17 Billion "Earth sized" planets

Not necessary to understand the mechanism eh? Maybe this explains why religious people have no care for the intentions of the author/s of the bible.

How do you know what message may be God's message and which message is subject to question if you don't know the nature of God. If God is real and is a deity, and vastly more powerful than you as a human being, how can you possible have 100% confidence of every type of manifestation of God that may occur?

How specific are these clairevoyant events? Does God say "Something shit's gonna go down some day bud"? Or does he say "you will come into lots of money in the last week of June 2014"?

How do you not know that you are simply having thoughts for events that are possibly in the future and some come true by way of natural conincidence? I certainly have such thoughts and one day some come true, But others do not.

More alarmingly, how on earth can you determine that God can tell the future, but the devil cannot, when you have no definitive grasp of exactly what kind of life form/entity either one is?

What factors make it "totally understandable coming from God"?

Even if they turned out to be true, how do you know that they were all from God? It's not like his phone number comes up on your phone is it? It is surely blind faith that you attribute these things to God because they have a positive outcome (that is to say that accuracy of what is said in the communications rather than events).

How do you know what the devil wants? Have you spoken to him as well?

On the contrary. The scientific reasoning points more towards the very notion of the existence of aliens.

I find it curious that you allow distance, and therefore science, to dictate your reasoning on the possibility of alien intervention, yet you apply absolutely no reasoning whatsoever on the physical, natural, scientific or just plain logic behind the source, indentity, method and purpose of "God's" little messages.

Why do Christiuans, and for that matters, Jews and Muslims, invest so much energy in deciding what the true interpretation of the bible and God's actions are, if you now say that his motives are irrelevant?

Surely that is a contrdictory standpoint?

So we can conclude from this that you do not believe in the concepts of mental illness and/or the physical and chemical ability of the brain and body to interfere with mentality?

I ask this question because, to me, if you believe in biology and medicine then, at the very least, the possibility still remains that it is a delusion - even if God does exist and can communicate in such a fashion.

I won't ask what, unless it was the Euromillions numbers for tonight.

On the contrary, it is you that is attributing motives. I am actually doing the opposite. I am asking what his motives may be and, in doing so, pointing out that you don't have a clue what they are any more than I do. A stranger could come up to you on the street tomorrow and tell you that in a week he will buy you a meal in Le Tour d'Ardent. You would no doubt have, at the very least, some concern that he was not sincere. Why therefore trust God without question when you have no confirmation that it is in fact God, or have any clue what the motives behind the communications are?

So you can say with 100% certainty that there was no emotional element?

I don't care what the bible teaches since we have no proof of what it was intented to be, or whether there is any divinity about it at all.

As for my remark, I wonder what the purpose of prayer is, if his communications were to tell you that what you prayed for wasn't going to happen. It brings me back to another question I put to you above. If free will exists (which, I assume, is the argument Christians would use to explain away the death of the kidnapped person, contrary to prayer), then why does God bother communicating? What's the point? Surely he should just leave us all to get on with it?

Since he does not leave us all to get on with it, that takes us back to motive. Why does he feel the need to still communicate with us, and then only certain numbers of us? You don't feel the need to even consider this question when he's busying beaming missives into your brain?

If God has given free will, how do you know your messages aren't actually the act of a manipulative devil? After all, these messages clearly have an influential element to them. Would an influential capacity not be contrary to the principle of free will?

No it isn't. Ok Notradamus, if God is telling you all these predictions for the future, I don't suppose you'd set one out for us so that we can see if it comes true?

Scientific studies are not a red herring, they, with medicine and known understanding of mental health, tell us that you could well be misinterpreting your emotions. Right now, the only proof of any of this is your word. That is flimsy to the point of being laughable. It's not even remotely credible when stacked up against what science knows about the mind and body.

So, if we are to trust that these communications were 100% from an entity that we cannot physically see, hear or speak to outside of our heads, surely the only way to test this is with one of the predictions for the future?

What ever I am, or may be, there is a manifestation of me that is here and real and is present for many to see. All you have told us about is something in your head with is your entire basis for the supposed factual existence of the christian deity, a deity you say requires no interpetation or understand, despite the fact that the bible supposedly does (even though you don't know who wrote it).

There are no reasonable indications that you have demonstrated. You've told us about messages in your head and future tellings. The former is clearly not even remotely provable as being 100% from God, and therefore making God factual, and the latter can only be tested if you rely a message of the future and we see if it prevails as truth.

You need to remember that it is your position, not mine, that God is factual, with no reasoanble doubt. This all stems from my statement that it is a contradiction to believe God without question, yet have centuries of debate over the meaning of the bible, choosing which bits are literal and which aren't.

Yet by saying that there is a remote possibility do you not see that you have already instoduced the element of doubt? WHy therefore is it not necessary to ask questions?

Ok then, what is the reasonable approach appropriate for determining why your interpretation of religion and the bible is the correct one, and other Chsitians, Muslims and Jews, who all follow the God you say must reasonably exist, have all got it wrong?

Don't you see this is another contradiction? On one hand you say that fact of God must reasonably be true, but on the other hand you saying that, in fact, only a small minority of people seem to be able to get his message right. Is God sending mixed messages? If not why are all these other people, some of whom will also say they hear messages from God like you do, making so many mistakes with God's messages? I suppose this is free will again, eh? The great get out clause.

Why do I need to ask him? He is all powerful and I am his creation. Why do I need to contact him first? How do you even know that he won't communicate unless a human makes the first move? After all, you don't know fully what he is.

Your answer is very, very telling and, again, further supports my original statement that it is the very summit of contradiction to say that the bible needs interpeting but God is to be excepted as fact without question.

Your whole argument since then has been that your experiences with God and his messages have proved his existence to you, but here you are saying that, in fact, you never doubted it even when you have absolutely no proof at all. Zero, zip, nadda. How can you accept something so blindly?

Now do you understand at least why people are inclined to ask questions of God's purported existence, motivatuion and origin - even if you do not agree with their conclusions?

So in other words you're not going to answer the question?

Ok.

And the SMELL!

Yes I understand why. It is because, no matter what indications are given, you will dispute them. In your post (which I'm not going to respond to point by point; if I respond to every point in your posts and you do the same to every point in mine, the results will soon be long enough that they become unwieldy), you repeat many of the same questions which I had already answered. Perhaps I should try the "Diacanu approach" and simply give you "Already answered in post such-and-such".

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as absolute proof of anything, so that a skeptic can continue forever disputing something. You use the exact same approach as conspiracy theorists: No matter what evidence is given, you always come back with "Yes, but they might be lying to you, you don't personally know the people involved, you don't have all the information, it might be..." From an epistemological point of view, all that is perfect true. But it doesn't make conspiracy theories true, or even likely.

So let's put it another way: What would you consider a sufficient proof of God's existence? Define the parameters you would consider as enough to make you believe in him, and why they would be sufficient.

No, U.

So...um...yeah...all these years, I've been trying to figure out if Async is diabolical, or pathological...and...um...yeah, problem solved, he's batshit.

Before I address your last post, would you care to address the totality of my last post instead of just picking the bits that suit you? Or are we back to your old tactic of avoiding questions and backing out when 14 paragraphs of over intellectualised bullshit doesn't do the trick?

Go back and answer my post in totality and we can continue this most fascinating debate.

Oh, and Async, don't be a strawman and tell me I am not willing to accept anything you say when I have quite clearly set my stall out as an agnostic and even challenged the atheists in this thread. Have the balls to field the debate.

Asyncritus had some kind of epiphany. I'm cool with that. It was an interesting read.

However, his efforts to frame this experience with words and even try to explain it to non-believers seem futile to me. It's interesting, but nothing more.

Mystics tried this before, and most of them belittled their experience by doing so. There is nothing to defend or to prove. The epiphany is an individual, personal thing, and its nature is that it is beyond all logic. Problem is: Asyncritus considers himself a logical person, as far as I understand. But why using logic when there is no need for logic at all?

Why did you choose to approach your epiphany with the tools of logic, Async, and tried to explain it to others? It's just not the reasonable thing to do..!?

I never understood why such an experience must be dumbed down by using rationale... Isn't the experience itself sufficient? Why complicate the whole matter?

I suppose you "know," right?

You know, if I had an "epiphany" of that sort, I'd at least consider it possible to have been a hallucination, a delusion, or something of that sort. It isn't the same as Neil Armstrong on the moon, for which a lot of independent evidence exists. The level of certainty is not justified here.

Asyncritus had an experience which lead him to believe that "God" was talking to him. Period. He interprets his experience in this way. It is his right. He chose it. You are not the one to judge.

Of course it might have been a sign of mental illness, or just wishful thinking, or perhaps it was not "God" talking to him, but only his mind, him being a devout believer and a person who was indoctrinated as an evangelical Christian in his youth... (Evangelical Christians always wait for "signs", but in in the belief system of an evangelical Christian, it is not weird at all that "God" really speaks to them. That's just the way they are wired. It's their mindset. Nothing wrong with it.)

But who cares? As long as he got the impression that the experience was useful and a good thing, it doesn't matter who or what was talking to him.

I'm pretty sure that he considered the possibility that he just imagined the whole thing. Or that Satan was talking to him. Or whoever... He chose to believe that it was his "God". That's fine. Let him believe.

What irritates me is the fact that Asyncritus felt the need to explain himself to you cynical assholes! That's weird, and that's what I do not understand at all. Perhaps he is not that sure concerning his belief? From my point of view, this would be a good thing.

Care to explain, Asyncritus? Oh, of course you don't, because we are heathens and have no idea about faith, and you have read so many things and spent a lifetime thinking about "God", being the wise, logical and intelligent man you are.... But if there is a Heaven for the heathen, I'll see you there!

I don't recall suggesting that he wasn't entitled to do what he liked with the experience. That in no way undermines my entitlement to say that I think that he's wrong.

Of course it matters. Truth is important.

IIRC you are some variety of relativist or postmodernist, who would tend to dispute the very existence of absolute truth. That isn't cool either.

"So if we ever find intelligent life that looks completely different from us - their God created them in His image? Meaning there's more than one? The squirming of all the religious with the possession of the absolute truth (tm) alone would be worth it."

Why limit God?

Any God big enough to set the universe (or universes) in motion is going to be big enough to incorporate an "image" so diverse and complex that any intelligent being can fit under his/her/its umbrella, and so open-minded that all possibilities are, by their nature, possible and acceptable.

It's only religious institutions and their leaders on this planet that place limits on their understanding and their "image," if you will, of God...and even more arrogantly, presume to know God and what God expects of us, and place limits on what kind of being he/she/it must be.

Why not? If religion had maintained a position of privacy then fair enough. But Async himself says he is an evenagelical, a requirement of which is to promote his beliefs on others (which is why he will never answer my questions about why his makes these pilgrimages to the third world).

So since it does not remain "just in his mind", why shouldn't the questions be asked?

I have no problem being called a relativist, because that's what I am. But in your words, it sounds like an insult... Hehe...

Why do we as a species even bother about spirituality? Because some of us just need to. It is an urge. Nothing wrong with that. That's just the way we are wired. At least some of us.

Sure we're the ones to judge. Async is blatantly equivocating over definitions and descriptions of god. His experiences are in no way, shape, or form evidence of the christian god. They are evidence that he has experienced a sense of wonder at something he's perceived and if you want to call that "god" you can, but to leap from there to the christian god is to switch definitions midstream.

It's logically unsound and self-defeating, so yeah...

I did address the totality of your last post, by saying a point by point consideration is just going to get too long. (In any case, you did not address the totality of my previous post.) So I gave you a "blanket address" of the whole post at once: You simply repeat the same questions I had already answered.

What's the matter? Are you afraid to debate the issue on any terms other than your own? I think if you try to answer my question, you will find that advances the debate quite a bit.

Or are you the only one allowed to ask questions?

Oh, I fully agree that the experience is quite sufficient to the person who had it. And you will note that I had said from the outset, in very clear terms, that my reasons for believing in God were not of a nature that could ever constitute "proof" to a skeptic, but that they were totally suffiicent to me.

However, since the point of a message board is to debate, and since debate is, by its nature, a question of logic, others want to know. So I told them.

I agree completely. As I said, I do not understand why he tries to explain his personal experience with logic. This is why he fails. Because it makes no sense at all. But he's an Evangelical, and perhaps he can't escape his indoctrination. Even after all these years.

Evangelicals must speak the word. Because the word is all they have.

Quite a few of you are saying this same thing, so I will ask you the same question I have asked of others, and never gotten a straight answer: How could "a hallucination, a delusion, or something of that sort" predict the future and not ever once be wrong? Or in the case of my friend, who with a group of men from his church located a kidnapped women hundreds of kilometers from home, after she had been missing for over 12 hours, during which time she could have been almost anywhere in France, Switzerland, Germany, Benelux or northern Italy? With tens of millions of doors to choose from, was it "a hallucination, a delusion, or something of that sort" that led them to the right door on the very first try?

Personally, I find that explanation much less rational than to believe that the God to whom they were praying about it answered.

I absolutely did not repeat questions. Perhaps your inability to tell the difference speaks to your blanket acceptance of religion.

Don't be a damned coward man. Why be the first of us to run away from the debate after being so pompous and arrogant over other people's misunderstanding of your religion?

If you think I did repeat questions, humour me and run through the post notwithstanding. What have you got to lose? 10 minutes?

Even discounting other real possibilities (such as that your memory of the "message" or the incident has become corrupted) it is simpler to accept that the accuracy was simply a coincidence than to introduce the idea that the creator of the universe was speaking to you, and all else that comes with that.
And that principle applies more generally - there are very few possible events that would not be more simply explained as a staggering coincidence than as being of that order.

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3.15).

What's wrong with explaining to those who ask? If they don't want to accept the answer, they are free not to do so. It certainly doesn't take away anything from my faith, or my relationship with God. To me, people have a right to ask these kinds of questions, and "It's none of your business" or "I can't explain it to you, because you are incapable of understanding it" don't seem like very respectful responses.

Why does one have to be unsure about a thing in order to try to explain it? The logic of that supposition escapes me entirely.

I believe I already have, quite a number of times.

I would be very interested in knowing why you included this section, where you give an answer for me to a question to which I had not yet had time to respond. That's El Chup's modus operandi.

Nothing would please me more.

It is clear you don't understand Evangelicalism.

Au contraire, I have answered every time you ask, by telling you that I do not go there to "evangelize" people. You don't like that answer, so you don't believe it, but that is not the same thing as saying I won't answer.

What I won't do is give you or anyone else here more RL information about me than is necessary for the debates we have. You especially, are known to troll regularly, and even seem to be proud of it. Normal people entrust personal information only to those who have earned their trust. You have done everything possible to show you are not deserving of that trust.

So since the details of who I see and what I do in the Third World beyond what I have shared, and the fact that I do not go there to "convert people to my beliefs", since those details are irrelevant to the debates here on Wordforge and would only give ammunition to you and other trolls, are really nobody's business.

A point by point response to your incredibly long post would take much more than 10 minutes.

I see you are squirming as much as you can, to avoid answering the question, though. I have seen others use this tactic already. As long as you can just play the wise skeptic, that's fine. But as soon as someone asks you to say what you think, you dodge with everything you have.

That's fine, too, but it says a lot about you.

So respond!

I try to understand both sides of the argument, and both sides have good points. But there seems to be no middle ground. Neither the cynics nor the believers are convincing. Both are chasing the trail of dogma. So let's say the dirty word: "Relativism"! (But I'm closer to Asyncritus on this one, because Chup and Rick seem to be spiritual cripples.)

Yeah, right. A one in tens of millions chance is simply a coincidence.

You, my good man, have faith. I admire that.