So checkmate, atheist. Nyah nyah!

It's the same argument as saying atheism is a belief that gods don't exist. Since there is no evidence that gods don't exist, then gods DO exist. It is proven!

No evidence of nothing is clear evidence of something, apparently.

Nothing does not exist because there is no evidence that nothing does not exist. Tautology 101!

If you are confused, imagine believing that what I just wrote is true.

That kind of logic is called wackadooism. Those who rely on wackadooism are known as wackadologists. One cannot major in wackadology except at certain private colleges, where they have renamed the major as Hermeneutics.

One can achieve a Ph.D. in Wackadology without actually knowing anything at all at the end of your studies. The more rambling and confusing your thesis is, the more honors you earn.

what is amazing is that how soon things like this, the Bermuda Triangle and Roswell were debunked after the shitmeisters wrote their books. And yet, years later we still have this.

what is not understood or if they predict or promise a good outcome.

If that were not so, there would be no religions.

there is a poster who posts YouTube videos about how Aliens are actually evil Angels sent to destroy us.

He is quite serious and is trying to warn us.

YouTube is full of that kind of nonsense, too.

The best part is when you call bullshit and the response is just to double down and repeat the same nonsense over and over as if bullshit can somehow transform into something other than bullshit through repetition.

Just keep repeating the bullshit until you accept it. So you really can't fault someone for trying to use the method when it worked on themselves before, I guess.

I think deep down people who allege they have "faith" at some level know they have decided to abandon reason. That's why you'll sometimes hear stories of how they have allegedly witnessed something that told them their faith has a basis in something other than fallacy. I suppose it's just a matter of how far you want to go with the self-delusion.

in small craft. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes carried there by storms. Unfortunately he branched off into whackadoodle ideas about Easter Island and other topics.

he was a charlatan, a plagiarist and a con man. I read a couple of his books shortly after they were published in the late 1960s, and discarded them as nonsense. But, many, many people were taken in by his fantasies, and believed it all to be true, because it confirmed their own biases.

There are parallels that can be drawn between Von Däniken's writings and religious scriptures. I don't think I'll draw them here, though. I don't really have time to do it.

The entire area of Fortean books is fascinating. I don't read them any longer, but for a time, I found them extremely entertaining. It was a wonder to me that there was a market for such fantastic nonsense out there. It does exist, certainly, probably driven by the same thing that drives religious belief. We all want to believe in something marvelous and full of conspiratorial truths.

Humans have wonderful powers of imagination.

it is probably how that population spreading actually happened. It's not in the same category as most Fortean writings. The dude made the raft and sailed away on it, and actually got somewhere. That's actual plausibility that has been tested.

But Kon-Tiki was not Von Daniken. That was Thor Heyerdahl. It happened in 1947. Von Daniken's first book, Chariots of the Gods, was not published until 1968.

I stand corrected. Sorry about that. But Heyerdahl went off the deep and end ended up writing similar crap about the history of Easter Island. A thousand pardons!

It's like the people who are convinced Nostradamus could predict the future based on a "metaphorical" reading of what he wrote. Certain language lends itself quite well to twisting it whichever way you like.

At least in the case of Nostradamus you can get a reasonable translation into modern languages regarding what he wrote. In the case of ancient languages we will never know exactly what they were trying to say, must less deriving any sort of intent or hidden meanings. Sort of comical when someone pretends otherwise and then falls back to a position of "faith" when they can't rely on facts or reason. In any other context it would be stupid beyond belief, but somehow religionists get a pass for it. Kinda funny how that works.

That sometimes makes religionists feel invincible. Logic is clearly secondary to that feeling.

Yet when there's religious connotations the behavior somehow magically becomes "rational". Kinda funny how that works.

Martin Luther to read Jesus's injunctions to do good until you've reached perfection...a goal he knew he couldn't reach...to land on Paul's reference to grace. Et voila, Jesus's message was voided and Christians of faith will enjoy eternal joy even though none of us will deserve it. If Luther had had an actual spiritual experience, he might have been in a position to understand the God system Jesus taught which explains how the goal is accomplished...and it's not grace, faith, forgiveness,or a savior. There will be extremists, but they're not all on fringe web sites. Mainstream Christianity teaches the above four pillars of Christianity and it's fringe (wishful) thinking.

How do you know, apart from wishful thinking that Luther did not have an actual spiritual experience?
How do you know he isn't/wasn't right?
Any evidence?
Or just wishful thinking?

What is it evidence of, other than impulses in the brain?

since I was properly medicated

wasn't functioning in a way to account for his experience.

as the hallucinations of a brain shutting down.

If you are talking about Raymond Moody...you should rethink it all.

or the double blind studies that showed NDE to be just physical reactions.

ok.

Know many neurosurgeons?

I think he would have told us if he received insight from a different reality and then recognized that grace met his truth, so eureka! That's not how a Lutheran minister explained Luther to me.

God exists has no evidence to support it. So, the rest of the logic fails. That is religion's fundamental problem. It's one with no solution.

It's almost as if they have FAITH!

their hope.

the person well enough. But maybe not.

It would depend on the nature of the experience. For example, telling me about some vision wouldn't qualify as evidence of anything materially real. Not would suddenly recovering from an illness.

Who was very ill, so no one told her that a cousin had died from the same cause. They wanted her to have hope. However, when she had the strength to talk, she informed her that the cousin had died. The cousin had visited her and told her. So did her fevered brain hallucinate or did her brain condition permit another reality to break through? There are tons of such examples and no one is obligated to believe them. The only thing that matters is to do good.

There are all sorts of stories out there. Some reflect actual perceived experiences, while others are wishful thinking. Without reference to first-hand accounts, I simply dismiss such stories due to lack of confirmation.

priority item for most people, so a waste of time. Now that I think of it, there is a book I might recommend! In a way, it sort of jumps into the spirit reality, but it's written by a man of impeccable credentials and I found it interesting. Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian L. Weiss MD.

I always sugggest people start out with disabusing themselves of the notion that mind is located in the brain. The many experiments chronicling this can be found in Your Eternal Self, by R. Craig Hogan PhD.

Mind surviving death was researched at U. of Arizona by Gary E. Schwartz, PhD., in The Afterlife Experiments.

The granddaddy of all researchers in life after death is Dr. Ian Stephenson. I'd suggest Children Who Remember Previous Lives.

As I've said before, it doesn't matter if one believes in another reality or not. The important thing is to do good.
For knowledge to work towards that end, one needs to know what I call, for want of a better term, the god system. Now I lost you!

That may cause certain people to perceive you as "a deranged wacko who has been personally attacked and whose world view is in danger of falling off a cliff." Also, some may conclude that you are "rabid when a difference of opinion is expressed."

What was her name? What was the cousin's name? When and where did this happen? What was the illness? Is there any kind of documentation to support this story - e.g. the cousin's death record? It shouldn't be hard to come up with real evidence to support the mundane elements of a story like this.

You know, there are tons of stories of children in the United States being poisoned by candy they got while Trick-or-Treating on Halloween, too. Parents take all kinds of precautions to prevent this, police departments and news outlets warn of the danger, and many parents forbid their kids to go out at all for fear this will happen to them. Do you know how many times such poisonings have actually happened?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/halloween-non-poisonings/

Wasn't trying to offer an example suitable for a law court.

Why, out of "hundreds of reports made of survival after physical death" did you pick one that has nothing whatsoever to back it up? Surely, out of "hundreds of reports made of survival after physical death" you can find some that are more convincing than a vague reference to a story with no details at all.

apparently upset you. Perhaps you should block me.

You provided a book list of widely discredited authors who write for-profit books marketed to gullible people rather than peer-reviewed research in respected journals.

It looks as if you are the one who is upset by the prospect of actually supporting your assertions. If you want to float such ideas without the bother of critical review, you might consider other groups which are better suited for such things.

Asking questions of a poster on a discussion board is no indication that the questioner is upset. You should understand this, because you've asked questions in this thread, too.

What do you think of the many stories about random poisonings at Halloween? Do you believe such poisonings really happen?

Next!

(*Produce one shred of researchable evidence and I'll take it back.)

By the authors I refer to. I don't expect you to "take it back."

But I do have an observation. A post advocating atheism doesn't upset me at all. I hope that my reply would be accepted as my opinion/experience; I know I don't respond to atheism as a deranged wacko who has been personally attacked and whose world view is in danger of falling off a cliff. I am at a loss to understand why some nonbelievers sound so rabid when a difference of opinion is expressed.

Also, it has been my experience that Mineralman and Guillaume unfailing display a lack of anger and I'd like to thank them for that.

Asking for evidence to support a story, and disbelieving it until such evidence is provided, indicates that you are "a deranged wacko who has been personally attacked and whose world view is in danger of falling off a cliff." Also, you are "rabid when a difference of opinion is expressed." For disbelieving a story that sounds like it was told to a group of kids sitting around a campfire.

At least s/he thanked MineralMan and guillaumeb for being nicer than me.

to determine who is angry, and who isn't.

visiting a sick child. I've Googled it, but with no results. Where did you get that story?

collection. The above references contain research for your scientific soul, mineralman. I hope that didn't sound tacky;I've had quite enough tacky for one day! Keep up the good work!

None of those books contain any verifiable, unambiguous facts.

One of my all-time faves.

Before you exhort posters here to visit your favorite Bible apologetics sites, please first ensure that those sites don't contain right-wing hate screeds against women's rights, LGBT people, non-Christians, etc. Please also see that the proprietors of said sites don't openly support organizations that are listed as hate groups by the SPLC.

TIA.

troubled waters, and might cause doubt in the source.

Never had a succinct label for these crackpots; first one that comes to mind is Hal Lindsey,who published "The Late Great Planet Earth" in 1970. Saw all kinds of signs in earthquakes and stuff that suggested the rapture would happen in the 1980's. He also still has fans, and is a regular on the Bible thumper channels.

My answer is S.C.I.E.N.C.E.!