whats so hilarious, is my dad is a paator and i was born christian ( non believer now) . i asked him about speaking to god and he said " you know that voice in ur head" im surprised he was so honest to say that. becuz i actually agree with him. all in all god is "self" imo

I wouldn't be so quick to sum up all of God based on something your dad said, even if he is a Pastor, but this kind of proves what I'm saying. Your dad's experience is worthless to you personally.

i agree. but as far as christianity is concerned i trust him. he went to bible college. runs a bible college. has read every version of the bible in every og language. and he is one of those new testament "grace" christians where he believes all u have to do to make it to heaven is accept jesus as lord n savior. IF I WAS STILL CHRISTIAN this is the type of christian i'd want to be. he started as a "rules for salvation " christian and is now a "grace" christian. so i do value his opinion as a religious ( oops christianity is not a religion) individual, not just cause he's my dad. he has even worked quantum physics (and the unseen worls) into his logic. its hilarious but he's quite thorough.

but yea. all in all i dont believe in magic. so burning bushes and parting seas never happened in my opinion

All fair points, but a couple of thoughts. For one, if I were you, I would share this with your dad and see what he says. It sounds like there was a miscommunication if your dad is such a devout Christian, and for him to suggest that God's voice is really just your internal voice. Aside from that, how could I prove to you what God sounds like to me, if I claim to hear it or sense it? It's worthless to you, no matter how much I insist on it, if you are looking for evidence. Unless you inherently trust me, if you are looking for evidence this was never a good starting point.

Secondly, not all Christians believe the bible to be literal. There are many who discount the burning bush and parting seas as allegorical.

You misunderstand. I'm not saying that you're wrong about god, how could I possibly know that, I'm saying that what you consider the most compelling evidence that supports your belief may not be what you think it is. You could be right, just for the wrong reason.


I'm not sure that you can use the paradigm 'Let's suppose that the god I believe in actually exists and then......' in a conversation about whether or not the god you believe in exists.

Let's suppose instead that any of the gods could be real, or that there are none at all. To then say 'I'm right and everyone else is wrong' (which is what anyone is doing if they believe in a specific god) can't really come across as anything other than somewhat egotistical (maybe egocentric?) except maybe to those who share the same belief. Maybe even then.

But there are miracles that you do believe in. How can you pick and choose what seems real to you like that? The bible is the divinely inspired word of god right?

If you believe in miracles you believe in the supernatural which is absolute piffle. Can you provide evidence that anything supernatural has ever happened? The miracle of life and the universe is that there are no miracles. It was Douglas Adams who said “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

I understand that, it's part of what I mean when I say that I could be wrong.

I'm not arguing about a specific God, I'm only saying that in a scenario where God reveals himself spiritually, those who reject anything spiritual, will reject God. Whereas those who do not reject the spiritual will not reject God.

You don't believe there is a God, but if there is a God, you would still deny him by denying his revelations, so there could never be a God in your world-view, including in a world where God existed.

You don't even need the bible to be a Christian. I'm not denying miracles, or the bible, I was simply trying to get Poke to think more about these things aside from the criticisms he has. To deny Christ because you don't believe in certain OT miracles is an unnecessary step.

Ok.


I thought that you knew Jesus was active in your life, that's pretty specific.

I don't believe that there are any gods or any other type of supernatural entities. I'm sure that if any gods or ghosts or fairies actually existed, it wouldn't be a matter for conjecture, we'd be quite sure. What theists do for me is what Oscar Wilde said about them looking for a black cat that isn't actually in a dark room and finding it anyway.


I agree, it's part of why I think that Christianity is the most popular religion, it's easy to be Christian.

You haven't really responded to the point that you believe some biblical stories to be allegorical and some to be 'real'. How do you choose which is which?

I'm not sure you are getting my point, which is that it is irrelevant if God exists in your world-view, because by your epistemic norms, you would never accept him. All of God's efforts to communicate and reveal himself would be dismissed as cognitive biases.

As for what is allegorical, and what is not, you are missing the point of what I am saying. You don't *need* to believe in anything except for Christ, his atonement and his resurrection. It would make for bad theology to dismiss everything except for Christ, but the other events simply point to Christ.

Sure it would, if these psychic's earned our trust through repeated demonstrations of their ability attributed to God. As I've said several times, atheists dont require absolute infallible evidence to believe in God, most of us just require the same level of evidence that is given for any other number of scientific discoveries. For instance I believe in evolution at all levels, because the people making the claim are credible. Pastors making claims about God have no credibility at all.

I dont think these people are literally hearing voices in their head. For starters he was probably being somewhat metaphorical in his approach, but even then "that voice in your head" which is more or less how you hear yourself when you think is merely your own conscience. I think a lot of religious people mistakenly associate this with some kind of supernatural presence. They never stopped to think "wait a second, maybe that voice in my head is just me talking to myself as I verbally go through the motions of thought before doing something". Someone told them at an early age "oh thats God" and they just said "oh ok!" because a child will believe anything.

Women sleep with me for no real reason (thinly veiled brag). That's a miracle by any measure, but I still wouldn't attribute it to a deity.

In this two-step process: firstly, how I define miracles is important; secondly, what I attribute miracles to is important.

Just because I am an atheist doesn't mean I don't believe in miracles or preclude myself from experiencing them. My two-step process outlined above is simply different to that of the way a theist experiences miracles.

That's all fine, and if you reject the supernatural because there is no testable evidence, that's also fine, but you leave no room for a supernatural God this way.

It is irrelevant if God exists or not, because you would not acknowledge him given your epistemic norms, and you should at least recognize that. All your conclusions lead to is that there is no testable proof of God or the supernatural, but that is obvious by definition.

I'm curious as to how you define miracles. Your first example is not a supernatural event as far as I know. Are there any miracles, by your definition, that defy the laws of nature?

I am not sure the question makes sense. A miracle that defies our current scientific laws, would just requires us to change our viewpoint.

So a miracle can only exist as a miracle long enough for us to understand and incorporate it into our scientific models. And this is effectively tautological, as science is just our best stab of modelling the world, whatever it takes.

Assuming non divine miracle, I don't think the definition of a divine miracle makes sense as it assumes something that can not be known.

By your definition of a miracle, they simply don't exist. Which is fine, you are free to deny miracles, but by definition a miracle is that which defies some law, or else it would not be miraculous.

VeeDDzz' claims to believe in miracles, but does not attribute them to a deity, and I think a valid question to him is if he defines miracles (since he stated he defines them differently) as breaking actual laws or not.

I am an atheist. I see the difference between a possible 'God' and religion.

No religion that I have heard of makes sense. It's not logical.

However I am sure that to believe in 'God' requires a) a need to do so and b) faith. However to me faith is merely fantasy...unless I have a vision on the Road to Damascus.

Most people I think would like to believe in a God, which is like some kind of support system. And eventually when things get sticky (like getting old or ill) their fantasy takes over. Nothing wrong with that - it might happen to me.

Where there's a problem is that in a Christian country native-born people are expected to believe that God is the father of Jesus Christ. In another part of the world they are expected to believe something else. So they never attempt to separate 'God' from their religion. That causes problems as no religion is logical or simple.

Does that make sense?

If you had an experience similar to the one like "Damascus" you would still need faith, because how could you be sure it was actually God, and not like many people like to point out, your own cognitive bias, or some sort of hallucination, or mental projection, etc?

Furthermore, how do you know that some Christians have not experienced something similar, and believe in part because of that experience?

The ironic thing to me is that there are some Christians who used to be atheists, who would insist for evidence in order for them to believe, until they had a spiritual experience, and now they believe. And now they argue with other atheists who insist for proof, and the circle continues. Perhaps one day you'll have a "road to Damascus" experience, and you'll argue from the other side. Either way, my point is that yes, I could be wrong about God, but conversely God could exist and reveal himself as he sees fit. Those who will only accept testable evidence will necessarily reject God even if he does exist, and that seems dangerous to me.

My definition of miracle involves two main components; (1) the unlikelihood of the event taking place and; (2) a sense of wonder or awe during or after the event.

There are miracles for me that seemingly defy the laws of nature. For example, when I'm getting abducted by UFO's during an LSD trip I definitely feel that I am experiencing a miraculous moment.

I haven't yet experienced a miracle that defies the laws of physics but I am not closed off to it. Reality is a strange mistress. For example, it's highly peculiar that we're living on a rock that's spinning around a giant fire-ball at 100 000 km/h, suspended in empty space. It's also highly peculiar that for me, as an observer of all this, most of the time find it to be a completely normal state of affairs. It's almost as if it's some sort of cosmic joke, where we live in a universe that - if modelled mathematically - could not be more convoluted and bizzare than it actually is.

To that extent the universe can best be described with one word: weird. Seeing that it's weird, one must remain open to experiencing yet even more weirdness. What I refuse to do however (on a logical basis), is attribute miracles to anything beyond statistical improbability because even if I do experience a miracle that defies the laws of physics, it would still neatly fit within my definition.

No, that is not true. I've seen this kind of dismissive argument brought up by theists a lot lately, the idea that because we cant test a paradox we will never believe, so you just kind of write us off as close minded people with impossible goals. Just because we cant test something doesnt mean we reject the possibility. If God gave everyone the ability to levitate against the laws of physics with no way for science to understand how it is occurring then we would still believe in God (not right away of course since we would at least try to explain it through other means, but if somehow someway it inevitably came down to that then fine, it's God).

In other words, I would have faith because it has been proven on a substantial level to me, the same way I have faith that the space shuttle works. It's not so much faith as it is trust. What I see from theists however is faith based upon absolutely nothing. They were simply indoctrinated during their youth. Their only reason for believing in God is because they were told to do so, and perhaps they made up excuses for it later in adulthood when nobody was telling them anymore. But they did not come to the conclusion themselves or via any sort of proof other than a feeling.

It's good to keep in mind how strange the universe really is, it's one of those things that because we are indoctrinated by her all our lives, that it's difficult to stand back and have that moment of clarity, where you can marvel at how strange life really is.

So if you did witness a miracle that somehow defied the laws of physics say, would you look to change how we see physics, or would you be satisfied with the explanation that there was a rule that was indeed broken, temporarily so?

Okay, fair enough, but you should keep an open mind that some theists may not just simply believe for "no reason", but perhaps they saw some "levitation tricks" for themselves.

You should keep in mind that even an astounding miracle such as this, if it only happened once without a repeatable and testable scenario, it would likely be discounted as an anomaly, and not given credit to God, even if he was directly behind it.

The laws of physics would likely have to be updated - granted that my case was not isolated.

As such, I would look to see if my case was isolated because it's logical to avoid generalizing based on single case studies. If indeed, my case was isolated and no one else had experienced something similar, I would look to find out why I am the only one to have experienced that particular event: perhaps a superior (highly advanced/evolved) species of aliens was trying to communicate with me or show me something, or perhaps I have just experienced a hallucination. To conclude 'divine intervention' immediately would be unnecessary granted that; (a) we have gathered more evidence in favor of the likelihood of aliens existing and; (b) we would not be able to distinguish between the powers of an advanced alien species and that of God.

If my case wasn't isolated and others had experienced similar events I would next look to collect both qualitative and quantitative evidence from those who had experienced similar events and I would look to publish something regarding these events. I would avoid jumping to conclusions however, until my peers considered my publication and responded with their critical feedback. Perhaps this process would lead to updating our understanding of physics or perhaps it would be dismissed as nothing more than 'wishful thinking' - one can not say with certainty.

I think that this is very revealing. I agree that it's very difficult for me to accept that there are any gods (although not impossible so you shouldn't say 'never' if you really think that your god is real) and there's a very good reason for that and it's that there is no compelling evidence. If there were, then it would be perverse of me to continue to deny their existence in the way that it's perverse to deny that ToE explains what we observe. If it's so easy for me to dimiss 'evidence' as cognitive biases at work, then why is it so difficult for you to accept that your beliefs may in fact be cognitive biases at work to the point that you seriously doubt them? Where I easily accept that I might be decieving myself, you seem to deceive yourself all the harder to avoid the reaching same conclusion.

That leads me to the inevitable question, how it it that you are so certain (using 'certain' in the way that we've agreed that we are certain of our views) when you can't even convince me even slightly that what you believe is likely to be true? Bear in mind that I'm not trying to convince you that your god doesn't exist, I've only ever questioned why it is you believe in the first place.

Ok, but can you answer the quetion anyway? Why do you believe the miracle stories but consider other biblical accounts to be allegorical? What enables you to make that distinction?