Miracles

"Wish I could prove I love you

But does that mean I have to walk on water?"

When we are older, you'll understand

It's enough when I say so

And maybe some things are that simple"

(Simple and Clean)

Miracles are impossible to logically identify even if they exist.

I've talked about this topic before, but - I think it is a worth a re-visit. The issue is that a miracle is defined in such a way that it could not ever be proven without logical fallacies.

Google has miracle defined thus:

"A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency."

The problem as I see it comes in the event not being explicable by natural/scientific laws - since we do not know all said laws - then how could we ever hope to say any event was in fact, a miracle?

At best what we would be doing is appealing to personal ignorance &/or personal incredulity.

"We have run out of ways to test this... must be a miracle!"

"I can't think of any other way then miracle to explain this."

"I can't believe this would be anything BUT a miracle!"

Since we would have to use at least one logical fallacy to GET to the conclusion that means that our conclusion would not be one we could ever get to via logic, because of the fallacy! So we would never, ever be able to say that a miracle was in fact, a miracle. This is a problem for identifying one.

However, there is also the fact that no one seems able to point to a thing and say "There is a miracle" because nothing that people point to seems to be anything miraculous at all, everything seems to have a mundane expiation - at best. Critical questions asked about so-called miracle events are simply glossed over, ignored, hand-waved away. So we do not even HAVE a man walking on water to examine - but if we did - we might find he is doing a trick, rather then a miracle.

So - the believer in miracles washes these facts and logic away by simply saying they have faith.

That is all they have.

Faith.

Not facts.

There is no evidence and can not be evidence of a miracle given what it is said to be due to logic. Of course, one day we might know all the things and in fact be able to then identify (X) as a miracle because we KNOW there are no other expiations for it... but we are far from that, and I doubt even if we got there that we would be satisfied with "miracle" for maybe we do not know all the things after all.

Maybe a miracle is just magic.

It only exists in the mind.

A hope. A desire. A wish.

And maybe that is okay. Its fine to dream, but you still need to wake up and do things!

CRT will be the straw that breaks...

 This CRT nonsense will be the end of us all.

School Board Madness edited

Full video of School Board Madness from above link

More madness

Look, whatever the bleep they want to call this utter nonsense - its racist. That is what it is. CRT and/or DIE models and/or whatever names they want to label them as (Hey its not Creationism its ID!) is pure madness that is marching right into our schools - and those that try to stop it, of course are trying to be shut down. This should be something that the left yells about as well as the right - but goodness the CRT somehow has worked its way up to Obama wondering why we are focusing so much on CRT (rather then other issues) "Nothing to see here, move alone" eh?

Insanity and madness.

All I can say is that. Oh I can make videos I guess, but I'm a very small voice.

I want to effect real change - but I have no idea how.

We found a tiny kitten - this proves there is no loving god.

"So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows"

Matthew 10:31

Yeah, right.

So my brother heard a tiny sound when doing his job, inside a storage unit he found a tiny orange kitten. Alone the kitten yelled for its mother who was simply gone. Alone, this kitten had starved for at least a day, perhaps more. So, of course, he brought it home to take care of.

Both he and his wife have been waking up every 2-3 hours to feed the kitten, take care of it, and love it. This will keep going until Monday when the animal shelter is open so it can be taken there. Money spent to feed it, money spent to care for it, time & energy - worry over if its doing well, all for a small kitten.

My brother said "I couldn't just leave it to die."

But apparently god could.

Oh I'm sure someone religious might object that god lead my brother to find the kitten to take care of it, but there are thousands upon thousands of other creatures great & small out there with no one to take care of them, dying slowly from thirst & starvation, suffering. As god does nothing.

Then there are the humans, same story - countless billions have died that otherwise could have lived. As god watches. Doing nothing.

All this suffering proves, beyond a doubt to me - that god could not be loving. If it loved, it would do something, and we are told that god can do anything - yet it does not. It lets all the things suffer.

Some claim this is all due to people rejecting god - as if that somehow shifts the blame away from god, it does not. God made the system - its god's fault it sucks.

So, I have to conclude what flows from logic - that if there is a thing that can do anything, it does not love, if it loves then it can not do everything for it does nothing to help all that it could. Its not there, it doesn't care - all we have is each other.

Value each other.

This cute little life that is a kitten will not be our responsibility soon enough, in fact it wasn't - but it was because we care - because we love. Because we can do something so we must.

Yet god - well. If it even exists it simply does not care.

Or can't do diddly squat.

Kitten, the universe might not know about you, but we do. We cared. We tried our best. We removed a tiny bit of suffering in this world for a little bit of time.

That means we are far better then any and all gods.

Thanks for reminding me of this you cute ball of fir.

This tiny dot.

This is it, this area, and no where else, Jesus - son of the only God walked around.

This dot.

Its really just

A tiny dot on the map.

A tiny,  tiny fraction of a very large world, where untold thousands of people lived, loved, played, cried, and died. In other parts of the world, other Gods were celebrated, some new ones were mad, old ones discarded, in other places, no one knew what was going on here at the time. 

To believe that an actual God would put itself in a single location, during a single moment of history.

To believe that - is something I can not do.

Yet, people do believe that.

It frightens me the power of belief.

Yet, our mind can do wonders with belief, once we see it as such, we can turn it creative and make new stories, ones where we do not pretend they are real, yet the story is just as, if not more - awesome then the myth tales of the Bible or other religions text.

This tiny dot could have been anywhere.

It could have been any religion.

It could have been any idea.

Perhaps, somehow we can be a new dot.

Maybe we can be a tiny dot that starts something better.

I think its worth a try.

If we use logic & reason to do so, perhaps it will prevail on this tiny dot we call home.

The bribe.

Picture it, you are offered two doors to choose from, behind one door is all the wealth you could ever desire, an operation that will make your body & mind perfectly well & whole, things to do that will fill you with purpose, music of all kinds, DNA splicing that will make you young again, the romance of your dreams. Everything you could ever want and more. The other door is simply a room with a wooden chair to sit on, a wooden slab to lay upon, some water to drink, and some dry bread to consume.

What door would you choose?

In fact - at this moment do you really have a choice anymore?

The bribe an appeal to motive - appeal to bribery. This logical fallacy seeks to overwhelm your logical motive with an emotional one.

So, do you really  have a choice at this point?

The flip side of this is much easier to understand, intuitively. Argumentum ad baculum.

We understand that a threat to our life, safety, or lives / safety of those we care about forces us to do what the person making the threat (or implied threat) wants to do, but a bribe seems less harsh - more alluring.

The positive seeming bribe is appealing to our carnal tastes, its good smell drags us forward towards the pie that we know we should not eat. Its overwhelms our intellect with desires.

Its just as sinister as its flip side, perhaps more so because we do not necessary see the bribe as a bad thing in this case - "bribe" seems like it should only be used in the context of paying off someone to get away with something - that sort of bribe we see as wrong or illegal, we can picture easily a person offering a police officer money to not write a ticket for example, to "look the other way" - we can understand that it is bad when a judge takes a bribe because justice is then tainted.

However if someone offered us such a "choice" of two rooms with "no strings attached" we might be hard pressed to see the evil of it, or the harm of it, there is no reason to NOT take the thing I most desire is there?

One might argue, of course that getting everything you ever wanted would not feel good - but that is overridden by the thought experiment in that you would in fact feel fulfilled as that is part of the thing you are getting. The point of course is not to try to dismantle the thought experiment but to flow with it, to answer the question of "Do I REALLY have a choice?"

We can understand we do not REALLY have a choice when someone threatens us - then why does it seem hard to see we do not REALLY have a choice when someone bribes us? Perhaps it is just me.

Regardless if the bribe is there, then it is a logical fallacy. 

Yet one could make excuses for taking the room filled with your hearts desires, and a logical process to take that room - of course, yet this does not, and can not negate the fact that it is still not an argument being made by the person/group that is offering the "choice" of the rooms in the first place.

So, a boring dull room behind door number one, or everything you ever could want behind door number two.

Do you really have a choice?

Or is it that choice in this case, is pure illusion?

I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide.

A post exchange on youtube reposted here in case it gets deleted or something

 From this video (click)

Algoma Baptist

 @Deconverted Man  Thank you for sharing your thoughts on these matters. You have obviously spent a lot of time thinking through these things. I am wondering a couple of things. You seem to be actively on the lookout for ways to lead people out of belief in God. Why is it that belief in God is such a hot topic for you? Did you have some kind of negative experience with it? If you did, I am very sorry for that. Sometimes Christians are not very good at living out their faith. My second question is based on this thought. Christianity is not just about whether or not I believe that there is a God. It is a framework for living a life that is loving, meaningful and sacrificial which I believe our world would agree is a positive ideal. The framework that I am using now gives me all those things. So, if a person would believe what you are saying, you would in fact be leading them away from that particular framework for living. My question then is, what alternate framework for living do you offer? What do you offer a person on the verge of divorce, or the parent whose child was born with Down Syndrome, or the person who received a diagnosis of cancer, or the person on the verge of death? What help do you give the person who suffers from injustice or anxiety or fear? If I am to leave one framework, I must have another that is proven to work. Otherwise, why would I leave it? What do you offer? Christianity is not just about whether God exists, it is also is about how to live a life with all the struggles that exist in it. I have never heard such an atheistic framework presented. I have only heard discussions about whether God exists and the validity of evolution. If there is such a framework, how do you live it out each day and what do you offer people in the struggles of life? I would be interested to hear your answers to these questions. Thank you

Deconverted Man

 @Algoma Baptist  Responding to your comments/questions: "...ways to lead people out of belief in God." I can not lead anyone out of belief per say - as the journey of each person is there own to make. My goal, broadly speaking is to educate on logic - the arguments that have the most logical errors are typically those made by apologists/religious people. I value the truth. I want people to use good reason & logic. Here is a bit of knowledge I've gained thanks to logic. There is a difference between a belief statement and a regular statement, "I believe in (X)" has no burden to prove it, after all we can not read minds - and thus we grant that most likely, the person / group that said the statement does in fact believe in (X). This also applies to not believing in (X). No proof need be offered. no defense need be given. Joe says "I believe in leprechauns." I just shrug and say "Okay." However saying that leprechauns exist - well now, there is a whole other matter. The person that makes the claim has the burden of proof. So (X) is true, prove it! ~ "Why is it that belief in God is such a hot topic for you?" Its a great topic to talk about even if there is no "God" thing out there. I enjoy talking about that, and other beliefs people have. ~ " some kind of negative experience with it?" Nope. In my book "Caught Between An Infinite Hope And A Finite Despair" (available on amazon! self plug!) I write in detail about my experience of religion. I also speak about it on my channel in my video "My deconversion story and some mussing" but the book goes into greater detail. ~ "...My question then is, what alternate framework for living do you offer? " That is not something I or anyone can provide for you, in fact I would say that it is part of why I object to religion - it tells people (or tries to tell people) how to live. This is up to you to learn for yourself. Its up to you to learn about ethical systems, logic, science, history - you give your live value and meaning, not anyone else. You are the one who works hard, and you are the one to thank or blame for what you do or do not do. Sometimes random things happen to you or people you know. Sometimes events are out of our control, sometimes we try to do good and get bad as a result, sometimes we do something bad and get a good result, this is life, and it is your life that we are speaking of, you must assume full control of it, you have the wheel, Jesus doesn't know how to drive so why give it to him? Why give it to anyone else? You know things I do not, you have ideas I do not, those ideas can be shared with others, your friendship, your hopes, your dreams, your love - you are the master of yourself and no one should ever take that from you. ~ "What do you offer a person on the verge of divorce? or the parent whose child was born with Down Syndrome, or the person who received a diagnosis of cancer, or the person on the verge of death? What help do you give the person who suffers from injustice or anxiety or fear?" Logic & reason. Also: A good lawyer. Medical science x2 Mortality sucks. Many good lawyers. A therapist. ~ Atheism / skepticism is not a world view. It does not offer a "way to live" This is why perhaps it has been called "Free thinker" as you are free to develop your own way to do such things.

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Killing babies is fine, Alberto Giubilini & Francesca Minerva argue.

This paper (click) has a disturbing argument to say the least.

Yes, these two are arguing that given past ideas of abortion, we could hypothetically allow just born, (or perhaps a few day old) baby's to be killed or if you don't like that harsh word - "euthanize".

So, eugenics? Basically, yes - any unwanted birth even after the fact can be done away with. Why stop at a few days old though? Lets extend that - what if the kid gets some illness that will cost just to much money to deal with? What if the baby runs into something and gets a brain injury, oh sure they might do just fine -  but they might also become very dumb, something the parents wouldn't have wanted pre-birth. So, get rid of em. I say this does not go far enough, what about as a child if the kid breaks a law? Why, the parents would not have had the kid had they known there child was going to become a criminal. So just kill them. Why not? In fact, why stop there? Parents should just have the right to kill there own kid whenever they feel like it, they did bring them into this world after all. Heck, why stop with parents, some kid scratch's your car with there bike - clearly that kid has to go. Of course why stop with kids and teens - anyone you don't like for any reason should be killable I say. Of course we will just rename it something clever so no one will object when we write up our paper about it.

One wonders, if we could in fact get such a paper to be published in this journal?

One wonders how the hell such a paper got published in the first place.

Oh also it was defended.

Well.

Bleep. We went to far my fellow readers. Somewhen somehow, some people just went to far. Is it to late to stop the madness?

I ask you, what can we do?