Who Cares About Evidence?

You think it is, wouldn't that be your assumption than?
you certain about those assumptions?
there are some prophecies in the OT that point to events that are verified in secular history.
Please tell me your not gonna want me to give supporting documentation, I already did that once to the tune of over 150+ references to Biblical people, places and events that are confirmed via secular history.

and I won't even go into all the prophecies concerning the Jews, pretty much all of which have happened so far to date.

 

what if a person said they were speaking on behalf of God (whichever god you chose) and foretold future events which then came to pass as predicted.
What would you make of that?

and I've mentioned this before, speaking in tongues as presented in the NT.
I previously posted an article where they hooked folks up to EEG's and such and then had them "speak in tongues". The findings showed that the experience was unique and different than a waking state, dream state, mediation, repetitive chanting, or any other state often associated with religious experience.
Further it also showed that, in agreement with the subjective experience of "not being the one speaking" the subjects speech centers were relatively dormant, which also negates any type of faking, whether consciously or not.

so if we look at the record of such a phenomena, the Bible, and then test it with science, it conforms to the description given in the text.
I told Mr. Writer before, you want scientific evidence, there is a valid starting point.

so it's things like that, while maybe not conclusive "evidence", it certainly opens the door for further investigation leaving behind bias and prejudice, and causes me to stop short of making declarations of "what is" and simply say "I don't know for certain"don't you agree?

your very dogmatic stance of not seeing any way for any proof to discovered is myopic and arrogant as are those on the other side of the fence.

 

Ah. In that case, I'd definitely agree with you. Religion isn't science. Science is the most rigorous methodology we have for getting at reliable knowledge. The major drawback with it is that it isn't directly applicable to some certain which are important to many people, such as meaning, morality, and the possible existence of supernatural phenomena. As you say, the faithful will have to find their own proof or evidence, and the only way others might "validate" their claims is to listen to their arguments, or perhaps to observe their behavior, and decide whether or not to accept them--or to have these insights independently. Faith(a joyful bet, educated or otherwise) is an indispensable element in the process, as it is for science as well, but less so.

 

Here is the thing I do not understand.....Why call what someone else chooses to believe or not believe myopic and arrogant? that tells me you are angry, as not everyone believes the same things you do.......I never get angry with what anyone believes in or not believes in....I only do when it interferes with progress or with what i think and believe....Shouldn't whatever you believe in be enough for you?

 

And if the phenomna turned out not to have a supernatural origin, and could be adequately explained by science along naturalistic lines, would we then conclude there's nothing to this god stuff? I wouldn't. My discomfort in trying to put god to a laboratory test is that it really can't be done, and failure to do so can lead to the conclusion that religion, not science, has failed. If someone claims to be able to predict future events, and they were consistently able to do so, that would be an interesting phenomenon. We've had people in the past who claim that ability (Nostra Damus ansEdgar Casey come to mind) and police departments still work with some of these psychics. Of course, the Bible warns us against fortune tellers, so we'd have to be careful to distinguish the Satanic types from the divinely inspired ones. Parapsychologists who are into ESP call this precognitive clairvoyance, but so far there hasn't been any solid laboratory confirmation of it. (Despite the work of Dr. Rhine at Duke, satirized in Ghost Busters). Do you have any predictions or prophesies in mind? We have lots of preachers who purport to predict world events through the Bible, but are hard to pin down to specifics, or have been proven wrong by subsequent developments. And they can do harm. I remember Jack Van Impe's conclusion that King Juan Carlos of Spain was the Antichrist on the basis of his ties to the Holy Roman Empire. I think the king should have sued for slander.

Glossolalia (speaking in tongues), of which you have direct personal experience, is a well-documented phenomenon, veridical to you on the basis of personal experience, but those who haven't experienced it must go on the basis of observation, testimony and reading. Could you provide citations to, and further descriptions of, the scientific experiments? When claims of supernatural significance are involved, I hesitate to jump to conclusions. The instance mentioned in Acts involves people speaking actual languages that would be intelligible to others xenoglossy, and that one would be particularly impressive, especially if the person were speaking Etruscan or Hurrian. I betcha MeAgan would sit up and take notice if a dog passing by started talking in Aramaic. Samarin (1972) found that Pentecostal glossolalia is "meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead" Tongues of Men and Angels. Goodman's cross-cultural study, including non-Christian as well as Christian subjects, arrives at a similar conclusion. (1972) Speaking in Tongues. The Francis and Robbins study in 2003 found that glossolalia was unrelated to psychopathology, so congratulations--you may be normal. Newberg et al's 2006 study, which may be the one you're referring to, found that during glossolalia, activity in the language centers of the brain actually decreased, suggesting that it isn't associated with usual language function, while activity in the emotional centers of the brain increased. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, vol. 148: 67-71. A carefully designed experiment would want to check the subjects' history of the use of drugs or mind-altering substances.

 

so I guess by your responses that you do not care to approach the topic from a neutral position devoid of bias.
So why is it gobble de goop?
it was scientifically tested and found to NOT be anything that anyone has claimed it to be except for the Christian explanation.
why is that science not worthy of your further investigation but others are?

I'm not trying to convince you of a damn thing, just showing how you are rejecting out of hand merely because of the Biblical connection and nothing more, is what I can surmise based on your responses.

 

you have such a childlike apprehension of things, you sure you are old enough to be here?

it is not that they do not believe the same thing as I do (although no one here really knows what that is, they just make assumptions) but rather because h like many others will reject things for no other reason than they don't conform to their preconceptions.
That is being myopic or shortsighted.
If there is any room for doubt, than acknowledging that doubt is much wiser than dogmatically denying it exists.
it has been demonstrated here time and again, when it comes to Christianity, ludicrous and asinine comparisons, and a complete lack of topical knowledge passes for "wise"...LOL

 

all very valid points of which I am not ignorant.
as I stated, I view that research and similar things as reason to maintain an openness to the possibility.
That is what I was trying to get across.
while this research doesn't "prove" god or whatever, it does appear to confirm at least two things, the subjective experience of not directing the speech and it is a unique experience among the different states of awareness that have been subjected to the same testing.
That in itself, being a unique experience, should be cause for a raised eyebrow.

 

and where/when did I ever make such a claim????
all I have ever said concerning this study is that it is intriguing and cause for further possible investigation.
You on the other hand seem to have discounted simply because it deals with a phenomena that is currently considered "Christian", or am I incorrect?

 

So back to the topic

 

Prophecy is akin to tarot, many mediums, and other such common forms of future prediction. It is most often vague enough to be construed as complete when certain things happen in history whether that be personal or world history.

 

Ok, yes, I didn't fully convey my thought, my bad.
What I meant was within the context of the experiment and it's participants, the phenomena specifically being tested as described in Christian writings and personal accounts, and within those parameters, the results conformed to the biblical description more than any other spiritual exercise considered.
That does not preclude any other instances of the phenomena occurring, within a spiritual/religious context or not.

I mean the friggin' OP question was specifically about evidence for a Christian God and everyone wants scientific evidence, so as i said before, there is a starting point to investigate phenomena in the Bible that is still occurring today, so it is testable.
Why is that a problem?
You have participated in every thread here on the topic of whether or not god exists, so I would think that you, if genuinely interested in the topic without bias, would be intrigued by such research. I certainly am irregardless of my personal experiences.

but quit frankly the response most often encountered around here is ,"Christian, God, Bible AHHHHHH! it's all bullshit!!!" delivered with derision and condescension.
but EVERY TIME when pressed, you and others have shown that you have an abysmal knowledge and grasp of the topic, yet somehow you feel you are expert enough to declare it all bullshit.
even the OP demonstrated an inaccurate understanding of the religion and what the Bible actually states.

LOL, THAT is what I take issue with and find humorous.
Hell, at least I'm smart enough to declare "I DON'T KNOW"

and just so we are clear, if I refer to the concept of God, please don't confine me to the Biblical interpretation of it.
As I have said before, my conception of God is contained within the Bible, but not constrained by it.

 

I find this claim to be interesting especially considering that I was once a firm believer in the fulfillment of prophecy myself, especially that concerning the Jews. Let us take a look at one of the most commonly referred to prophecies concerning the Jews return to Israel in the OT. Isaiah 11:11 In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the Mediterranean. Sounds quite like the influx of Jews to the reformed Jewish state after WW2 right. Yet this would have to mean that this was the second time that mass amounts of the Jewish populace had returned to Israel after having been exiled. In truth however this was the third. The first was the great deportation of Jews from Israel by the Assyrian empire as attested in the OT. The second and perhaps most widely known is the Babylonian exile, which was also attested biblically. Also lets take note that all of the lands of return spoken of exist somewhere in or around the middle east. Why no mention of the Jews returning from all the other areas they came from? It is very specific. I do not currently have the time to delve further into more prophecies but if you feel there is one that must be addressed I certainly hope you will bring it to light.

 

its neat to think you know things you can't see, and there's certainly no reason they can't exist.
but you also tend to bump into things a lot, if you never look at things that you can see.

 

Uhhmm, because there were 12 tribes that comprised the Jewish people.
all the northern tribes more or less disappeared/were scattered due to the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.
it was the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the southern tribes, that returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile. You do notice it says "the surviving remnant" which would have been the southern tribes, the other ten having been "sifted among the nations" by this time thanks to the Assyrians. That is why the specific geographic reference in the prophecy you cite.

figure out where/who the other ten tribes went/are and OT prophecies begin to take on a different "flavor" than is often considered.

 

While I do not have the time or the resources at the moment to answer this idea of yours sufficiently I would like to hear your "less commonly" considered view on these prophecies. I am familiar with the traditional Christian interpretation as well as the Jewish one.