'Splain this one Atheists...

[pErvinalia]

He would do that if he was interested in anything other than trolling.

[Seth]

Er, that's your job. I'm sure you can track down the hospital and doctor and investigate further if you are interested in disproving the claim of divine intervention.

But of course you won't.

And again what we are left with is evidence of a miraculous spontaneous healing, source and mechanism unknown, that neither medical science or you can explain.

As for me, my response is, "What a wonderful story, if true. I have no idea how or why it happened, but that it did happen (if it did) is an exciting and heart-filling mystery that I take great joy in hearing about. If it's a lie, oh well, it's still a nice story."

Er no. It's like God. Your claim, your proof. Waste of my time to prove your claims.

But it's not my claim. I'm citing the evidence, that's all. It's up to you to disprove the claims according to the scientific method if you dispute the claims. Therefore you must show that what happened has a "natural" explanation and what that explanation is. Otherwise you're just evading the question because you cannot answer it and you know it.

What "evidence"?? How do you know he prayed to God and not Krishna? He might be lying. The intelligent flying teapot might have heard this joker's prayer to God (or whoever) and decided to step in and save this girl's life. So, there's the evidence that the intelligent flying teapot saved this girl's life. It's up to you to disprove the claims according to the scientific method if you dispute the claims.

The evidence cited in the article of course.

[Seth]

Er, that's your job. I'm sure you can track down the hospital and doctor and investigate further if you are interested in disproving the claim of divine intervention.

But of course you won't.

And again what we are left with is evidence of a miraculous spontaneous healing, source and mechanism unknown, that neither medical science or you can explain.

As for me, my response is, "What a wonderful story, if true. I have no idea how or why it happened, but that it did happen (if it did) is an exciting and heart-filling mystery that I take great joy in hearing about. If it's a lie, oh well, it's still a nice story."

Er no. It's like God. Your claim, your proof. Waste of my time to prove your claims.

But it's not my claim. I'm citing the evidence, that's all. It's up to you to disprove the claims according to the scientific method if you dispute the claims. Therefore you must show that what happened has a "natural" explanation and what that explanation is. Otherwise you're just evading the question because you cannot answer it and you know it.

What evidence? Where is the science paper? I used Google Scholar, and nothing came up. Newspaper accounts are not valid. Many many many doctors believe in miracle and reporting them all the time. None have been proven so far. Cancer cures are cellular processes and the fact that the immune system on rare occasion wins with no human help is not a miracle.

Your opinion is noted. Now all you have to do is provide critically robust scientific evidence demonstrating that the phenomena you refer to are not caused by an unknown intelligent agency (aka "miracle"). You can do so by providing said evidence that describes the exact, repeatable and falsifiable cellular mechanisms that cause the phenomenon. If you can't do so, then one hypothesis is as valid as the next when discussing phenomena that are currently scientifically inexplicable. This is true because the root scientific presumption upon which you base your arguments, which is that all things can be explained by natural processes and that no "supernatural" phenomena are "necessary" to such explanations, is of course a gross and fundamental logical fallacy and self-fulfilling prophecy that is nothing more than an article of religious faith that is not based in science's own demands for critically robust scientific evidence.

And in this particular case, it sure seemed to be miraculous to the dead girl and her family and friends.

[Seth]

He would do that if he was interested in anything other than trolling.

What you call "trolling" I call "challenging your religious beliefs and articles of faith."

It's a sauce, goose, gander kind of thing to demonstrate how weak your challenges to other people's religious beliefs and articles of faith actually are. You would like to think you're being coldly rational, logical and scientific in your "analysis" of theistic claims and I'm merely demonstrating that your intellectual rigor is at least as deficient as those you consistently attack, if not more so.

[pErvinalia]

Er, that's your job. I'm sure you can track down the hospital and doctor and investigate further if you are interested in disproving the claim of divine intervention.

But of course you won't.

And again what we are left with is evidence of a miraculous spontaneous healing, source and mechanism unknown, that neither medical science or you can explain.

As for me, my response is, "What a wonderful story, if true. I have no idea how or why it happened, but that it did happen (if it did) is an exciting and heart-filling mystery that I take great joy in hearing about. If it's a lie, oh well, it's still a nice story."

Er no. It's like God. Your claim, your proof. Waste of my time to prove your claims.

But it's not my claim. I'm citing the evidence, that's all. It's up to you to disprove the claims according to the scientific method if you dispute the claims. Therefore you must show that what happened has a "natural" explanation and what that explanation is. Otherwise you're just evading the question because you cannot answer it and you know it.

What "evidence"?? How do you know he prayed to God and not Krishna? He might be lying. The intelligent flying teapot might have heard this joker's prayer to God (or whoever) and decided to step in and save this girl's life. So, there's the evidence that the intelligent flying teapot saved this girl's life. It's up to you to disprove the claims according to the scientific method if you dispute the claims.

The evidence cited in the article of course.

But I just cited different evidence. So what do we do now? Why is it incumbent on us atheists to explain something, yet not incumbent on you to explain something. Bit hypocritical. Some might say troll-like..

[Seth]

But I just cited different evidence. So what do we do now? Why is it incumbent on us atheists to explain something, yet not incumbent on you to explain something. Bit hypocritical. Some might say troll-like..

You can't explain it, that's the whole point of the OP. Yet you continue to try to evade and pettifog your way around that simple truth. You use insults, derails, diversions, strawmen and complete irrelevancies to try to mask the fact that you simply don't know exactly what happened or how it happened. You can't explain it, so you dismiss and deride the evidence, which is precisely what you consistently badger and harass theists for doing. Your feet are of particularly sticky and smelly clay.

I'm simply illustrating your irrational religious beliefs and the dogmatic religious fervor with which you expound and defend them. I'm demonstrating that your intellectual prowess and supposed "rationality" does not in fact exist, and that your responses are much more irrational than even the most devout theist's because you are supposed to be a "rational" thinker, which makes your religious zealotry and irrationality all the more amusing and probative of the utility and strengths of your very weak and unintellectual arguments.

In other words, I'm taking your vaunted and entirely imaginary "rationality" down several pegs by showing that you're no better than those you choose to insult, and in fact are a far less ethical and moral actor than they are.

An intelligent person would simply have said "I can't explain it" and let it go at that. You didn't, and never do, understand that and therefore it was my opportunity to demonstrate to the lurkers and visitors on the site that just because you call yourself a "rationalist" doesn't mean you are one. You're most certainly not, as proven by your own words.

[Tero]

Look a miracle! Oh sorry, too hasty.

The impression of a miracle can be created by something as simple and common as a misdiagnosis. There have been cases where a doctor mistakenly diagnosed a patient with a disease. The patient then went to a psychic healer who claimed to cure the problem, and later X-rays or surgery confirmed that the person was in fact disease-free.

This can seem like powerful evidence, but instead of considering that the initial diagnosis might have been wrong, the patient assumes that the miracle cure was effective. Or, when giving a patient or family a prognosis, doctors may err on the side of bad news to avoid giving them false hope. It is better, they reason, to have the patient get good news if they were wrong (and recover unexpectedly or "miraculously") than bad news (and not recover when expected to).

In the end, of course, the results speak for themselves. Despite opinions to the contrary, the people that Primetime featured were hardly cured by Dreamhealer; one woman's affliction got worse, another's cancer came back, and the other two are still seriously ill. While some people who go to such healers improve briefly (either because of the placebo effect or because their symptoms go into remission), most end up just as badly off as before (or worse, if they have stopped medical treatments).

http://www.livescience.com/909-medical- ... dence.html

[pErvinalia]

But I just cited different evidence. So what do we do now? Why is it incumbent on us atheists to explain something, yet not incumbent on you to explain something. Bit hypocritical. Some might say troll-like..

You can't explain it, that's the whole point of the OP. Yet you continue to try to evade and pettifog your way around that simple truth. You use insults, derails, diversions, strawmen and complete irrelevancies to try to mask the fact that you simply don't know exactly what happened or how it happened. You can't explain it, so you dismiss and deride the evidence, which is precisely what you consistently badger and harass theists for doing. Your feet are of particularly sticky and smelly clay.

Where, pray tell, did I do that, liar?

I'm simply illustrating your irrational religious beliefs

Says the guy who is trying to say Goddunit.

and the dogmatic religious fervor with which you expound and defend them. I'm demonstrating that your intellectual prowess and supposed "rationality" does not in fact exist, and that your responses are much more irrational than even the most devout theist's because you are supposed to be a "rational" thinker, which makes your religious zealotry and irrationality all the more amusing and probative of the utility and strengths of your very weak and unintellectual arguments.

You demonstrably don't have the first clue what "rationality" is. It's the height of irrationality to believe something in the absence of evidence that satisfies one's own conditions for truth or proof. Saying that it's highly unlikely that the tooth fairy cured this girl is NOT irrational. It's actually the rational thing to do when presented with the natural world. Inventing make believe creatures ISN'T rational.

In other words, I'm taking your vaunted and entirely imaginary "rationality" down several pegs by showing that you're no better than those you choose to insult, and in fact are a far less ethical and moral actor than they are.

There is no universe in which you could take down anyone on this forum by several pegs. That's simply laughable.

An intelligent person would simply have said "I can't explain it" and let it go at that. You didn't,

Oh really, liar? Care to back that up with proof?

and never do, understand that and therefore it was my opportunity to demonstrate to the lurkers and visitors on the site that just because you call yourself a "rationalist" doesn't mean you are one. You're most certainly not, as proven by your own words.

Says the guy who thinks believing in invisible magic men is rational.

[pErvinalia]

And it's still incumbent on you to prove that it wasn't the floating teapot that cured that girl. Get to it, man!

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Now all you have to do is provide critically robust scientific evidence demonstrating that the phenomena you refer to are not caused by an unknown intelligent agency (aka "miracle").

No he doesn't.

The claimant needs to provide robust evidence that it was definitely a miracle, otherwise the default position of a perfectly normal recovery without external cause prevails.

[Seth]

Look a miracle! Oh sorry, too hasty.

The impression of a miracle can be created by something as simple and common as a misdiagnosis. There have been cases where a doctor mistakenly diagnosed a patient with a disease. The patient then went to a psychic healer who claimed to cure the problem, and later X-rays or surgery confirmed that the person was in fact disease-free.

This can seem like powerful evidence, but instead of considering that the initial diagnosis might have been wrong, the patient assumes that the miracle cure was effective. Or, when giving a patient or family a prognosis, doctors may err on the side of bad news to avoid giving them false hope. It is better, they reason, to have the patient get good news if they were wrong (and recover unexpectedly or "miraculously") than bad news (and not recover when expected to).

In the end, of course, the results speak for themselves. Despite opinions to the contrary, the people that Primetime featured were hardly cured by Dreamhealer; one woman's affliction got worse, another's cancer came back, and the other two are still seriously ill. While some people who go to such healers improve briefly (either because of the placebo effect or because their symptoms go into remission), most end up just as badly off as before (or worse, if they have stopped medical treatments).

http://www.livescience.com/909-medical- ... dence.html

All very interesting. Now all you have to do is prove that the events cited were the result of a misdiagnosis.

[piscator]

They called it "Irreversible". They were wrong. Classic misdiagnosis.

Next story?

[pErvinalia]

No, you have to prove that the patients weren't cured by invisible unicorns.

[piscator]

No, you have to prove that invisible unicorns didn't cure her. I've done the heavy lifting of assertion here, now I need a rest.

[Seth]

But I just cited different evidence. So what do we do now? Why is it incumbent on us atheists to explain something, yet not incumbent on you to explain something. Bit hypocritical. Some might say troll-like..

You can't explain it, that's the whole point of the OP. Yet you continue to try to evade and pettifog your way around that simple truth. You use insults, derails, diversions, strawmen and complete irrelevancies to try to mask the fact that you simply don't know exactly what happened or how it happened. You can't explain it, so you dismiss and deride the evidence, which is precisely what you consistently badger and harass theists for doing. Your feet are of particularly sticky and smelly clay.

Where, pray tell, did I do that, liar?

In my considerable experience with your postings, you do it fora like this, consistently, whenever you happen to run across a theist or whenever you happen to feel like doing so without any provocation at all.

I'm simply illustrating your irrational religious beliefs

Says the guy who is trying to say Goddunit.

Did I say Goddunit? Nope.

and the dogmatic religious fervor with which you expound and defend them. I'm demonstrating that your intellectual prowess and supposed "rationality" does not in fact exist, and that your responses are much more irrational than even the most devout theist's because you are supposed to be a "rational" thinker, which makes your religious zealotry and irrationality all the more amusing and probative of the utility and strengths of your very weak and unintellectual arguments.

You demonstrably don't have the first clue what "rationality" is.

Says the guy who is irrationally ranting and raving.

It's the height of irrationality to believe something in the absence of evidence that satisfies one's own conditions for truth or proof.

Indeed. But then again no one is expecting you to believe anything. The challenge given here was to explain how the reported events occurred using your commonly-flaunted demand for scientific evidence.

Saying that it's highly unlikely that the tooth fairy cured this girl is NOT irrational.

Your point?

It's actually the rational thing to do when presented with the natural world. Inventing make believe creatures ISN'T rational.

So, all you have to do is provide a well-founded, critically robust evidence showing that the events cited are the product of "the natural world." Should be child's play for a scientific rationalist such as yourself, don't you think?

In other words, I'm taking your vaunted and entirely imaginary "rationality" down several pegs by showing that you're no better than those you choose to insult, and in fact are a far less ethical and moral actor than they are.

There is no universe in which you could take down anyone on this forum by several pegs. That's simply laughable.

Methinks he doth protest too much...

An intelligent person would simply have said "I can't explain it" and let it go at that. You didn't,

Oh really, liar? Care to back that up with proof?

No.

and never do, understand that and therefore it was my opportunity to demonstrate to the lurkers and visitors on the site that just because you call yourself a "rationalist" doesn't mean you are one. You're most certainly not, as proven by your own words.

Says the guy who thinks believing in invisible magic men is rational.

Lo and behold! Here we see the very essence of the logical strawman fallacy. Dear lurkers and visitors, please note that nowhere in this thread, or anywhere else I've ever contributed, have I ever said that "believing in invisible magic men" is rational.

What I have done here is to challenge Atheist religious dogma by insisting on holding these Atheists to their own standards of evidence and scientific proof by challenging them to explain the events cited using their own chosen method of scientific inquiry with their own chosen degree of intellectual and logical rigor.

And you'll please note that they have failed utterly to rise to that challenge and, as usual, resorted to ad hominem argumentation in place of reasoned argument.

Here endeth the lesson...