Absolute experience

Originally posted by bbarr
Because then you wouldn't have been irrational, but merely exuberant.

So you don't have an answer. OK.

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
So you don't have an answer. OK.

DF

No, if you had been exuberant about all the potential jobs, then you would have simply been exuberant. That you singled out one particular job as the object of your exuberance indicates that you were being irrational. So, irrational exuberance. I'm not sure why you take your idiosyncratic psychological states as evidence for the existence of some gaseous vertebrate in the sky.

Originally posted by bbarr
No, if you had been exuberant about all the potential jobs, then you would have simply been exuberant. That you singled out one particular job as the object of your exuberance indicates that you were being irrational. So, irrational exuberance. I'm not sure why you take your idiosyncratic psychological states as evidence for the existence of some gaseous vertebrate in the sky.

So I just got lucky and became exuberant about the one job that I also happen to get? Wow. How lucky can a guy get!

This does bring up a good point though. Since God can't be scientifically proven, one can dismiss all the individual pieces of evidence of God as something else. Thus, one must be seeking God to find Him.
It's sort of like the person who looks for the good in a bad situation. It's easy to grumble about the bad, it's obvious. But if one looks for the good it's also there, it just takes some effort to find. God's the same way.
Most of you skeptics won't ever read books by Lee Strobel, or research miracles, or ... and if you don't put out the effort, then for you, God doesn't exist. That saddens me, because I know what you're missing, and it's wonderful.

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
So I just got lucky and became exuberant about the one job that I also happen to get? Wow. How lucky can a guy get!

This does bring up a good point though. Since God can't be scientifically proven, one can dismiss all the individual pieces of evidence of God as something else. Thus, one must be seeking God to find Him.
It's sort of like the person ...[text shortened]... exist. That saddens me, because I know what you're missing, and it's wonderful.

DF

Pretty lucky, on this occasion. Have you ever gotten excited over something that didn't come to pass? You need to pay attention to evidence that weighs against your position as well as the evidence that you take to confirm your position. Anybody can cherry-pick the evidence to come up with support for their views. If I only focused on the times I received some benefit I had hoped for, or been confident in, then I would probably also believe there was some generally benevolent force interfering in my affairs.

Originally posted by bbarr
Pretty lucky, on this occasion. Have you ever gotten excited over something that didn't come to pass? You need to pay attention to evidence that weighs against your position as well as the evidence that you take to confirm your position. Anybody can cherry-pick the evidence to come up with support for their views. If I only focused on the times I received ...[text shortened]... ould probably also believe there was some generally benevolent force interfering in my affairs.

And how, pray tell, are we to determine how strongly this evidence weighs against our positions if we get hung up on largely irrelevant points when we try to work out how to do this?

Originally posted by royalchicken
And how, pray tell, are we to determine how strongly this evidence weighs against our positions if we get hung up on largely irrelevant points when we try to work out how to do this?

It seem to me that the best way to do this would start from assumptions that don't lead to contradictions. But I'm funny that way.

Originally posted by royalchicken
And how, pray tell, are we to determine how strongly this evidence weighs against our positions if we get hung up on largely irrelevant points when we try to work out how to do this?

We are shadows of giants, wondering how we lost connection to what is real. Unable to find that connection, we grovel around on the floor, frantically searching for possible remnants they may have left behind. All the pieces are nothing more than by-products of those lives lived by real people, the giants: bits of lint, abandoned hair, refuse.

Discarded shards of paper we consider gold, and although they reveal nothing more than partial words and disjointed sentences, we pour over them, memorizing their minutae, reading into them worlds of meaning. 'The answer is in the details,' we cry, each to the other, 'but which details,' we wonder to ourselves.

We rejected the giants and long for their return.

Originally posted by bbarr
Pretty lucky, on this occasion. Have you ever gotten excited over something that didn't come to pass? You need to pay attention to evidence that weighs against your position as well as the evidence that you take to confirm your position. Anybody can cherry-pick the evidence to come up with support for their views. If I only focused on the times I received ...[text shortened]... ould probably also believe there was some generally benevolent force interfering in my affairs.

Sure I have, but not to this degree, that's why I picked this example. We were so sure that we started packing. That goes beyond hopefullness or wishfull thinking. We had no doubt, and there was no reason to be so sure, yet we were. The point I'm hoping folks will see is that our sure feeling didn't come from us, it was given to us by some outside entity.

DF

Originally posted by DragonFriend
it was given to us by some outside entity.

DF

Sorry, DF, that doesn't qualify as anything more than a feeling. It may have given you the warm fuzzies, but quite frankly, I cried like a little girl when Seattle won the NFC championship. Those emotions were the result of a 30-year history of frustrated expectations/hopes/dreams, finally seeing their fulfillment.
The fact remains, we live in an age of no prophecy/no miracles. This is what the thread began as: the challenge of one to the many to find one who would declare they had proof of God directly intervening in their circumstances.
To answer the challenge is one of those self-canceling propositions.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
We are shadows of giants, wondering how we lost connection to what is real. Unable to find that connection, we grovel around on the floor, frantically searching for possible remnants they may have left behind. All the pieces are nothing more than by-products of those lives lived by real people, the giants: bits of lint, abandoned hair, refuse.

Disca ...[text shortened]... which details,' we wonder to ourselves.

We rejected the giants and long for their return.

Sounds like Nietzsche talking about Christians. Seriously, though, if you're tired of reading worlds of meaning into scraps of paper, then put down the Bible for awhile.

Originally posted by bbarr
Sounds like Nietzsche talking about Christians. Seriously, though, if you're tired of reading worlds of meaning into scraps of paper, then put down the Bible for awhile.

The post was purposely vague, as it as assumed someone would immediately jump in that direction. Now, jump a different direction, and see where you land.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The post was purposely vague, as it as assumed someone would immediately jump in that direction. Now, jump a different direction, and see where you land.

Sounds like Nietzsche talking about Muslims?

Originally posted by bbarr
Sounds like Nietzsche talking about Muslims?

Isn't this fun? Like a board game, you never know where you might end up. And, it applies to so many lines of thought and/or philosophy... even the stuff that's been emanating here, of late.
But, that depends upon what one's definition of 'is' and 'has' is, it would seem.