John Dub

This is pretty much what I say in about next Sunday’s Lectionary entry from Luke. Make up a story, pin anything you want on it. 

The pathway you describe is just humanism. No Jesus required.

OK, if you don’t give up on the original Christian pathway that was built on science. You do end up with a sort of good god?

Are you asking for clarification here? Are you being rhetorical? I can’t tell, because I just made the case that you don’t end up with a good god at all. Where is your evidence for a good god? That there was some c…[Read more]

Pulling together threads of this conversation, plus some inductive reasoning from Richard Carrier this morning. My post was intended to be a bit more subtle than Carrier. I was envisioning a world where some god-like powers were acting to make life better. Carrier calculates the odds that such a being exists by looking at the world we actually…[Read more]

Tee; To catch you up with my discussions with Xian:

I tried asking him a similar question, specifically comparing Christianity to Buddhism. He gave a short answer like the one here. Early on, he talked about the brain scans that were done on some Buddhists that earned them the headline “happiest people”. I tried to explain that was not an…[Read more]

Because you operate under the assumption that there is a solid and unified being that you love or are attracted to but there isn’t.

It could be your conception of love that is the problem. If you are attracted to someone, that’s fine, but part of that attraction is going to be sexual desire. Love though requires getting to know them, and part of k…[Read more]

If “in the mind”, “faith”, and “belief” all meant the same thing, then we wouldn’t need the different words. I don’t think anyone here has expressed the thought that they believe there is no real mind-body problem. If they did, I’d probably refer to neuroscience, that has some real information on that, but has not solved the problem. I don’t…[Read more]

I’m no expert at logic, but what I’m hearing is something like this:

Premise 1: Nothing

Conclusion: Nothing

Logical

But, here we are, in something, so where did it come from?
Premise 1: Everything has to come from something.

Conclusion: There must be something that came before everything else.

This is sometimes referred to as the “lo…[Read more]

Did you see the NOAA came out with a statement that they had said the hurricane could make it across FL, pick up steam in the gulf, and hit AL? It’s not false, however, basic fact checking here once again. They said that late in the previous week, and the odds were low. By Sunday, when the tweet was tweeted, the models were strongly pointing…[Read more]

I get that. I understood that from your first post on this forum. There’s really no need to discuss that any further. Is there anything I can do with that explanation? Does it provide us with any predictive power? Does it help explain the rest of the book of Genesis, or any of the other books of the Bible? Does it help us live better lives? If it…[Read more]

But that wasn’t the question at all, I do not recall asking that question, are you saying I asked that question?

I did introduce a new question, about God, but I thought I was directly addressing your statement that there can never be a theory explaining the presence of the universe. I said we used evidence and math to wind back the clock to the p…[Read more]

Thanks Doug. I’ve learned  a lot since being here. I can’t remember if you ever reprimanded me for anything, but if you did, it was an honor. Good luck in all you do.

I’m not terribly interested in discussing Krauss or how he communicates. It’s causing more heat than light in this discussion. So, I’ll agree with the above, “they have nothing whatsoever to say on the subject of where those fields came from, or of why the world should have consisted of the particular kinds of fields it does, or of why it should…[Read more]

Lausten all I’m doing is replying to other people’s posts, I am not doing anything other than expressing my opinion and either agreeing or disagreeing with others, labeling this as “treating people” is once again introducing an emotional component.

I believe that you believe that. But since you feel so strongly about that, it’s hard to even disc…[Read more]

To be clear, I’m not happy with how Holmes is treating people. He posts in multiple threads, crossing his conversation over all of them. He uses every form of name calling short of swear words. Trolling is so loosely defined, but yeah, he’s a troll. The sanction of banning someone is retributive and final, so I’m not a big fan of it. He’ll read…[Read more]

MS as in Mississippi?

It’s like in hockey…

That is exactly how it works. I would say it’s actually a tactic of people like Holmes, “draw the penalty” so to speak. In forums, I can see the necessity, because otherwise Doug would have to evaluate the quality of everyone’s arguments. Despite the obvious, there are places and people who would accept what Holmes says, t…[Read more]

Yeah, that’s not really a point. It’s just something you read and you don’t seem to understand it. Sometimes you don’t seem to believe it.

What are you doing Jacob? Is this your personal notepad or something?