in terms of being 'free thinkers' are are least mildly religious.  They tend to be unafraid to 'admit' their religiosity, but at the same time they rarely lean on their beliefs to inform their thinking and rhetorical arguments.  Most of the time I don't know that they are religious for a long time.

I've come to feel that being mildly religious gives people a certain freedom from certain constraints and lets them analyze with at least a different if not a lesser burden of baggage.  It is abundantly clear why more totalitarian forms of government are adverse to organized religion, or at least religions that are outside of their control.  There is a strong correlation between atheism (and especially militant atheism) among my friends/family and obedience/affection for the socialist state apparatus.

Hi tvbcof, I'm honored to read a comment like yours, you are someone who is very honest, and able to admit reality even when it is not playing on his side. I respect you are an atheist even though I don't approve it. I was born with a different religion, but I was bold enough to recognize what I believed was wrong. But man, I'm curious, how did you become an atheist? Were you born an atheist or did you come to the conclusion yourself there was no God? Because I can tell you I have 100% certainty there is a God. I'm not telling this just out of faith don't get me wrong. We can have a friendly discussion you can pm me if you like.

[Spendulus]

...
No questions, just that we are running in circles. Why run around the bush when you can give a concise answer?

Well, that's the fourth false thing you have said so far in this discussion.

There has been no such thing. Perhaps you don't understand or care to, and just wanted me to elaborate on the many scammers, present and past, that pose as preachers?

It's curious you wouldn't appreciate the good work such people do...

It was easier to say what in what he did was a trick or an illusion. I read what you sent, placebo and preassure and all that. But the guy is doing exactly the opposite. I was just hoping to see what was a scam on the miracles he performed.

Many so-called "miracles" are a scam. Then there's a push for your donations...

This is pretty simple. I don't know why you would resist it. Wait, it's because you are pushing Real Miracles. Well, keep at it. Just expect others to use scientific methods to debunk them. Wait, you'd have to understand the formulation of a scientific hypothesis to get it.....

[Spendulus]

....
Yes, this world did come from pretty much nothing. It was all compressed into pretty much nothing before the Big Bang.

....Matter can't be destroyed or created but just modified.....

Well, the Big Bang was a singularity of sorts, if not in space then certainly in time.

"Space" had no meaning at that moment. Let's say a way to understand it is that there were no dimensions. Length, width, height had no meaning.

In scientific phrases, that's not INCONSISTANT with your comment, if it is revised to the correct form, including both matter and energy thusly...

E=MC^2

PS: I shouldn't have cut you that much slack, sitting her watching a b grade movie about aliens taking over and humans fighting, and giving you about 1% of my attention. You are just plain wrong.

It's energy that's never created or destroyed. Not matter. The proof is in the equation. But it could run considerably deeper than that, and energy may not be conserved.

But what's all that to a good Christian?