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Originally posted by googlefudge
No. Because it's not true.
Absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.
Absence of evidence is not PROOF of absence, but that's not what you posted.
Now depending on the circumstances an absence of evidence can be strong or weak evidence.
But in general terms, an absence of evidence for a proposition is always going to weigh against
that proposition being true.
Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary" ), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,
To reiterate, these arguments ignore the fact, and difficulty, that some true things may never be proven, and some false things may never be disproved with absolute certainty. The phrase "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence" can be used as a shorthand rebuttal to the second form of the ignorance fallacy (i.e. P has never been absolutely proven and is therefore certainly false). Most often it is directed at any conclusion derived from null results in an experiment or from the non-detection of something. In other words, where one researcher may say their experiment suggests evidence of absence, another researcher might argue that the experiment failed to detect a phenomenon for other reasons.
Wiki
09 May 15
Originally posted by sonshipdoth not God himself visited upon Pharaoh plagues of locusts and frogs and angry spirits?
It sounds like you are looking at this manna matter only from the point of view of Pharoah and his army.
I am looking at it from the angle of a saved people brought out of "the iron furnace", a slave house where thier male boy babies were being systematically murdered.
The book is called [b]Exodus - meaning an exit OUT of a 400 plus year old ho ...[text shortened]... utual dwelling place for God and man.
I don't think you are appreciating the pictures well.[/b]
doth not mana cometh from the Lord?
the holy witch doctors useth exactly thus: they exhale locusts through the power of mana, they make frogs rain from the sky and overwhelm their enemies. The very spirits of the Lord's realm are theirs to command, through the grace of God.
why do you deny their holiness?
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Originally posted by ZahlanziI am not sure if I am dealing with a logical child or an illogical adult. So your reasoning is thus?
doth not God himself visited upon Pharaoh plagues of locusts and frogs and angry spirits?
doth not mana cometh from the Lord?
the holy witch doctors useth exactly thus: they exhale locusts through the power of mana, they make frogs rain from the sky and overwhelm their enemies. The very spirits of the Lord's realm are theirs to command, through the grace of God.
why do you deny their holiness?
1.) To be "holy" is defined by sending plagues on people (like God in Exodus against Egypt ).
2.) Witch doctors send plagues on people.
3.) Therefore witch doctors are "holy."
So you ask -
why do you deny their holiness?
So you reason that - "Do something like Yahweh did, for ANY old reason, and that of course qualifies YOU TOO to be holy. "
No, it is not SIMPLY because voodoo practitioners or witch doctors can bring about plagues upon anyone they are often paid to hex, that renders such occultists "holy".
For one there is usually no negotiation with a witch doctor or voodoo priest. You get on someone's wrong side, for ANY reason, and that enemy can employ a witch doctor to cast a curse upon the guy you want to fix.
God negotiated with Pharoah to let His people go.
He asked. He requests. He gets refusals - repeatedly.
He gave demonstration.
He touched Pharoah's kingdom with progressively more severe punishments 10 times going from nuisance to severe. And why?
Pharoah hardened his heart. Oh but wait! The Bible says that God hardened his heart. It says BOTH. Pharoah hardened his heart and to make an example God hardened his heart.
Predestination / Freewill debate coming up.
Anyway, the honest reader should be able to see how God turned up the heat from a low simmer to a white hot flame. God, after requests through Moses and Aaron were rerbuffed did bring successively stronger and stronger plagues after each round of further rejections.
Now this is after 400 years of slavery. And this is after Pharoah practices selective genocide on the male babies of the Israelites.
So witchdoctors' ability to make peoples' lives miserable for hire does not put them on par with the God. And it does not argue that they are just as "holy" in what they do as God.
I am going to get back to the subject matter of the Manna now.
10 May 15
Originally posted by sonshipWell, i exist physically because i was born. I don't believe there was any purpose behind my birth. Would like to, but don't. Would be easy to look up to the vastness above me and come up with a reason for why i am here, that there was a creator and i his special creation. I think that is what man has always done, to make his mortal life a little less scary.
I exist too.
Do you know why you exist?
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10 May 15
3 edits
Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
Well, i exist physically because i was born. I don't believe there was any purpose behind my birth. Would like to, but don't.
This thread I started for people who would possibly consider that the purpose of human existence is touched upon in the Bible - specifically with the matters surrounding the miracle of the manna.
Would you be interested in hearing more about the manna in Exodus and in other places in the Bible where it is mentioned ?
Would be easy to look up to the vastness above me and come up with a reason for why i am here, that there was a creator and i his special creation. I think that is what man has always done, to make his mortal life a little less scary.
This thread about Manna - "What Is it?" was about the "less scary" stuff (if that's how you'd like to put it).
Some may be interested in how the manna relates to God's eternal purpose. Others may opt for just keeping a stiff upper lip and saying "I ain't scared of nothin boy!" Congradulations to them for being not scared.
Whether scared or not scared I hope some interested readers will consider the profound pictures and teaching about the manna in this wonderful book, the Bible.
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10 May 15
The Israelites had to eat this manna for 40 years.
They were use to the leeks, garlics, onions and mellons from the land of Egypt.
Now all that is gone, though they longed for it and complained about it. And they had nothing to eat but this bread from heaven - this manna.
This about God changing their constitution. This is about God feeding them year after year with something that would change their constitution. This is very meaningful.
The "heavenly" diet was to constitute them a "heavenly people." It was to work into them a new heavenly element to change what they were made of from eating all that Egyptian food. It is very significant.
Though they got tired of the manna and had all kinds of creative ways to eat it, they couldn't eat anything else. This is a picture of God changing man by dispensing something from heaven INTO man over a long period of time.
And why? Was it just to take care of their hunger? No, the whole picture is that He was re-constituting them so that they might become the dwelling place of God on the earth.
Again, the picture of God feeding the escaped people with bread from heaven was to change their diet in order to change their constitution. That is to re-constitute them by feeding, by taking something into them, into the tabernacle and dwelling place of God in man on the earth.
10 May 15
Originally posted by sonshipHow many of these people that he looked after and fed for 40 years actually made it to the promised land? If manna changed their constitution, why was it that they still acted in a way that displeased God? (Genuine question; the first being rhetorical).
The Israelites had to eat this manna for 40 years.
They were use to the leeks, garlics, onions and mellons from the land of Egypt.
Now all that is gone, though they longed for it and complained about it. And they had nothing to eat but this bread from heaven - this manna.
This about God changing their constitution. This is about God feeding them ...[text shortened]... taking something into them, into the tabernacle and dwelling place of God in man on the earth.
10 May 15
Originally posted by Ghost of a DukeI'll answer the rhetorical question.
How many of these people that he looked after and fed for 40 years actually made it to the promised land? If manna changed their constitution, why was it that they still acted in a way that displeased God? (Genuine question; the first being rhetorical).
All that didn't die within the 40 years.
😏
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11 May 15
2 edits
Originally posted by Ghost of a Duke
How many of these people that he looked after and fed for 40 years actually made it to the promised land? If manna changed their constitution, why was it that they still acted in a way that displeased God? (Genuine question; the first being rhetorical).
How many of these people that he looked after and fed for 40 years actually made it to the promised land?
A whole generation did not make it but died in the wilderness.
The new generation made it in. Even Moses did not enter in.
But from the original generation two men lived to enter - Joshua and Caleb.
If manna changed their constitution, why was it that they still acted in a way that displeased God? (Genuine question; the first being rhetorical).
Exodus is a picture book. And many things important to the full salvation of God are pictured for our enlightenment and education.
And the fact of the matter is that many who are redeemed for ever arrive "late" at the goal that God intends for all the saved. This should be seen in the fact that the journey from Egypt to the Promise Land should only take 11 days. But it was prolonged and drawn out and took 40 years.
From God's perspective His grace is sufficient to lead us into his highest in less time. From man's perspective our unbelief, dragging of feet, longing to go back to the world, and disobedience prolong the wandering in the wilderness of our soul.
So the picture book of the Old Testament shows much the same as the New Testament teaches. God is faithful. Man prolongs the process.
Having said that we should not consider that the failure of the first generation to enter into Canaan does not signify eternal loss. But it is a loss. It is a dispensational loss not an irrevocable eternal loss.
IE. The New Testament parallel teaching in plan words -
"If anyone's work which he has built upon the foundation [Jesus Christ] remains, he will receive a reward.
If anyone's work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." (1 Cor. 3:14,15)
Do you see? Some overcoming believers are saved and receive a reward in addition. Some eternally saved will nonetheless temporarily "suffer loss". The generation that died in the wilderness yet having eaten the manna, are like those who suffered loss yet are still eternally saved.
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11 May 15
Originally posted by sonshipAgain, absence of evidence is not [necessarily] PROOF of absence.Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary" ), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes ...[text shortened]... ght argue that the experiment failed to detect a phenomenon for other reasons.
Wiki
Which is what the Wiki article says if you actually read it.
It is however evidence, in that it is more likely that P is not true, if we have no evidence that P is true.
It might be VERY weakly so, in that it is only a very tiny bit less likely that P is not true if we lack
evidence of P. But it can also be strongly so, in that it is very likely that P is not true if we lack
evidence of P.
For example, back in the classical era, when only a small portion of the world was known and
explored. And even then only partially so. The fact that they had no evidence of fire breathing
giant flying dinosaurs [hereto forth referred to as Dragons] was not necessarily hugely strong
evidence that such creatures didn't exist. As there were so many undiscovered places where
they could still exist.
Fast forward to today, now we have been just about everywhere, with people living just about everywhere
it's possible to do so, carrying cameras with them everywhere they go.
Now the fact that we have no evidence that Dragons exist is VERY strong evidence that they don't.
In fact it's so improbable that a breeding population of giant fire-breathing Dragons exist without us
having any evidence of their existence that the lack of evidence for Dragons existing has probably
moved over into a solid proof of their non-existence [at least on the present day Earth].
Similarly... There is a hypothesis in physics called "Super-Symmetry" which predicts that there should
be massive counterpart particles to all of the currently known to exist particles.
The simplest versions of this hypothesis called for particles light enough to be detected by the LHC.
The LHC failed to find any evidence of these hypothesised particles.
The lack of evidence for these particles is now strong evidence that [at these energies at least] they
don't exist.
It is simply not true to say that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ih/absence_of_evidence_is_evidence_of_absence/