LOL? It's a great argument for why there will always be gaps to exploit, but it says nothing to why that's a valid form of inquiry.

It is absurd to believe you know from where/whom the universe came or how it started. It doesn't matter what your explanation is, it is absurd to believe it is correct based on the current state of our knowledge.

Once again you missed the point. You make the exact same statement as I do when you say God does not exist, or it is absurd to believe in God.

I'm sure you have seen me label a lot of arguments for God's existence absurd, but I'm equally sure you've never seen me make either of those statements above.

The problem with doing things this way is that it hinders advancement. It always has and probably always will.

Imagine what would happen if everyone (scientists included) threw away the current scientific method and just started asserting conclusions about non-physical beings. It'd be like rewinding back to the Christian dark ages.

I think it's absurd to base your life, and the lives of others, around it. Believing it as a (currently unprovable) hypothesis is fine. People do the same thing with string theory and multiverse theories. More power to them.

But you'll never see a multiverse theorist vote against gay marriage because of what he believes might happen in one of his imaginary universes.

Well, my statement (that you spoke out against) was in regards to someone's statement basically saying it is absurd to believe in God. So you could see the confusion.

You will never see me vote against gay marriage either.

I'll go on the record and say it. I think it's absurd to believe in God. I think think it's absurd to believe in anything without good evidence.

Fixed -- just so you don't look like too much of a hero.

Think about that sentence. How could science be set up to deal with 'natural' things, unless it presupposed a 'supernatural' category? (To avoid, as it were.)

Obviously science presupposes no such thing; ergo its scope is not limited in the way you suggest.

OK, where is this "unnatural universe" that science is avoiding? Jib, your statement is nonsensical.

lol. so true.

I am not talking really about science itself, but "scientists".

Science could detect the effects of something outside of our universe has on our universe.

But this is really not my point. I don't care that science only deals with the natural, I am not "knocking" science for that.

What I am speaking about is the people that claim they need "scientific evidence" when no such evidence could possibly exist within the current framework. Then use that as an excuse to not believe God exists.

People on this forum do this all of the time.

What I am saying is that when dealing with the "supernatural" issues, they already have thrown out the scientific methods they employ in other areas of study.

For example. There was a stry on some TV news magazine about a child who seemed to be having past life memeories. Well, he had horrible nightmares and he also had information it was impossible for him to have gained on his own, according to his parents. Now, he was like two years old when this all started, the parents were very strict about what he saw on TV and so forth. I have a link someplace I think if anyone is interested, but - that's not the issue with science.

Afetr they do all this interviewing and find the actual guy who died in WW2 and so on, they submit all this info to some Ivy League scientist for comment. He never gives them an interview, they catch him coming out of a building and ask what he thinks. His whole comment? "He saw it on TV."

That was his "scientific" finding. No study, no evidence, no nothing, just him not believing this could happen so he dismissed the whole thing.

Even the TV producers couldn't find a bit of footage anywhere on this obscure pilot and his plane and how he was killed. Took the father a couple years to track down.

The standard skeptic answer is "The father did it for publicity." OK, let's pretend he did, he found this very obscure event somehow - taught it to his son, lied about the nightmares, the whole thing is a scam. Not what I believe but let's say that's true.

The scientist couldn't possibly know that. The simply did no science, or even any bit of investigation not science. He gave a prejudiced personal opinion and dismissed it all with a completely non-scientific declaration.

Scientists who do work at understanding supernatural occurrences, are most often rejected by their peers, called "pseudo-science" by skeptics, lose their jobs and funding.

Of course, we have historical precedent in the rejection of Newton's theory of universal gravity by his scientific peers who said he was "bowing to mysticism."

Science only advances by some going beyond what is known. I did not suggest anyone start "asserting" anything. Simply that is we can posit that animals or plants we cannot see can cause illness, a force we cannot explain can hold planets in orbit, then we can observe metaphenomena and make the same kinds of informed speculations which is always at the forefront of discovery.

There's probably a good reason for this. Do these scientists (or "scientists" maybe) employ the scientific method in their work (or "work" maybe)?

Of course not. Only God is God.

As for the rest - you seem to have a lot of issues about me, personally. Sounds like you have been PMing with the anti-Listening brigade.

I will say this about all 2p2 magazine articles that deal with poker strategy. They are read by Mason and Dynasty, some are read by David, and if some sort of glaring error was found it'd be either shot back to the author for correction or published with one of Mason's addendums. My articles are all available publicly and you are free to comment in the appropriate place. I believe the 2p2 magazine forum would be one of those places. I don't check it so if you go start a thread there, PM me and I'll join you. But I'm done talking about it here.

I was speaking of individual consciousness and said that pretty clearly in my post. This is the unsupportable belief, that the individual self-aware consciousness that you or I have can cease to exist.
Are you saying they don't?

You might as well say science only deals with the supernatural. There is no coherent distinction here. We only have these categories in everyday language because of our cultural legacies and psychological biases.

There's not a working concept of 'God' in science for the same reason that you would be outraged beyond words if your wife was rushed to an emergency prayer meeting instead of a trauma center after an accident.

In science, like matters of life-and-death, reality has a strong vote. When the blood hits the asphalt, we all know perfectly well what we really need: a ****ing cell phone and a goddamn ambulance, NOW.

I was having a similar discussion on another board a few years back and someone told me this and provided a reference I validated at the time, but don't have anymore. Anyway - he said there was a famous at the time (Ancient Roman Empire) Temple Priestess, Isis perhaps? Who was famous because she healed through prayer.

I'm not saying she did or did not, but I don't think if she did it validates Isis as the truer version of God. If there is just one God, as I believe, then there's just the One. Whether you perceive that as Isis or Yahweh or Chiouthoo the Tree Spirit, it's all just God and prayer is a tool we all have available to access the power that comes through that.

I'm not saying anyone should believe that, just that to me, it doesn't prove one god is more god than some other god.

What do you believe? This is fascinating stuff.

I am reminded of middle school when two guys I know started claiming they were vampires. Eventually, people started to believe them. People actually believed them for as long as they could stand to keep it going. Mind you, not everyone believed them. I don't think any teachers believed them, for example.

Anyway, you might want to check out James Randi, for starters. The kind of claim you are writing about usually end up being fraudulent. That, combined with the fact that it is almost infinitely easy to fake, and the fact that if it is true it would seem on its surface to conflict with what we have learned about death from science, that I really can't imagine any compelling reason to lend people such as the parents and child that you mentioned, the time of day.

Even if they appear on a tv show!

I'd love for David to chime in on this, even though it is getting very far off topic. I can't say who does or does not read the articles before they are published, but I'd bet a substantial sum of money that David never carefully read your articles and found them to be substantially free from error before they were published. I simply cannot imagine someone as smart and knowledgeable of poker as the person who authored Theory of Poker could spend any amount of time with your articles and see them as anything but rather mindless filler material.

I'm going to have to admit that you've got me there.

I believe I might be able to defend the proposition that my "issues" with you are firmly rooted in the things you say, and so it is not as if I am judging you unfairly... HOWEVER, I keep behaving incredibly childishly in response to you, and that is obviously not cool.

I'll put a stop to it now. I may have to put you on ignore; I don't know. But one way or another, I'll find a way to stop stupidly spouting off every time I see you write something that irritates me.

Sorry for spamming RGT with this junk, RGT.

1st, I knew about the kid long long before anyone did a TV segment about him. I have been active in many forums and several have to do with this kind of phenomenon. His personal story and the parents' was well-known to us. Just like we all knew about AP/UB long before 60 minutes did a segment.

2nd - I guess I'll make my standard James Randi post. But I only do it once and I don't respond, so you get to have the last word.

1- I've known all about Randi very likely longer than you have been alive

2- He doesn't have a million dollars, never did, doubt he ever will

3- there are no controls at all, I know his website as well as anyone, try reading the actual agreement and rules to be a contender for the million - no judge for the final money but he himself, no standards, no checks or balances, no objective observers or oversight of any kind

4- Randi is more aware than anyone that there are genuine mediums out there - that's why he will not allow just anyone to compete - that is - he only takes candidates he already knows are fakes - he has consistently, that is - for years - refused to allow several well-known working mediums into his challenge.

6- you have to take his word for everything - and he's a lying sack - he's the most blatant scam artist on the net - and he has no respect whatsoever for any of his fans who believe every word that drops from his shriveled liver lips - he just likes those donations to keep coming in

Wow what a bait and switch dude. You're specifically asked by ILP what you're referring to by "god of the gaps" so we can identify the evidence needed to evaluate that claim, and you say the christian god of course. The as soon as you're pressed, you immediately switch to the arbitrary definition of god and start arguing about the creation of the universe the rest of the thread.

yeah the CHRISTIAN GOD, not the deist god