Fine tuned universe

[Seth]

The people I associate with, my friends, and my family. It's of such enormous unimportance to me what they believe, and it's of much greater importance that I live in peace and harmony with my friends and acquaintences that criticizing their religious beliefs would be, in my opinion, an exercise in narcissistic egoism and know-it-all arrogance that would serve no purpose other than to poison the fine relationships I have with many people of deep and abiding religious faith. Therefore, Tolerism™.

You go beyond that, though, to apologetics. Basically, you not only tolerate, but you defend the validity of their "faiths."

Do I? Or do I merely defend their right to hold their faiths and question the validity of your arguments and attempts to debunk their beliefs?

And tolerance does not require agreement.

Indeed. But stating information is not agreement.

Relationships, peace, harmony, love and mutual respect are far more important to me than being an arrogant Atheist ass who insists on imposing his (or her) own version of religious belief on others at every opportunity, which is exactly my experience of every self-professed Atheist I've ever met.

But, you have no problem with religious folks who insist on imposing their own versions of religious belief on others at every opportunity.

Are you sure about that?

In fact, in our discussions, you have sought to justify such actions as part of the Democratic process. Sauce, goose, gander, my friend. I seem to recall someone using that phrase a time or two...

Actually I merely point out the distinction between forcible imposition of a religious practice by religious authority and the effects of religious belief on the democratic rights of the majority.

They absolutely cannot shut their pie holes if the subject of religion comes up and they denigrate, insult, deride and demean anyone who espouses any sort of religious or theistic belief. It's perfectly disgusting and reprehensible. Now I'm sure there are atheists out there who mind their own business and don't take every opportunity to ignorantly insult other people's faith, but I've never met one in person who admits to being an atheist.

I would take your feigned outrage at all seriously if you were consistent in this regard, and also held religious folk to the same standard.

Oh, I do. I don't hang out with religious zealots of any stripe, and if some evangelical nitwit chooses to attack others in the way that Atheists here (and elsewhere) commonly attack theists, I have no problem getting in their faces and rebutting their nonsense. You just never see it happen because such folk don't hang out here.

You defend the religious folks' failure to "shut their pie holes" on the subject, because you consider it "their right."

This is a problem of perception. You see, to me the peaceable expression of faith is an exercise in free speech that I'm happy to tolerate and respect while to Atheists (the radical religious kind so often seen here) any expression of religious faith whatsoever anywhere they might see or hear it is heresy, anathema and an intolerable insult to their personal misperceived "right" to be free from religion every bit as much as drawing insulting cartoons of Mohammed is a deadly insult to Muslim religious fanatics. Fanaticism is found just as often, if not more often in radical Atheism than in radical theism.

You've said it in other conversations. You also - yourself - denigrate - insult - deride and demean atheists and nonbelievers.

Only as a part of a debate in which they have metaphorically thrown the first stone. Making shards out of their glass houses is my avocation, and it's justifiable because their actions are not peaceable.

You claim that you do that in retaliation for atheists being critical of religion. However, as I've pointed out, the religious have been arrogantly shoving their beliefs in other people's faces for as long as there has been religion.

Which generalized complaint you and others commonly used as an excuse to smear and belittle everyone associated with religion, rather than appropriately choosing to criticize only those specific individuals who might be engaged in non-peaceable actions towards Atheists. So, it is my duty to hold up the mirror to your own actions and demonstrate just how irrational and unreasonable such broad-brush condemnations are.

We small minority of atheists are the ones who are finally, now, fighting back a little, because religion has at long last become somewhat de-fanged. We can't be hanged, imprisoned, kept from the ballot box, kept out of office, and jailed for our beliefs anymore by religious folks.

In other words, you're doing exactly what any other oppressed minority religion does to its foes one it gains a little power and ability to do so; you engage in mindless retributive bigotry, hatred and you attack anyone remotely associated with your perceived oppressors...just like the radical, mindless, violent radical Muslim ass-wipes do whenever they feel slighted. Nice company you're keeping there. I thought Atheists were the rational, intelligent, moral, ethical masters of the universe. Seems like you're admitting that you can be just as venal, cruel and evil as the very people you're railing against. Nice going.

I think such Atheists need some remedial education in ethics, morals, reason and logic.

You don't like people talking about their religious beliefs and denigrating others? Join the fucking club. Atheists have taken the brunt of that for as long as there has been religion.

Wah. Shall we pity the poor benighted Atheists who have become the very epitome of cruel, evil, uncaring, oppressive, bigoted ass-wipes that they rant and rave against?

I think not. Low-road indeed.

But thanks for stating with crystal clarity exactly what the agenda, purpose and intent of radical religious Atheism actually is, and that it has nothing to do with intellectual, moral or ethical superiority and everything to do with venal and self-serving retribution and tit-for-tat retribution against innocent persons for perceived slights they themselves have never suffered but which they choose to wear like a hair-shirt based on a Wayback Machine fallacy worldview.

Not that this agenda is not painfully obvious to everyone but delusional Atheist nitwits of course.

[Seth]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

[Animavore]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Prove He did. We can go back and forth with that one all day but it's fruitless IMO.

I see no reason to believe He did. It felt like a perfectly normal, natural reaction to staring at intense light. That's good enough for me. I'm not interested in disproving God. I was just answering your assertion that no atheist can perform that particular miracle of science when I came up with something pretty close as far as I can tell. And so can anyone else by simply repeating the experiment.



Edit: I just realised the "miracle of science" mentioned was proving God doesn't exist. Not the "miracle" at Fatima. NVM.

[Coito ergo sum]

The people I associate with, my friends, and my family. It's of such enormous unimportance to me what they believe, and it's of much greater importance that I live in peace and harmony with my friends and acquaintences that criticizing their religious beliefs would be, in my opinion, an exercise in narcissistic egoism and know-it-all arrogance that would serve no purpose other than to poison the fine relationships I have with many people of deep and abiding religious faith. Therefore, Tolerism™.

You go beyond that, though, to apologetics. Basically, you not only tolerate, but you defend the validity of their "faiths."

Do I?

Yes, you generally do.

Or do I merely defend their right to hold their faiths and question the validity of your arguments and attempts to debunk their beliefs?

Not merely. You do that, but not merely that. You also defend their right to question the validity of our arguments (a right which nobody suggests they don't have), while bashing atheists for exercising that self-same right. Just as I said, you defend their right not to shut their pie holes, but you bash atheists for not shutting their pie holes.

And tolerance does not require agreement.

Indeed. But stating information is not agreement.

And, stating that one is an atheist is not being intolerant, and neither is stating that there are no gods, and that religions are false. That's not intolerance.

Relationships, peace, harmony, love and mutual respect are far more important to me than being an arrogant Atheist ass who insists on imposing his (or her) own version of religious belief on others at every opportunity, which is exactly my experience of every self-professed Atheist I've ever met.

But, you have no problem with religious folks who insist on imposing their own versions of religious belief on others at every opportunity.

Are you sure about that? [/quote]

Based on all of our lengthy discussions, I am positive.

If you'd like actually state the opposite, and correct me, feel free. I'll note that you didn't bother stating explicitly that you do, in fact, have a problem with religious folks in that regard.

In fact, in our discussions, you have sought to justify such actions as part of the Democratic process. Sauce, goose, gander, my friend. I seem to recall someone using that phrase a time or two...

Actually I merely point out the distinction between forcible imposition of a religious practice by religious authority and the effects of religious belief on the democratic rights of the majority.

You do that, but you don't MERELY do that. What you always miss, though, is that the religious people impose their religions on others, and you have explicitly defended the right of religious people to use their majority status to impose their religions on others. You've said it in our debates - remember when you asked me if I was against Democracy in that regard? And, then I explained to you that of course I am against democracy in that regard?

You DEFENDED the "right" of religious people to impose their religions on others because they were in the majority.

They absolutely cannot shut their pie holes if the subject of religion comes up and they denigrate, insult, deride and demean anyone who espouses any sort of religious or theistic belief. It's perfectly disgusting and reprehensible. Now I'm sure there are atheists out there who mind their own business and don't take every opportunity to ignorantly insult other people's faith, but I've never met one in person who admits to being an atheist.

I would take your feigned outrage at all seriously if you were consistent in this regard, and also held religious folk to the same standard.

Oh, I do.[/quote] Not on these message boards you don't. You are RABIDLY anti-atheist. You bash atheists and atheism, and you have called it a danger to the United States and you have sought to justify excluding atheists from public office and other such actions because of how much of a bunch of assholes you think we are, and you've even manufactured some sort of capital-A "Atheism" and added a bunch of stuff in that you think sucks so that you can broad-brush paint all atheists as being among this sort of "philosophy" of Atheism that you've arbitrarily cobbled together.

I don't hang out with religious zealots of any stripe, and if some evangelical nitwit chooses to attack others in the way that Atheists

There it is. An invented term, which you in a heap of intellectual dishonesty refuse to define with any precision, just use as some sort of general aspersion.

here (and elsewhere) commonly attack theists, I have no problem getting in their faces and rebutting their nonsense. You just never see it happen because such folk don't hang out here.

You don't even allow for any atheist to not be one of your capital-A "Atheists." I'm certainly not one. And, you pull dishonest bait-and-switch stunts in your arguments, by pretending to specifically define a subset of atheists as Atheists, but then you effectively label all atheists as Atheists, thus rendering the distinction meaningless. And, that's what you think passes for some sort of intellectual superiority that you pretend to. It's bugger-all nonsense.

You defend the religious folks' failure to "shut their pie holes" on the subject, because you consider it "their right."

This is a problem of perception.

No. It is what you do.

You see, to me the peaceable expression of faith is an exercise in free speech that I'm happy to tolerate and respect while to Atheists (the radical religious kind so often seen here) any expression of religious faith whatsoever anywhere they might see or hear it is heresy, anathema and an intolerable insult to their personal misperceived "right" to be free from religion every bit as much as drawing insulting cartoons of Mohammed is a deadly insult to Muslim religious fanatics. Fanaticism is found just as often, if not more often in radical Atheism than in radical theism.

That's complete nonsense. But, see your bait and switch here. You attempt to disingenuously insulate your statement from criticism by using the capital A "Atheist" made-up-word, and you say it's these "Atheists" who view any expression of religious faith whatsoever as heresy, anathema and intolerable, etc.

Yet - nobody here does that. And no atheist I know does that.

What we object to is the constant attempts of the religious, and their lackeys and sycophants like you, to impose religion in the government machinery, to fund religion, to have religion preferred over non-religion, to have certain religions preferred over others. That is what atheists generally oppose.

There isn't a single atheist on this message board - I am willing to bet - who thinks that "any expression of religious faith whatsoever" is intolerable or anathema or insulting or whatever. And ,there isn't a single person on this message board that I've ever seen who thinks that people have a right to be free from other people exercising their right of free speech, including religious expression. You just make that up, because it suits your agenda somehow.

You've said it in other conversations. You also - yourself - denigrate - insult - deride and demean atheists and nonbelievers.

Only as a part of a debate in which they have metaphorically thrown the first stone.

You throw the first stone, literally.

Making shards out of their glass houses is my avocation, and it's justifiable because their actions are not peaceable.

You have rarely made shards out of anyone's arguments, except when you take on the weak. You use Bush League tactics, including waving away other people's arguments by labeling them some sort of fallacy, or using the bait-and-switch technique I noted an example of above, or other evasions.

You claim that you do that in retaliation for atheists being critical of religion. However, as I've pointed out, the religious have been arrogantly shoving their beliefs in other people's faces for as long as there has been religion.

Which generalized complaint you and others commonly used as an excuse to smear and belittle everyone associated with religion, rather than appropriately choosing to criticize only those specific individuals who might be engaged in non-peaceable actions towards Atheists. So, it is my duty to hold up the mirror to your own actions and demonstrate just how irrational and unreasonable such broad-brush condemnations are.

I've never smeared "everyone" associated with a religion. I've smeared a religion, but that's no different than smearing a philosophy one disagrees with.

[Coito ergo sum]

duplicate

[Coito ergo sum]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Proving that kind of a negative is impossible. Nobody can prove that a fly named Fred didn't produce those results.

You claim to be able to reduce people's arguments to "shards" and you come out with impotent statements like that? Come on Seth...

[Animavore]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Proving that kind of a negative is impossible. Nobody can prove that a fly named Fred didn't produce those results.

You claim to be able to reduce people's arguments to "shards" and you come out with impotent statements like that? Come on Seth...

I wouldn't mind. I already stated I can't prove it wasn't ordered by God but he still went and said, prove it wasn't God.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We weren't hoping for honest debating, were we?

[Coito ergo sum]

Maybe he meant that he could produce arguments that are sharts? That seems more fitting...

[Audley Strange]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

No, the best I can do is point out that an implausible explanation held by an apparently trivial amount of supposed witnesses is implausible and trivial. They might be correct, but I'm happy to dismiss their claims until they provide evidence, not claims.

Wouldn't matter if only one person did, if you make the clam it's not a miracle from God, it's up to you to prove your claim. So get on it or shut the fuck up about my holding you to your own ethical and intellectual standards.

No actually it does make a difference. If you are claiming that thousands witnessed this "miracle", well the onus is on you to prove that thousands did indeed witness this miracle. I am not seeing evidence that they did. I'm seeing at best several somewhat varied claims, not thousands. If it is only one amongst 100,000, it is a statistical anomaly that can be disregarded. Certainly one could examine that statistical anomaly to see if their claims had any merit otherwise you'd be in aguementum ad populum territory, but without anything other that someone's personal conviction that it happened there is nothing to examine. It is noise, statistically irrelevant and without any supporting evidence.

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.

Now all you have to do is prove it, or be branded a religious Atheist bigot for refusing to do so. Put up or shut up.

Certainly. How far back would you like me to go before you start dismissing it with wayback fallacies or whatever? Should I go back as far as the introduction of catamites? Would you like me to stick to more recent events? Oh wait you dismiss them too... Should I just not bother wasting my time?

Irrelevant obfuscation and pettifoggery. Get on with the scientific proofs that Fatima was a "mass delusion" or STFU.

No, I'm not claiming it was a mass delusion. There'd need to be a deluded mass for that. I'm not seeing much evidence that this is the case. I'm seeing claims from a handful of sources, but not actually many eye witness testimonies. Perhaps you could point me to the site that has them all?

Now all you have to do is prove this claim. Get with it, I'm getting bored with your obfuscations and unsupported assertions.

No, because by the standards that you hold people to, such as those making assertions without evidence at the supposed Fatima event, my claim that it was sun dogs is not for me to disprove, it is for you to accept or make a claim that it is wrong, at which point the onus is on you to prove that claim.

So you say. Prove it.

See above. And round and round.

Nice try.

[Seth]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

No, the best I can do is point out that an implausible explanation held by an apparently trivial amount of supposed witnesses is implausible and trivial. They might be correct, but I'm happy to dismiss their claims until they provide evidence, not claims.

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.

Wouldn't matter if only one person did, if you make the clam it's not a miracle from God, it's up to you to prove your claim. So get on it or shut the fuck up about my holding you to your own ethical and intellectual standards.

No actually it does make a difference. If you are claiming that thousands witnessed this "miracle", well the onus is on you to prove that thousands did indeed witness this miracle. I am not seeing evidence that they did. I'm seeing at best several somewhat varied claims, not thousands. If it is only one amongst 100,000, it is a statistical anomaly that can be disregarded. Certainly one could examine that statistical anomaly to see if their claims had any merit otherwise you'd be in aguementum ad populum territory, but without anything other that someone's personal conviction that it happened there is nothing to examine. It is noise, statistically irrelevant and without any supporting evidence.

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.

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.

But that doesn't cut it. Sauce, goose, gander. 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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Now all you have to do is prove it, or be branded a religious Atheist bigot for refusing to do so. Put up or shut up.

Certainly. How far back would you like me to go before you start dismissing it with wayback fallacies or whatever? Should I go back as far as the introduction of catamites? Would you like me to stick to more recent events? Oh wait you dismiss them too... Should I just not bother wasting my time?

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.

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.

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.

Irrelevant obfuscation and pettifoggery. Get on with the scientific proofs that Fatima was a "mass delusion" or STFU.

No, I'm not claiming it was a mass delusion. There'd need to be a deluded mass for that. I'm not seeing much evidence that this is the case. I'm seeing claims from a handful of sources, but not actually many eye witness testimonies. Perhaps you could point me to the site that has them all?

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.

Now all you have to do is prove this claim. Get with it, I'm getting bored with your obfuscations and unsupported assertions.

No, because by the standards that you hold people to, such as those making assertions without evidence at the supposed Fatima event, my claim that it was sun dogs is not for me to disprove, it is for you to accept or make a claim that it is wrong, at which point the onus is on you to prove that claim.

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.

So you say. Prove it.

See above. And round and round.

Nice try.

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.

Welcome to Atheism, the religion.

[Seth]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Proving that kind of a negative is impossible. Nobody can prove that a fly named Fred didn't produce those results.

You claim to be able to reduce people's arguments to "shards" and you come out with impotent statements like that? Come on Seth...

I wouldn't mind. I already stated I can't prove it wasn't ordered by God but he still went and said, prove it wasn't God.

The point of challenging you to do so is to show that your results do not prove anything at all, because God could have produced those effects for you, just to fuck with your head. That's the problem with miracles, you see...unless you can prove that God does not exist, anything could be a miracle of God. In fact, EVERYTHING could be a miracle of God...even evolution.

[Animavore]

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Proving that kind of a negative is impossible. Nobody can prove that a fly named Fred didn't produce those results.

You claim to be able to reduce people's arguments to "shards" and you come out with impotent statements like that? Come on Seth...

I wouldn't mind. I already stated I can't prove it wasn't ordered by God but he still went and said, prove it wasn't God.

The point of challenging you to do so is to show that your results do not prove anything at all, because God could have produced those effects for you, just to fuck with your head. That's the problem with miracles, you see...unless you can prove that God does not exist, anything could be a miracle of God. In fact, EVERYTHING could be a miracle of God...even evolution.

Yes. It could. You're talking to me as if I don't already know this when I already stated that I do. But so what? Whether I factor God in or not the outcome is the same so believing or not believing God causes phenomena makes no difference except when you factor God in you leave more questions than you've answered.

[Seth]

Yes, really. Feel free to prove, using critically robust scientific evidence, that the events at Fatima were not authored by God. Go right ahead, I'm waiting...I've been waiting for some Atheist to give it a bash for years now and in every single case, including this one, the very best that any Atheist can do is derision and insult and evasion of the simple logical truth that neither you nor any other Atheist can perform that particular miracle of science. I've explained in detail before why that is, but rather than just accepting the fact that you cannot ever hope to substantiate or support your skepticism in any way other than burden-shifting and evasion, you take the typical Atheist low-road of ad hom.

While I didn't show Fatima wasn't ordered by God, I think that's impossible, I did try the experiment myself and got similar results.
http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1098279

Now prove that God did not produce those results for you...

Proving that kind of a negative is impossible.

No it's not, all you have to have is perfect knowledge of the universe(s) and evidence that demonstrates that God does not exist. It's a fully falsifiable scientific question. That you can't do it right now is utterly irrelevant, but it does make it very difficult for anyone to make a valid claim that God does not exist, which is entirely my point.

If you are going to hold theists to a scientific standard that supports their claim that God exists, then you are going to be held to a scientific standard that supports the claim that God does not exist. You don't get to shift or ignore that burden.

As I've said before, the point here is that the ONLY valid conclusion that can be drawn regarding the existence or non-existence of God is "I don't know."

Did God finely tune the universe? I don't know.

Did God produce the miracle at Fatima? I don't know.

Why is it so impossible for Atheists to simply admit that they don't know the answer to such questions? Well, because they are religious zealots who think that they DO know everything of course. But the actual fact is that they don't.

Welcome to the jungle.

[Seth]

I wouldn't mind. I already stated I can't prove it wasn't ordered by God but he still went and said, prove it wasn't God.

The point of challenging you to do so is to show that your results do not prove anything at all, because God could have produced those effects for you, just to fuck with your head. That's the problem with miracles, you see...unless you can prove that God does not exist, anything could be a miracle of God. In fact, EVERYTHING could be a miracle of God...even evolution.

Yes. It could. You're talking to me as if I don't already know this when I already stated that I do. But so what? Whether I factor God in or not the outcome is the same so believing or not believing God causes phenomena makes no difference except when you factor God in you leave more questions than you've answered.

So what? What leads you to the false belief that answers are required to every question? God may be complex and may add questions to those science already has about the nature of the universe(s) but so what? I would think this would be a challenge for science, because to me, assuming arguendo that God exists, the first question that comes to my mind is "how did God come to exist?" The second is "what is the nature of God?"

But instead of pursuing a scientific examination of the proposition that God, or something that we might reasonably define as "god" (like a vastly more intelligent entity inhabiting another membrane universe that chooses to dabble and intervene in this universe for reasons only it knows) science insists that God does not exist because God is not "necessary" as an explanation for the physical phenomena we observe.

But this is itself a conceit of science that's built in to the religious dogma of the religion of Science. Science assumes a priori that there is no god and that all things have a "naturalistic" answer. The conceit is the use of the Atheists Fallacy that uses human theistic descriptions of God to vainly attempt to "scientifically" define God as something "supernatural" and therefore ipso facto impossible and to be disregarded. Most wannabee pseudo-scientist Atheists found in places like this (right up to the Pope of Atheism, Richard Dawkins) like to think that they understand the scientific method, but they don't. It is these sort of pseudo-scientists who blithely dismiss even the possibility of an intelligence vastly superior to our own that operates on a pan-universal scale that could be the author of some, many or all things in this particular universe but could be operating entirely within the "naturalistic" sphere of science, but outside the sphere of human knowledge and understanding of physics. They wrongly think that because God is "unnecessary" as an explanation, that therefore God cannot be the explanation. But this too is a conceit and fallacy of pseudo-science.

Actual science, however, must view the question of the existence of God as a valid scientific question to be answered in the same way as any other question about the nature of the universe(s), and even the Pope of Atheism admits this in "The God Delusion." Of course he then goes on to shove his foot right into his mouth by spending the rest of the book ignoring his own advice, but that's just because he's an inconsistent and incoherent religious zealot pretty much like every other religious zealot I've ever heard of.