"You can't prove any of your assertions (your nice and false assumptions) yet you spew it out like it is true!"

I would love for you to give me some specific examples of where I have made assertions that aren't backed up by data. If I've said something in error, or if you'd like my citations, please let me know. I will do my best to accommodate your request.

Here's the thing: I study like a motherfucker. This is what I do. I read information from a variety of sources on the subject of the Bible, because ancient history and religion are passions of mine. I will read scholastic books and papers as well articles and the like put out by evangelical sources. I also read source materials, follow references, read footnotes. I do my goddamned homework, even when it's aggravating.

In fact, that's how I found myself on the nonbelieving side of the fence after grazing in the deep weeds of Mormonism. I studied and considered the facts placed in front of me until I realized that the data didn't match my foregone conclusions. Then I had the integrity to accept that I had been wrong.

I want to know truth, whatever it is. That is why I study. That's why I debate. That's why I'm still fucking breathing instead of hanging from a noose.

Now please, tell me where I am wrong and give me the data to prove it.

ETA:

The quote from Spiritist came from this thread:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1706004

which is a continuation of

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1705762



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 07:00PM by En Sabah Nur.

I'd like to see that too because somehow I don't think spiritus

has anything of substance to prove you wrong. I don't think

spiritus has ever studied like a muthafucker actrally.

I'd like to see that, three.
Because frankly, it's that poster's claims that he talks to dead people, is psychic, etc. that are "spewed out like they're true," yet there is no evidence to back them up.

Like this:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1706173,1706180#msg-1706180


Pots and kettles. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 04:12PM by ificouldhietokolob.

I saw that. The whole thread is interesting as you see a variety of believers of one sort or another spinning yarn around a central thesis, and none of them quite jive with the others. In the end you're left with less of a solution to the problem posed and something more like a atheist's cat toy to be scratched up and batted around.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 04:20PM by En Sabah Nur.

I'd like to see spiritist give reference or well thought out reasoning or something. Saying what he said is sort of a hit and run kind of thing to do that I'm not a fan of. Anyone with facts always leads with them I have found.

"I am the rocks of the eternal shore, crash against me and be broken!"

So sayeth the mighty Apocalypse!




(he kinda has a point though)

I always appreciate when someone is able to identify my moniker.

I don't think Spiritist can understand how profoundly offensive the notion that I don't back up my assertions with evidences truly is for a person like me.

I am, if anything, a researcher.

For instance, I'm currently reading The Early History of God: Yahweh and other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith. These kinds of books take me weeks or months to read, because I follow citations. When it comes to scripture references, I'm like a vampire confronted with a dropped pile of seeds: I have to count and examine each one before I can move forward.

I have spent three days on a single paragraph of the book, because I had to try to understand the connection between the Amherst Egyptian Papyrus No. 63 and Psalm 20. This led me to, of all places, Mormon apologetics websites as well as a number of papers breaking down the demotic script and the Aramaic language AEP63 was wriiten in. It also had me furiously trying to find references as to when Psalm 20 might have been written. I have about six or eight more questions that have stemmed from all of this that I'm still trying to puzzle out. THAT is how invested I am in understanding what I'm reading.

take the 'ghosts' topic.

I have never said, "there are no such things as ghosts." I don't believe in ghosts, but that's based on my empiric data: I ain't seen one. Okay, plus my version of logic, which I've used my way to reach MY conclusions.

I don't get the "Logic" of ghosts! There is none! There's usually a story involving unresolved activity. But who doesn't die with unresolved issues? Why doesn't every old house have a ghost?

I've never demanded data about ghosts, or spirits or astrology or the hereafter. I'm too busy trying to explain to critics why golf is life.

Study like a motherfucker, and it is beautiful.

One of the things that I admire is that you aren't afraid of contentious topics amongst scholars. You find their disagreements to be useful and important, and you work on understanding why this is.

People who want cheap and easy answers aren't going to find value in that kind of deep study, and its why their disagreements with you are dismissive. When pressed, there aren't specific examples given.

You and I have sometimes disagreed, and even lovingly yelled at each other over issues, but I always respect your attention to detail, and if I want to argue - I have to bring it.

Thank you. And by the way, thanks for constantly throwing shit my way to look up.

I don't know why I'm constantly disappointed that I rarely get cogent responses back from the faithful about the things I research. THEY claim that this shit is cosmically significant; Bible study is only a hobby of mine (for now).

The vast majority of the responses I get are copy-and-paste jobs from apologetics websites, which are generally condescending and illogical, filled with tired, fallacious arguments.

I don't want to lower my expectations for believers. I want them to step up to the fucking plate and prove me wrong.

I think most believers are like my mother. She believes it. She "knows" its true. So why bother with the details?

If you aren't saying what they want to hear--you must be wrong.

My idea of heaven is a series of dinner parties (with great desserts) where my girlfriend and I are with six other interesting people and we sit and talk and laugh and say "Aha!! But what about _______?..." to each other all night, in a hectic round of exuberant adult conversation.

I don't say this to be mean, because Amyjo would be welcome as one of the other six at my dinner party, but can you imagine a dinner party of eight Amyjos? Lovely evening, I'm sure, but 97.3% of the spectrum of humanity would say 'delete me now' if that was how they had to spend Eternity. It would be 98.8% who would request deletion if it was seven EODs and each of them, so AJ wins again...dammit.

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My idea of heaven is a series of dinner parties
> (with great desserts) where my girlfriend and I
> are with six other interesting people and we sit
> and talk and laugh and say "Aha!! But what about
> _______?..." to each other all night, in a hectic
> round of exuberant adult conversation.

If there is a "heaven," I hope I get to be one of the six :)

En Sabah Nur, of your first post I especially love "I want to know truth...That's why I'm still fucking breathing instead of hanging from a noose." There's no better motive than that, and it just about demands to be taken seriously. I enjoyed that.

Whenever I manage to convert thoughts into text I feel like I'm not dying inside.

Some of us live like our lives depend on it.

We can only prove to yourself through faith, and then you get the experience.

Another way is to share a prophecy you have received, before it happens, and then when it comes true there is you proof. BUT if you don't believe it after that, that is bad.

Unbelievers don't believe experiences that you say already happened. For example, I've had lots and lots of experiences, feelings, intensely strong feelings, dreams that have come true, hearing a voice in my mind during prayers.... But unbelievers discount those it seems.

I've said twice, on this board, something I know is going to happen to me. When it happens, I will report it, and if you still don't believe, then your mind is too far closed.

Your experiences are your own, and although I assume that there's a more naturalistic explanation for what you feel you have encountered (confirmation bias and reconstructed memories springing immediately to mind), I will not tell you what YOU should think about the events in your life that have shaped your perception of reality.

That's why data points collected from consistent, scientific methodology are so important: it minimizes the potential of human error. Literary criticism and archaeology aren't exactly the hardest of sciences, to be sure, but those fields, combined with numerous others, help us to get a better approximate understanding of how events took place in the ancient past.

There isn't a consistent view of the Bible from its adherents, however. There is no strong spiritual consensus that matches the data collected. Just as police can't rely on psychics to solve all crime - Minority Report is a fantasy - historians and scholars can't rely on prophets and seers to give them special insight into the events found in scripture.

I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is...

I was married for 20 yrs. Towards the end of my marriage, I had a really really bad dream I got divorced. Out if the blue, my ex wanted a divorce.

After my marriage ended, one night I had a dream that I had a baby named Jenna. I thought while still dreaming, why would I name a baby Jenna when I have a daughter named .... It rhymes with Jenna.

Then I woke up. In the morning, it concluded it meant that I would have some type of relationship with someone named Jenna. So I waited 2 yrs and 3 months and i met and was I crushing on a server. When I eventually asked her name she said I told you already, I said she that she hadn't, and then she told me her name was Jenna. I. Was. Floored.

But I did know 100% that I would connect with someone named Jenna. She is the hottest girl I have ever met or seen BTW. So after 2 years of being in the friend zone we were at a club and after I realized that I'm stuck in the friend zone so it was Sunday morn and I'm lieing in bed with a hangover, saying a silent but pissed off prayer, not going to church, and while I was praying I felt a force push the thoughts out of my head, and I heard a voice in my mind and in my ears.

And it was a young man's voice, sounded late teens, early 20's, say, you are going to win 7 million dollars. So that was 2 yrs 3 months ago.

So I firmly believes it is going to happen. I also still believe Jenna an I are going to connect again, she's gone for a year to Australia for a year work visa to live with her sis, and she is half my age.

So this is an experiment. I believe it so much, I've told 21 people. Every time I've heard a voice in my mind during a prayer it has happened, but this is the first time I heard a voice in my mind and in my ears.

Here's the thing: I normally don't respond to personal experiences like this, because I don't have anything at stake in attempting to disprove them or cause doubts.

And I won't comment much here. These are meaningful experiences for you.

I will say that I don't find your narrative personally convincing, but my opinion shouldn't matter to you. We don't know each other well enough to truly understand each others' personal contexts.

Like the Dukes of Hazzard, we're all making our way, any way we know how. If belief in the supernatural is what floats your boat, then have at it.

I will however, debate your definition of a closed mind. If you have an unexplained experience, then create or be given a metaphor to describe that experience, then accept that metaphor as truth, you've succeeded in wrapping your mind up in a self-satisfying sphere of self-contained experience and explanation without an ounce of objective evidence. And should evidence arise that contradicts your previously decided supernatural explanation, you will likely reject it without much thought -- You've already decided on the cause. This is how TBM's stay TBM's in spite of overwhelming evidence of deception on the part of the church.

Consider, on the other hand, the person who has an unexplained experience and simply accepts it as unexplained. That is a mind open to possibility, and if a supportable explanation for said unexplained experience arises, that person will likely accept said explaination -- because that mind is open.

From my perspective, you've got the open vs. closed mind thing exactly backward.

Interesting we both have had dreams, visions and heard voices. These were 'evidence' for us, but, too bad we can't control it enough to prove it to others.

I am still working at that but I am not convinced we can ever prove 'spiritual' experiences no matter how many correct predictions we can make.

Too bad we just can't leave it as a 'belief' or an 'opinion' without being attacked but that is life on RFM!

PS Just read your other post about predictions. My premonitions/visions that were predictions are 100%, dreams 100%, voices 100% but I have never had predictions with voices. My 'predictions'-- I try to force (ask) are not 100% ----- I think my ego gets in the way so still trying to work that area.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 10:13PM by spiritist.

Why would you think you can express an opinion in a public space and not expect that you've just opened that opinion to debate?

I stand all amazed!!!

Almost all of the gang of 'RFM intellectuals' come out for this ----- very impressed with all the comments! Especially, when it is clear that few if any really read the comments driving the response ----- par for the course for the 'gang'.

I also appreciate his letting us know of his credentials -----
'I study like a motherfucker. This is what I do. I read information from a variety of sources on the subject of the Bible, because ancient history and religion are passions of mine. I will read scholastic books and papers as well articles and the like put out by evangelical sources. I also read source materials, follow references, read footnotes. I do my goddamned homework, even when it's aggravating'. If you will read up on psychology I think they have a term for someone that has to put this type of hype out like this!

Here is the actual statement that got the 'response' stated above.

'I am, for instance, usually quite nice to most people in which I come into contact, even when I'd love to eschew social niceties. But when it comes to belief, I am under no obligation to let someone make declarations based on false assumptions without objection.' ----- Sorry, nothing about spirits, God or any other woo! Oh but you 'RFM intellectual gang' would never know because you are studying so hard and reading 'foot notes' ----- give me a break! You have trouble reading period! You should all be ashamed ----- although there are some on this site that love it when you show your true 'intellectualism'.

I challenged his 'nice' statement and he starting a personal attack on my statement back speaks volumes about that!

The other statement I challenged was the part about 'declarations based on false assumptions' ---- again something he clearly cannot prove. I have had hundreds of 'actual experiences' with 'spirit' ---- yet you call that a 'declaration based on false assumptions' ----- PROVE IT!!!

And while you are at it prove all medium, past life, near death experience, etc. books as well are all based on 'false assumptions'.

I figured as much! This time it wasn't me making 'assertions that I cannot prove'!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 08:47PM by spiritist.

That was in your quote.

I know because I read it.

Spiritist, I never once sought to insult you. I asked you to show me where I had made false assumptions.

You came at me with insults.

I have said nothing here, and very little anywhere else, about mediums, NDEs or past life experiences, because I don't find the topic particularly interesting or the recorded experiences convincing. It is also not my responsibility to disprove them. YOU are making the positive claim. Back them the fuck up your own damned self.

By the way, I take quite a bit of pride in my research prowess; hence my laying bare the effort I put out to collect and consider information. They are not my "credentials." I'm not trying to convince you that I'm right. I am trying to emphasize my devotion to discovering what it true.

Spiritist, your response was unnecessarily venomous and insulting. You can act like an asshole if you like, but unless you can back up your assertions with solid arguments and evidence, then you just end up looking like a fool.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 09:07PM by En Sabah Nur.

Sorry if you are offended but,'You' drove this not me! You should have known why my screen name is 'Spiritist'!

You stated 'when it comes to belief ... based on false assumptions' ----- again you are talking to a 'spiritist'.

How did you expect me to react?

The only statements I still claim you cannot prove are the 'nice' and the 'belief based on false assumption' ---- which you clearly cannot so why argue?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/02/2015 09:24PM by spiritist.

I see.

Forgive me for assuming that a Spiritist could engage in rational discussion.

Your point is noted and my assumptions corrected. I'll not make that mistake again.

Incidentally, to clarify my remarks that you seem to find so offensive, let me say that I am polite by default. I just don't feel the need to keep silent about assertions that are demonstrably false or which deserve criticism. I was not pointedly attacking any specific belief or ideology, but rather I was making a very general statement. Which, from what I've gathered, virtually everyone but you understood.

If I want to dismantle a particular argument, I won't simply say that it's "false." I'll back up that claim with evidence.

I once told a kid that I could make water as hard as a rock. He was a little kid, living out in the campo in Mexico. He'd never seen ice... or a refrigerator.

I had him fetch me some water. Then we went a couple of miles on donkeys to my great aunt's house, in Nacozari, Sonora Mexico, where I took the water he'd provided, walked him into the house, put the water in the freezer section of the refrigerator and then we went out and shot marbles.

Later we went back in and I showed him the water, now hard as a rock. His surprise was genuine. I told him the water was hard because I had invoked an acient mayan curse.

It's likely that he eventually figured things out. But that day he had little else to chose from when it came to explanations for water hard as a rock.

I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm willing to be shown proof. You are not going to believe me when I tell you that there's a ancient Mayan curse that turns water into a rock, because you currently possess knowledge that refutes this Mayan curse explanation. I personally am too busy to make this request of you, but there are others here who would like the opportunity to review any evidence you have of spirits. Apparently, rather than say, "I have none, you simply have to take my word for it" is insufficient.

One of the guys I play golf with MUST have seven new white tees in his pocket when he begins a round of golf. I've never asked him why. But if he started preaching to me that it is a superior way to play the game, we'd have some words...

Extraordinany claims.... like say, NDE's, Ghosts, the whole gamit

of Woo Woo claims... demand extraordinary proof. Do you actually

have any substantiated proof Spiritus, or do we just have to

take your word for things ?

I never claimed to have proof for others ----- I hope to one day but not sure it works that way. However, I have a lot of 'personal' evidence and 'experiences' that support my beliefs ----- to myself. Hundreds!

I probably would not take 'my word' for things but you could humor me and at least consider it my 'opinion' and something I cannot prove to others. There is no need to argue about my 'beliefs' or 'opinions'.

I would like to say I am having an 'impact' on my family and relatives as many are now experiencing 'spirit' experiences ---------- at least recognizing them for the first time in their lives and thanking me for helping them be more open. One relative claimed my opening her up and a premonition saved her life.

I still have a number of years to work on this stuff and I would like to think I am an optimist in this area so I will see what happens as time goes by.

I would debate that you haven't "opened" anyone up. I would propose that what you've done is closed their minds around your metaphor and given them incentive to reject any potentially verifiable future evidence.

What I don't get is the assertion by woo people that their words are proof, and that as proof, it proves them correct. Then comes the demand that we find the proof to prove them wrong, and when we say we can't, then it escalates to, "Well then I must be right, because you have no proof I'm wrong!"

"But you can't prove you're right!"

"I just said it happened, and I was there when it happened! You have to prove it didn't happen, and since you can't, then it happened why and the way I said it happened!"

It'll be a blessing when the laws of spiritism are finally understood and ghosts and spirits and the like can be controlled via said laws and we can all put our doubts aside.

There will probably a lot of competition by talent agencies, sports agents and the government to represent the spirits, once we can reliably communicate with them, and benefit from all the shit they know.

Hey, 6 iron, same here!:)

I find it hypocritical that you Spiritus would expect proof

from others but yet you expect others to just "take your word

for it"?

How terribly convenient of you. In view of that, I would not

expect others to give you proof since you can't comply.

You can't prove any thing you have claimed .

Some people make unsupportable claims and will never admit it is their 'belief' or 'opinion' nor agree they cannot prove everything they say.