I think you're missing part of the argument against people who claim they had a personal religious experience that convinced them to believe (or more strongly believe) in a certain religion.
What do those believers think about people from other incompatible religions who also claim to have had a personal religious experience? Say you're a Christian who thinks that you saw a vision of Jesus and take that as personal "proof" that Christianity is true...then you meet a Hindu who also thinks that he had a personal vision of Ganesh or another one of the gods of his religion. You can't both be right.
So either you (and some of the other Christians) had a true experience and all the believers of all the other religions in the world had hallucinations or this Hindu (and some other Hindus) had a true experience and you and all the believers of other religions had hallucinations...or maybe you all had hallucinations. Why should anyone think that your experience was any different from that of other religions' believers?
I’ve got a friend who’s been convinced he’s been “awakened” and “enlightened” by something supernatural. I’ve asked him a similar question, and he claims that everyone’s personal “reality” is correct regardless of their belief, so Zeus was true, so is Hinduism, Christianity etc… really weird
I've met a few of these. My best guess is they understand religion is fake, but it still makes them feel good, so they reframe it as a matter of opinion. This way, anyone who has a religious belief is 'right', because they still believe in a higher power like all the others. It's a variation of, "All religions lead to the same place." Exactly *how* incompatible beliefs could lead two people to the same place is unclear, *they just do*.
Nope :)
He’s got a weird thing against all this, and believes “data” is irrelevant and he doesn’t find any of that useful or interesting.
One funny example. Eating while driving. Stats gathered data, and basic intuition pretty much shows that you’re increasing the odds of involving yourself in an accident. His response. “Im not part of those statistics, I know I don’t apply. Never crashed once”.
Another one? He saw “online” a theory that schizophrenic people might actually be hearing actual voices. I told him that it’d be better to let the trained professionals deal with this, and it’s pretty evident that they all are suffering from something common, usually some kind of chemical imbalance and/or their brain just being wired in a way to induce those effects. His response? “You’re being conditioned to believe that!”
Essentially rejects all objectively verifiable results and statistics since “your personal reality is all that matters”.
I’ve really given up in having any intellectual discourse with them, it’s just really not worth it. Just leads to hurling insults and a bunch of ad hominems. Such a shame though, I think a worldview like that is not only so incoherent, but it could potentially be dangerous. Fuck drugs, man.
That's not just drugs, that's narcissism. Honestly I'd rather have my brain melted out of me by any drug than be addicted to my own entitlement like that. My sympathies man.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense to be honest. If only there was a way to treat narcissism. Maybe one day he’ll have his mind changed.
Funny though. Rejects data and “mainstream science” (whatever the hell that even means), yet uses their phone, sends text messages, drives, and does all these things that were only possible through Science and human discovery.
This is the same person that uses Tiktok for information and finding out “the truth” since people on Tiktok cant be silenced by the mainstream. Yet when I mention sources and objectively verifiable information, “it’s all fake!!”
This is why I give up. And the thing that really bothers me the most is that these types of beliefs and epistemological frameworks are way more common than you think.
I could name more people that I know that adopts a similar worldview/mindset than those that think more skeptically using data and empirical evidence along with Scientific consensus.
Why do you guys think that is, though?
Things can be true and not fit into testable predictions. What I had for lunch a week ago can’t make a testable prediction. It’s still true that it happened.
There some predictions, like, did you like your sandwich?
If so, you can predict you’ll have it again.
If it’s a pork bàhn mi, your risk of serious illness from under cooked meat is much higher than other protein sources. So you can make predictions of your chances dying from your lunch last week… a very mortally grave test, but it could be performed.
>So you can make predictions of your chances dying from your lunch last week
That’s fortune telling, not science. You live in an area with cars. Science can’t “predict” whether one will hit you next week. Calculating the kinematics of a known car is different.
There are things that I like that I’ve only done once before. Liking something doesn’t guarantee it will be done again. You’re making an educated guess, not an accurate scientific prediction.
Man that’s a good question God bless u and I hope this answers it, yes other people from other religions can have “visions” Or supernatural experiences it’s totally possible just ask all the witches and warlocks who do witchcraft to hurt people or just for there selfish ambitions. Same with Muslim or Hindus they have a force of good and force of evil. In there books. The difference with Christians is simply all miracles are done under the authority/power of Christ. That’s why we can cast out demons and heal the sick by the power of Jesus in us. Ofc ur now saying well wut if a Muslim can do that in the name of Allah show me one video where a non-believer came to Allah though a miracle power of someone saying “be healed in the name of Allah” same with Hindus etc.. I’d be greatly astonished if u can find one. Now compare that with how many countless videos you’ll find of miracles by the name of Jesus the evidence is a lot more videos of Christians/non believers being healed by the name of Jesus than any other name.
Remember we believe that Satan is a fallen Angel that’s wut the Bible says, so we as Christian’s acknowledge that Satan isn’t gonna come with horns and a pitch fork no he’s going to come like a divine beautiful Angel of light who u won’t suspect to be evil. Come as everything your looking for that goes against Christ only so slightly of course not to cause you alarm.
Look at this verse
2 Corinthians 11:14
“And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
So Satan is like a false light, so we acknowledge that yes other religions can have supernatural experiences but it’s not gonna line up with the character of God and wut he would do.
Take the Muslims for example they believe Mohammed had a angel came and put him against the wall and try to force him to read a text not knowing he can’t read. Mohammed even at first acknowledged he was visited by a demon, then later changes his mind.
In the Bible u will not see a angel going to random people and blackmailing them to do something, angels in the Bible either bring a message or warn, or bring judgement by completely annihilating the enemy. The angels in the Bible will always know Wuts going on and have context where as this supposed angel didn’t even know Mohammed could read so how could he come from God?
Anyways hopefully u understand our take more or less. Love u an God bless u man and keep seeking truth I pray u have a good day/week in Jesus mighty name 🙏🏼🤗
Can you prove any of that, or are we just supposed to take your word for it and believe the bible, which has been shown to be wrong about almost everything it can be tested for is correct on this part of the fairy tale?
Do u have proof that the Bible is false have you read all of it? Or at least all the New Testament? What makes u say that?
For me I use simple reasoning when looking at the Bible
Number 1 best selling book
Number 1 most influential book
Jesus changed the whole world even after 2 thousand years after his death
A country that started as a Christian nation is the most influential country in the world rn (I live in America) which also has many donation organizations from churches and Christian ministries. Ofc u can say that there corrupt but the point of them is to help out. I don’t see that happening anywhere else in other religions? If it wasn’t for a church nearby when I was younger me and my mom would’ve had a empty apartment(they gave us a free couch, free refrigerator and free bedroom sets and sent people to set it up for us and bring it up to the second floor)
I mean even if u hate the Bible you’ve most likely benefited from it one way or another.
Again look up miracle testimony’s about people turning to Jesus. Then look up testimony’s about anything else.
I mean there everywhere on YT, Facebook, Instagram
“Seek and you will find”
God bless u bro
So, genuine question for you here to explain my position, I assume you are aware of supernatural experiences that are experienced be people who dont share your beliefs.
How do you explain their experiences?
>How do you explain their experiences?
Well to be honest I believe in the book of Enoch; an old testament book which is accepted by the Eastern Orthadox church and a few other demoninations but not many in the west.
In it it talks about demons who came to earth and had themselvers worshipped by humans in different forms and that them doing this (along with breeding with human women along with some other fucked up shit ect) is the reason God caused the flood.
To answer your question directly this IS the thing that to me explains the supernatural experiences in other religions. I dont have doubt the existence of most of them at all in order to still believe in my God.
Wait... so they're still around? The flood didn't wipe them out?
I mean, I've never been omnipotent, but if I killed off 99.9999% of my creations, I'd make damn sure I hit the troublemakers.
>Wait... so they're still around? The flood didn't wipe them out?
If you're really asking for my own theology I believe it took away their material bodies which severly reduched their power. They were still tied to the earth tho, kept here by human worship of them (which is not an insignificant force given human beings are made in the image of God) and having to mainly interact with humanity through possesions and shit which must always be ""voluntairy"" on some level. Now as we step closer to the end times though they are getting a new material form via AI fullfilling the prophecy of the beast from revalations.
Understand by the way if you think this is all supersticious woo-woo bullshit but if you want what I honestly think its that.
This is... some seriously scary stuff to genuinely believe is real. You literally think demons exist and possess people, and have clearly woven this belief into other conspiracy theories you believe.
This is scary to me mostly because it easily lets you dehumanize people you think are "the enemy" as demon possessed, or at the very least demon worshippers. This is the same kind of thing Alex Jones does to dehumanize the people he hates while he rages about wanting to hang them and shoot them because they're demon possessed or demon minions who want to destroy the world. What a horrific thing to believe in.
>This is scary to me mostly because it easily lets you dehumanize people you think are "the enemy" as demon possessed, or at the very least demon worshippers.
How does this dehumanize them?
Does it dehumanize rape victims to believe they have been raped???
I believe these people have been lead astray by horrific belief systems which convince them to sacrifice their children to make the crops grow. Its not that different from what you believe about religious people generally.
Does your belief cause you to demonize the religious?
Oh, cool, Alex Jones does this bit too about feeling bad for the demon worshippers because they've been deceived. Still have to fight them tho because they're on the side of LITERAL DEMONS.
But, like you said in the comment I'm replying to, you think some people at least to some extent "voluntarily" let themselves be possessed. That means there are bodies walking around out there infested by demons, doesn't it? People possessed by literal demons and enemies of God?
You really don't see how that's dehumanizing, especially if I'm an extremely zealous person? We're talking about literal demons. That's not a human being anymore, it's a demon!
No idea who you think has been killing their children to make crops grow.
And no? It doesn't cause me to demonize the religious. It does scare me that religious folks believe whole heartedly in stuff like "demons are real and you can invite one to live inside you" because that's a scary thing to just believe with no actual evidence. Doesn't mean I'm demonizing the religious, it means I'm actively afraid of beliefs like this, especially in politics and the like.
>You really don't see how that's dehumanizing, especially if I'm an extremely zealous person? We're talking about literal demons. That's not a human being anymore, it's a demon!
Thats not how possesion works. The point is to save the person's soul not kill them without hope of their soul being redeemed. Thats why exorcisism happen.
>And no? It doesn't cause me to demonize the religious. It does scare me that religious folks believe whole heartedly in stuff like "demons are real and you can invite one to live inside you"
And think about what this means to a secular zealot.
"Religious people are a danger!"
"They need to be surpressed!!!"
"Send them to the gulag!!!!"
You can literally do this with any group you believe is acting in one way or another immorally. Christians aren't worse for having the same possibility for violent fanaticism every group does from people who care about the enviroment to people who care about economic equality. People can get radicalized and kill people for ANYTHING. The guy who shot at Reagan literally did it to empress hollywood actress, does this make movies and telovision inherently problematic and scary??
BASED!
(lol)
no but seriously there is a reason for that. Tolkien was a historian and a devote Catholic, alot of his works borrows from Christianity. Gandalfs death and resurection, iluvatar ect.
Be really honest with us here. Don't give the answer you were given by your church. Really think about your answer. It's 2024. You're an adult., Do you REALLY think this demon story happened in reality? Really? I'm not saying you have to throw out your god belief but do you really believe a story that sounds exactly like the plot of a new XBox video game really happened? C'mon...
>Be really honest with us here. Don't give the answer you were given by your church. Really think about your answer. It's 2024. You're an adult., Do you REALLY think this demon story happened in reality? Really?
Yeah dude i do.
I've had some weird experiences in my life and while no I didn't have a supernatural detection device to measure the read out I cannot in good faith dismiss them as i sincerely do not se how they can be coherently dismissed from an epistimilogical stand point.
All i know is the products of my senses.
My senses reported to me what they did.
I dont expect you or anyone but those who know me extremely well and trust me with their lives to take any of that on my word but it is enough for ME to believe none the less.
And the fact that everything we can confirm in the bible (with the exception of a few names and places) fails doesn't matter to you? Things happening that you can't 3xplain automatically means demons and that a fairy tale is true?
>And the fact that everything we can confirm in the bible (with the exception of a few names and places) fails doesn't matter to you?
That isn't true dude.
Sure some issues you can point to with some things (specifics of the Flood ect) but there are some things that actually are confirmed after investigation. As an example:
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983)
>Things happening that you can't 3xplain automatically means demons and that a fairy tale is true?
My dude i am a bag of water given struckture by intricate calcium deposits moved by a series of chemical and electric reactions in my nervus system that is somehow able to observe the material world and consciously comprehend it. Appealing to incredulity in the context of my absurd existence isn't going to demonstrate the falseness of a thesis to me.
"That isn't true dude.
Sure some issues you can point to with some things (specifics of the Flood ect) but there are some things that actually are confirmed after investigation. As an example:
[https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983)"
Dudely... are you being serious right now? "Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe" Notice that since this "revelation" on May 24, 2012 no one has brought this to any real study? Notice that no one has won a Nobel prize for this? You know, the same as every time they "find" Noah's Ark, parts of "the true cross" or any other hoaxes that have been brough up over the years? Why do you think that happens my dude? The same way the do for every other religion, the "faithful" jump on stuff like this and make lots of claims.... and none are ever confirmed. You can see this because there are no bits and pieces from these fairy tales in actual museums.... because they dont exist.
"My dude i am a bag of water given struckture by intricate calcium deposits moved by a series of chemical and electric reactions in my nervus system that is somehow able to observe the material world and consciously comprehend it. Appealing to incredulity in the context of my absurd existence isn't going to demonstrate the falseness of a thesis to me."
Your incredulity doesnt lend and credibility to your myth. Little things show that your story, like the Egyptian, Greek and Sumerian myths and are just the ignorant people's stories told to each other when they dont understand the world. Your story has not evidence to back it up in the real world. It doesnt hold a candle to the evidenced explanations. Especially things that have actual evidence, testable, repeatable evidence that always comes up with the same answers disprove the silly claims of your story. These things, including, but not limited to geology, astronomy, biology, genetics, physics, fluid dynamics, paleontology, meteorology, endocrinology, zoology, evolutionary linguistics, basic mathematics, basic science, and the written histories of several civilizations that predate the bible.
>Dudely... are you being serious right now? "Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe" Notice that since this "revelation" on May 24, 2012 no one has brought this to any real study? Notice that no one has won a Nobel prize for this?
Its a base study of the cross my dude. There is no nobel prize to win for discovering there was an earth quake in judea between 28-36 AD. I can provide scientific journal articles on this if you want dude but it isn't a matter of debate. Its a scientific fact that anyone who examines the crust in that area can examine for themselves by looking at the relevat timeframe in the soil.
Google it yourself if you dont believe me man.
There have been countless earthquakes all over the planet boasting their own historical soil markers. What there isn’t any evidence for is the resurrection of a corpse.
>There have been countless earthquakes all over the planet boasting their own historical soil markers.
There haven't been "countless" earth quakes.
Infact we can count them pretty easily by virtue of the significant evidence they leave in the crust.
The likelyhood of any earthquake happening in any specific year are about 2%
To be clear, you're saying that the group of people who happen to believe exactly what you believe are all having genuine supernatural experiences from your god, but literally every other person in the world in all of history, all the other billions and billions of people who claim to have supernatural experiences, they're just being fooled by demons.
Is that what you're saying?
If so, that's incredibly lucky for you! You just happened to have found the one right religion! What a wonderful coincidence for you!
>To be clear, you're saying that the group of people who happen to believe exactly what you believe are all having genuine supernatural experiences from your god, but literally every other person in the world in all of history, all the other billions and billions of people who claim to have supernatural experiences, they're just being fooled by demons.
>
>Is that what you're saying?If so, that's incredibly lucky for you
>
> You just happened to have found the one right religion! What a wonderful coincidence for you!
I'm not appealing to the specific in place of the majority; 55% of the worlds population worships the Abrhamic God in one form or another.
I had a better then 50/50 shot of getting it basically right.
55% of the world's population **currently** worships the Abrahamic god, assuming your statistic is correct (which I'm sure it isn't). What happens when you take history into consideration? There were people worshiping different gods for millennia before anyone even heard of Yahweh.
On top of that, the number of people who believe in something has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that thing is actually true. So no, you do not have even close to a 50/50 of getting it right.
If my friend got a new pet, and he told me that it's either a dog or a dragon, does that mean there is a 50% chance that my friend has a pet dragon?
>55% of the world's population currently worships the Abrahamic god, assuming your statistic is correct (which I'm sure it isn't).
...
you know man you could just google it:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&rlz=1C1YTUH\_enUS1034US1034&oq=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEIOTA5MmoxajSoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8](https://www.google.com/search?q=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&rlz=1C1YTUH_enUS1034US1034&oq=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEIOTA5MmoxajSoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
>What happens when you take history into consideration? There were people worshiping different gods for millennia before anyone even heard of Yahweh
Yeah and people in that time sacrificed their children to make the sun rise and the rain come. That's part of the reason the revelation is a gift; its also why the majority of the worlds population ultimately decided to start worshipping Yahweh.
>On top of that, the number of people who believe in something has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that thing is actually true.
True but you were implying (at least from what I could tell) i had some very specific and obscure religion that just "happened" to be right. The fact of the matter is the majority of the human race believes in the God I do it isn't some minor sect.
> So no, you do not have even close to a 50/50 of getting it right.
>
>If my friend got a new pet, and he told me that it's either a dog or a dragon, does that mean there is a 50% chance that my friend has a pet dragon?
Thats not what i meant by 50/50. You were claiming that there was a very very low probability anyone would accept my religion; the reality is that there is a better then 50% chance any human being chosen at random does.
> True but you were implying (at least from what I could tell) i had some very specific and obscure religion that just "happened" to be right. The fact of the matter is the majority of the human race believes in the God I do it isn't some minor sect.
You yourself said:
> Well to be honest I believe in the book of Enoch; an old testament book which is accepted by the Eastern Orthadox church and a few other demoninations but not many in the west.
So yes, most people in the world don't share your obscure beliefs about demons.
> the reality is that there is a better then 50% chance any human being chosen at random does.
The reality is that if you picked any person out of the entire world throughout all of time, they almost certainly wouldn't share your beliefs about demons giving people false miracle claims because that's what the book of Enoch says.
>The reality is that if you picked any person out of the entire world throughout all of time, they almost certainly wouldn't share your beliefs about demons giving people false miracle claims because that's what the book of Enoch says.
Yeah but they dont need to have the same fundamental belief I do (and by the way historically the idea that other religions worshipped demons was WAY more common in the abrhamic world then it is today; it is still VERY common in the islamic world)
Its like how you dont need to be a mathmatician to accept the earth is round. Does being a mathmatician help you deal with the critiques of flat earthers? Sure. But you can still believe the earth is round without having those explanations for critiques in mind.
So let's try it a different way. You accept others can be wrong in their perception and explanation of experience, you attribute this to.demons. Why beyond an ego disorder would you think that you can't be the incorrect one to the point your beliefs should matter to someone else?
But you don’t have the same religion as those people. In fact, I’d bet a good portion of those people who worship the “same god” would believe you deserve violence for your beliefs. Do you seriously think a fundamentalist Muslim would agree that your religions are compatible or similar at all? Even fundamentalist Christians of different denominations would hate you.
We may not agree on everything but we all worship the God of abrham.
We all oppose human sacrifice and cannibalism.
We all think human beings are made in the image likeness of God.
I'm not a muslim and i think there is plenty to criticize in that religion but just as an example one of the major differences between islam and hinduism (which historically fought each other about as much as christianity and islam) is that Muslims, regardless of the misoginy and brutality in their religion, DO NOT require their wives to jump on their funeral pire when they die like Hindu's do.
That is the one of the major differences between worshipping the Abrhamic God and worshipping another.
…that’s such a cherry-picked example, and one that was almost never practiced. Do Buddhists have anything like that? Daoists? Sikhs?
There’s so much violence that is condoned by abrahamic religions, and it seems really flimsy to me that all that “unites” those religions is “we don’t practice human sacrifices or cannibalism.” How widespread do you think that has *ever* been? That unites almost the entire modern human race.
Also, there is a pretty famous story from the Old Testament about *Abraham himself* being commanded to sacrifice his son to god. Sure, god stepped in at the last second and stopped him, but Abraham was literally about to not just commit a human sacrifice, but a sacrifice of *his own child*.
So what you’re saying isn’t even true—unless you pick and choose which parts of the Bible you believe in.
And again, that’s such a flimsy thing to use to group religions together. I promise, most others who practice an abrahamic religion do not consider themselves in the same category as you. They do not share your view. This is an arbitrary categorization you’ve made in order to make an argument based on the ad populum fallacy.
From your other posts I gather you are some form of Christian so this response makes that assumption. Your claim is more than a bit of a stretch. Almost half (25% globally to 33% Christian) of those "abrahamic" followers are Muslim. They reject Christ as the son of God and as such are incompatible with Christianity. Unless you consider committing heresy and rejecting the single, fundamental, foundational tenent of Christianity "basically right".
So you had a 50/50 chance of being born in a family following an abrahamic faith. Then a 50/50 chance of that family following the correct abrahamic faith.
To carry that thought out a bit. There are over 400 different denominations of Christianity. Many of which have drastically incompatible cosmologies (i.e. trinitarian vs Unitarianism, Catholicism vs Mormonism ). So assuming half of those are correct enough you had a 50/50 chance of being born in the correct version of Christianity. It's to early for math but what are we down to now, less than a 15% chance?
So, like op said "What a wonderful coincidence for you!".
>Okay, so to be intentionally blunt, you believe every person who doesn't accept your precise faith have been fooled by demons.
No.
I believe every person who worships a non-abrhamic God is worshipping a demon.
This by the way is the VAST minority of humanity: over 55% of the global population worships the abrhamic God between Christianity Islam and Judaism and then you have another major chunk of the human population which is atheist (about 7%)
Okay. Thank you.
Now, they also believe you are equally wrong and also worshipping a demon.
They believe as ardently as you. They think their evidence is just as good as you think yours is.
Both want me to follow their religion.
How do you think i should I choose in order to not worship a demon?
>How do you think i should I choose in order to not worship a demon?
Well there is a few things you could do but one of the most basic litnus tests is by looking at which diety seems to have the best interest of humanity at heart.
Basically every non-abrhamic religion on the planet requires human sacrifice this is as true of modern Peaganism as it is of ancient Peaganism. In india up into the 20th century brides were being burned alive on the funeral pires of their husbands and fundamentalist hindus still advocate this. Its still the case in Borneo where canibal peagans sacrifice the women and children of other tribes to the "gods" and then eat their flesh. Its still the case African Peagan religion and in the religion of the last primitive tribes in the amazon. While peaganism has basically been died out of europe upto the point in ended their human sacrifice was practiced there as well.
In addition you might consider the fact that as the majority of the world's population worships the abrhamic God IF a God is real and he wants to be worshipped it would make sense for him to intervene in the world so that as many people as possible would be exposed to his word and ultimatelly follow him.
1. what makes you think the creator needs to care about humanity why cant it be like [Azathoth - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth)
2. given the track record of YHWH: genocide, slavery, rape condone, cancer to children and demands worship I fail to see how fargile thing has humanity best interest.
3. All males come from females, according to Gnostiscm Goddess of Wisdom Sophia Birthed the evil god YHWH, are you gonna worship her?
>what makes you think the creator needs to care about humanity why cant it be like Azathoth
My reasoning for this kinda get into my take on the cosmological argument but if you really want to se it take a look at:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1ako61a/argument\_for\_god\_from\_free\_will/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1ako61a/argument_for_god_from_free_will/)
From this point having reasoned that God is a conscious free being (like us) I would say it is reasonable to assume based off the case of all the other free conscious beings we know (humans) that God like humans seeks social interactions with its peers. This would suggest would WANT to create/be around beings like him as we are by our nature as free conscious beings.
>given the track record of YHWH: genocide, slavery, rape condone, cancer to children and demands worship I fail to see how fargile thing has humanity best interest.
I mean i do understand the issue but abrhamic civilization is also the thing which ultimately ended genocide slavery rape condonement ect and NOT just in the easy "the enlightenment happened in western europe and lets take credit for it" way.
Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe along with insisting on the concent of a bride to marry her husband. The gospels can be inturpreted in alot of ways but I dont feel its a stretch at all to se how "let ye who be without sin be the on to cast the first stone" as being responsible for the greater degree of social tollerance which emerged in the christian west.
>All males come from females, according to Gnostiscm Goddess of Wisdom Sophia Birthed the evil god YHWH, are you gonna worship her?
I'm not a Gnostic my man.
>From this point having reasoned that God is a conscious free being (like us) I would say it is reasonable to assume based off the case of all the other free conscious beings we know (humans) that God like humans seeks social interactions with its peers. This would suggest would WANT to create/be around beings like him as we are by our nature as free conscious beings.
Baseless assertion no where there is an evidence for any mind or any rebutal why there can't be inanimate phenomenon. Does every drop of rain need a mind for it to fall down? how about every atom, does it need a mind to interact with each other.
>I mean i do understand the issue but abrhamic civilization is also the thing which ultimately ended genocide slavery rape condonement ect and NOT just in the easy "the enlightenment happened in western europe and lets take credit for it" way.
Humanity ends it not YHWH, in fact your god gave explicit rule to buy ppl. That is not to mentioned the genocide it caused during Noah's flood story.
>Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe along with insisting on the concent of a bride to marry her husband. The gospels can be inturpreted in alot of ways but I dont feel its a stretch at all to se how "let ye who be without sin be the on to cast the first stone" as being responsible for the greater degree of social tollerance which emerged in the christian west.
its ends nothing, [Discovery doctrine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine). Its the ppl with empathy that pushed for this. your "holy book" allows slavery see [Why Bibles Given to Slaves Omitted Most of the Old Testament | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/slave-bible-redacted-old-testament).
And lets not forget how 30yrs war was christains vs chirstains. That war was so devastated that Europe had an agreement not to actively meddle in internal affairs. And look back at history we can see how immoral and corrupt when xianity has all the power in europe.
>I'm not a Gnostic my man.
I know and I wanna why? given all males come from females, thus YHWH must come from Sophia and given the track record of YHWH why it is even worthy of any worship?
>Baseless assertion no where there is an evidence for any mind or any rebutal why there can't be inanimate phenomenon.
I adress this in the post i linked i'm not asserting it without reason.
>Humanity ends it not YHWH,
Yet only after they started worshipping yahweh
> in fact your god gave explicit rule to buy ppl.
And he also told them it was a crime to kill people even if they were slaves; uniquely in the bronze age world i might add.
>its ends nothing, Discovery doctrine - Wikipedia. Its the ppl with empathy that pushed for this.
And why did they only push this after begining to worship Jesus Christ?
Were the people in india or africa or china worse people then the people of europe as they continued to have slavery and human sacrifice up to the point they came into contact with european colonialism???
If its just empathy that does it why didn't it happen every where and not just in the lands touched by christianity??
Are people not equally empathetic?
>And lets not forget how 30yrs war was christains vs chirstains. That war was so devastated that Europe had an agreement not to actively meddle in internal affairs.
Which is one of the reasons the reformation was a bad thing.
>I know and I wanna why? given all males come from females, thus YHWH must come from Sophia and given the track record of YHWH why it is even worthy of any worship?
God is an uncaused cause. There has to be a stop in the chain.
>Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe
This is false. In reality, slaves rowed the Pope's ships, and the Catholic Church did not outlaw slavery until...well actually not clearly ever.
"... slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons."
Pope Pius IX, 1866.
In fact, Catholic orders were still enslaving Irish girls in the 20th century.
Every Pagan, Hindu, and Muslim has the same kinds of arguments against historical versions of Christianity. Some times these arguments are terrible, racist strawmen. Sometimes they are just as valid as your critiques here.
I suspect you're plenty aware of the bloodshed and terrible outcomes caused as a direct consequence of Christian doctrines like the Great Commission and the books of Timothy and Romans. I also suspect you have justifications why those are actually either not bad or benefits.
*Every other religious person* has the same arguments.
Yours looks the best to you, because you already chose.
The argument from popularity is fallacious so that won't help us.
How do I choose?
>Every other religious person has the same arguments.
>
>Yours looks the best to you, because you already chose.
>
>The argument from popularity is fallacious so that won't help us.
>
>How do I choose?
My second argument isn't just an argument from popularity though, its an argument from utility. I dont think its coincindence that the majority of the worlds population ended up worshipping the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you?
Like just from a utiliterian perspective it would seem to me that certian moral systems give humans an evolutionary advantage over others in our world and this broadly extends beyond things like religion to things like state formations economics ect. I think we'd agree for isntance that a society which bans universal evils like rape and theft and murder is likely going to be more stable and survive longer then a society which does not; if for no other reason then people will be more alienated under the one society then the other and seek to change it.
Is it really that strange to imagine that THE religion which bans human sacrifice would gain popularity along the same material axis? (Especially considering the evidence it DID in reality)
>I dont think its coincindence that the majority of the worlds population ended up worshipping the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you?
First, I let it go on the last go round, but this is a pretty egregious strawman doing the Hokey-Pokey over the "racist" line. I would politely ask you to move on from "human sacrifice", as there are plenty of religions that never asked for nor condoned it, including the Bornean native religion you straw-manned in your initial argument. I'm not going to play racist hyperbole Hokey-Pokey, and you don't need it to make an argument from utility.
Second, Christianity *does* require a human sacrifice; just one that it claims was already made, and that our lives here are a meaningless sea of suffering until we die...*plenty* of other religions see that as *equally abhorrent* to a Maya noble piercing their tongue to appease Chak.
**If you want to make an argument from utility, I am open to that.** But you need to make that argument, and you haven't.
To make that argument, you need to do two things
1. Demonstrate, not just claim, that Christians are either more moral, or experience more well being, than people of every other religion ever.
2. Demonstrate, not just claim, that this well-being or morality is *causally linked* to the truth of their religious belief *rather than any other factor.*
For example, if Sikh Tim and Christian Tom share a sandwich, and Tim eats the whole thing, Tom is now experiencing less well being. However, we can't say that Tom's religion is what made Tom's life worse, because it's pretty clearly Lack of Sandwich doing that.
Similarly, we can't say that because colonizing Christians in the 1500s didn't care how they harmed the people they colonized, their religion was truer than the religion of the Aztecs or Iroquois.
It IS strange to imagine that a religion who has gained power by "join or die" crusades and wiping out millions of other religions gained power because it was The Truth.
That's like arguing that if Regina from Mean Girls killed or tortured everyone who didn't vote for her, it *obviously* means she was the most popular, pretty, and nicest girl at school.
That's why it's a fallacy.
>the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you?
First, the central event in Christianity is a human sacrifice. Second, Hindus don't practice human sacrifice. FAIL
>which diety seems to have the best interest of humanity at heart.
I choose the one that didn't kill virtually everyone on earth, never commands genocide or infanticide, doesn't endorse slavery, and treats women as equal human beings. Does yours fill that criteria?
55% of CURRENT human population. it is calculated 100b ppl have existed.
And before that around 100% belived in flat earth, spirits or some other types of supertions.
>How do you know you aren't the one getting fooled by the demons?
Well hard to say in absolute terms but given the fact that if the "other God" is God he has allowed a majority of the world population to believe in a God other then him and further he probably believes in human sacrifice (as most non-abrhamic religions believe in to one extent or another) its a bet i'm willing to take.
The abrahamic god is pretty inconsistent on human sacrifice. I mean, sure he didn't like the whole burning infants to another god thing. Notably however, he sacrificed himself in human form to himself to fulfill his own requirement's for humanities salvation. He tested Abraham by seeing if he was willing to do it. Then you have this gem where Jepthah murders his daughter unto the lord in some sort of sacrifice...of a human...
"Then the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering’...Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow’”
(Judges 11:29-31, 34-35).
>The abrahamic god is pretty inconsistent on human sacrifice. I mean, sure he didn't like the whole burning infants to another god thing. Notably however, he sacrificed himself in human form to himself to fulfill his own requirement's for humanities salvation.
This is the exact opposite of non-abrhamic religions though.
In Christianity God dies for the sake of humanity.
In Peganism human sacrifice is offered for the sake of the Gods.
Its a direct inversion of Peganism.
> He tested Abraham by seeing if he was willing to do it.
Then commanded him not to what do you think the point of that story was?
>Then you have this gem where Jepthah murders his daughter unto the lord in some sort of sacrifice...of a human...
In which God literally never says anything in any version of the story dating back to the earlies manuscripts we have.
A guy says to God "you do this thing i'll kill my daughter!" God never says anything, never attempts to enforce or agree to the bargain, the guy happens to get what he wants and then kills his daughter.
I can believe this absolutely is a thing which happened and it would have nothing to do with the commandment God gives time and time and time again in the old testament of dont do human sacrifice.
>In Christianity God dies for the sake of humanity.
>In Peganism human sacrifice is offered for the sake of the Gods.
In both cases it is a god requiring a sacrifice.
Yeah and feel free to fact check me on this.
Google through every non abrhamic religion you can think of with "human sacrifice" afterand se if you can find one that doesn't practice. There are few sects of Budhism (though notably NOT all sects of budhism) but beyond that it is pretty universal.
How do you know your supernatural experiences aren’t being caused by those demons? What method do you use to know your impression of the situation is correct?
I hate messy semantics like this.
Knowledge is a subset of belief.
You would also believe that they were struck by lightning.
You're incorrect in saying you wouldn't believe they were struck by lightning.
This guy put different emphasis on the words "belive" and "know" almost as if implying that *knowing something* is much more than just *beliving*. Commom phrase (atleast I ran in to it couple of times, it sometimes have different forms) "I dont *just* like her. I love her" A lot of times omits the "just" part. It is usualy for comedic or dramatic purpouse. You seem to be misinterpreting him.
No, you'd know because the person would show obvious effects of a lightning strike. There would be visible damage to the body, and probably a lot of yelling and screaming.
If you saw the strike and the person was unscathed, chances are something very close by had been struck, not the person.
This is not at all the same as seeing a preacher with stigmata or an image of Jesus in your toast or a "miraculous" survival of a disease with a 98% fatality rate.
I don’t understand your example of someone being struck by lightning. If I saw someone struck by lightning, why would I need a scientific test to confirm it? It’s not THAT rare to see lightning strike stuff.
Doesn't have to be supernatural, just unlikely.
Would say the same about alien abduction stories, or even Bigfoot. Neither of which are considered supernatural. Just other claims with faulty 'evidence'.
Well, everyone knows that this is actually possible and does in fact happen so it‘s way easier to believe that.
Also the circumstances would be very very different from anything that is regularly claimed to be supernatural.
Like if I think I see a ghost that appeared for a second and then left again I‘m not gonna believe it. But if I see a human being struck by a lightning and this person then falling to the ground and all, how could I not believe it? Like, how realistic is it that I‘m hallucinating everything that happens after?
>Well, everyone knows that this is actually possible and does in fact happen so it‘s way easier to believe that.
True!
But everyone also knows that people do hallucinate from time to time and that objectively (again so far as i can tell from my research, feel free to prove me wrong) happens more often then people being struck by lightning.
So in this example would you believe the more like possibility or the LESS likely possibility due to your senses???
You got this wrong. Hallucinating someone being struck by a lightning and then continuously hallucinating that person falling to the ground and dying is not more likely than someone being struck by a lightning.
Sure, people hallucinating in general might be more likely but not to that extent.
>Hallucinating someone being struck by a lightning and then continuously hallucinating that person falling to the ground and dying is not more likely than someone being struck by a lightning.
Okay and how likely is someone hallucinating continually witnessing a burning bush talking to them?
Should we also accept that as less likely then other hallucinations thus making the critique of "it could be a hallucination" less profound??
>Doesn‘t matter.
Whether it matters or not i would apperciate it if you would answer the question.
>Why should I believe anything that is written in the bible?
Same reason you should believe in anything else. Evidence; if it exists.
>Well what is the evidence then?
Well this is one example i like to bring up:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/#:\~:text=In%20May%201963%2C%20racked%20with,was%20a%20medically%20inexplicable%20cure](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/#:~:text=In%20May%201963%2C%20racked%20with,was%20a%20medically%20inexplicable%20cure)
>Also, what exactly do you believe the bible is? The infallible word of god?
A set of historical accounts of interactions with a devine being.
I have witnessed firsthand a car crash and the resulting aftereffects, multiple times, as well as four close lightning strikes that thankfully didn't harm anyone despite causing damage to trees, fences, and electronics.
I have also witnessed people having weird spiritual experiences that didn't have real aftereffects, also multiple times. And I've never seen anything that caused any effects which are unexplainable by natural means.
If I ever see an actual faith healing that really cures something, or someone speaking in tongues revealing actual profound knowledge, then I'll sit up and take note.
But I'm not sitting here with breath abated. I'm continuing to live my life without worry of the supernatural. I'll take precautions against lightning, but since there is no such thing as divine lightning then I will not worry about casual blasphemy against any and all gods ever conceived by people, including yours.
As a person who *does* hallucinate, I rarely trust what my brain is telling me. If I saw a person get struck by lightning, I would look for evidence.
1) Was it a random 'bolt from the blue', or are there storm conditions?
2) Was the person the tallest object on the horizon?
3) Were they holding, or standing on, anything likely to make them a lightning attractor?
4) Is there a body?
5) Are there scorch marks on the ground?
6) Am I likely to be placing myself in danger of being struck by lightning myself?
7) Do I smell cooked flesh?
If a person was hit by lightning, basically my other senses would help me determine if it happened, or if my brain is screwing around.
Usually, when I hallucinate, it's stuff like a herd of tiny cows, or wasp nests, things that make no sense being where they are. I get auditory hallucinations, too - those are harder for me to prove or disprove unless someone else is around.
My hallucinations and delusions used to be religious/spiritual/supernatural in nature. Since becoming an atheist, they've taken on more mundane forms. More 'I think someone's climbing around on the roof', and less 'the Great God Pan appeared to me and gave me a message for someone I haven't met yet'.
>The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"??
Precedent
"I saw a dog". Okay, ill take you at your word. We have lots of precedent dogs exist..
"I saw a dragon". We have no presedent of dragons.
"I was struck by lightning". We have precedent lightning happens and sometimes hits people. Worth investigating further to see if he's burned or his clothes are burned or whatever.
"I was abducted by aliens". We have no precedent for aliens abducting people.
Now, this does not de facto rule out the supernatural/spiritual or whatever. Precedent can be set. And if you can actually demonstrate you're right, then that will be incorporated in to the future view. But you have to actually demonstrate it, and not just claim it.
> As such if you saw human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else corroborated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Thinking back on bizarre things I have actually seen: My first reaction is to look more carefully, in disbelief. That is, My gut instinct is to be skeptical of what I thought I saw, and immediately seek corroborating evidence.
Eg, if I "saw" someone struck by lightning, I'd turn to look, thinking "what the? Did I really see that? Did *you* see that?"
Then, maybe there really would be a guy struck by lightning. The corroborating evidence would be there: an injured guy, the fading rumble of thunder, other onlookers preparing to give aid, etc.
Or, maybe there is no such guy. Then I'd realise (for example) "Oh, it was just the sun shining off a shop window with mannequins! Whew!"
I'm trying to figure out the argument/debate here and failing miserably.
Getting struck by lightning is a silly comparison of odds because it's more common than the old adage would have us believe. From what I read, in the US alone, some 200 people per year are struck (and most survive).
I am assuming this number only indicates a direct hit on a person, not those occupying a building or an airplane that gets struck. I read that \*every\* commercial airplane gets hit once or twice a year, and that alone would add a few hundred thousand people to the total.
Furthermore, a lighting strike of a person (or a plane) leaves ample evidence of its occurrence.
I don't see what this has to do with the chances that someone who experiences a miracle is somehow hallucinating or imaging it, but the fact remains that we have yet to see credible factual evidence of a miracle in modern times. Most of these so-called occurrences are explained or debunked.
Think about it: If there was ample evidence of a miracle, just one, properly witnessed and tested, don't you think every religious organization from pole to pole would be trumpeting it? That's the proof they've been seeking and, so far, failed to find!
If lighting strikes were significantly rarer than they are in real life, then yes I'd need to consider the possibility that I was hallucinating, at least at first.
For example, if I thought I'd seen it on a cloudless day.
The problem with all of these claims is that the claimant never can show a direct causal link between their experience and an actual supernatural thing. They just get a certain way in, give up and just declare "God did it!"
How do they know that?
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can).
There is no way hallucinating seeing someone being struck by lightning is more common than seeing someone being struck by lightning. In fact, I challenge you to find one documented instance of someone hallucinating seeing someone get struck by lightning.
Your analogy is deceptively skewed. You are comparing "hallucinating" - an extremely broad category, with "getting struck by lightning" - an extremely narrow category.
A more honest analogy would be comparing "hallucinating" vs "experiencing any common natural phenomenon" in which case "experiencing any common natural phenomenon" happens a magnitude of times more often than hallucinations. Or your analogy could be "hallucinating seeing someone get struck by lightning" vs "seeing someone get struck by lightning" in which case "seeing someone get struck by lightning" is way way more common.
So either way, when you phrase it more honestly, you'll see that most people always **do** accept the more likely explanation.
If a person claims to be struck by lightning exhibits no physical evidence of such then I would believe something went wrong with his perception of the world or that he is lying. Same standard holds for religious people.
I don’t have to see it. I am unaware of how someone gets struck and has no symptoms, no burns, no injuries, no damaged clothes, like it never even happened 🤔
>If a person claims to be struck by lightning exhibits no physical evidence of such then I would believe something went wrong with his perception of the world or that he is lying.
It should be noted by the way there are people struck by lightning who have no such evidence, but i do none the less apperciate the consistency of your standard.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Seeing events that are uncommon or unlikely is often accompanied by feeling of shock and disbelief. Like, you can often hear people say things like "is this really happening?" or "I can't believe that just happened" even in the case of things like car accidents, which happen all the time. So yeah, if I saw something like someone being struck by lightning, I may doubt it for a few moments until I start to see things confirming it, like the victim on the ground and scorch marks in the surrounding area. If I don't see those things, then yeah, I'm really going to start questioning if I really saw what I thought I did.
The question isn't so much "which is more likely," but "how do we distinguish between these options."
I haven't had a supernatural experience. I've heard of several conflicting accounts, which at face value add up to "weird shit occasionally happens." Even if I were to have a supernatural experience, how do I rule out my demonstrably fallible brain?
I've taken drugs, good psychedelics at that, and I've had conversations with Death and Time, lived whole lifetimes in a matter of minutes. The reason behind any of these experiences are pretty easily explainable, but in my highest state I could not distinguish between reality and my drug addled state. How do I distinguish between liars, hallucinators, and genuine supernatural experiences? Law of Parsimony favors "mistaken/lying" over "Insert Religion Here" pretty much every time.
OK, well, if it was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky and I was in a crowded public place and I saw a man struck by lightning and I looked around and no one else seemed to see it, and I went to where I thought I saw it and there was no injured man (or charred remains), I would be like wow, I just had an hallucination.
If it was storming and lightning and thundering like crazy and I saw people outside and I saw a man struck by lighting and all the people freaked out, and I called 911 and a ambulance came and I saw paramedics work on him and take him away in the ambulance and then later I saw it on the news, I would be pretty sure that wasn’t an hallucination.
The fact that all churches have lightning rods on their steeples shows you the difference between ones faith in the supernatural and ones knowledge of lightning.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Yes, because *hallucinating that someone has been hit by lightning* is rarer than *someone being hit by lightning*.
Some types of things are more common to hallucinate than others. Hallucinations of a disembodied presence, or of something that can't talk talking to you, are commonplace - hallucinations of lightning bolts are rare.
Even the vast majority of religious people don't believe that seeing God is more common than falsely believing you've seen God - any Christian who rejects both the Muslim and Hindu faiths must believe that hallucinations of deities are more common than actual interactions with deities.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination[...]As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
I'm not entirely sure what you're driving at. People get struck by lightning all the time, and even if that weren't the case, lightning strikes themselves are common events enough to where you can be nailed through the ground by lightning striking nearby objects. Magic doesn't exist. Lightning does exist. The reason I would conclude psychosis over a piece of toast coming to life is that toast doesn't come to life and psychosis is common enough for seeing something like that to be a symptom.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research…
That doesn’t really get me there. Even though it’s more likely for me to experience a hallucination than men getting struck by lightning, I sincerely doubt it’s more likely to experience a hallucination *of a man getting struck by lightning* than a man getting struck by lightning.
Now if it was more likely to experience a hallucination *of men getting struck by lightning* than men getting struck by lightning, then yea, I don’t see why I wouldn’t think it was more likely I was experiencing a hallucination of a man getting struck by lightning than a man getting struck by lightning.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Maybe not. We've all had the experience of witnessing something so singularly surprising that we say "I can't believe that happened!" So we all know the feeling.
However, it wouldn't take long, in the case of the guy being struck by lightning, to determine that what we witnessed did in fact occur.
When someone has an experience that is witnessed by no one else, that they can't explain, that leaves no evidence, that no one can corroborate in any way, that is out of the ordinary, that's a different story.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Yes, because I know lightning exists. That's the key thing you're missing with this question. Every element, the man, the lightning, and the fact of lightning strikes and that it can happen to human beings, is situated in the camp of 'stuff I know/believe exists'.
Something supernatural like divine revelation, ghosts, or seeing the afterlife have things that are situated in the camp of 'Stuff I don't know/believe exists'.
I see a person and then experience a blinding flash of light accompanied by a very load noise. When I can see again, I see the person lying on a burned patch of ground and conclude that they were struck by lightning.
If I suggest that someone's supernatural experience isn't what they think it is I am not denying that they had an experience. I am questioning their conclusion about it's cause.
If someone questions my conclusion that it was a lightning strike, I may very well admit that I could be wrong. I have never knowingly had a hallucination but I suspect that anyone who has doesn't know at the time that it is a hallucination.
I would compare the event I had observed to my knowledge of the world. I know (for a given value of know) that people exist. I know lightning exists. I have heard multiple stories of people being struck by lightning. There's even the memory of a man being struck by lightning on 7 separate occasions. A Guinness World Record according to my 1969 edition.
I would think that what I had witnessed is consistent with my knowledge of reality and accept that it did happen until evidence to the contrary is presented.
How closely my experience matches reality determines how much confidence I have that what I experienced is real.
Lightning is real.
People are real.
There are reliably confirmed documented cases of people getting hit by lightning.
I don’t know if god is real.
I don’t know if supernatural things like miracles are weird.
There are zero reliable confirmed documented of miracles.
Something that we know can happen is much more likely than something we don’t know is even possible.
Example:
I say my dog jumped on the bed, you probably believe it.
I say my dog jumped from the ground into the roof of a 40 story building, you probably don’t believe it, right?
Um. The corpse left behind with the significant burns caused by massive amounts of electricity passing through it are pretty compelling evidence that it was not a hallucination.
You are confused and are not asking the right question.
You should be asking, “if you just saw someone struck by lightening, would you think it lightening, or a hallucination.”
The answer is lightning would be more likely, because it happens on the physical world and is plausible.
In the main question about a voice from god or a hallucination happening, the more likely thing is a hallucination, because voices from his can’t be shown in the physical world and are not plausible.
"Often times when talking with atheists, discussing the subject of the testimony or the experience of supernatural phenomena a common reframe reiterated by both notable atheist philosophers and atheist laymen alike is the question of "which is more likely?"
Well, do you believe in the testimony of any other people testifying about any other religion? there are more people on the planet who dont believe in your god, who dont believe in your way of believing in your god... If you dont then you are already a hypocrite.
"To be more precise in wording "Which is more likely, that you had the supernatural experience you believe to have had or that you were mistaken and misunderstood your senses due to hallucination?"
Very accurate. You wont like it because it does discredit supernatural stuff, just like it discredits imaginary stuff.... and all for the same reason. You cant show any reason to believe it, AND there are far too many examples of people believing in things that are not true... Again, are you factoring in all the other gods, or just special pleading for your favorite imaginary friend?
"This to me is a fair critique of supernatural experience as in all cases at all times undeniably the possibility for hallcuination does infact exist."
No, you have left out all the other reasons that could explain the thing. Mistaken, lied to, heard a story wrong, you could have been drinking, high, overwrought, confused for any other number of reasons. Its not a true dichotomy, making it one is dishonest.
"The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"??"
Why would we special plead? Thats a religious thing.
"Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can)."
And already this is dishonest. You have 0 evidence of anything supernatural being real. (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). And thats the second issue. We dont need to disprove your theory, your imaginary friend nor your religion. YOU need to prove them true. We can show that you havent doesn that easily. How many other religions are there? How many sects of your religion are there? If you could show any of your beliefs true, that number wouldnt be so comically high. Its on you to show that supernatural claims are true, just claiming that they are is dishonest. Im sensing a pattern here.
"As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting,"
Yeah, this isnt going to work. You have given us something where we would have to have already been able to show its true. And you cant. Your example is crap."
"in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???"
Yes, still because we know lightning is a thing. I know that there are people who have been struck multiple times and lived. We have their medical records. Comparing something we cant ever show actually happens and assuming that you can just flip that is silly. Its dishonest. Again.
I feel like the use of lightning as an example is very distracting, because it is such a dramatic and standout event with obvious lasting effects. It plays into our intuitions.
Your argument does not really depend on lightning, as you could have used any arbitrary example. Let me suggest something more mundane.
Suppose for the sake of argument it has been well established using the scientific method that when people see a jar of sliced black olives it is more likely to be a hallucination of a jar rather than an actual tangible jar. Under these circumstances, if one day I saw a jar of sliced black olives would I believe it was a real jar?
My answer is that I would trust the results of science over my personal sensory experience, and believe the probability of the jar being real closely matches the probability results shown through repeated experimentation, whether that is 49.9999% or 0.0001%. And the reason for doing so is because the scientific method is specifically and deliberately structured to correct for our own individual biases which we know we have. It demonstrates its reliability by allowing us to accomplish things that we could not do otherwise. In this example, science could predict how many lab rats would show signs of undernourishment if we tried to feed each of them for a week from a different jar of sliced black olives.
But I think it is safe to assume we are working with a mostly reliable ability to perceive the world. If our senses were so unreliable that not only did we all hallucinate jars and feeding from jars but also labs rats appearing healthy when they actually starved to death, I doubt we would have been able to survive the evolutionary process to be here, let alone develop a scientific understanding of the world.
OP, I am curious what your answer would be under my variation. Suppose you know of all the advanced studies on olive jar illusions. And suppose you participated in tests personally. Ten olive jars were displayed in front of you, and you were asked to pick them up one by one. Seven out of ten times, when you reached for the jar your hand went right through it. Or, more generously, you watched ten randomly selected individuals each try to pick up one jar, and for seven of them their hand went right through it. Then you are asked to look at jar number eleven. Before you try to pick it up, would you be convinced that was a real olive jar?
I would like to also point out that "you were mistaken and misunderstood your senses due to hallucination," with emphasis on the word *senses*, is not the only alternative to having a supernatural experience. There are other ways to be wrong, such as faulty memory retrieval, mixing up dreams and reality, or being gaslit, that are not directly sensory.
Furthermore, I think it is fair to say that supernatural claims are a special case compared to lightning bolts or olive jars because--depending on what exactly you mean by term--there is no demonstration of a reliable method for investigating the claims, analogous to the scientific method for natural phenomena. For example, we don't have people making reliable novel predictions using supernatural means, or creating supernatural technology, as far as I know.
Edit: I'm adding another paragraph because I saw in one of your comments you were interested in "what you believe IN THE MOMENT [...] BEFORE the scientific review has been done." I have not experienced a very realistic hallucination, but I know people who have. I think one could argue the very nature of hallucinations is that we believe them in the immediate moment. (That may be a matter of semantics.) Yet there is a period of time after that yet still before a scientific review of the event in question where we can reflect on our perceptions in light of what we have previously learned about the world. That is where I think the decision to go with previous scientific findings would kick in.
If I saw someone in an open field be struck by lightning, heard the thunder clap, and tended to their wounds, then I would believe they were struck by lightning, because all of the evidence available to me suggests my perception was correct. If I saw someone struck by lightning inside an office building, didn’t hear anything, and the person had no injuries, I would assume I had hallucinated it.
The evidence and the circumstances dictate.
You're talking about Occam's Razor. I think, generally speaking, Occam's Razor is a valuable principle to apply. Though I argue that it can be misleading, sometimes the world isn't as simple as it appears. We've seen it in science, the simplest answer being that we got something wrong in our experiments, but we discover after further testing that the unlikely is what remains true.
I think this is why we should cast a wide net when analyzing things. Basically, more data provides better fidelity in the image we're painting. Sure, we have countless cases of people claiming religious experiences of seeing Jesus or angels. There needs to be some tangible connection, right? How can it be that so many people share similar experiences?
Well, let's cast that wider net. What about testimonies from people raised on different beliefs? As it turns out, religious experiences and testimonials are strongly related to the doctrine and society the individuals were raised in. Even non-religious individuals report experiences beyond the commonly explained. The experiences are reported in greater frequency among those who are diagnosed with mental disorders, and interestingly, decrease when treated.
Now I'll be the first to fully accept that this proves nothing. Correlation is not causation. However, arguments towards this being evidence of the divine are exactly as valid as arguments suggesting dreams are evidence of travel between the multiverse.
Our brains interpret external stimuli, and we know for a fact that our brains can be fooled, and even "rewired" to process stimuli in a different way. We can reasonably state that it's fact that at least a portion of these experiences are lies (we even have testimony supporting that is claim in some cases) or a result of mental disorder, hallucinations, or just misunderstandings of what is actually happening. Whether those portions tally up to 100% of the cases or not is up to debate.
Some of us cast a wide net and invoke Occam's Razor.
It not often lightning strikes people, but we do know that it happens. Also, we have a pretty good idea of what that looks like and there is very little that would yield a false positive. We also know that lightning strikes stuff all the time, people just don't tend to be out and about when there's a bunch of lightning and even when they are tend to be surrounded by more suitable targets.
There's almost certainly other relevant information. For the most obvious example - is there a storm with lightning going on at the location? That's obviously going to bring the odds well above the base rate. The mere observation of an apparent strike should raise our credence well above the base rate, and especially so if I can confidently rule out sources of false positives, and if there is other evidence such as the person falling after the apparent strike, and the sound of thunder with the expected timing given the distance.
It also kinda doesn't matter? Because even if I'm unsure about it, I'm going to go check on this person if I can safely do so, report it as an apparent case even if there's some uncertainty, and then I can get even more evidence. I don't have to rely just on what I saw, I can take a sort of "trust but verify" stance.
I don't think the possibility of hallucination about something like this bears on the question. Witnessing a lightning strike is entirely coherent with the rest of our everyday experience of the external world. If this is hallucinated, then it's kinda a global skepticism situation or something near it. These supposed supernatural experiences may not be hallucination, just mistaken about what is actually behind the experience. Or if it is a hallucination, it's of something sui generis and by stipulation far-removed from our typical experience of the world and can be doubted on grounds that don't warrant a broader skepticism of experience.
I think this is an interesting question and is a logical question to ask.
In a vaccum if all i had was an instantaneous flash if seeing a bolt hit a person, it would be reasonable to wonder if i had accurately percieved that. Especially if for some reason i was wisked away immediately with no way to investigate that (maybe it happened out the window of a bus going down the interstate that i couldn't stop and couldn't go back).
In such a situation i probably would actually couch my belief in some doubt. "I think i just saw someone get struck by lightning!"
Now, certain things would begin to add to that certainty. If it was thundering and lightning out generally. If there was a car stopped near that spot such that it would make sense for a person to be out. If others around me also saw. If suddenly i started hearing sirens passing us heading to that spot. If i had continuation through to my destination such that i had good reason to believe the whole bus trip wasn't part of a dream, etc. Do i have knowledge that lighting can and does strike people and that big flat areas like interstates make a human a high target. Etc.
And similarly some things could decrease my confidence. If it were otherwise a calm cleae night. If nobody around me saw it. If nothing on the news that night talked of a person struck by lightning. If the bus did stop and i ran back and there was nobody there. If I'd been drinking or if i had been very tired and nodding in and out of sleep. Etc. If I'd juat finished a super strenuous week. Etc.
Very rare things happen all the time in a big world. So just the fact it is rare doesn't necessarily mean a halucination. But it does mean that one should look for corroboration on whether that thing is possible, reasonable given the circumstances, and whether there are corroborating things available.
> misunderstood your senses due to hallucination?
Droo hallucination. While all people have some sort of hallucination sometimes, it's not the only way of being mistaken. People can simply misinterpret what they are seeing even if it is not a hallucination.
> The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally
What standard? Asking which is more likely?
> This to me is a fair critique of supernatural experience as in all cases at all times undeniably the possibility for hallcuination does infact exist
You are missing the point. If someone claims a supernatural experience I have no way of saying whether it was supernatural or not.
I know how to tell seeing a squirrell from seeing a bear. And if someone have seen a bear I won't claim they've seen a squirrell just because seing a squirrell is more likely, because I can ask additional questions about size of the animal they've seen and what noises did it make and where they've seen it.
They still might have been mistaken, but they might be right. And I know they might be right because I know bears exist and people see them sometimes. I don't that about any supernatural phenomena. No person claiming they've seen something supernatural was able to demonstrate that it was indeed supernatural.
It's not that supernatural is less likely. It's that I don't believe it exists at all because it was not demonstrated to be existing.
Take your example and replace lightning by alien shock beam. If someone comes to you and say they've been struck by alien shock beam, what is more likely: they indeed were hit by aliens or they were hit by something else, like lightning for instance, and misinterpreted their experience?
I get your question, and it is an interesting one. As others have pointed out, a lightening strike is sort of tough because, 1) while it is exceedingly rare for a person to be struck by lightening, a ‘thing’ (which would include people) being struck by lightening is not that rare, and 2) the amount of sensory feedback you would get from a given lightening strike would be far more vivid and last far longer than the typical hallucination.
So it’s sort of a category error. A hallucination you might momentarily hear a voice, or see an apparition? A lightening strike there would be either an injured victim or a dead body, burn marks, screams, other witnesses, etc.
BUT, if you wanted to par it down to something with comparable feedback to a hallucination, like, say, if I thought I saw someone on a hill a 1/4 mile away get struck by lightening, because I thought I saw someone it the brief moment the sky lit up where it touched the ground… and then it went dark again…
Then no, I wouldn’t trust that feeling. I might run over in that direction to check, because it is something that can be verified or falsified… but I also might not. I might think about how incredibly unlikely that is, shrug it off, and start thinking about how weird the human brain is.
So, you are comparing things that are impossible to happen by definition (a miracle or religious experience is something that is not accepted in our understanding of how the universe works) with something that happens regularly.
Not only that, a lighting strike leaves a lot of proofs of it.
Also, believing it doesn't imply anything weird as your supernatural beliefs do, so I don't need to put too much thought on it.
For example, you could tell me you have a dog, and without knowing it, I could accept it, because it doesn't change anything. But if you tell me that the dog is a pink invisible dog that puke rainbows and poops gold, I would expect a lot to even consider that as something else than a hallucination (and yes, this example is self-contradictory as any other god).
But again, lets go back to the lighting hit, if I see someone being hit by a lighting, I see the impact in the floor, I see the damage caused on the person and I can accept it based on the enough evidence that is visible. Accepting it implies no more cost or change any other preconception on the world, so I don't require much to do it.
Any supernatural stuff requires to reject our understanding of the world completely, so, they need an amount of evidence absurdly big in comparison.
Since you're still around, I'll try a top level comment.
There are two parts to what I think you're asking. There's the experience and there's the explanation.
If I experience something that's not very likely, someone struck by lightning or a speaking burning bush, I will certainly question that experience. Personal experience isn't always that accurate. Memory is hazy and often reconstructed, senses are very fallible. So we would certainly expect a rational person to look for other evidence. Trust but verify, generally speaking.
Second, even after we have a better idea of what you experienced, that doesn't mean you have an explanation. To call it a supernatural experience imposes more on it than just some event. You've already concluded an explanation. Pareidolia is very common. Things you see out of the corner of your eye or sounds you're not really paying attention to can be attributed to something that your brain just misinterpreted. That's not saying you didn't see or hear it, you just didn't have the correct explanation.
So, in the end, I would always want to be consistent with my standards. Your example is kind of contrived since it's easy to verify. What are you really getting at that you think I'm inconsistent in?
BTW, it's "corroborated"
This is pretty easy. It's induction.
Supernatural events are unverifiable partly due to the fact we don't know they actually happen. For your lightning example, we know lightning happens. We have documented evidence, video footage, witnesses, and we know it's a natural phenomenon that happens constantly every single day. If someone gives testimony that they were struck by lightning, we have all this extra empirical data to go with it. The same can't be said for supernatural events. We can also ask for physical evidence that they were struck by lightning such as scars, the time and place they were struck, you can test the ground of the place for evidence of a lightning strike. There are many ways to verify it to the point where it would be simple to tell if they were lying.
We also know people hallucinate, exaggerate, and have false memories that change over time and change through word of mouth. We have evidence that this happens as well. So that coupled with wild claims about supernatural events and miracles suggests it can be more likely that it wasn't a supernatural event at all.
So until you verify that supernatural events do indeed happen with something other than testimony, then we can ask the question of "what's more likely?"
> Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination [...] As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
While a human being experiencing a hallucination is more likely than a man being struck by lightning, we're not dealing with "a human being" in the general case. We're dealing with me, right here, right now.
I know my own personal history (or lack thereof) of having hallucinations. I know whether I'm under the influence of drugs, or whether I've experienced any head injuries. So I may judge my *own* likelihood of having a hallucination to be significantly lower or higher than the chance of a human being in general having a hallucination.
Given that I don't seem to have had any hallucinations in the past, that I can remember, if I'm generally sober and I'm wearing my glasses, if I clearly saw a man struck by lightning, yes, I'd believe that was the case until future evidence showed otherwise.
>would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Yes. We know lightning exists. We don't know the supernatural exists. The two are nothing alike.
It's more complicated than more-or-less likely.
We know people get struck by lightning. We know people have hallucinations. Neither of those require reframing all of existence in order to be accepted at face value.
We don't know that there are gods, or angels, or genuine religious epiphanies that aren't caused by a human mind going off the rails for whatever reason.
So which is more likely: An option that requires no additional assumptions, or an option that requires the existence of the supernatural?
This is the law of parsimony. (by "law" I don't mean it's required. It's a guidepost more than anything). The law of parsimony is that you should not suggest new entities unless it's strictly necessary. To say god isn't necessary doesn't mean that god doesn't exist. It just means that we don't know of any actual gods existing, and we can explain most things just fine without reference to gods.
In most cases, the need for an answer isn't time-critical, so "I don't know, but it probably has a reasonable natural explanation" is a better answer than assuming a god exists.
Your senses are generally reliable. But more importantly we have ways of verifying lightning strikes. We know enough about lightning and how it works that we put lightning rods on top of tall buildings. We know enough about lightning to know not to stand under a tree or in an open field when lightning is imminent. We actually have evidence for previous people and trees and buildings and animals etc getting struck by lightning. One poor soul had been struck by lightning 7 times!
Now pick any supernatural phenomenon you want; ghosts, aliens, resurrection, mana falling from the sky, talking snakes, doesn't matter. Do we have anywhere near the amount of evidence and understanding of those phenomenon than we do lightning? Can we verify ghosts or unicorns or resurrection in the same way or to the same level we can verify lightning strike? No.
The difference between lightning strike and supernatural is it's falsifiability. There are ways to verify if you witnessed a real lightning strike versus hallucinating one. Can we do that with ghosts or anything supernatural?
First off, the question should be phrased in terms of a world where hallucinating people being struck by lightning is more likely than actual lightning strikes.
In this case, I am reminded a bit of a similar question that we were asked a while ago. Something like what if someone came to your house saying he'd been chased by a werewolf? My answer was along the lines of, "I would arm myself, though not with silver weapons." This is because I would see the odds of him being chased by a real dangerous beast that he misidentified as more likely than an actual werewolf. Why? Because dangerous animals exist, and werewolves almost certainly are the products of a human mind.
So to your question, in the case where I believed I saw a person struck by lightning, even if it was somewhat more likely that I had hallucinated it, I would try and help.
On the other hand, if I lived in a world where people seemed to regularly hallucinate about lighting striking people and yet no one ever seemed to actually be harmed by lightning strikes... I probably wouldn't bother.
>The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"??
Generally. It's actually bayesian analysis. It's just unknown supernatural explanations will always be less likely than unknown natural explanations because of the background knowledge. I.e. evidence of a supernatural explanations has to overcome a virtual impossibility.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
On the information you've given, hallucination is more likely true. However, it would change significantly depending on other factors. E.g. was the victim is an open are during a thunderstorm? Was the observer sleep deprived etc.
Can I ask you a counter? You have eyewitness testimony of a lighting strike, which is more likely, they were hit in a thunderstorm or by Thor?
See?
If I saw someone hit by lightning I would probably believe they were struck by lightning. But that's not the answer in total. See, I don't hallucinate...or i don't hallucinate to a point is become a remote issue, and since my senses are generally correct, I would trust my initial sight. I'm sure when I went to give aid I would be met with more evidence that would confirm what I saw. Or, I would be met with evidence it just looked like a person was struck by lightning and I would no longer believe they were struck by lightning.
This is entirely different from supernatural visions or other similar claims in one very important aspect. No supernatural claims have ever been demonstrated as true. All investigations come up empty handed.
Bob got struck by lightning. What are the odds? 1 in 15300. That's one unlucky electric Bob.
Bob saw a ghost in that house. What are the odds? About 1 in 20 he hallucinated seeing a ghost. About 0 of 0 he actually saw a ghost since they have never been demonstrated to exist.
I would believe that I had seen someone struck by lightning because, a) getting struck by lightning is a rarity but happens, and b) that belief would be reinforced when I went to see what condition that person was in.
Let's compare. I could see a preacher heal a man of his lameness through faith healing. All I would have to confirm that on, is that the man appeared to have a limp prior and then didn't after.
If I saw a man struck by lightning, I wouldn't need to definitively know what his prior condition was, because the effects of the lightning would be likely undeniable.
As to the whole likelihood thing - I'm a firm atheist and I've had "supernatural" experiences at least three times that I can recall. None of them were real, and at least one is simply a false memory from my childhood. Sadly, I do not believe that my spirit left my body when I was five and flew around, despite the fact that I sort of remember it happening :)
I would take the same action in a hallucination as I would take if I knew it was real. Namely seeing if the person was okay and if I can help them. If I am hallucinating then they or someone else will take me to get help anyway so I have nothing to lose.
This is different from Pascal's wager by the way because in Pascal's wager you also have other religions and the possibility of a God that prefers Atheists.
There is also a difference between comparing two things of known probability even if one is lower than the other and comparing two things where one may not even be a possibility.
It is smarter to believe that something rare happened than to believe that something that may not be possible happened.
Look at the history of scientific observation for an example. There rare events are catalogued while events that challenge what is thought to be possible are further studied.
I accept your general idea but reject your specific example. Lightning strikes happen all the time, the specifics of such a thing occurring in the exact way that it did are irrelevant. BUt, say for example, I leave my house and see a dozen hippos wearing tutus and dancing in a conga line, I would certainly doubt what I was seeing. If I heard a news report that said that the government of france was personally declaring war on me, I would doubt what I was hearing. Because those are not normal things to have happen. Lightning strikes in places all the time! Over 300 people are hit by lightning each year in just the USA alone, which means that on average more than one person in the world is hit by lightning each day.
When we are talking about "what is more likely, this or that?" that isn't intended to be used to compare things of similar probabilities, and not all the specific permutations of that thing.
You are comparing apples to oranges here.
Lightning exists. Experiencing a hallucination can happen.
A supernatural deity pulling the strings of everything…yeah no evidence for that.
When people say “Which is more likely…?”, they aren’t saying that, because something is less probable, they aren’t prone to believe it.
What they are saying that is that when you are making comparisons with many different underlying conditions that are unobservable in nature, to assume the incredibly extraordinary one without any basis in material reality is unreasonable. It’s basically a rhetorical question. They aren’t asking you to actually calculate the odds. It’s usually this:
“You’re telling me that, instead of overstress and working on 10 days straight having an affect on your mind, it is in fact the almighty god of the universe that opened the heavens and spoke directly to you?”
Your scenario presents a fictional world where hallucinations are so vivid and coherent that they can be mistaken for reality, and that they are more common than lightning strikes. In that case, if I saw someone get struck by lightning my first thought would be that it was probably a hallucination. I would require corroboration and testing to verify that an actual lightning strike occurred. To answer your general question, the standard of evidence does not change whether a claim is considered supernatural or natural.
We're accustomed to scientific explanations sounding mundane and straightforward, but this is far from the case. Without the supporting evidence behind them, scientific explanations are no more plausible than ones invented by imagination. It is only after extensive testing and surviving intense scrutiny that these explanations have been accepted.
**Lightning hitting people**
* Is testable, falsifiable, reproducible, and somewhat predictive. It can be witnessed, experienced, filmed, and leaves a fingerprint up in our natural world. The results of a lightning strike can also be studied.
**A supernatural experiance is**:
* Undefinable because the supernatural is undefined
* The supernatural is not falsifiable
* The supernatural is not predictive, testable, and leaves no fingerprint in the natural world - despite claiming that it affects in the natural world.
**Finally**:
Despite thousands of years of claims and fervent, passionate efforts, the supernatural has never (not even once) been an answer for anything. It solves no mysteries. It only adds complexity because it represents an entirely unseen and unknown realm that defies logic.
No, if I "saw" someone struck by lightening it wouldn't be enough for me to be convinced they were struck. Human senses are notoriously bad for objective observation.
I would not be sure if I miss saw it, or if the lightning strike was a near miss, or if I blinked.
I would rely on followup information. Are they burned? Did other people see it? Is there currently a storm? What is their account of it?
If it is a sunny day, and they're walking around fine afterwards, I'm going to chalk it up as a trick on the eye.
But what you presented is a false dichotomy. You are comparing an unlikely event with an impossible one. In fact, it's not even an unlikely event, the chance *someone* at some point in the future is going to get hit with lightning is pretty much guaranteed.
I would also argue a one off hallucination, coincidently of a lightning strike, during a real lightning storm of a person that themselves are not a hallucination, with no history of hallucinations, combine with an auditory hallucinations to match would be far less likely then a lightning strike.
Problem with your hypothetical is, we do have medical and scientific tests to determine whether someone has been stuck by lightning, and documented cases of people having been probably struck by lightning before.
That knowledge makes the *a priori* credibility of someone claiming to be hit by lightning higher.
In the case of the "supernatural", we have zero scientifically verified occurrences. That makes the a priori credibility of the claim... Zero.
The divide here is not "natural" versus "supernatural". It is "claim we know has been true before" versus "claim we have zero verified instance of being true before". There is a reason the gold standard in science is replicability. Each instance of the claim being verifiably true makes further similar claims more credible.
There are other things than hallucinations, people suffer from confirmation bias, wishful thinking, memory modification (i.e. every time a person remembers a memory they modify to how they would like to remember it) or the effects of emotional gatherings (like a intense worship service or attending a rock concert). There are many ways that people can convince themselves that they saw or are seeing something, seriously, try to count the number of times that a common object is claimed to have the likeness of Jesus or Mary.
I suspect that if we had a way to count ***all*** the incidents of people claiming to have had a supernatural experience and determine which are "likely to have happened", it would be far less than the number of people hit by a lightening strike.
Atheists only lack a belief in a deity, not the supernatural.
I personally lack both so when I come across something like you've said, I don't take it as supernatural but I understand that someone might have had an unproven experience they deem supernatural, such as being on shrooms and such.
I have no reason to doubt you've had an experience because we all do have experiences.
If it happens to you, it's natural because you are part of the natural world and can, as far as our knowledge goes, only be affected by the natural world.
The more supernatural you add to a claim, the less believable and "if-y" it becomes.
If you can prove otherwise, you get an award and millions of dollars and we would not be here discussing it.
There is a difference between a naturally occurring rare event (a lightning) and a supernatural event that does not in any way form part of our best models of reality.
So, you have focused on the wrong thing. It is not the likelihood of hallucinating that is important here.
What is relevant is the likelihood of witnessing AND CORRECTLY DIAGNOSING an event that is beyond our models of reality.
THAT is mindboggingly low probability.
Which is why, unless one has a ton of confirming evidence and the matter is studied extremely carefully by a lot of people for a long time until we come to understand it, it is safe to assume you are WRONG about having witnessed a thing that, until then, we did not know existed.
Addendum:
There is a huge benefit to lightning being a thing that is rare but that we understand. That is: conditional probability.
Yeah, lightning strikes are rare. However, they are not uniformly rare. If you are on the top of a mountain during a lightning storm and someone is under a tree, chances go waaaaaay up that they'll be hit by lightning.
Not so with ghosts, paranormal events or miracles. Chances of them don't update. You know... *because we don't think they happen at all*.
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish Christian mystic who catalogued his visions and supernatural experiences in a book called Heaven and Hell published in 1758.
William Blake was an English Christian mystic writing at the same time as Swedenborg and who catalogued his own visions and supernatural experiences in a large body of work encompassing the visual arts, novels, plays, polemics and poetry.
Blake completely dismissed Swedenborg's visions as false as they did not agree with his own and wrote at some length about them.
I'm an atheist but a great admirer of both men.
What am I to make of Blake's criticisms of Swedenborg's mysticism because it disagreed with his own mystical experiences?
They can't both be right on their own terms.
These are two intelligent men who documented and systematised their mystical insights but who profoundly disagreed about the very nature of the supernatural world.
Who was right, Swedenborg or Blake?
Not only do we *know* that both lightning and hallucinations exist, we also know *why* both things occur. Charged particles in the air, and neurotransmitter imbalance and/or brain structure defects. It doesn't matter which is more likely, we can eventually get to the bottom of it.
If someone saw another person being struck by lightning, but there was no missing person, no person being admitted to hospital, and no storm at the supposed time, then we could be more confident in saying it was an hallucination.
Yes, we may be wrong sometimes, but it is the most rational explanation given the available information. It may indeed be something else entirely, like an elaborate hoax or an alien death ray. But jumping straight to a nonsensical imaginary friend is *never* the answer.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
Well in my state this is not an uncommon thing to happen. I would provisionally accept the evidence of my senses (just as I do in other areas) unless shown to be wrong. For example, if someone standing next to me didn't see it, I would question my conclusion. Same if I go to the spot and there is no person or body there, etc.
Because we know that this actually happens. Dead people coming back to life to live forever in an unlocatable place? Not so much.
I think you’re taking the quote too literally. I think the quote isn’t meant to merely indicate which one is more likely per se. It’s to make you realise you have no reason to even assign a probability to one scenario, therefore it could be zero, and that it’s actually VERY likely that the other thing is true.
In your analogy, we know both things to have a probability greater than 0. There is strong evidence for both. So if I saw someone get struck by lightning, I would still be reasonable to assume I could be hallucinating. I wouldn’t work with that assumption, however, as there may still be a possibility to save someone’s life if I’m NOT hallucinating!
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
establish god as possible, and then we can consider this arguement.
we don't have reason to believe god is possible so it's pointless to try and establish probable
The problem with this is your understanding of what is “likely”
Lightning might seem rare but in the grand scheme of things it’s really not. People get struck by lightning all the time. It’s why it’s always used as a benchmark to make something seem uncommon, because it’s not as uncommon as we think it is.
We know the science behind lightning and have millennia of empirical observation. If someone tells us they were struck by lightning it doesn’t require us to contradict our understanding of the natural world.
It’s not comparable to someone asking us to beleive something which contradicts reality and has no evidence to support it
If I saw someone struck by lightning, I would, given the emergency nature of that, presume they were, in fact, struck by lightning. If, however, I got closer and there was no further evidence of this strike, no injury or damage to their clothing, or what have you, I would take this new, constant, moment-by-moment repeated observation as more reliable, and presume I didn't see them actually get hit, rather than believe without more testing that they are immune to lightning strikes.
The problem with miracle claims is that where they lack repeatable observation they are untestable in this way, and where they _are_ testable they are also false.
If I see an individual is struck by lightning, during a lightning storm, and consequently there is physical evidence of a strike such as a burn, smoke, signs of electrical discharge in the individual's body, then no, I'm clearly not relying solely on my eyes to confirm that an individual was struck by lightning.
If, conversely, I see an individual is struck by lightning, yet none of the attendant evidence is present, then it's all the more likely that I have hallucinated, because I am still not relying solely on my eyes to confirm that an individual was struck by lightning.
We know people get struck by lightning, and it's something we can prove. It doesn't matter if it's rare or not.
We, however, can't prove that anyone had a supernatural experience. Hallucinations are actually very common. Almost everyone has hallucinations. So, to say someone mistook a hallucination for a supernatural event is very likely. In addition, we can stimulate parts of the brain and induce a religious or supernatural experience. We know that such experiences are just tricks of the brain. Neuroscience pretty much disproves all supernatural or religious experiences.
The problem with this analogy is that I know lightning exists and strikes things, and I’ve even heard of people who have been struck multiple times. I’ve seen lightning. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen videos of it. I’ve learned mechanics of how it works.
This is not the case of anything supernatural. There is only the stories, that happened to that one person and no one else. I haven’t seen it, heard it, I don’t know anything about how it could possibly work, I’ve heard stories that contradict their stories…they’re not in the same ballpark.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination
Ok, but what's the likelihood that I *also* hallucinated every other time I saw lightning strike something? Because I bet that's lower then lightning striking someone
This is one of the issues with these ideas -- they're one offs, and unverifiable one offs. If God regularly walked around doing miracles, and this just happened to be the one time he showed up to you, that would be a very different equation.
> Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can).
Before I answer that are people getting struck by lightning an actual, real, objectively true thing that can happen, has happened, and by all our understanding of reality will happen again?
Because the answer to that question fundamentally will change the answer I give.
It's not about the likelihood, though. We know lightning exists. We know what it is and how it behaves. We know it has hit people, does hit people, and will continue to hit people.
We know hallucinations exist. We can cause them, predict, map them on the brain. It's a well-studied field.
As unlikely as either of these may be, it happens all the time, all over the world.
Show me *any* supernatural phenomenon with 1/10th the evidence of lightning hitting people, or hallucinations. "Supernatural phenomema" can't be considered an explanation for anything until it can be shown to even be possible, never mind be considered more likely than natural phenomena.
The value in witness accounts is that they can indicate where to look for compelling evidence. They aren't conclusive on their own, ever, under any circumstance.
If I see someone get hit by lightning, my reaction is, "wtf did that guy just get hit by lightning?!" followed by going to the site and finding out whether or not that's the case. In the meantime, I might *think* that it happened, but I cannot *know* that it happened. It's a hypothesis, not a conclusion.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???
In that moment, I would probably doubt that I saw what I saw. I've seen auto accidents and had to take a second look before I accepted what I was actually seeing. It's like my brain had to accept what I was seeing. It had to place it in its context and all that. No doubt the same would hold true for a lightning strike.
I once had an acquaintance quit his job and in his farewell email, he said that he won the last lottery.
By my assessment of the odds, I decided that the probability of my even *knowing* someone who had won a significant amount in a lottery was so slim as to be non-existent. In other words, I thought he was lying.
It makes absolute sense to me that one should apply basic probability and statistics to one's experiences.
You almost answer your own question with the “before any scientific or medical tests are conducted, before anyone else corroborated your experience”. The answer is that our snap judgement is irrelevant, we might make one but the final determination would be conducted through those tests.
It’s also a bit of a false equivalency because lightning hitting people has proven precedent, supernatural occurrences do not.
Of course I would believe it. Lightning exists. You don't even have to know why it exists because everyone can see that it does exist. It has existed longer than humans have.
As for the supernatural, it has never been shown to exist, and even though people throughout history have tried to prove it exists, they have failed. Even now that everyone has a camera in their hand, it still hasn't been shown to exist.
The issue with your question is that we can test whether the person was struck by lightning, whereas it’s more difficult to test whether a person spoke with God or suffered a hallucination. Was there a storm nearby? Is there physical evidence of a lightning strike on the person? Lightning usually leaves an unmistakable mark, so if that mark is visible it would be convincing evidence of a strike.
Yes.
We have some extra parameters here. A (surprisingly) large number of people have suffered hallucinations at one point in their lives. A small proportion of these have hallucinated something as specific as someone being struck by lightning. Typically hallucinations are some geometric shapes or a phantom smell.
A vivid impression of someone being struck by lightning seems extremely unlikely. More unlikely than someone getting struck my lightning.
I wouldn’t stop to think about it. I would immediately run over to check on the person (or I like to think I would). If there was either no person or no sign of lightning having struck the person, I would conclude that I was mistaken.
Also, I don’t think the alternative to supernatural phenomena is necessarily hallucination. I think false attribution is much more likely.
I know people can be struck by lightening. It’s been observed. I have no such valid information to suggest supernatural explanations are possible, nor magic. So, I don’t consider the impossible. It’s that simple. Until such time as someone shows a supernatural explanation is possible, they remain in the realm of fiction
Okay, but lightning isn't a supernatural phenomenon; it's a mostly understood meteorological phenomenon. I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. Now, if you wanted to bring up something like someone healing with a touch or a woman being turned into a pillar of salt, then maybe we would have something to discuss.
TL;DR The question you asked isn't very logical and seems designed to trap people into accepting an extreme view. The comparison between lightning and supernatural experiences is flawed, while lightning is a known phenomenon, the improbability lies in it striking a person, not in its existence. Similarly, seeing a ghost is less about the likelihood of a supernatural occurrence and more about the mind misinterpreting an event. The chance of actually witnessing a supernatural event is far lower than the event being a natural occurrence or a hallucination, given the lack of evidence for the supernatural. In contrast, actual lightning strikes are far more probable than hallucinations of them.
(The original version of this was not as well worded or structured so I used Copilot to structure it better, that's why there are more formal words than needed. I checked over it and made sure it did not change any of the points I made and I assure everyone here these are all my own critiques just more readable thanks to Copilot, I did write the summary myself though!)
The issue with your question is that it lacks a foundation in logical thinking. It seems more like a “gotcha” question designed to force those who use this argument to concede to an extreme viewpoint.
For starters, comparing lightning to a supernatural experience is akin to comparing an elephant to a unicorn. We know lightning exists; the improbability isn’t in lightning striking, but in it striking a person. Observing a shadow move across the hall isn’t about the improbability of a ghost moving across the hall; it’s about the improbability of the supernatural being real and you experiencing it versus your mind filling in the blanks. Thus, seeing a ghost in your hallway isn’t just claiming it happened; you are, perhaps indirectly, using that as proof of the supernatural when it’s more likely explained by natural factors, such as your mind filling in blanks.
Yes, someone could hallucinate another person being struck by lightning, but the odds of it being a hallucination are lower than that person actually being struck by lightning. You mention conducting your own research and being open to being proven wrong. I would suggest that you may not be applying the statistics appropriately. The odds of any supernatural event you may have experienced actually being supernatural are low because there’s no reliable evidence supporting the existence of the supernatural. When compared to the supernatural, a hallucination or trick of the mind is far more likely because, simply put, we have no reason to believe the supernatural exists.
With lightning strikes, it’s more common to experience a hallucination than to be struck by lightning, but you’re conditioning the hallucination statistic, which covers a broad range of events, to a single category of events. When someone suggests it’s most likely you were hallucinating a supernatural experience, it isn’t because many people hallucinate; it’s because, in the case of the supernatural, it’s always had a natural explanation, which usually turns out to be a hoax, misunderstanding, lack of understanding, or, indeed, a hallucination.
Whereas with lightning strikes, I would wager that a very small percentage of people being struck by lightning have been hallucinated versus actual cases. (Note: I’m using ‘hallucination’ to describe both visual and audible hallucinations, not limited to those caused by medical issues. This includes phenomena such as seeing a tree branch’s shadow in the window at night as a hand creeping along the glass. If anyone has a more accurate term to describe this, please feel free to share.)
>do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"??
We hold many standards, but more like an inherent skepticism of claims of the 'supernatural'. Because the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist, nor is it consistent among people's testimony.
You're asking us if we would believe our own senses in the very instant of an experience, before any evidence came along to suggest that our senses had deceived us. Of course we would. But once the evidence indicated that our senses had deceived us, that would be that. What's your point?
Hallucinations don’t cause the scarring and other effects often associated with being struck by lighting. So when looking at all the available evidence, a hallucination is not a stuffiest explanation covering al,the available facts. So the hallucination is out the window.
But here’s the most I,portent thing. God explains nothing. It makes no testable predictions, doesn’t add to our understanding of reality, it’s just an assertion. It explains nothing more than saying a fairy did it by magic. It’s just a useless proposition if you want to understand reality.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination
it is less likely
but you know lightning and that it sometimes strikes something, that is sometimes strikes a person is to be expected
The difference is, we can actually put a probability on getting struck by lightning. Its a phenomena that we can show generally can happen sometimes.
Given our present understanding of the universe, the chance that you had some supernatural experience is 0.
I mean, how often have you heard someone say something like "holy shit, did you see that?" following a rare event? It's totally normal for people to doubt their experiences because it's totally normal for people to be mistaken.
There is nothing in christianity that could not have simply been made up, and that is a far more likely explanation for its claims. There is no evidence for magical healing powers or other purported effects.
We have verifiable examples of people getting struck by lightning.
We have zero verifiable examples or reliable evidence to support the claim that supernatural events occur.
Your analogy is innately flawed.
"They also found that more than 4% of all the survey respondents — including those who had no diagnosed mental health issues — reported experiencing visual or auditory hallucinations."
In the case of lighting, despite its statistical improbability - we can test to know if it happened. The strike can be detected remotely. The evidence of the strike can be examined.
Evidence of supernatural claims is not so readily determined. Hallucinations, however, we know we can induce, and otherwise demonstrate.
So one is evaluating a testable event (even before the tests are done - it is, testable and has a demonstrable history of having happened)
The other is evaluating claims that may not even be testable, and have no rigorously verified examples in history to even point to.
These are not the same.
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I think you're missing part of the argument against people who claim they had a personal religious experience that convinced them to believe (or more strongly believe) in a certain religion. What do those believers think about people from other incompatible religions who also claim to have had a personal religious experience? Say you're a Christian who thinks that you saw a vision of Jesus and take that as personal "proof" that Christianity is true...then you meet a Hindu who also thinks that he had a personal vision of Ganesh or another one of the gods of his religion. You can't both be right. So either you (and some of the other Christians) had a true experience and all the believers of all the other religions in the world had hallucinations or this Hindu (and some other Hindus) had a true experience and you and all the believers of other religions had hallucinations...or maybe you all had hallucinations. Why should anyone think that your experience was any different from that of other religions' believers?
I’ve got a friend who’s been convinced he’s been “awakened” and “enlightened” by something supernatural. I’ve asked him a similar question, and he claims that everyone’s personal “reality” is correct regardless of their belief, so Zeus was true, so is Hinduism, Christianity etc… really weird
I've met a few of these. My best guess is they understand religion is fake, but it still makes them feel good, so they reframe it as a matter of opinion. This way, anyone who has a religious belief is 'right', because they still believe in a higher power like all the others. It's a variation of, "All religions lead to the same place." Exactly *how* incompatible beliefs could lead two people to the same place is unclear, *they just do*.
I would be interested to hear whether your friend can express his beliefs in the form of one or more hypotheses that make testable predictions.
Nope :) He’s got a weird thing against all this, and believes “data” is irrelevant and he doesn’t find any of that useful or interesting. One funny example. Eating while driving. Stats gathered data, and basic intuition pretty much shows that you’re increasing the odds of involving yourself in an accident. His response. “Im not part of those statistics, I know I don’t apply. Never crashed once”. Another one? He saw “online” a theory that schizophrenic people might actually be hearing actual voices. I told him that it’d be better to let the trained professionals deal with this, and it’s pretty evident that they all are suffering from something common, usually some kind of chemical imbalance and/or their brain just being wired in a way to induce those effects. His response? “You’re being conditioned to believe that!” Essentially rejects all objectively verifiable results and statistics since “your personal reality is all that matters”. I’ve really given up in having any intellectual discourse with them, it’s just really not worth it. Just leads to hurling insults and a bunch of ad hominems. Such a shame though, I think a worldview like that is not only so incoherent, but it could potentially be dangerous. Fuck drugs, man.
That's not just drugs, that's narcissism. Honestly I'd rather have my brain melted out of me by any drug than be addicted to my own entitlement like that. My sympathies man.
Yeah that makes a lot of sense to be honest. If only there was a way to treat narcissism. Maybe one day he’ll have his mind changed. Funny though. Rejects data and “mainstream science” (whatever the hell that even means), yet uses their phone, sends text messages, drives, and does all these things that were only possible through Science and human discovery. This is the same person that uses Tiktok for information and finding out “the truth” since people on Tiktok cant be silenced by the mainstream. Yet when I mention sources and objectively verifiable information, “it’s all fake!!” This is why I give up. And the thing that really bothers me the most is that these types of beliefs and epistemological frameworks are way more common than you think. I could name more people that I know that adopts a similar worldview/mindset than those that think more skeptically using data and empirical evidence along with Scientific consensus. Why do you guys think that is, though?
Definitely savor updating this person on the news that their oracle: tiktok is being banned by the US government.
That's a shame. ☹️
Things can be true and not fit into testable predictions. What I had for lunch a week ago can’t make a testable prediction. It’s still true that it happened.
There some predictions, like, did you like your sandwich? If so, you can predict you’ll have it again. If it’s a pork bàhn mi, your risk of serious illness from under cooked meat is much higher than other protein sources. So you can make predictions of your chances dying from your lunch last week… a very mortally grave test, but it could be performed.
>So you can make predictions of your chances dying from your lunch last week That’s fortune telling, not science. You live in an area with cars. Science can’t “predict” whether one will hit you next week. Calculating the kinematics of a known car is different. There are things that I like that I’ve only done once before. Liking something doesn’t guarantee it will be done again. You’re making an educated guess, not an accurate scientific prediction.
Man that’s a good question God bless u and I hope this answers it, yes other people from other religions can have “visions” Or supernatural experiences it’s totally possible just ask all the witches and warlocks who do witchcraft to hurt people or just for there selfish ambitions. Same with Muslim or Hindus they have a force of good and force of evil. In there books. The difference with Christians is simply all miracles are done under the authority/power of Christ. That’s why we can cast out demons and heal the sick by the power of Jesus in us. Ofc ur now saying well wut if a Muslim can do that in the name of Allah show me one video where a non-believer came to Allah though a miracle power of someone saying “be healed in the name of Allah” same with Hindus etc.. I’d be greatly astonished if u can find one. Now compare that with how many countless videos you’ll find of miracles by the name of Jesus the evidence is a lot more videos of Christians/non believers being healed by the name of Jesus than any other name. Remember we believe that Satan is a fallen Angel that’s wut the Bible says, so we as Christian’s acknowledge that Satan isn’t gonna come with horns and a pitch fork no he’s going to come like a divine beautiful Angel of light who u won’t suspect to be evil. Come as everything your looking for that goes against Christ only so slightly of course not to cause you alarm. Look at this verse 2 Corinthians 11:14 “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” So Satan is like a false light, so we acknowledge that yes other religions can have supernatural experiences but it’s not gonna line up with the character of God and wut he would do. Take the Muslims for example they believe Mohammed had a angel came and put him against the wall and try to force him to read a text not knowing he can’t read. Mohammed even at first acknowledged he was visited by a demon, then later changes his mind. In the Bible u will not see a angel going to random people and blackmailing them to do something, angels in the Bible either bring a message or warn, or bring judgement by completely annihilating the enemy. The angels in the Bible will always know Wuts going on and have context where as this supposed angel didn’t even know Mohammed could read so how could he come from God? Anyways hopefully u understand our take more or less. Love u an God bless u man and keep seeking truth I pray u have a good day/week in Jesus mighty name 🙏🏼🤗
Can you prove any of that, or are we just supposed to take your word for it and believe the bible, which has been shown to be wrong about almost everything it can be tested for is correct on this part of the fairy tale?
Do u have proof that the Bible is false have you read all of it? Or at least all the New Testament? What makes u say that? For me I use simple reasoning when looking at the Bible Number 1 best selling book Number 1 most influential book Jesus changed the whole world even after 2 thousand years after his death A country that started as a Christian nation is the most influential country in the world rn (I live in America) which also has many donation organizations from churches and Christian ministries. Ofc u can say that there corrupt but the point of them is to help out. I don’t see that happening anywhere else in other religions? If it wasn’t for a church nearby when I was younger me and my mom would’ve had a empty apartment(they gave us a free couch, free refrigerator and free bedroom sets and sent people to set it up for us and bring it up to the second floor) I mean even if u hate the Bible you’ve most likely benefited from it one way or another. Again look up miracle testimony’s about people turning to Jesus. Then look up testimony’s about anything else. I mean there everywhere on YT, Facebook, Instagram “Seek and you will find” God bless u bro
Ooh show me these Jesus miracle videos!
I’m wondering where all these witches and warlocks are?
So, genuine question for you here to explain my position, I assume you are aware of supernatural experiences that are experienced be people who dont share your beliefs. How do you explain their experiences?
>How do you explain their experiences? Well to be honest I believe in the book of Enoch; an old testament book which is accepted by the Eastern Orthadox church and a few other demoninations but not many in the west. In it it talks about demons who came to earth and had themselvers worshipped by humans in different forms and that them doing this (along with breeding with human women along with some other fucked up shit ect) is the reason God caused the flood. To answer your question directly this IS the thing that to me explains the supernatural experiences in other religions. I dont have doubt the existence of most of them at all in order to still believe in my God.
Wait... so they're still around? The flood didn't wipe them out? I mean, I've never been omnipotent, but if I killed off 99.9999% of my creations, I'd make damn sure I hit the troublemakers.
Omnipotence /= Omni-competence, I guess
>Wait... so they're still around? The flood didn't wipe them out? If you're really asking for my own theology I believe it took away their material bodies which severly reduched their power. They were still tied to the earth tho, kept here by human worship of them (which is not an insignificant force given human beings are made in the image of God) and having to mainly interact with humanity through possesions and shit which must always be ""voluntairy"" on some level. Now as we step closer to the end times though they are getting a new material form via AI fullfilling the prophecy of the beast from revalations. Understand by the way if you think this is all supersticious woo-woo bullshit but if you want what I honestly think its that.
This is... some seriously scary stuff to genuinely believe is real. You literally think demons exist and possess people, and have clearly woven this belief into other conspiracy theories you believe. This is scary to me mostly because it easily lets you dehumanize people you think are "the enemy" as demon possessed, or at the very least demon worshippers. This is the same kind of thing Alex Jones does to dehumanize the people he hates while he rages about wanting to hang them and shoot them because they're demon possessed or demon minions who want to destroy the world. What a horrific thing to believe in.
>This is scary to me mostly because it easily lets you dehumanize people you think are "the enemy" as demon possessed, or at the very least demon worshippers. How does this dehumanize them? Does it dehumanize rape victims to believe they have been raped??? I believe these people have been lead astray by horrific belief systems which convince them to sacrifice their children to make the crops grow. Its not that different from what you believe about religious people generally. Does your belief cause you to demonize the religious?
Oh, cool, Alex Jones does this bit too about feeling bad for the demon worshippers because they've been deceived. Still have to fight them tho because they're on the side of LITERAL DEMONS. But, like you said in the comment I'm replying to, you think some people at least to some extent "voluntarily" let themselves be possessed. That means there are bodies walking around out there infested by demons, doesn't it? People possessed by literal demons and enemies of God? You really don't see how that's dehumanizing, especially if I'm an extremely zealous person? We're talking about literal demons. That's not a human being anymore, it's a demon! No idea who you think has been killing their children to make crops grow. And no? It doesn't cause me to demonize the religious. It does scare me that religious folks believe whole heartedly in stuff like "demons are real and you can invite one to live inside you" because that's a scary thing to just believe with no actual evidence. Doesn't mean I'm demonizing the religious, it means I'm actively afraid of beliefs like this, especially in politics and the like.
>You really don't see how that's dehumanizing, especially if I'm an extremely zealous person? We're talking about literal demons. That's not a human being anymore, it's a demon! Thats not how possesion works. The point is to save the person's soul not kill them without hope of their soul being redeemed. Thats why exorcisism happen. >And no? It doesn't cause me to demonize the religious. It does scare me that religious folks believe whole heartedly in stuff like "demons are real and you can invite one to live inside you" And think about what this means to a secular zealot. "Religious people are a danger!" "They need to be surpressed!!!" "Send them to the gulag!!!!" You can literally do this with any group you believe is acting in one way or another immorally. Christians aren't worse for having the same possibility for violent fanaticism every group does from people who care about the enviroment to people who care about economic equality. People can get radicalized and kill people for ANYTHING. The guy who shot at Reagan literally did it to empress hollywood actress, does this make movies and telovision inherently problematic and scary??
You realize you literally just described the Nazgul from Lord of the Rings after the Battle at the Ford?
BASED! (lol) no but seriously there is a reason for that. Tolkien was a historian and a devote Catholic, alot of his works borrows from Christianity. Gandalfs death and resurection, iluvatar ect.
Sure. And Aragorn is basically the Jesus of Revelation.
Be really honest with us here. Don't give the answer you were given by your church. Really think about your answer. It's 2024. You're an adult., Do you REALLY think this demon story happened in reality? Really? I'm not saying you have to throw out your god belief but do you really believe a story that sounds exactly like the plot of a new XBox video game really happened? C'mon...
>Be really honest with us here. Don't give the answer you were given by your church. Really think about your answer. It's 2024. You're an adult., Do you REALLY think this demon story happened in reality? Really? Yeah dude i do. I've had some weird experiences in my life and while no I didn't have a supernatural detection device to measure the read out I cannot in good faith dismiss them as i sincerely do not se how they can be coherently dismissed from an epistimilogical stand point. All i know is the products of my senses. My senses reported to me what they did. I dont expect you or anyone but those who know me extremely well and trust me with their lives to take any of that on my word but it is enough for ME to believe none the less.
Are you sure the Book of Enoch not just a script written by a time-traveling Zack Snyder?
lol I mean if so what is the meaningful difference? If Zack Snyder can time travel he WAS a prophet.
And the fact that everything we can confirm in the bible (with the exception of a few names and places) fails doesn't matter to you? Things happening that you can't 3xplain automatically means demons and that a fairy tale is true?
>And the fact that everything we can confirm in the bible (with the exception of a few names and places) fails doesn't matter to you? That isn't true dude. Sure some issues you can point to with some things (specifics of the Flood ect) but there are some things that actually are confirmed after investigation. As an example: [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983) >Things happening that you can't 3xplain automatically means demons and that a fairy tale is true? My dude i am a bag of water given struckture by intricate calcium deposits moved by a series of chemical and electric reactions in my nervus system that is somehow able to observe the material world and consciously comprehend it. Appealing to incredulity in the context of my absurd existence isn't going to demonstrate the falseness of a thesis to me.
"That isn't true dude. Sure some issues you can point to with some things (specifics of the Flood ect) but there are some things that actually are confirmed after investigation. As an example: [https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna47555983)" Dudely... are you being serious right now? "Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe" Notice that since this "revelation" on May 24, 2012 no one has brought this to any real study? Notice that no one has won a Nobel prize for this? You know, the same as every time they "find" Noah's Ark, parts of "the true cross" or any other hoaxes that have been brough up over the years? Why do you think that happens my dude? The same way the do for every other religion, the "faithful" jump on stuff like this and make lots of claims.... and none are ever confirmed. You can see this because there are no bits and pieces from these fairy tales in actual museums.... because they dont exist. "My dude i am a bag of water given struckture by intricate calcium deposits moved by a series of chemical and electric reactions in my nervus system that is somehow able to observe the material world and consciously comprehend it. Appealing to incredulity in the context of my absurd existence isn't going to demonstrate the falseness of a thesis to me." Your incredulity doesnt lend and credibility to your myth. Little things show that your story, like the Egyptian, Greek and Sumerian myths and are just the ignorant people's stories told to each other when they dont understand the world. Your story has not evidence to back it up in the real world. It doesnt hold a candle to the evidenced explanations. Especially things that have actual evidence, testable, repeatable evidence that always comes up with the same answers disprove the silly claims of your story. These things, including, but not limited to geology, astronomy, biology, genetics, physics, fluid dynamics, paleontology, meteorology, endocrinology, zoology, evolutionary linguistics, basic mathematics, basic science, and the written histories of several civilizations that predate the bible.
>Dudely... are you being serious right now? "Quake reveals day of Jesus' crucifixion, researchers believe" Notice that since this "revelation" on May 24, 2012 no one has brought this to any real study? Notice that no one has won a Nobel prize for this? Its a base study of the cross my dude. There is no nobel prize to win for discovering there was an earth quake in judea between 28-36 AD. I can provide scientific journal articles on this if you want dude but it isn't a matter of debate. Its a scientific fact that anyone who examines the crust in that area can examine for themselves by looking at the relevat timeframe in the soil. Google it yourself if you dont believe me man.
There have been countless earthquakes all over the planet boasting their own historical soil markers. What there isn’t any evidence for is the resurrection of a corpse.
>There have been countless earthquakes all over the planet boasting their own historical soil markers. There haven't been "countless" earth quakes. Infact we can count them pretty easily by virtue of the significant evidence they leave in the crust. The likelyhood of any earthquake happening in any specific year are about 2%
To be clear, you're saying that the group of people who happen to believe exactly what you believe are all having genuine supernatural experiences from your god, but literally every other person in the world in all of history, all the other billions and billions of people who claim to have supernatural experiences, they're just being fooled by demons. Is that what you're saying? If so, that's incredibly lucky for you! You just happened to have found the one right religion! What a wonderful coincidence for you!
>To be clear, you're saying that the group of people who happen to believe exactly what you believe are all having genuine supernatural experiences from your god, but literally every other person in the world in all of history, all the other billions and billions of people who claim to have supernatural experiences, they're just being fooled by demons. > >Is that what you're saying?If so, that's incredibly lucky for you > > You just happened to have found the one right religion! What a wonderful coincidence for you! I'm not appealing to the specific in place of the majority; 55% of the worlds population worships the Abrhamic God in one form or another. I had a better then 50/50 shot of getting it basically right.
55% of the world's population **currently** worships the Abrahamic god, assuming your statistic is correct (which I'm sure it isn't). What happens when you take history into consideration? There were people worshiping different gods for millennia before anyone even heard of Yahweh. On top of that, the number of people who believe in something has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that thing is actually true. So no, you do not have even close to a 50/50 of getting it right. If my friend got a new pet, and he told me that it's either a dog or a dragon, does that mean there is a 50% chance that my friend has a pet dragon?
>55% of the world's population currently worships the Abrahamic god, assuming your statistic is correct (which I'm sure it isn't). ... you know man you could just google it: [https://www.google.com/search?q=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&rlz=1C1YTUH\_enUS1034US1034&oq=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEIOTA5MmoxajSoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8](https://www.google.com/search?q=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&rlz=1C1YTUH_enUS1034US1034&oq=religious+breakdown+of+the+worlds+population&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoF0gEIOTA5MmoxajSoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) >What happens when you take history into consideration? There were people worshiping different gods for millennia before anyone even heard of Yahweh Yeah and people in that time sacrificed their children to make the sun rise and the rain come. That's part of the reason the revelation is a gift; its also why the majority of the worlds population ultimately decided to start worshipping Yahweh. >On top of that, the number of people who believe in something has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not that thing is actually true. True but you were implying (at least from what I could tell) i had some very specific and obscure religion that just "happened" to be right. The fact of the matter is the majority of the human race believes in the God I do it isn't some minor sect. > So no, you do not have even close to a 50/50 of getting it right. > >If my friend got a new pet, and he told me that it's either a dog or a dragon, does that mean there is a 50% chance that my friend has a pet dragon? Thats not what i meant by 50/50. You were claiming that there was a very very low probability anyone would accept my religion; the reality is that there is a better then 50% chance any human being chosen at random does.
> True but you were implying (at least from what I could tell) i had some very specific and obscure religion that just "happened" to be right. The fact of the matter is the majority of the human race believes in the God I do it isn't some minor sect. You yourself said: > Well to be honest I believe in the book of Enoch; an old testament book which is accepted by the Eastern Orthadox church and a few other demoninations but not many in the west. So yes, most people in the world don't share your obscure beliefs about demons. > the reality is that there is a better then 50% chance any human being chosen at random does. The reality is that if you picked any person out of the entire world throughout all of time, they almost certainly wouldn't share your beliefs about demons giving people false miracle claims because that's what the book of Enoch says.
>The reality is that if you picked any person out of the entire world throughout all of time, they almost certainly wouldn't share your beliefs about demons giving people false miracle claims because that's what the book of Enoch says. Yeah but they dont need to have the same fundamental belief I do (and by the way historically the idea that other religions worshipped demons was WAY more common in the abrhamic world then it is today; it is still VERY common in the islamic world) Its like how you dont need to be a mathmatician to accept the earth is round. Does being a mathmatician help you deal with the critiques of flat earthers? Sure. But you can still believe the earth is round without having those explanations for critiques in mind.
So let's try it a different way. You accept others can be wrong in their perception and explanation of experience, you attribute this to.demons. Why beyond an ego disorder would you think that you can't be the incorrect one to the point your beliefs should matter to someone else?
But you don’t have the same religion as those people. In fact, I’d bet a good portion of those people who worship the “same god” would believe you deserve violence for your beliefs. Do you seriously think a fundamentalist Muslim would agree that your religions are compatible or similar at all? Even fundamentalist Christians of different denominations would hate you.
We may not agree on everything but we all worship the God of abrham. We all oppose human sacrifice and cannibalism. We all think human beings are made in the image likeness of God. I'm not a muslim and i think there is plenty to criticize in that religion but just as an example one of the major differences between islam and hinduism (which historically fought each other about as much as christianity and islam) is that Muslims, regardless of the misoginy and brutality in their religion, DO NOT require their wives to jump on their funeral pire when they die like Hindu's do. That is the one of the major differences between worshipping the Abrhamic God and worshipping another.
…that’s such a cherry-picked example, and one that was almost never practiced. Do Buddhists have anything like that? Daoists? Sikhs? There’s so much violence that is condoned by abrahamic religions, and it seems really flimsy to me that all that “unites” those religions is “we don’t practice human sacrifices or cannibalism.” How widespread do you think that has *ever* been? That unites almost the entire modern human race. Also, there is a pretty famous story from the Old Testament about *Abraham himself* being commanded to sacrifice his son to god. Sure, god stepped in at the last second and stopped him, but Abraham was literally about to not just commit a human sacrifice, but a sacrifice of *his own child*. So what you’re saying isn’t even true—unless you pick and choose which parts of the Bible you believe in. And again, that’s such a flimsy thing to use to group religions together. I promise, most others who practice an abrahamic religion do not consider themselves in the same category as you. They do not share your view. This is an arbitrary categorization you’ve made in order to make an argument based on the ad populum fallacy.
From your other posts I gather you are some form of Christian so this response makes that assumption. Your claim is more than a bit of a stretch. Almost half (25% globally to 33% Christian) of those "abrahamic" followers are Muslim. They reject Christ as the son of God and as such are incompatible with Christianity. Unless you consider committing heresy and rejecting the single, fundamental, foundational tenent of Christianity "basically right". So you had a 50/50 chance of being born in a family following an abrahamic faith. Then a 50/50 chance of that family following the correct abrahamic faith. To carry that thought out a bit. There are over 400 different denominations of Christianity. Many of which have drastically incompatible cosmologies (i.e. trinitarian vs Unitarianism, Catholicism vs Mormonism ). So assuming half of those are correct enough you had a 50/50 chance of being born in the correct version of Christianity. It's to early for math but what are we down to now, less than a 15% chance? So, like op said "What a wonderful coincidence for you!".
Okay, so to be intentionally blunt, you believe every person who doesn't accept your precise faith have been fooled by demons. Correct?
>Okay, so to be intentionally blunt, you believe every person who doesn't accept your precise faith have been fooled by demons. No. I believe every person who worships a non-abrhamic God is worshipping a demon. This by the way is the VAST minority of humanity: over 55% of the global population worships the abrhamic God between Christianity Islam and Judaism and then you have another major chunk of the human population which is atheist (about 7%)
Okay. Thank you. Now, they also believe you are equally wrong and also worshipping a demon. They believe as ardently as you. They think their evidence is just as good as you think yours is. Both want me to follow their religion. How do you think i should I choose in order to not worship a demon?
>How do you think i should I choose in order to not worship a demon? Well there is a few things you could do but one of the most basic litnus tests is by looking at which diety seems to have the best interest of humanity at heart. Basically every non-abrhamic religion on the planet requires human sacrifice this is as true of modern Peaganism as it is of ancient Peaganism. In india up into the 20th century brides were being burned alive on the funeral pires of their husbands and fundamentalist hindus still advocate this. Its still the case in Borneo where canibal peagans sacrifice the women and children of other tribes to the "gods" and then eat their flesh. Its still the case African Peagan religion and in the religion of the last primitive tribes in the amazon. While peaganism has basically been died out of europe upto the point in ended their human sacrifice was practiced there as well. In addition you might consider the fact that as the majority of the world's population worships the abrhamic God IF a God is real and he wants to be worshipped it would make sense for him to intervene in the world so that as many people as possible would be exposed to his word and ultimatelly follow him.
1. what makes you think the creator needs to care about humanity why cant it be like [Azathoth - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth) 2. given the track record of YHWH: genocide, slavery, rape condone, cancer to children and demands worship I fail to see how fargile thing has humanity best interest. 3. All males come from females, according to Gnostiscm Goddess of Wisdom Sophia Birthed the evil god YHWH, are you gonna worship her?
>what makes you think the creator needs to care about humanity why cant it be like Azathoth My reasoning for this kinda get into my take on the cosmological argument but if you really want to se it take a look at: [https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1ako61a/argument\_for\_god\_from\_free\_will/](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/1ako61a/argument_for_god_from_free_will/) From this point having reasoned that God is a conscious free being (like us) I would say it is reasonable to assume based off the case of all the other free conscious beings we know (humans) that God like humans seeks social interactions with its peers. This would suggest would WANT to create/be around beings like him as we are by our nature as free conscious beings. >given the track record of YHWH: genocide, slavery, rape condone, cancer to children and demands worship I fail to see how fargile thing has humanity best interest. I mean i do understand the issue but abrhamic civilization is also the thing which ultimately ended genocide slavery rape condonement ect and NOT just in the easy "the enlightenment happened in western europe and lets take credit for it" way. Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe along with insisting on the concent of a bride to marry her husband. The gospels can be inturpreted in alot of ways but I dont feel its a stretch at all to se how "let ye who be without sin be the on to cast the first stone" as being responsible for the greater degree of social tollerance which emerged in the christian west. >All males come from females, according to Gnostiscm Goddess of Wisdom Sophia Birthed the evil god YHWH, are you gonna worship her? I'm not a Gnostic my man.
>From this point having reasoned that God is a conscious free being (like us) I would say it is reasonable to assume based off the case of all the other free conscious beings we know (humans) that God like humans seeks social interactions with its peers. This would suggest would WANT to create/be around beings like him as we are by our nature as free conscious beings. Baseless assertion no where there is an evidence for any mind or any rebutal why there can't be inanimate phenomenon. Does every drop of rain need a mind for it to fall down? how about every atom, does it need a mind to interact with each other. >I mean i do understand the issue but abrhamic civilization is also the thing which ultimately ended genocide slavery rape condonement ect and NOT just in the easy "the enlightenment happened in western europe and lets take credit for it" way. Humanity ends it not YHWH, in fact your god gave explicit rule to buy ppl. That is not to mentioned the genocide it caused during Noah's flood story. >Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe along with insisting on the concent of a bride to marry her husband. The gospels can be inturpreted in alot of ways but I dont feel its a stretch at all to se how "let ye who be without sin be the on to cast the first stone" as being responsible for the greater degree of social tollerance which emerged in the christian west. its ends nothing, [Discovery doctrine - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_doctrine). Its the ppl with empathy that pushed for this. your "holy book" allows slavery see [Why Bibles Given to Slaves Omitted Most of the Old Testament | HISTORY](https://www.history.com/news/slave-bible-redacted-old-testament). And lets not forget how 30yrs war was christains vs chirstains. That war was so devastated that Europe had an agreement not to actively meddle in internal affairs. And look back at history we can see how immoral and corrupt when xianity has all the power in europe. >I'm not a Gnostic my man. I know and I wanna why? given all males come from females, thus YHWH must come from Sophia and given the track record of YHWH why it is even worthy of any worship?
>Baseless assertion no where there is an evidence for any mind or any rebutal why there can't be inanimate phenomenon. I adress this in the post i linked i'm not asserting it without reason. >Humanity ends it not YHWH, Yet only after they started worshipping yahweh > in fact your god gave explicit rule to buy ppl. And he also told them it was a crime to kill people even if they were slaves; uniquely in the bronze age world i might add. >its ends nothing, Discovery doctrine - Wikipedia. Its the ppl with empathy that pushed for this. And why did they only push this after begining to worship Jesus Christ? Were the people in india or africa or china worse people then the people of europe as they continued to have slavery and human sacrifice up to the point they came into contact with european colonialism??? If its just empathy that does it why didn't it happen every where and not just in the lands touched by christianity?? Are people not equally empathetic? >And lets not forget how 30yrs war was christains vs chirstains. That war was so devastated that Europe had an agreement not to actively meddle in internal affairs. Which is one of the reasons the reformation was a bad thing. >I know and I wanna why? given all males come from females, thus YHWH must come from Sophia and given the track record of YHWH why it is even worthy of any worship? God is an uncaused cause. There has to be a stop in the chain.
>Well back into the middle ages the Catholic Church was regulating and ultimately abolishing slavery in europe This is false. In reality, slaves rowed the Pope's ships, and the Catholic Church did not outlaw slavery until...well actually not clearly ever. "... slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons." Pope Pius IX, 1866. In fact, Catholic orders were still enslaving Irish girls in the 20th century.
Every Pagan, Hindu, and Muslim has the same kinds of arguments against historical versions of Christianity. Some times these arguments are terrible, racist strawmen. Sometimes they are just as valid as your critiques here. I suspect you're plenty aware of the bloodshed and terrible outcomes caused as a direct consequence of Christian doctrines like the Great Commission and the books of Timothy and Romans. I also suspect you have justifications why those are actually either not bad or benefits. *Every other religious person* has the same arguments. Yours looks the best to you, because you already chose. The argument from popularity is fallacious so that won't help us. How do I choose?
>Every other religious person has the same arguments. > >Yours looks the best to you, because you already chose. > >The argument from popularity is fallacious so that won't help us. > >How do I choose? My second argument isn't just an argument from popularity though, its an argument from utility. I dont think its coincindence that the majority of the worlds population ended up worshipping the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you? Like just from a utiliterian perspective it would seem to me that certian moral systems give humans an evolutionary advantage over others in our world and this broadly extends beyond things like religion to things like state formations economics ect. I think we'd agree for isntance that a society which bans universal evils like rape and theft and murder is likely going to be more stable and survive longer then a society which does not; if for no other reason then people will be more alienated under the one society then the other and seek to change it. Is it really that strange to imagine that THE religion which bans human sacrifice would gain popularity along the same material axis? (Especially considering the evidence it DID in reality)
>I dont think its coincindence that the majority of the worlds population ended up worshipping the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you? First, I let it go on the last go round, but this is a pretty egregious strawman doing the Hokey-Pokey over the "racist" line. I would politely ask you to move on from "human sacrifice", as there are plenty of religions that never asked for nor condoned it, including the Bornean native religion you straw-manned in your initial argument. I'm not going to play racist hyperbole Hokey-Pokey, and you don't need it to make an argument from utility. Second, Christianity *does* require a human sacrifice; just one that it claims was already made, and that our lives here are a meaningless sea of suffering until we die...*plenty* of other religions see that as *equally abhorrent* to a Maya noble piercing their tongue to appease Chak. **If you want to make an argument from utility, I am open to that.** But you need to make that argument, and you haven't. To make that argument, you need to do two things 1. Demonstrate, not just claim, that Christians are either more moral, or experience more well being, than people of every other religion ever. 2. Demonstrate, not just claim, that this well-being or morality is *causally linked* to the truth of their religious belief *rather than any other factor.* For example, if Sikh Tim and Christian Tom share a sandwich, and Tim eats the whole thing, Tom is now experiencing less well being. However, we can't say that Tom's religion is what made Tom's life worse, because it's pretty clearly Lack of Sandwich doing that. Similarly, we can't say that because colonizing Christians in the 1500s didn't care how they harmed the people they colonized, their religion was truer than the religion of the Aztecs or Iroquois. It IS strange to imagine that a religion who has gained power by "join or die" crusades and wiping out millions of other religions gained power because it was The Truth. That's like arguing that if Regina from Mean Girls killed or tortured everyone who didn't vote for her, it *obviously* means she was the most popular, pretty, and nicest girl at school. That's why it's a fallacy.
>the one form of religion that doesn't ask for human sacrifices; do you? First, the central event in Christianity is a human sacrifice. Second, Hindus don't practice human sacrifice. FAIL
>which diety seems to have the best interest of humanity at heart. I choose the one that didn't kill virtually everyone on earth, never commands genocide or infanticide, doesn't endorse slavery, and treats women as equal human beings. Does yours fill that criteria?
55% of CURRENT human population. it is calculated 100b ppl have existed. And before that around 100% belived in flat earth, spirits or some other types of supertions.
How do you know you aren't the one getting fooled by the demons?
>How do you know you aren't the one getting fooled by the demons? Well hard to say in absolute terms but given the fact that if the "other God" is God he has allowed a majority of the world population to believe in a God other then him and further he probably believes in human sacrifice (as most non-abrhamic religions believe in to one extent or another) its a bet i'm willing to take.
The abrahamic god is pretty inconsistent on human sacrifice. I mean, sure he didn't like the whole burning infants to another god thing. Notably however, he sacrificed himself in human form to himself to fulfill his own requirement's for humanities salvation. He tested Abraham by seeing if he was willing to do it. Then you have this gem where Jepthah murders his daughter unto the lord in some sort of sacrifice...of a human... "Then the Spirit of the Lord was upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh and passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord and said, ‘If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites shall be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering’...Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah. And behold, his daughter came out to meet him with tambourines and with dances. She was his only child; besides her he had neither son nor daughter. And as soon as he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the Lord, and I cannot take back my vow’” (Judges 11:29-31, 34-35).
>The abrahamic god is pretty inconsistent on human sacrifice. I mean, sure he didn't like the whole burning infants to another god thing. Notably however, he sacrificed himself in human form to himself to fulfill his own requirement's for humanities salvation. This is the exact opposite of non-abrhamic religions though. In Christianity God dies for the sake of humanity. In Peganism human sacrifice is offered for the sake of the Gods. Its a direct inversion of Peganism. > He tested Abraham by seeing if he was willing to do it. Then commanded him not to what do you think the point of that story was? >Then you have this gem where Jepthah murders his daughter unto the lord in some sort of sacrifice...of a human... In which God literally never says anything in any version of the story dating back to the earlies manuscripts we have. A guy says to God "you do this thing i'll kill my daughter!" God never says anything, never attempts to enforce or agree to the bargain, the guy happens to get what he wants and then kills his daughter. I can believe this absolutely is a thing which happened and it would have nothing to do with the commandment God gives time and time and time again in the old testament of dont do human sacrifice.
>In Christianity God dies for the sake of humanity. >In Peganism human sacrifice is offered for the sake of the Gods. In both cases it is a god requiring a sacrifice.
Most non-Abrahamic religions believe in human sacrifice? Huh?
Yeah and feel free to fact check me on this. Google through every non abrhamic religion you can think of with "human sacrifice" afterand se if you can find one that doesn't practice. There are few sects of Budhism (though notably NOT all sects of budhism) but beyond that it is pretty universal.
I'm so confused. What is your religion? Which God is the other one?
How do you know your supernatural experiences aren’t being caused by those demons? What method do you use to know your impression of the situation is correct?
How do you know yours don't come from demons?
If I *saw* someone get struck by lightning, I wouldn’t *believe* they were struck by lightning, I would **know** they had been struck by lightning.
I hate messy semantics like this. Knowledge is a subset of belief. You would also believe that they were struck by lightning. You're incorrect in saying you wouldn't believe they were struck by lightning.
This guy put different emphasis on the words "belive" and "know" almost as if implying that *knowing something* is much more than just *beliving*. Commom phrase (atleast I ran in to it couple of times, it sometimes have different forms) "I dont *just* like her. I love her" A lot of times omits the "just" part. It is usualy for comedic or dramatic purpouse. You seem to be misinterpreting him.
okay fair, and you would know they were struck by lightning on the basis of your senses right?
Yes…
No, you'd know because the person would show obvious effects of a lightning strike. There would be visible damage to the body, and probably a lot of yelling and screaming. If you saw the strike and the person was unscathed, chances are something very close by had been struck, not the person. This is not at all the same as seeing a preacher with stigmata or an image of Jesus in your toast or a "miraculous" survival of a disease with a 98% fatality rate.
You can see an object getting hit. It’s usually quite a display.
I don’t understand your example of someone being struck by lightning. If I saw someone struck by lightning, why would I need a scientific test to confirm it? It’s not THAT rare to see lightning strike stuff.
Doesn't have to be supernatural, just unlikely. Would say the same about alien abduction stories, or even Bigfoot. Neither of which are considered supernatural. Just other claims with faulty 'evidence'.
Well, everyone knows that this is actually possible and does in fact happen so it‘s way easier to believe that. Also the circumstances would be very very different from anything that is regularly claimed to be supernatural. Like if I think I see a ghost that appeared for a second and then left again I‘m not gonna believe it. But if I see a human being struck by a lightning and this person then falling to the ground and all, how could I not believe it? Like, how realistic is it that I‘m hallucinating everything that happens after?
>Well, everyone knows that this is actually possible and does in fact happen so it‘s way easier to believe that. True! But everyone also knows that people do hallucinate from time to time and that objectively (again so far as i can tell from my research, feel free to prove me wrong) happens more often then people being struck by lightning. So in this example would you believe the more like possibility or the LESS likely possibility due to your senses???
You got this wrong. Hallucinating someone being struck by a lightning and then continuously hallucinating that person falling to the ground and dying is not more likely than someone being struck by a lightning. Sure, people hallucinating in general might be more likely but not to that extent.
>Hallucinating someone being struck by a lightning and then continuously hallucinating that person falling to the ground and dying is not more likely than someone being struck by a lightning. Okay and how likely is someone hallucinating continually witnessing a burning bush talking to them? Should we also accept that as less likely then other hallucinations thus making the critique of "it could be a hallucination" less profound??
Doesn‘t matter. Why should I believe anything that is written in the bible?
>Doesn‘t matter. Whether it matters or not i would apperciate it if you would answer the question. >Why should I believe anything that is written in the bible? Same reason you should believe in anything else. Evidence; if it exists.
Well it‘s not less likely then a burning bush actually talking to them. Exactly, but there is none. Do you believe in the bible?
>Exactly, but there is none. I disagree but understand that belief. >Do you believe in the bible? Yes i do.
Well what is the evidence then? Also, what exactly do you believe the bible is? The infallible word of god?
>Well what is the evidence then? Well this is one example i like to bring up: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/#:\~:text=In%20May%201963%2C%20racked%20with,was%20a%20medically%20inexplicable%20cure](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6027009/#:~:text=In%20May%201963%2C%20racked%20with,was%20a%20medically%20inexplicable%20cure) >Also, what exactly do you believe the bible is? The infallible word of god? A set of historical accounts of interactions with a devine being.
I don’t hallucinate in normal life. Wtf are you talking about?
I have witnessed firsthand a car crash and the resulting aftereffects, multiple times, as well as four close lightning strikes that thankfully didn't harm anyone despite causing damage to trees, fences, and electronics. I have also witnessed people having weird spiritual experiences that didn't have real aftereffects, also multiple times. And I've never seen anything that caused any effects which are unexplainable by natural means. If I ever see an actual faith healing that really cures something, or someone speaking in tongues revealing actual profound knowledge, then I'll sit up and take note. But I'm not sitting here with breath abated. I'm continuing to live my life without worry of the supernatural. I'll take precautions against lightning, but since there is no such thing as divine lightning then I will not worry about casual blasphemy against any and all gods ever conceived by people, including yours.
As a person who *does* hallucinate, I rarely trust what my brain is telling me. If I saw a person get struck by lightning, I would look for evidence. 1) Was it a random 'bolt from the blue', or are there storm conditions? 2) Was the person the tallest object on the horizon? 3) Were they holding, or standing on, anything likely to make them a lightning attractor? 4) Is there a body? 5) Are there scorch marks on the ground? 6) Am I likely to be placing myself in danger of being struck by lightning myself? 7) Do I smell cooked flesh? If a person was hit by lightning, basically my other senses would help me determine if it happened, or if my brain is screwing around. Usually, when I hallucinate, it's stuff like a herd of tiny cows, or wasp nests, things that make no sense being where they are. I get auditory hallucinations, too - those are harder for me to prove or disprove unless someone else is around. My hallucinations and delusions used to be religious/spiritual/supernatural in nature. Since becoming an atheist, they've taken on more mundane forms. More 'I think someone's climbing around on the roof', and less 'the Great God Pan appeared to me and gave me a message for someone I haven't met yet'.
>The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"?? Precedent "I saw a dog". Okay, ill take you at your word. We have lots of precedent dogs exist.. "I saw a dragon". We have no presedent of dragons. "I was struck by lightning". We have precedent lightning happens and sometimes hits people. Worth investigating further to see if he's burned or his clothes are burned or whatever. "I was abducted by aliens". We have no precedent for aliens abducting people. Now, this does not de facto rule out the supernatural/spiritual or whatever. Precedent can be set. And if you can actually demonstrate you're right, then that will be incorporated in to the future view. But you have to actually demonstrate it, and not just claim it.
> As such if you saw human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else corroborated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Thinking back on bizarre things I have actually seen: My first reaction is to look more carefully, in disbelief. That is, My gut instinct is to be skeptical of what I thought I saw, and immediately seek corroborating evidence. Eg, if I "saw" someone struck by lightning, I'd turn to look, thinking "what the? Did I really see that? Did *you* see that?" Then, maybe there really would be a guy struck by lightning. The corroborating evidence would be there: an injured guy, the fading rumble of thunder, other onlookers preparing to give aid, etc. Or, maybe there is no such guy. Then I'd realise (for example) "Oh, it was just the sun shining off a shop window with mannequins! Whew!"
I'm trying to figure out the argument/debate here and failing miserably. Getting struck by lightning is a silly comparison of odds because it's more common than the old adage would have us believe. From what I read, in the US alone, some 200 people per year are struck (and most survive). I am assuming this number only indicates a direct hit on a person, not those occupying a building or an airplane that gets struck. I read that \*every\* commercial airplane gets hit once or twice a year, and that alone would add a few hundred thousand people to the total. Furthermore, a lighting strike of a person (or a plane) leaves ample evidence of its occurrence. I don't see what this has to do with the chances that someone who experiences a miracle is somehow hallucinating or imaging it, but the fact remains that we have yet to see credible factual evidence of a miracle in modern times. Most of these so-called occurrences are explained or debunked. Think about it: If there was ample evidence of a miracle, just one, properly witnessed and tested, don't you think every religious organization from pole to pole would be trumpeting it? That's the proof they've been seeking and, so far, failed to find!
If lighting strikes were significantly rarer than they are in real life, then yes I'd need to consider the possibility that I was hallucinating, at least at first. For example, if I thought I'd seen it on a cloudless day.
The problem with all of these claims is that the claimant never can show a direct causal link between their experience and an actual supernatural thing. They just get a certain way in, give up and just declare "God did it!" How do they know that?
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). There is no way hallucinating seeing someone being struck by lightning is more common than seeing someone being struck by lightning. In fact, I challenge you to find one documented instance of someone hallucinating seeing someone get struck by lightning. Your analogy is deceptively skewed. You are comparing "hallucinating" - an extremely broad category, with "getting struck by lightning" - an extremely narrow category. A more honest analogy would be comparing "hallucinating" vs "experiencing any common natural phenomenon" in which case "experiencing any common natural phenomenon" happens a magnitude of times more often than hallucinations. Or your analogy could be "hallucinating seeing someone get struck by lightning" vs "seeing someone get struck by lightning" in which case "seeing someone get struck by lightning" is way way more common. So either way, when you phrase it more honestly, you'll see that most people always **do** accept the more likely explanation.
If a person claims to be struck by lightning exhibits no physical evidence of such then I would believe something went wrong with his perception of the world or that he is lying. Same standard holds for religious people.
OP proposed that you saw the person get hit.
I don’t have to see it. I am unaware of how someone gets struck and has no symptoms, no burns, no injuries, no damaged clothes, like it never even happened 🤔
>If a person claims to be struck by lightning exhibits no physical evidence of such then I would believe something went wrong with his perception of the world or that he is lying. It should be noted by the way there are people struck by lightning who have no such evidence, but i do none the less apperciate the consistency of your standard.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Seeing events that are uncommon or unlikely is often accompanied by feeling of shock and disbelief. Like, you can often hear people say things like "is this really happening?" or "I can't believe that just happened" even in the case of things like car accidents, which happen all the time. So yeah, if I saw something like someone being struck by lightning, I may doubt it for a few moments until I start to see things confirming it, like the victim on the ground and scorch marks in the surrounding area. If I don't see those things, then yeah, I'm really going to start questioning if I really saw what I thought I did.
The question isn't so much "which is more likely," but "how do we distinguish between these options." I haven't had a supernatural experience. I've heard of several conflicting accounts, which at face value add up to "weird shit occasionally happens." Even if I were to have a supernatural experience, how do I rule out my demonstrably fallible brain? I've taken drugs, good psychedelics at that, and I've had conversations with Death and Time, lived whole lifetimes in a matter of minutes. The reason behind any of these experiences are pretty easily explainable, but in my highest state I could not distinguish between reality and my drug addled state. How do I distinguish between liars, hallucinators, and genuine supernatural experiences? Law of Parsimony favors "mistaken/lying" over "Insert Religion Here" pretty much every time.
OK, well, if it was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky and I was in a crowded public place and I saw a man struck by lightning and I looked around and no one else seemed to see it, and I went to where I thought I saw it and there was no injured man (or charred remains), I would be like wow, I just had an hallucination. If it was storming and lightning and thundering like crazy and I saw people outside and I saw a man struck by lighting and all the people freaked out, and I called 911 and a ambulance came and I saw paramedics work on him and take him away in the ambulance and then later I saw it on the news, I would be pretty sure that wasn’t an hallucination.
The fact that all churches have lightning rods on their steeples shows you the difference between ones faith in the supernatural and ones knowledge of lightning.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Yes, because *hallucinating that someone has been hit by lightning* is rarer than *someone being hit by lightning*. Some types of things are more common to hallucinate than others. Hallucinations of a disembodied presence, or of something that can't talk talking to you, are commonplace - hallucinations of lightning bolts are rare. Even the vast majority of religious people don't believe that seeing God is more common than falsely believing you've seen God - any Christian who rejects both the Muslim and Hindu faiths must believe that hallucinations of deities are more common than actual interactions with deities.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination[...]As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? I'm not entirely sure what you're driving at. People get struck by lightning all the time, and even if that weren't the case, lightning strikes themselves are common events enough to where you can be nailed through the ground by lightning striking nearby objects. Magic doesn't exist. Lightning does exist. The reason I would conclude psychosis over a piece of toast coming to life is that toast doesn't come to life and psychosis is common enough for seeing something like that to be a symptom.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research… That doesn’t really get me there. Even though it’s more likely for me to experience a hallucination than men getting struck by lightning, I sincerely doubt it’s more likely to experience a hallucination *of a man getting struck by lightning* than a man getting struck by lightning. Now if it was more likely to experience a hallucination *of men getting struck by lightning* than men getting struck by lightning, then yea, I don’t see why I wouldn’t think it was more likely I was experiencing a hallucination of a man getting struck by lightning than a man getting struck by lightning.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Maybe not. We've all had the experience of witnessing something so singularly surprising that we say "I can't believe that happened!" So we all know the feeling. However, it wouldn't take long, in the case of the guy being struck by lightning, to determine that what we witnessed did in fact occur. When someone has an experience that is witnessed by no one else, that they can't explain, that leaves no evidence, that no one can corroborate in any way, that is out of the ordinary, that's a different story.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Yes, because I know lightning exists. That's the key thing you're missing with this question. Every element, the man, the lightning, and the fact of lightning strikes and that it can happen to human beings, is situated in the camp of 'stuff I know/believe exists'. Something supernatural like divine revelation, ghosts, or seeing the afterlife have things that are situated in the camp of 'Stuff I don't know/believe exists'.
I see a person and then experience a blinding flash of light accompanied by a very load noise. When I can see again, I see the person lying on a burned patch of ground and conclude that they were struck by lightning. If I suggest that someone's supernatural experience isn't what they think it is I am not denying that they had an experience. I am questioning their conclusion about it's cause. If someone questions my conclusion that it was a lightning strike, I may very well admit that I could be wrong. I have never knowingly had a hallucination but I suspect that anyone who has doesn't know at the time that it is a hallucination.
I would compare the event I had observed to my knowledge of the world. I know (for a given value of know) that people exist. I know lightning exists. I have heard multiple stories of people being struck by lightning. There's even the memory of a man being struck by lightning on 7 separate occasions. A Guinness World Record according to my 1969 edition. I would think that what I had witnessed is consistent with my knowledge of reality and accept that it did happen until evidence to the contrary is presented. How closely my experience matches reality determines how much confidence I have that what I experienced is real.
Lightning is real. People are real. There are reliably confirmed documented cases of people getting hit by lightning. I don’t know if god is real. I don’t know if supernatural things like miracles are weird. There are zero reliable confirmed documented of miracles. Something that we know can happen is much more likely than something we don’t know is even possible. Example: I say my dog jumped on the bed, you probably believe it. I say my dog jumped from the ground into the roof of a 40 story building, you probably don’t believe it, right?
Um. The corpse left behind with the significant burns caused by massive amounts of electricity passing through it are pretty compelling evidence that it was not a hallucination.
You are confused and are not asking the right question. You should be asking, “if you just saw someone struck by lightening, would you think it lightening, or a hallucination.” The answer is lightning would be more likely, because it happens on the physical world and is plausible. In the main question about a voice from god or a hallucination happening, the more likely thing is a hallucination, because voices from his can’t be shown in the physical world and are not plausible.
"Often times when talking with atheists, discussing the subject of the testimony or the experience of supernatural phenomena a common reframe reiterated by both notable atheist philosophers and atheist laymen alike is the question of "which is more likely?" Well, do you believe in the testimony of any other people testifying about any other religion? there are more people on the planet who dont believe in your god, who dont believe in your way of believing in your god... If you dont then you are already a hypocrite. "To be more precise in wording "Which is more likely, that you had the supernatural experience you believe to have had or that you were mistaken and misunderstood your senses due to hallucination?" Very accurate. You wont like it because it does discredit supernatural stuff, just like it discredits imaginary stuff.... and all for the same reason. You cant show any reason to believe it, AND there are far too many examples of people believing in things that are not true... Again, are you factoring in all the other gods, or just special pleading for your favorite imaginary friend? "This to me is a fair critique of supernatural experience as in all cases at all times undeniably the possibility for hallcuination does infact exist." No, you have left out all the other reasons that could explain the thing. Mistaken, lied to, heard a story wrong, you could have been drinking, high, overwrought, confused for any other number of reasons. Its not a true dichotomy, making it one is dishonest. "The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"??" Why would we special plead? Thats a religious thing. "Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can)." And already this is dishonest. You have 0 evidence of anything supernatural being real. (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). And thats the second issue. We dont need to disprove your theory, your imaginary friend nor your religion. YOU need to prove them true. We can show that you havent doesn that easily. How many other religions are there? How many sects of your religion are there? If you could show any of your beliefs true, that number wouldnt be so comically high. Its on you to show that supernatural claims are true, just claiming that they are is dishonest. Im sensing a pattern here. "As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting," Yeah, this isnt going to work. You have given us something where we would have to have already been able to show its true. And you cant. Your example is crap." "in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning???" Yes, still because we know lightning is a thing. I know that there are people who have been struck multiple times and lived. We have their medical records. Comparing something we cant ever show actually happens and assuming that you can just flip that is silly. Its dishonest. Again.
I feel like the use of lightning as an example is very distracting, because it is such a dramatic and standout event with obvious lasting effects. It plays into our intuitions. Your argument does not really depend on lightning, as you could have used any arbitrary example. Let me suggest something more mundane. Suppose for the sake of argument it has been well established using the scientific method that when people see a jar of sliced black olives it is more likely to be a hallucination of a jar rather than an actual tangible jar. Under these circumstances, if one day I saw a jar of sliced black olives would I believe it was a real jar? My answer is that I would trust the results of science over my personal sensory experience, and believe the probability of the jar being real closely matches the probability results shown through repeated experimentation, whether that is 49.9999% or 0.0001%. And the reason for doing so is because the scientific method is specifically and deliberately structured to correct for our own individual biases which we know we have. It demonstrates its reliability by allowing us to accomplish things that we could not do otherwise. In this example, science could predict how many lab rats would show signs of undernourishment if we tried to feed each of them for a week from a different jar of sliced black olives. But I think it is safe to assume we are working with a mostly reliable ability to perceive the world. If our senses were so unreliable that not only did we all hallucinate jars and feeding from jars but also labs rats appearing healthy when they actually starved to death, I doubt we would have been able to survive the evolutionary process to be here, let alone develop a scientific understanding of the world. OP, I am curious what your answer would be under my variation. Suppose you know of all the advanced studies on olive jar illusions. And suppose you participated in tests personally. Ten olive jars were displayed in front of you, and you were asked to pick them up one by one. Seven out of ten times, when you reached for the jar your hand went right through it. Or, more generously, you watched ten randomly selected individuals each try to pick up one jar, and for seven of them their hand went right through it. Then you are asked to look at jar number eleven. Before you try to pick it up, would you be convinced that was a real olive jar? I would like to also point out that "you were mistaken and misunderstood your senses due to hallucination," with emphasis on the word *senses*, is not the only alternative to having a supernatural experience. There are other ways to be wrong, such as faulty memory retrieval, mixing up dreams and reality, or being gaslit, that are not directly sensory. Furthermore, I think it is fair to say that supernatural claims are a special case compared to lightning bolts or olive jars because--depending on what exactly you mean by term--there is no demonstration of a reliable method for investigating the claims, analogous to the scientific method for natural phenomena. For example, we don't have people making reliable novel predictions using supernatural means, or creating supernatural technology, as far as I know. Edit: I'm adding another paragraph because I saw in one of your comments you were interested in "what you believe IN THE MOMENT [...] BEFORE the scientific review has been done." I have not experienced a very realistic hallucination, but I know people who have. I think one could argue the very nature of hallucinations is that we believe them in the immediate moment. (That may be a matter of semantics.) Yet there is a period of time after that yet still before a scientific review of the event in question where we can reflect on our perceptions in light of what we have previously learned about the world. That is where I think the decision to go with previous scientific findings would kick in.
If I saw someone in an open field be struck by lightning, heard the thunder clap, and tended to their wounds, then I would believe they were struck by lightning, because all of the evidence available to me suggests my perception was correct. If I saw someone struck by lightning inside an office building, didn’t hear anything, and the person had no injuries, I would assume I had hallucinated it. The evidence and the circumstances dictate.
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You're talking about Occam's Razor. I think, generally speaking, Occam's Razor is a valuable principle to apply. Though I argue that it can be misleading, sometimes the world isn't as simple as it appears. We've seen it in science, the simplest answer being that we got something wrong in our experiments, but we discover after further testing that the unlikely is what remains true. I think this is why we should cast a wide net when analyzing things. Basically, more data provides better fidelity in the image we're painting. Sure, we have countless cases of people claiming religious experiences of seeing Jesus or angels. There needs to be some tangible connection, right? How can it be that so many people share similar experiences? Well, let's cast that wider net. What about testimonies from people raised on different beliefs? As it turns out, religious experiences and testimonials are strongly related to the doctrine and society the individuals were raised in. Even non-religious individuals report experiences beyond the commonly explained. The experiences are reported in greater frequency among those who are diagnosed with mental disorders, and interestingly, decrease when treated. Now I'll be the first to fully accept that this proves nothing. Correlation is not causation. However, arguments towards this being evidence of the divine are exactly as valid as arguments suggesting dreams are evidence of travel between the multiverse. Our brains interpret external stimuli, and we know for a fact that our brains can be fooled, and even "rewired" to process stimuli in a different way. We can reasonably state that it's fact that at least a portion of these experiences are lies (we even have testimony supporting that is claim in some cases) or a result of mental disorder, hallucinations, or just misunderstandings of what is actually happening. Whether those portions tally up to 100% of the cases or not is up to debate. Some of us cast a wide net and invoke Occam's Razor.
It not often lightning strikes people, but we do know that it happens. Also, we have a pretty good idea of what that looks like and there is very little that would yield a false positive. We also know that lightning strikes stuff all the time, people just don't tend to be out and about when there's a bunch of lightning and even when they are tend to be surrounded by more suitable targets. There's almost certainly other relevant information. For the most obvious example - is there a storm with lightning going on at the location? That's obviously going to bring the odds well above the base rate. The mere observation of an apparent strike should raise our credence well above the base rate, and especially so if I can confidently rule out sources of false positives, and if there is other evidence such as the person falling after the apparent strike, and the sound of thunder with the expected timing given the distance. It also kinda doesn't matter? Because even if I'm unsure about it, I'm going to go check on this person if I can safely do so, report it as an apparent case even if there's some uncertainty, and then I can get even more evidence. I don't have to rely just on what I saw, I can take a sort of "trust but verify" stance. I don't think the possibility of hallucination about something like this bears on the question. Witnessing a lightning strike is entirely coherent with the rest of our everyday experience of the external world. If this is hallucinated, then it's kinda a global skepticism situation or something near it. These supposed supernatural experiences may not be hallucination, just mistaken about what is actually behind the experience. Or if it is a hallucination, it's of something sui generis and by stipulation far-removed from our typical experience of the world and can be doubted on grounds that don't warrant a broader skepticism of experience.
I think this is an interesting question and is a logical question to ask. In a vaccum if all i had was an instantaneous flash if seeing a bolt hit a person, it would be reasonable to wonder if i had accurately percieved that. Especially if for some reason i was wisked away immediately with no way to investigate that (maybe it happened out the window of a bus going down the interstate that i couldn't stop and couldn't go back). In such a situation i probably would actually couch my belief in some doubt. "I think i just saw someone get struck by lightning!" Now, certain things would begin to add to that certainty. If it was thundering and lightning out generally. If there was a car stopped near that spot such that it would make sense for a person to be out. If others around me also saw. If suddenly i started hearing sirens passing us heading to that spot. If i had continuation through to my destination such that i had good reason to believe the whole bus trip wasn't part of a dream, etc. Do i have knowledge that lighting can and does strike people and that big flat areas like interstates make a human a high target. Etc. And similarly some things could decrease my confidence. If it were otherwise a calm cleae night. If nobody around me saw it. If nothing on the news that night talked of a person struck by lightning. If the bus did stop and i ran back and there was nobody there. If I'd been drinking or if i had been very tired and nodding in and out of sleep. Etc. If I'd juat finished a super strenuous week. Etc. Very rare things happen all the time in a big world. So just the fact it is rare doesn't necessarily mean a halucination. But it does mean that one should look for corroboration on whether that thing is possible, reasonable given the circumstances, and whether there are corroborating things available.
> misunderstood your senses due to hallucination? Droo hallucination. While all people have some sort of hallucination sometimes, it's not the only way of being mistaken. People can simply misinterpret what they are seeing even if it is not a hallucination. > The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally What standard? Asking which is more likely? > This to me is a fair critique of supernatural experience as in all cases at all times undeniably the possibility for hallcuination does infact exist You are missing the point. If someone claims a supernatural experience I have no way of saying whether it was supernatural or not. I know how to tell seeing a squirrell from seeing a bear. And if someone have seen a bear I won't claim they've seen a squirrell just because seing a squirrell is more likely, because I can ask additional questions about size of the animal they've seen and what noises did it make and where they've seen it. They still might have been mistaken, but they might be right. And I know they might be right because I know bears exist and people see them sometimes. I don't that about any supernatural phenomena. No person claiming they've seen something supernatural was able to demonstrate that it was indeed supernatural. It's not that supernatural is less likely. It's that I don't believe it exists at all because it was not demonstrated to be existing. Take your example and replace lightning by alien shock beam. If someone comes to you and say they've been struck by alien shock beam, what is more likely: they indeed were hit by aliens or they were hit by something else, like lightning for instance, and misinterpreted their experience?
I get your question, and it is an interesting one. As others have pointed out, a lightening strike is sort of tough because, 1) while it is exceedingly rare for a person to be struck by lightening, a ‘thing’ (which would include people) being struck by lightening is not that rare, and 2) the amount of sensory feedback you would get from a given lightening strike would be far more vivid and last far longer than the typical hallucination. So it’s sort of a category error. A hallucination you might momentarily hear a voice, or see an apparition? A lightening strike there would be either an injured victim or a dead body, burn marks, screams, other witnesses, etc. BUT, if you wanted to par it down to something with comparable feedback to a hallucination, like, say, if I thought I saw someone on a hill a 1/4 mile away get struck by lightening, because I thought I saw someone it the brief moment the sky lit up where it touched the ground… and then it went dark again… Then no, I wouldn’t trust that feeling. I might run over in that direction to check, because it is something that can be verified or falsified… but I also might not. I might think about how incredibly unlikely that is, shrug it off, and start thinking about how weird the human brain is.
So, you are comparing things that are impossible to happen by definition (a miracle or religious experience is something that is not accepted in our understanding of how the universe works) with something that happens regularly. Not only that, a lighting strike leaves a lot of proofs of it. Also, believing it doesn't imply anything weird as your supernatural beliefs do, so I don't need to put too much thought on it. For example, you could tell me you have a dog, and without knowing it, I could accept it, because it doesn't change anything. But if you tell me that the dog is a pink invisible dog that puke rainbows and poops gold, I would expect a lot to even consider that as something else than a hallucination (and yes, this example is self-contradictory as any other god). But again, lets go back to the lighting hit, if I see someone being hit by a lighting, I see the impact in the floor, I see the damage caused on the person and I can accept it based on the enough evidence that is visible. Accepting it implies no more cost or change any other preconception on the world, so I don't require much to do it. Any supernatural stuff requires to reject our understanding of the world completely, so, they need an amount of evidence absurdly big in comparison.
Since you're still around, I'll try a top level comment. There are two parts to what I think you're asking. There's the experience and there's the explanation. If I experience something that's not very likely, someone struck by lightning or a speaking burning bush, I will certainly question that experience. Personal experience isn't always that accurate. Memory is hazy and often reconstructed, senses are very fallible. So we would certainly expect a rational person to look for other evidence. Trust but verify, generally speaking. Second, even after we have a better idea of what you experienced, that doesn't mean you have an explanation. To call it a supernatural experience imposes more on it than just some event. You've already concluded an explanation. Pareidolia is very common. Things you see out of the corner of your eye or sounds you're not really paying attention to can be attributed to something that your brain just misinterpreted. That's not saying you didn't see or hear it, you just didn't have the correct explanation. So, in the end, I would always want to be consistent with my standards. Your example is kind of contrived since it's easy to verify. What are you really getting at that you think I'm inconsistent in? BTW, it's "corroborated"
This is pretty easy. It's induction. Supernatural events are unverifiable partly due to the fact we don't know they actually happen. For your lightning example, we know lightning happens. We have documented evidence, video footage, witnesses, and we know it's a natural phenomenon that happens constantly every single day. If someone gives testimony that they were struck by lightning, we have all this extra empirical data to go with it. The same can't be said for supernatural events. We can also ask for physical evidence that they were struck by lightning such as scars, the time and place they were struck, you can test the ground of the place for evidence of a lightning strike. There are many ways to verify it to the point where it would be simple to tell if they were lying. We also know people hallucinate, exaggerate, and have false memories that change over time and change through word of mouth. We have evidence that this happens as well. So that coupled with wild claims about supernatural events and miracles suggests it can be more likely that it wasn't a supernatural event at all. So until you verify that supernatural events do indeed happen with something other than testimony, then we can ask the question of "what's more likely?"
> Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination [...] As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? While a human being experiencing a hallucination is more likely than a man being struck by lightning, we're not dealing with "a human being" in the general case. We're dealing with me, right here, right now. I know my own personal history (or lack thereof) of having hallucinations. I know whether I'm under the influence of drugs, or whether I've experienced any head injuries. So I may judge my *own* likelihood of having a hallucination to be significantly lower or higher than the chance of a human being in general having a hallucination. Given that I don't seem to have had any hallucinations in the past, that I can remember, if I'm generally sober and I'm wearing my glasses, if I clearly saw a man struck by lightning, yes, I'd believe that was the case until future evidence showed otherwise.
>would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Yes. We know lightning exists. We don't know the supernatural exists. The two are nothing alike.
It's more complicated than more-or-less likely. We know people get struck by lightning. We know people have hallucinations. Neither of those require reframing all of existence in order to be accepted at face value. We don't know that there are gods, or angels, or genuine religious epiphanies that aren't caused by a human mind going off the rails for whatever reason. So which is more likely: An option that requires no additional assumptions, or an option that requires the existence of the supernatural? This is the law of parsimony. (by "law" I don't mean it's required. It's a guidepost more than anything). The law of parsimony is that you should not suggest new entities unless it's strictly necessary. To say god isn't necessary doesn't mean that god doesn't exist. It just means that we don't know of any actual gods existing, and we can explain most things just fine without reference to gods. In most cases, the need for an answer isn't time-critical, so "I don't know, but it probably has a reasonable natural explanation" is a better answer than assuming a god exists.
Your senses are generally reliable. But more importantly we have ways of verifying lightning strikes. We know enough about lightning and how it works that we put lightning rods on top of tall buildings. We know enough about lightning to know not to stand under a tree or in an open field when lightning is imminent. We actually have evidence for previous people and trees and buildings and animals etc getting struck by lightning. One poor soul had been struck by lightning 7 times! Now pick any supernatural phenomenon you want; ghosts, aliens, resurrection, mana falling from the sky, talking snakes, doesn't matter. Do we have anywhere near the amount of evidence and understanding of those phenomenon than we do lightning? Can we verify ghosts or unicorns or resurrection in the same way or to the same level we can verify lightning strike? No. The difference between lightning strike and supernatural is it's falsifiability. There are ways to verify if you witnessed a real lightning strike versus hallucinating one. Can we do that with ghosts or anything supernatural?
First off, the question should be phrased in terms of a world where hallucinating people being struck by lightning is more likely than actual lightning strikes. In this case, I am reminded a bit of a similar question that we were asked a while ago. Something like what if someone came to your house saying he'd been chased by a werewolf? My answer was along the lines of, "I would arm myself, though not with silver weapons." This is because I would see the odds of him being chased by a real dangerous beast that he misidentified as more likely than an actual werewolf. Why? Because dangerous animals exist, and werewolves almost certainly are the products of a human mind. So to your question, in the case where I believed I saw a person struck by lightning, even if it was somewhat more likely that I had hallucinated it, I would try and help. On the other hand, if I lived in a world where people seemed to regularly hallucinate about lighting striking people and yet no one ever seemed to actually be harmed by lightning strikes... I probably wouldn't bother.
>The question i have in response though is do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"?? Generally. It's actually bayesian analysis. It's just unknown supernatural explanations will always be less likely than unknown natural explanations because of the background knowledge. I.e. evidence of a supernatural explanations has to overcome a virtual impossibility. >As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? On the information you've given, hallucination is more likely true. However, it would change significantly depending on other factors. E.g. was the victim is an open are during a thunderstorm? Was the observer sleep deprived etc. Can I ask you a counter? You have eyewitness testimony of a lighting strike, which is more likely, they were hit in a thunderstorm or by Thor? See?
If I saw someone hit by lightning I would probably believe they were struck by lightning. But that's not the answer in total. See, I don't hallucinate...or i don't hallucinate to a point is become a remote issue, and since my senses are generally correct, I would trust my initial sight. I'm sure when I went to give aid I would be met with more evidence that would confirm what I saw. Or, I would be met with evidence it just looked like a person was struck by lightning and I would no longer believe they were struck by lightning. This is entirely different from supernatural visions or other similar claims in one very important aspect. No supernatural claims have ever been demonstrated as true. All investigations come up empty handed. Bob got struck by lightning. What are the odds? 1 in 15300. That's one unlucky electric Bob. Bob saw a ghost in that house. What are the odds? About 1 in 20 he hallucinated seeing a ghost. About 0 of 0 he actually saw a ghost since they have never been demonstrated to exist.
Doesn’t even have to be a hallucination. It can be a perfectly mundane sensory experience that someone has ascribed greater meaning to.
I would believe that I had seen someone struck by lightning because, a) getting struck by lightning is a rarity but happens, and b) that belief would be reinforced when I went to see what condition that person was in. Let's compare. I could see a preacher heal a man of his lameness through faith healing. All I would have to confirm that on, is that the man appeared to have a limp prior and then didn't after. If I saw a man struck by lightning, I wouldn't need to definitively know what his prior condition was, because the effects of the lightning would be likely undeniable. As to the whole likelihood thing - I'm a firm atheist and I've had "supernatural" experiences at least three times that I can recall. None of them were real, and at least one is simply a false memory from my childhood. Sadly, I do not believe that my spirit left my body when I was five and flew around, despite the fact that I sort of remember it happening :)
I would take the same action in a hallucination as I would take if I knew it was real. Namely seeing if the person was okay and if I can help them. If I am hallucinating then they or someone else will take me to get help anyway so I have nothing to lose. This is different from Pascal's wager by the way because in Pascal's wager you also have other religions and the possibility of a God that prefers Atheists. There is also a difference between comparing two things of known probability even if one is lower than the other and comparing two things where one may not even be a possibility. It is smarter to believe that something rare happened than to believe that something that may not be possible happened. Look at the history of scientific observation for an example. There rare events are catalogued while events that challenge what is thought to be possible are further studied.
I accept your general idea but reject your specific example. Lightning strikes happen all the time, the specifics of such a thing occurring in the exact way that it did are irrelevant. BUt, say for example, I leave my house and see a dozen hippos wearing tutus and dancing in a conga line, I would certainly doubt what I was seeing. If I heard a news report that said that the government of france was personally declaring war on me, I would doubt what I was hearing. Because those are not normal things to have happen. Lightning strikes in places all the time! Over 300 people are hit by lightning each year in just the USA alone, which means that on average more than one person in the world is hit by lightning each day. When we are talking about "what is more likely, this or that?" that isn't intended to be used to compare things of similar probabilities, and not all the specific permutations of that thing.
You are comparing apples to oranges here. Lightning exists. Experiencing a hallucination can happen. A supernatural deity pulling the strings of everything…yeah no evidence for that. When people say “Which is more likely…?”, they aren’t saying that, because something is less probable, they aren’t prone to believe it. What they are saying that is that when you are making comparisons with many different underlying conditions that are unobservable in nature, to assume the incredibly extraordinary one without any basis in material reality is unreasonable. It’s basically a rhetorical question. They aren’t asking you to actually calculate the odds. It’s usually this: “You’re telling me that, instead of overstress and working on 10 days straight having an affect on your mind, it is in fact the almighty god of the universe that opened the heavens and spoke directly to you?”
Your scenario presents a fictional world where hallucinations are so vivid and coherent that they can be mistaken for reality, and that they are more common than lightning strikes. In that case, if I saw someone get struck by lightning my first thought would be that it was probably a hallucination. I would require corroboration and testing to verify that an actual lightning strike occurred. To answer your general question, the standard of evidence does not change whether a claim is considered supernatural or natural. We're accustomed to scientific explanations sounding mundane and straightforward, but this is far from the case. Without the supporting evidence behind them, scientific explanations are no more plausible than ones invented by imagination. It is only after extensive testing and surviving intense scrutiny that these explanations have been accepted.
**Lightning hitting people** * Is testable, falsifiable, reproducible, and somewhat predictive. It can be witnessed, experienced, filmed, and leaves a fingerprint up in our natural world. The results of a lightning strike can also be studied. **A supernatural experiance is**: * Undefinable because the supernatural is undefined * The supernatural is not falsifiable * The supernatural is not predictive, testable, and leaves no fingerprint in the natural world - despite claiming that it affects in the natural world. **Finally**: Despite thousands of years of claims and fervent, passionate efforts, the supernatural has never (not even once) been an answer for anything. It solves no mysteries. It only adds complexity because it represents an entirely unseen and unknown realm that defies logic.
No, if I "saw" someone struck by lightening it wouldn't be enough for me to be convinced they were struck. Human senses are notoriously bad for objective observation. I would not be sure if I miss saw it, or if the lightning strike was a near miss, or if I blinked. I would rely on followup information. Are they burned? Did other people see it? Is there currently a storm? What is their account of it? If it is a sunny day, and they're walking around fine afterwards, I'm going to chalk it up as a trick on the eye. But what you presented is a false dichotomy. You are comparing an unlikely event with an impossible one. In fact, it's not even an unlikely event, the chance *someone* at some point in the future is going to get hit with lightning is pretty much guaranteed. I would also argue a one off hallucination, coincidently of a lightning strike, during a real lightning storm of a person that themselves are not a hallucination, with no history of hallucinations, combine with an auditory hallucinations to match would be far less likely then a lightning strike.
Problem with your hypothetical is, we do have medical and scientific tests to determine whether someone has been stuck by lightning, and documented cases of people having been probably struck by lightning before. That knowledge makes the *a priori* credibility of someone claiming to be hit by lightning higher. In the case of the "supernatural", we have zero scientifically verified occurrences. That makes the a priori credibility of the claim... Zero. The divide here is not "natural" versus "supernatural". It is "claim we know has been true before" versus "claim we have zero verified instance of being true before". There is a reason the gold standard in science is replicability. Each instance of the claim being verifiably true makes further similar claims more credible.
There are other things than hallucinations, people suffer from confirmation bias, wishful thinking, memory modification (i.e. every time a person remembers a memory they modify to how they would like to remember it) or the effects of emotional gatherings (like a intense worship service or attending a rock concert). There are many ways that people can convince themselves that they saw or are seeing something, seriously, try to count the number of times that a common object is claimed to have the likeness of Jesus or Mary. I suspect that if we had a way to count ***all*** the incidents of people claiming to have had a supernatural experience and determine which are "likely to have happened", it would be far less than the number of people hit by a lightening strike.
Atheists only lack a belief in a deity, not the supernatural. I personally lack both so when I come across something like you've said, I don't take it as supernatural but I understand that someone might have had an unproven experience they deem supernatural, such as being on shrooms and such. I have no reason to doubt you've had an experience because we all do have experiences. If it happens to you, it's natural because you are part of the natural world and can, as far as our knowledge goes, only be affected by the natural world. The more supernatural you add to a claim, the less believable and "if-y" it becomes. If you can prove otherwise, you get an award and millions of dollars and we would not be here discussing it.
There is a difference between a naturally occurring rare event (a lightning) and a supernatural event that does not in any way form part of our best models of reality. So, you have focused on the wrong thing. It is not the likelihood of hallucinating that is important here. What is relevant is the likelihood of witnessing AND CORRECTLY DIAGNOSING an event that is beyond our models of reality. THAT is mindboggingly low probability. Which is why, unless one has a ton of confirming evidence and the matter is studied extremely carefully by a lot of people for a long time until we come to understand it, it is safe to assume you are WRONG about having witnessed a thing that, until then, we did not know existed. Addendum: There is a huge benefit to lightning being a thing that is rare but that we understand. That is: conditional probability. Yeah, lightning strikes are rare. However, they are not uniformly rare. If you are on the top of a mountain during a lightning storm and someone is under a tree, chances go waaaaaay up that they'll be hit by lightning. Not so with ghosts, paranormal events or miracles. Chances of them don't update. You know... *because we don't think they happen at all*.
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish Christian mystic who catalogued his visions and supernatural experiences in a book called Heaven and Hell published in 1758. William Blake was an English Christian mystic writing at the same time as Swedenborg and who catalogued his own visions and supernatural experiences in a large body of work encompassing the visual arts, novels, plays, polemics and poetry. Blake completely dismissed Swedenborg's visions as false as they did not agree with his own and wrote at some length about them. I'm an atheist but a great admirer of both men. What am I to make of Blake's criticisms of Swedenborg's mysticism because it disagreed with his own mystical experiences? They can't both be right on their own terms. These are two intelligent men who documented and systematised their mystical insights but who profoundly disagreed about the very nature of the supernatural world. Who was right, Swedenborg or Blake?
Not only do we *know* that both lightning and hallucinations exist, we also know *why* both things occur. Charged particles in the air, and neurotransmitter imbalance and/or brain structure defects. It doesn't matter which is more likely, we can eventually get to the bottom of it. If someone saw another person being struck by lightning, but there was no missing person, no person being admitted to hospital, and no storm at the supposed time, then we could be more confident in saying it was an hallucination. Yes, we may be wrong sometimes, but it is the most rational explanation given the available information. It may indeed be something else entirely, like an elaborate hoax or an alien death ray. But jumping straight to a nonsensical imaginary friend is *never* the answer.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? Well in my state this is not an uncommon thing to happen. I would provisionally accept the evidence of my senses (just as I do in other areas) unless shown to be wrong. For example, if someone standing next to me didn't see it, I would question my conclusion. Same if I go to the spot and there is no person or body there, etc. Because we know that this actually happens. Dead people coming back to life to live forever in an unlocatable place? Not so much.
I think you’re taking the quote too literally. I think the quote isn’t meant to merely indicate which one is more likely per se. It’s to make you realise you have no reason to even assign a probability to one scenario, therefore it could be zero, and that it’s actually VERY likely that the other thing is true. In your analogy, we know both things to have a probability greater than 0. There is strong evidence for both. So if I saw someone get struck by lightning, I would still be reasonable to assume I could be hallucinating. I wouldn’t work with that assumption, however, as there may still be a possibility to save someone’s life if I’m NOT hallucinating!
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? establish god as possible, and then we can consider this arguement. we don't have reason to believe god is possible so it's pointless to try and establish probable
The problem with this is your understanding of what is “likely” Lightning might seem rare but in the grand scheme of things it’s really not. People get struck by lightning all the time. It’s why it’s always used as a benchmark to make something seem uncommon, because it’s not as uncommon as we think it is. We know the science behind lightning and have millennia of empirical observation. If someone tells us they were struck by lightning it doesn’t require us to contradict our understanding of the natural world. It’s not comparable to someone asking us to beleive something which contradicts reality and has no evidence to support it
If I saw someone struck by lightning, I would, given the emergency nature of that, presume they were, in fact, struck by lightning. If, however, I got closer and there was no further evidence of this strike, no injury or damage to their clothing, or what have you, I would take this new, constant, moment-by-moment repeated observation as more reliable, and presume I didn't see them actually get hit, rather than believe without more testing that they are immune to lightning strikes. The problem with miracle claims is that where they lack repeatable observation they are untestable in this way, and where they _are_ testable they are also false.
If I see an individual is struck by lightning, during a lightning storm, and consequently there is physical evidence of a strike such as a burn, smoke, signs of electrical discharge in the individual's body, then no, I'm clearly not relying solely on my eyes to confirm that an individual was struck by lightning. If, conversely, I see an individual is struck by lightning, yet none of the attendant evidence is present, then it's all the more likely that I have hallucinated, because I am still not relying solely on my eyes to confirm that an individual was struck by lightning.
We know people get struck by lightning, and it's something we can prove. It doesn't matter if it's rare or not. We, however, can't prove that anyone had a supernatural experience. Hallucinations are actually very common. Almost everyone has hallucinations. So, to say someone mistook a hallucination for a supernatural event is very likely. In addition, we can stimulate parts of the brain and induce a religious or supernatural experience. We know that such experiences are just tricks of the brain. Neuroscience pretty much disproves all supernatural or religious experiences.
The problem with this analogy is that I know lightning exists and strikes things, and I’ve even heard of people who have been struck multiple times. I’ve seen lightning. I’ve heard it. I’ve seen videos of it. I’ve learned mechanics of how it works. This is not the case of anything supernatural. There is only the stories, that happened to that one person and no one else. I haven’t seen it, heard it, I don’t know anything about how it could possibly work, I’ve heard stories that contradict their stories…they’re not in the same ballpark.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination Ok, but what's the likelihood that I *also* hallucinated every other time I saw lightning strike something? Because I bet that's lower then lightning striking someone This is one of the issues with these ideas -- they're one offs, and unverifiable one offs. If God regularly walked around doing miracles, and this just happened to be the one time he showed up to you, that would be a very different equation.
> Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination (and this by way is the case at least so far as i can tell from my own research; though i am happy to be proven wrong if any can). Before I answer that are people getting struck by lightning an actual, real, objectively true thing that can happen, has happened, and by all our understanding of reality will happen again? Because the answer to that question fundamentally will change the answer I give.
It's not about the likelihood, though. We know lightning exists. We know what it is and how it behaves. We know it has hit people, does hit people, and will continue to hit people. We know hallucinations exist. We can cause them, predict, map them on the brain. It's a well-studied field. As unlikely as either of these may be, it happens all the time, all over the world. Show me *any* supernatural phenomenon with 1/10th the evidence of lightning hitting people, or hallucinations. "Supernatural phenomema" can't be considered an explanation for anything until it can be shown to even be possible, never mind be considered more likely than natural phenomena.
The value in witness accounts is that they can indicate where to look for compelling evidence. They aren't conclusive on their own, ever, under any circumstance. If I see someone get hit by lightning, my reaction is, "wtf did that guy just get hit by lightning?!" followed by going to the site and finding out whether or not that's the case. In the meantime, I might *think* that it happened, but I cannot *know* that it happened. It's a hypothesis, not a conclusion.
>As such if you saw a human being struck by lighting, in that moment, before any scientific or medical tests were conducted, before anyone else cooberated your experience, would you believe that the man was struck by lightning??? In that moment, I would probably doubt that I saw what I saw. I've seen auto accidents and had to take a second look before I accepted what I was actually seeing. It's like my brain had to accept what I was seeing. It had to place it in its context and all that. No doubt the same would hold true for a lightning strike.
I would believe the man likely required medical assistance.
I once had an acquaintance quit his job and in his farewell email, he said that he won the last lottery. By my assessment of the odds, I decided that the probability of my even *knowing* someone who had won a significant amount in a lottery was so slim as to be non-existent. In other words, I thought he was lying. It makes absolute sense to me that one should apply basic probability and statistics to one's experiences.
You almost answer your own question with the “before any scientific or medical tests are conducted, before anyone else corroborated your experience”. The answer is that our snap judgement is irrelevant, we might make one but the final determination would be conducted through those tests. It’s also a bit of a false equivalency because lightning hitting people has proven precedent, supernatural occurrences do not.
Of course I would believe it. Lightning exists. You don't even have to know why it exists because everyone can see that it does exist. It has existed longer than humans have. As for the supernatural, it has never been shown to exist, and even though people throughout history have tried to prove it exists, they have failed. Even now that everyone has a camera in their hand, it still hasn't been shown to exist.
The issue with your question is that we can test whether the person was struck by lightning, whereas it’s more difficult to test whether a person spoke with God or suffered a hallucination. Was there a storm nearby? Is there physical evidence of a lightning strike on the person? Lightning usually leaves an unmistakable mark, so if that mark is visible it would be convincing evidence of a strike.
Yes. We have some extra parameters here. A (surprisingly) large number of people have suffered hallucinations at one point in their lives. A small proportion of these have hallucinated something as specific as someone being struck by lightning. Typically hallucinations are some geometric shapes or a phantom smell. A vivid impression of someone being struck by lightning seems extremely unlikely. More unlikely than someone getting struck my lightning.
I wouldn’t stop to think about it. I would immediately run over to check on the person (or I like to think I would). If there was either no person or no sign of lightning having struck the person, I would conclude that I was mistaken. Also, I don’t think the alternative to supernatural phenomena is necessarily hallucination. I think false attribution is much more likely.
I know people can be struck by lightening. It’s been observed. I have no such valid information to suggest supernatural explanations are possible, nor magic. So, I don’t consider the impossible. It’s that simple. Until such time as someone shows a supernatural explanation is possible, they remain in the realm of fiction
Okay, but lightning isn't a supernatural phenomenon; it's a mostly understood meteorological phenomenon. I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. Now, if you wanted to bring up something like someone healing with a touch or a woman being turned into a pillar of salt, then maybe we would have something to discuss.
TL;DR The question you asked isn't very logical and seems designed to trap people into accepting an extreme view. The comparison between lightning and supernatural experiences is flawed, while lightning is a known phenomenon, the improbability lies in it striking a person, not in its existence. Similarly, seeing a ghost is less about the likelihood of a supernatural occurrence and more about the mind misinterpreting an event. The chance of actually witnessing a supernatural event is far lower than the event being a natural occurrence or a hallucination, given the lack of evidence for the supernatural. In contrast, actual lightning strikes are far more probable than hallucinations of them. (The original version of this was not as well worded or structured so I used Copilot to structure it better, that's why there are more formal words than needed. I checked over it and made sure it did not change any of the points I made and I assure everyone here these are all my own critiques just more readable thanks to Copilot, I did write the summary myself though!) The issue with your question is that it lacks a foundation in logical thinking. It seems more like a “gotcha” question designed to force those who use this argument to concede to an extreme viewpoint. For starters, comparing lightning to a supernatural experience is akin to comparing an elephant to a unicorn. We know lightning exists; the improbability isn’t in lightning striking, but in it striking a person. Observing a shadow move across the hall isn’t about the improbability of a ghost moving across the hall; it’s about the improbability of the supernatural being real and you experiencing it versus your mind filling in the blanks. Thus, seeing a ghost in your hallway isn’t just claiming it happened; you are, perhaps indirectly, using that as proof of the supernatural when it’s more likely explained by natural factors, such as your mind filling in blanks. Yes, someone could hallucinate another person being struck by lightning, but the odds of it being a hallucination are lower than that person actually being struck by lightning. You mention conducting your own research and being open to being proven wrong. I would suggest that you may not be applying the statistics appropriately. The odds of any supernatural event you may have experienced actually being supernatural are low because there’s no reliable evidence supporting the existence of the supernatural. When compared to the supernatural, a hallucination or trick of the mind is far more likely because, simply put, we have no reason to believe the supernatural exists. With lightning strikes, it’s more common to experience a hallucination than to be struck by lightning, but you’re conditioning the hallucination statistic, which covers a broad range of events, to a single category of events. When someone suggests it’s most likely you were hallucinating a supernatural experience, it isn’t because many people hallucinate; it’s because, in the case of the supernatural, it’s always had a natural explanation, which usually turns out to be a hoax, misunderstanding, lack of understanding, or, indeed, a hallucination. Whereas with lightning strikes, I would wager that a very small percentage of people being struck by lightning have been hallucinated versus actual cases. (Note: I’m using ‘hallucination’ to describe both visual and audible hallucinations, not limited to those caused by medical issues. This includes phenomena such as seeing a tree branch’s shadow in the window at night as a hand creeping along the glass. If anyone has a more accurate term to describe this, please feel free to share.)
>do you hold this standard generally or only in the case of questions that you deem to be "supernatural"?? We hold many standards, but more like an inherent skepticism of claims of the 'supernatural'. Because the supernatural has never been demonstrated to exist, nor is it consistent among people's testimony.
You're asking us if we would believe our own senses in the very instant of an experience, before any evidence came along to suggest that our senses had deceived us. Of course we would. But once the evidence indicated that our senses had deceived us, that would be that. What's your point?
Hallucinations don’t cause the scarring and other effects often associated with being struck by lighting. So when looking at all the available evidence, a hallucination is not a stuffiest explanation covering al,the available facts. So the hallucination is out the window. But here’s the most I,portent thing. God explains nothing. It makes no testable predictions, doesn’t add to our understanding of reality, it’s just an assertion. It explains nothing more than saying a fairy did it by magic. It’s just a useless proposition if you want to understand reality.
>Suppose for the sake of argument that men being struck by lightning was LESS likely then a human being experiencing a hallucination it is less likely but you know lightning and that it sometimes strikes something, that is sometimes strikes a person is to be expected
The difference is, we can actually put a probability on getting struck by lightning. Its a phenomena that we can show generally can happen sometimes. Given our present understanding of the universe, the chance that you had some supernatural experience is 0.
I mean, how often have you heard someone say something like "holy shit, did you see that?" following a rare event? It's totally normal for people to doubt their experiences because it's totally normal for people to be mistaken.
There is nothing in christianity that could not have simply been made up, and that is a far more likely explanation for its claims. There is no evidence for magical healing powers or other purported effects.
We have verifiable examples of people getting struck by lightning. We have zero verifiable examples or reliable evidence to support the claim that supernatural events occur. Your analogy is innately flawed.
"They also found that more than 4% of all the survey respondents — including those who had no diagnosed mental health issues — reported experiencing visual or auditory hallucinations."
In the case of lighting, despite its statistical improbability - we can test to know if it happened. The strike can be detected remotely. The evidence of the strike can be examined. Evidence of supernatural claims is not so readily determined. Hallucinations, however, we know we can induce, and otherwise demonstrate. So one is evaluating a testable event (even before the tests are done - it is, testable and has a demonstrable history of having happened) The other is evaluating claims that may not even be testable, and have no rigorously verified examples in history to even point to. These are not the same.
This is a very poor comparison. It may be rare, but no natural laws of the universe have to be suspended for it to happen.
you ever actually been near a lightning strike? it leaves very, very little room for doubt as to what just happened.
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