Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

I have no reason to believe that "anything else" (what?) is involved.

In any case, what does this have to do with the fact that you won't provide evidence to back up your absurd claims of so-called "miraculous" healing, which is what had been discussed? Not trying to evade even your evasion are you Alan?

[Alan Burns]

I have no reason to believe that "anything else" (what?) is involved.

In any case, what does this have to do with the fact that you won't provide evidence to back up your absurd claims of so-called "miraculous" healing, which is what had been discussed? Not trying to evade even your evasion are you Alan?

Explanations for miraculous healings pale into insignificance when compared to explanations for human self awareness and the ability to exert free will.  What I am trying to illustrate is that this universe is not a closed system where every event is entirely dependent on the consequences of previous events dating back to the Big Bang singularity.  Interaction can and does occur as evidenced by every single act of human free will.  Though you may not realise it, you are performing miracles right now.

[Shaker]

Explanations for miraculous healings pale into insignificance when compared to explanations for human self awareness and the ability to exert free will.

You haven't provided any, Alan. I've asked and asked and asked, but nothing.

What I am trying to illustrate is that this universe is not a closed system where every event is entirely dependent on the consequences of previous events dating back to the Big Bang singularity.  Interaction can and does occur as evidenced by every single act of human free will.  Though you may not realise it, you are performing miracles right now.

Doubtless you find this sort of thing all very interesting - if you wish to pursue it by all means create a new thread on the appropriate sub-forum and we'll continue that other discussion there, leaving this one for the presentation of the backing for your claims of supposedly miraculous healing, which you're now about to provide ... aren't you Alan?

[SusanDoris]

It is equally clear to me, Shakes, that we will get nowhere because they simply think THEY are the ones that can see the evidence and that we are just blind to it, or refuse to accept it. It's a stalemate.

However, if young people like my granddaughters and many of their contemporaries are anything to go by, the blind faith is in the past. They are level-headed and sensible and will certainly not be influenced with mumbo-jumbo.

[Alan Burns]

The Vineyard stuff follows on from the Toronto Blessing and it heavily influences HTB and, to a lesser extent, Alpha. It's fairly new, and not Biblical. People report experiencing feeling drunk, uncontrollably laughing etc which they later describe as feeling like possession. I suspect it is rather a result of suggestion - and abusive.

A friend of mine was a team ministry priest at a church to which HTB were invited to do the Holy Spirit thing. When nothing happened my friend was singled out by the HTB visitors as 'blocking the Holy Spirit'; he was told by the PCC to resign from the church and some other congregation members told never to visit the church again.

Alpha has become diluted and a course run in a regional church is probably ok. But HTB and its church plants are not.

http://www.christian-forum.co.uk/index.php?action=printpage;topic=12538.0

http://truthinreality.com/2012/07/06/the-truth-concerning-holy-trinity-brampton/

http://www.letusreason.org/Pent59.htm

I am not familiar with HTB, but I have been involved with charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic church.  I have encountered some people within the charismatics whose behaviour does not seem very Christian, and indeed some who are quite disturbing.  While most people within these movements seem to be on the same wavelength, I think you will always get a few "bad eggs" who try to hijack it and do silly things.  It is sad because these minorities seem to attract publicity and put people off.

[Shaker]

Kudos to them on that account, therefore.

[torridon]

So what do you think is the explanation for what determines the content of the posts you write?  Do you really think that there can be an explanation derived purely from the chemical reactions in you body driven by the deterministic laws of science, or is something else involved?

A supernatural explanation would not be an explanation at all, by definition. Explanations imply cause and effect, ie a natural order.  You are thinking of free will as some sort of supernatural phenomenon that evades cause and effect and therefore cannot be an explanation

[Alan Burns]

So what do you think is the explanation for what determines the content of the posts you write?  Do you really think that there can be an explanation derived purely from the chemical reactions in you body driven by the deterministic laws of science, or is something else involved?

A supernatural explanation would not be an explanation at all, by definition. Explanations imply cause and effect, ie a natural order.  You are thinking of free will as some sort of supernatural phenomenon that evades cause and effect and therefore cannot be an explanation

I am not saying that anything can evade the cause and effect syndrome.  I am just pointing out the possible error of assuming that all causes are limited to the deterministic chemical activity of matter within our universe.  I am implying that human creativity can provide evidence for causes outside the observed deterministic behaviour of matter.  Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

The Big Bang event itself is evidence of a cause beyond our universe.

[Leonard James]

It is equally clear to me, Shakes, that we will get nowhere because they simply think THEY are the ones that can see the evidence and that we are just blind to it, or refuse to accept it. It's a stalemate.

However, if young people like my granddaughters and many of their contemporaries are anything to go by, the blind faith is in the past. They are level-headed and sensible and will certainly not be influenced with mumbo-jumbo.

That's very heartening, Susan ... but I suspect that the youngsters in other religions, particularly Islam, won't be allowed to question. 

[Shaker]

It is equally clear to me, Shakes, that we will get nowhere because they simply think THEY are the ones that can see the evidence and that we are just blind to it, or refuse to accept it. It's a stalemate.

However, if young people like my granddaughters and many of their contemporaries are anything to go by, the blind faith is in the past. They are level-headed and sensible and will certainly not be influenced with mumbo-jumbo.

That's very heartening, Susan ... but I suspect that the youngsters in other religions, particularly Islam, won't be allowed to question. 

Not in strongly Islamic countries, no, but Muslims who live in secular liberal democracies are far more likely to because they're going to be not only exposed to but bathed daily in a sea of external influences of their nation.

There was a study published recently (one of those Pew Study reports, I think) which attempted to predict the world's religious landscape over the coming century (or something). The worldwide rise in adherence to Islam was very notable and was commented upon by many. I thought of two immediate objections however; not only the obvious one that it was a prediction (albeit based on sound data) and therefore has every chance of being wrong, but nobody seemed to take into account the possibility that being raised in a religion in no way guarantees that you stay in that same religion, either because you abandon it for another belief system or abandon faith altogether. People do, and I suspect (but don't know for sure) that in affluent, technologically advanced, literate, secular, democratic open societies absolutely saturated all day every day with information more people do so now than ever before.

[horsethorn]

So what do you think is the explanation for what determines the content of the posts you write?  Do you really think that there can be an explanation derived purely from the chemical reactions in you body driven by the deterministic laws of science, or is something else involved?

A supernatural explanation would not be an explanation at all, by definition. Explanations imply cause and effect, ie a natural order.  You are thinking of free will as some sort of supernatural phenomenon that evades cause and effect and therefore cannot be an explanation

I am not saying that anything can evade the cause and effect syndrome.  I am just pointing out the possible error of assuming that all causes are limited to the deterministic chemical activity of matter within our universe.  I am implying that human creativity can provide evidence for causes outside the observed deterministic behaviour of matter.  Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

The Big Bang event itself is evidence of a cause beyond our universe.

"I am implying that human creativity can provide evidence for causes outside the observed deterministic behaviour of matter. "

Can it? Do you have an example?

"The Big Bang event itself is evidence of a cause beyond our universe."

No, it isn't.

ht

[Dicky Underpants]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

[Shaker]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

... according to Alan's belief system, something mandated by Alan's God, IIRC?

[Rhiannon]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

That's because we are bad!

[Dicky Underpants]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

That's because we are bad!

Yea - I reckon you're* really wicked - that's why I like you so much


*That's singular and plural....

[Rhiannon]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

That's because we are bad!

Yea - I reckon you're really wicked - that's why I like you so much

Aww! 

[torridon]

A supernatural explanation would not be an explanation at all, by definition. Explanations imply cause and effect, ie a natural order.  You are thinking of free will as some sort of supernatural phenomenon that evades cause and effect and therefore cannot be an explanation

I am not saying that anything can evade the cause and effect syndrome.  I am just pointing out the possible error of assuming that all causes are limited to the deterministic chemical activity of matter within our universe.  I am implying that human creativity can provide evidence for causes outside the observed deterministic behaviour of matter.  Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

I think you are mixing up two rather different ideas here - creativity and design. 

Most human creativity is really just cross-fertillisation of ideas from one media to another, such as when Darwin came up with his big idea, it was by applying thinking from a different discipline (economics) to the natural world; composers take inspiration from literature, and so forth.  But further to that it is intriguing to consider that quantum effects are increasingly becoming understood to have some signature at the level of biological systems and so perhaps maybe human creativity owes in some part to some level of quantum indeterminacy.

Intelligent design, on the other hand, implies a deliberate, guided, fashioning of something, which is in stark contrast to what any quantum indeterminacy would give you, which is essentially a random, unpredictable quality, not at all what you want if you are trying to design something particular.

[SusanDoris]

LJ and Shaker

Not only will people of different faiths living in the UK with its mainly fair and open society realise its benefits, but also the real and provable excitement of usable technology, evidence of probes landing on comets and so on will surely make younger people understand that that is far, far more exciting than chasing the ever-elusive shadows of inexplicable, mystical stuff.

[BashfulAnthony]

Is it worth it?

www.neatorama.com/.../10-things-about-the-large-hadron-collider-you- wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask/‎

[Leonard James]

LJ and Shaker

Not only will people of different faiths living in the UK with its mainly fair and open society realise its benefits, but also the real and provable excitement of usable technology, evidence of probes landing on comets and so on will surely make younger people understand that that is far, far more exciting than chasing the ever-elusive shadows of inexplicable, mystical stuff.

That's true, and hopefully it will negate the nonsense they are taught to believe.

[Rhiannon]

Intelligent design does take place in our universe, as aptly demonstrated by human beings.

Tell that to a woman in the agonies of childbirth.

That's because we are bad!

Yea - I reckon you're* really wicked - that's why I like you so much


*That's singular and plural....

 

[Rhiannon]

LJ and Shaker

Not only will people of different faiths living in the UK with its mainly fair and open society realise its benefits, but also the real and provable excitement of usable technology, evidence of probes landing on comets and so on will surely make younger people understand that that is far, far more exciting than chasing the ever-elusive shadows of inexplicable, mystical stuff.

That's true, and hopefully it will negate the nonsense they are taught to believe.

But some people are just made mystical. I wasn't taught to be pagan, or pantheist, or animist, or anything remotely like that. Until I became a pagan my mum believed paganism was akin to satanism.

I realise that my brain might be wired a bit squiffy. Someone suggested I might have a type of synaesthesia. I realise none of this has to originate without myself.

But you have to realise that not only can I reason my way out of it, I don't actually want to. I like my living spirituality. Why would I want to change it?

[BashfulAnthony]

LJ and Shaker

Not only will people of different faiths living in the UK with its mainly fair and open society realise its benefits, but also the real and provable excitement of usable technology, evidence of probes landing on comets and so on will surely make younger people understand that that is far, far more exciting than chasing the ever-elusive shadows of inexplicable, mystical stuff.

That's true, and hopefully it will negate the nonsense they are taught to believe.

Could you possibly up-date your set of templates:  it's getting so boring reading the same ones over and over?

[Leonard James]

LJ and Shaker

Not only will people of different faiths living in the UK with its mainly fair and open society realise its benefits, but also the real and provable excitement of usable technology, evidence of probes landing on comets and so on will surely make younger people understand that that is far, far more exciting than chasing the ever-elusive shadows of inexplicable, mystical stuff.

That's true, and hopefully it will negate the nonsense they are taught to believe.

But some people are just made mystical. I wasn't taught to be pagan, or pantheist, or animist, or anything remotely like that. Until I became a pagan my mum believed paganism was akin to satanism.

I realise that my brain might be wired a bit squiffy. Someone suggested I might have a type of synaesthesia. I realise none of this has to originate without myself.

But you have to realise that not only can I reason my way out of it, I don't actually want to. I like my living spirituality. Why would I want to change it?

You can't! If your reason tells you it's correct, you can't make yourself believe it isn't.

[Rhiannon]

My reason tells me nothing of the sort, Len.