No the best I can do is say I find their claim implausible and easily dismissed considering their is no evidence other than claim. Sure they might be right, but it proves nothing. I don't disbelieve it, that's giving it too much credence. I dismiss it in the same way I'd dismiss a 4 year old saying her chocolate watch is singing.Seth wrote: Right, you disbelieve the divine miracle explanation, but you cannot prove that the event was not the product of an advanced intelligence like God manipulating light or brain activity. So, your skepticism falls into the category of religious belief just as much as theirs does. Thanks for admitting it.
However, I think you are mistaking zeteticism, which is that for every claim is false until proven otherwise and skepticism, which is that extraordinary claims require evidence. I'd say the former can be fun at first in discussion but it quickly does become (and I know you took this as an Ad-hom but it was meant accurately/ Believe it or not it was not my intention to antagonise you) stultifying. There is no edification coming from the position of "You can't prove God doesn't exist!" We all know that and admit it, but you still use it like it's an ace in the hole. It's not.
Put simply, weighing up the evidence I'd say the claim that it was God wot did it, is just that and no more, a claim which to me has as much scientific validity as the claim that "The Twilight Series of books are awesome." I've never read any of them, but I don't disbelieve that those who find them awesome, find them awesome, however if they expect me to agree they'd have to convince me. Me reading them and then finding them terrible, doesn't negate the awesomeness to the fan, but rather that their claim is worded poorly. "I found the Twilight Series an awesome read."
No, lets be honest Seth, your whole claim about Fatima is the work of a pettifoggery. You are literally quibbling over the trivial since the claim that thousands witnessed this event is not borne out. I have not even found dozens of claims, or eyewitness testimonies. I'd say that the number of accounts comparative to the number claimed to be there makes the matter entirely trivial.Seth wrote: That's only because you are pettifogging and are refusing to look at the evidence that's already in the record. And no, you can't ignore a "statistical anomaly" because that's the nature of divine miracles...they generally happen to a few people or just one person. And you cannot prove they did not occur, since they are one-off events that are the product (reputedly) of intelligent action and they are not phenomena which can be reproduced in the lab. Your skepticism says it's not likely that the claim is a miracle, but your skepticism is not critically robust scientific evidence that the event had a "naturalistic" cause, or that the event did not, or could not occur. That's the burden of proof you hold theists to, so that's the burden of proof you accept when you claim something did not happen or was not the product of a divine miracle.
I will grant you one point which I do agree with. Science is restrictive in measuring spontaneous and singular events. However, the claim is that these events are explained by other means burdens the claimant, not me. My skepticism says that in such an event the best we can say is a claim has been made. It has no value and thus is easily dismissed. No need to being god or Science into it. Both are further claims than need to be supported.
I agree but we've been over this before, but I don't think this has anything to do with my lack of belief in a higher power. Not disbelief, since the evidence is not all in, but lack of belief, since it is meaningless to me. Even if 100, 000 people did witness this "miracle" exactly as the most fanciful of testimonies claim it in no way proves "god" or that "god did it." It proves only they saw something and chose to explain it as "god".Seth wrote: The only true statement that you can make about Fatima or any other miracle you did not experience is "I don't know." Anything else is merely the faithful protestations of an Atheist skeptic that because you believe God does not exist (but cannot prove it), you have confidence in the proposition that the reports of the miracle are false and that the events are not of divine origin.
Couldn't have put it better myself.Seth wrote: But that doesn't cut it. Sauce, goose, gander.
I make no claims of certainty of things which I am uncertain about. The point was that to make a claim of certainty that "This happened and God did it." is just as fallacious as "No it didn't and no it didn't".Seth wrote: "If you disbelieve something, that's fine, but you cannot say with any sort of scientific certitude that it didn't happen or wasn't of divine origin unless you are prepared to back up your claim with evidence that meets the same standard you require of theists."
Yes one of those theories is the one that god did it there is no actual proof for that either.Seth wrote: That is the point of using Fatima as an example. It's a perfect example of an event that indisputably occurred, and was widely reported in secular newspapers, that to this day remains scientifically unexplained. Oh, there are lots of theories, and complex explanations of what might have happened, but no actual proof that God did NOT perform a miracle. That's just the nature of such things.
Well Science doesn't really do answers it does theories, constructs plausible and probable models and somehow I'm not particularly convinced by the objective scientific rigour of the Holy See considering it's rigidity to it's doctrine, (though I'll grant you that they are still more open to science than most of their offspring). I'm not sure as to what constitutes irrefutable proof that an unexplained event was the work of god. Perhaps it contacts them to let them know, if that is the case, they'd be well served by letting everyone know that.Seth wrote: Since scientists were evidently not present with equipment to record the event and detect any physical anomalies, and since science cannot prove that God does not exist, the question of what caused the events at Fatima to occur remains open. This is true of all of the "official" miracles that the Vatican carefully investigates before declaring an event to be a miracle. Science has no answer, so science really ought to shut it's trap until it has some actual evidence upon which to draw a rational and proper scientific conclusion.
Actually no, what I did was look at the stuff I could find. Found out that your claim "there were thousands of eyewitnesses to a miracle" turned out to be "according to a handful of reports several eyewitnesses amongst between 30,000 and 100,000 described an seeing an unusual occurrence involving the sun. These reports were themselves inconsistent"Seth wrote: What you are doing is misusing the scientific method by conflating it with your firm religious belief that God does NOT exist and you're attempting to use that as a skeptic's evasion of the burden of proof by doing nothing more than expressing your skepticism and demanding that someone else do your homework for you. But that's not how science works, you see. If you put forward the proposition that some event was not the product of divine intervention, then it's up to you to prove that claim, not merely proclaim it as if it's unvarnished and unassailable truth.
Show me the thousands of eyewitness reports. Show me the evidence you have that god was responsible. Put up or shut up. You see how preposterous it is?
I don't find it any coincidence that a cult that has traditionally exploited and abused children since before it rebranded from Roman Empire to Holy Roman empire could have exploited children to talk utter horseshit. This is not uncommon, in fact it is tradition.
Guess all you want. The point is that it is an institutional tradition, which you agree with. However I have no idea why you chose to fixate on buggering little boys. I was talking about abuse and exploitation, not only child fucking.Seth wrote: By all means point out that various emperors and Popes buggered children. Point out that various priests did the same thing. All you will have done is pointed out that numerous individuals throughout the history of the world have preferred to bugger children. So what? That's just as true of Atheists and every body else. It's hardly unique to the "cult" of Romanism. It was a social sexual preference in ancient Rome, and while I'm sure many actual children were buggered against their will, they had homosexual boys back then too, and back then a boy-child became a man much sooner than today, so I'd guess that much of the buggery was actually consensual.
Ermmm...Seth wrote: The point being that it is absolutely true that individuals within the Catholic church, and just about every other church, group, organization and society on earth, have buggered children. But that does not mean that the church, group, organization or society condones, supports, or has as an actual group objective or practice the buggery of children. The only group I know of today that holds such opinions is NAMBLA. It's perfectly appropriate to condemn (and imprison) any person who illegally buggers children, but the fact that there is child-buggerer living next to you doesn't make you guilty of child buggery or supporting child buggery, now does it. The same rational applies to the vast majority of the one billion Catholics on earth who are shocked, horrified and disgusted with the child buggery of some 4000 out of at total of some 400,000 priests and the cover-ups by a small number of Bishops and Archbishops, all of which went on in deep secrecy and was kept from the body of the Church and suppressed, which kept action from being taken. Anyone involved in such actions is culpable and should answer for those crimes if the evidence rises to the level required by a criminal court.
Seems a bit Tu Quoque to me, but hey ho... Okay. So I suppose I could address the various decrees acts and horrendum made by various popes and Roman Emperors down throughout history telling the clergy to stop fucking children because the Church was catching heat from the peasantry, but I wasn't talking about just child fucking.
Finished? Good. I wasn't talking about only child fucking.Seth wrote: But the Catholic church is not a "cult that has traditionally exploited and abused children," it is a group of religious believers whose doctrines are utterly opposed to the exploitation of children, or anyone else that is comprised of a billion people, some of whom are unfortunately bound to be corrupt and evil, as is the case in any large group of people. In this case it's about one percent, which is likely to be about the same as the ratio of child-buggerers in society at large...perhaps even less.
Has the church hierarchy failed abysmally in the past in protecting children against such malefactors? Yes, without a doubt, and even the Pope has acknowledged this failing. Has the church taken extreme steps to make sure it doesn't happen again in the last decade? Yes, it has.
You made the claim, you do the work. If wiki is the best source you have, your claim is wanting, I've checked.Seth wrote: Wikipedia provides plenty of citations where your research can begin. The rest is up to you, don't ask me to do your homework for you.
On the contrary, you are making a claim that there were thousands of people that witnessed a miracle.Seth wrote: I'm not making any claim, I'm merely holding you to your own putative scientific standard, just as you attempt to hold theists to it.
Seth wrote: So you say. Prove it.
And therein lies the point, and the proof. Your beliefs about Fatima are classed exactly as those of theists...as beliefs based in your particular brand of religious faith in the non-existence of God. But your beliefs do not constitute "science," they are merely religious skepticism like any other religious skepticism, and are meaningful only to you.See above. And round and round.
Nice try.
Welcome to Atheism, the religion.[/quote]
No the point is, that you make the assumption that "If they say there was a miracle can we see evidence? " is the same as "LIES!!!! One again our great and majestic Lord Science has yet again crushed the dreams of the foolish stick worshipping primitives HAHAHAHA!" They're not equivalent, you know that, stop pretending otherwise just so you can continue to argue.
meaning he's got somebody particularly vacuous and irritating on ignore, and he feels justified in that stance.
