[Vision2020] Fwd: About Evidence

Wed Jul 18 18:53:15 PDT 2012

Or maybe, the Universe is God, and God the Universe. We exist because God exists and we are a part of God. We are small in the Universe as we are small to all that God is. When we go against God, ourselves, our neighbor, or nature, we also go against everything, including ourselves, which puts us in a Hell. And when we go with God, ourselves, our neighbors, and nature we are in Heaven. Maybe when we are created, we become a separate consciousness that is cut off and isolated from the direction of the Universe and we struggle to find our way. We question the purpose of anything, understand nothing, while pretending to know everything.

Perhaps the Bible is written, "childishly" as Einstein would phrase it, because it has to speak to men that are child like in their intellect. Perhaps if the Bible was written non-figuratively and all things were written in perfect detail and absolute truth, no one amongst us would understand it and the book would be useless to all, instead of understandable to all. 

Not one of us has the intellect to understand 1% of anything regarding, God, the Universe, or ourselves. All we can do is try, and try we must. I know I will never comprehend the Universe which contains me. But I do, and can comprehend that the Universe is vast, complex, ordered in such sophistication and design with purpose and perfection that such a creation beyond the comprehension of even the greatest of human minds could not have come into being by mere chance alone. 

Donovan J. Arnold

From: Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>
To: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com; art.deco.studios at gmail.com; viz <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 6:37 PM
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Fwd: About Evidence

Round and round we go.  Some believe in God, others don't.  Who is right?  Answer: both.

Is God more complex than the entire universe itself?  If so, then aren't we lucky that a superior perfect entity just happen to exist all on its own that was powerful enough to create our universe which is much simpler than its creator?  What are the chances that the much simpler universe could have formed without assistance from the believably (or unbelievably if you will) far superior perfect entity?  To some, the answer is 100% and to some others the answer is zero.

Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:54:57 -0700
From: donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com
To: art.deco.studios at gmail.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Fwd: About Evidence

Wayne writes, "Slipped again. Thank you, Ken"

That's OK Wayne, nobody is perfect but God.

"Donovan:
You have not addressed the questions asked. You merely use unproven claims to attempt to avoid answering the questions, to wit: Exactly what is the "testament" of 6 billion people? Do these so-called testaments agree with each other? What exactly is the evidential component of their evidence?"

I assure you, I am not attempting to evade anything. Setting aside the actual numbers for now, many people have testified to the world, that they have seen, heard, felt, touched, tasted, or otherwise experienced the force of a supernatural force they define as God. That is evidence. Witness testimony, shy of a camera, is the strongest evidence you can have. Witnesses can be wrong and they can lie. But that is why we usually need more evidence than one person. As 95% of the world population believes in a God, absent any contradicting evidence, a rational person must conclude there is some type of God even without any personal experience.

You attempt to singularly counter the testimony of 95% of the population that there is a God with no evidence of your own to support your claims, and to questioning their rational as being less perfect than your own. That is irrational thinking. 

Further, you write:

"At one time most living beings thought the world was flat. Is the world flat?
At one time most living beings though mental illness was caused by possession by devils/demons/etc? Are devils/demons/etc the cause of mental illness?
At one time most living beings thought the sun revolved around the earth. Does the sun revolve around the earth?"

Yet, all of these false thoughts were discredited by the one piece of evidence you seek to discredit, witness testimony. Sailors and mathematicians testified the world was round not flat. Scientists testified it was biological, not ghosts that created mental illness. It was witness testimony of astronomers and mathmaticians that proved the Earth was rotating around the Sun. 

Image if everyone refused witness testimony as you do, and insisted on traveling the Earth, dissecting brains to make sure their was verifiable evidence of no demons, and trying to learn the math and positions and movements of the stars, planets, and Sun all on their own? It wouldn't work well, and people would never be able to establish policy and beliefs. Witness testimony is the backbone of evidence, it is strong enough to send a man to his grave.

"You have failed to understand the problem of asserting knowledge claims without verifiable evidence. Just because someone is greatly enamored by a fantasy does not mean it is true. A theory is true if it leads to true predictions, else not."

No, a theory can still be false if it leads to true predictions because of other factors. Fire for example was misunderstood for most of human existence precisely because their false theory was good at predicting it. Same with the planets, a more complicated prediction model was invented, that actuarately predicted planets and stars placements in the sky. 

You fail to understand that witness testimony is verifiable evidence in addition to other circumstantial evidence, like we exist as does a universe for no apparent reason and came into being from seemingly nothing which defies the laws of nature as they appear to be. And when placed against the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must go with the witness testimony-not the minority view with no evidence.

You also fail to recognize the fallibility and fantasy thinking you hold that impacts how you think. As no brain is perfect, or capable of fully comprehending all elements in their world, we all operate with altertered sense of what is reality. being such the case, your version of God's existence is also a fantasy. It is also a fantasy that is a minority view point and has little verifiable evidence--like Christ Church. 

Donovan J. Arnold 

From: Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
To: vision2020 at moscow.com 
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 2:36 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Fwd: About Evidence

Slipped again.  Thank you, Ken

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com>
Date: Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 12:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] About Evidence
To: Art Deco <art.deco.studios at gmail.com>

Wayne:

Did you intend to send this to Donovan rather than to me?

Ken 

On 7/18/2012 12:17 PM, Art Deco wrote:

Donovan: 
>
>You have not addressed the questions asked.  You merely use unproven claims to attempt to avoid answering the questions, to wit:
>
>Exactly what is the "testament" of 6 billion people?  Do these so-called testaments agree with each other?  What exactly is the evidential component of their evidence?
>
>At one time most living beings thought the world was flat.  Is the world flat?
>
>At one time most living beings though mental illness was caused by possession by devils/demons/etc?  Are devils/demons/etc the cause of mental illness?
>
>At one time most living beings thought the sun revolved around the earth.  Does the sun revolve around the earth?
>
>You have failed to understand the problem of asserting knowledge claims without verifiable evidence.  Just because someone is greatly enamored by a fantasy does not mean it is true.  A theory is true if it leads to true predictions, else not.
>
>If people want to believe in various gods and goddesses, but do attempt to force others to act in accordance with their beliefs, the problem becomes greatly diminished.  It becomes a problem when some says "My God dictates that you shall do X or shall not do Y" and then passes laws without any or very little other evidence based justification to enforce this fantasy.
>
>That's called theocracy or religious dictatorship.  It leads to things like The Inquisition and The Crusades.  You can choose to enable such, but for many us unwilling to sacrifice personal freedom and what we believe the overall well being of humankind and other beings, no thanks.
>
>
>w.
>
>
>On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com> wrote:
>
>On 7/18/2012 10:54 AM, Donovan Arnold wrote:
>>
>>Like the financial planners of today got it all figured out right?
>>The disconcerting non-specificity of your reference 'it' notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is that our seriously under-regulated and significantly over-connected system of financial transaction data transmission and storage poses uncomprehended dangers to persons and organizations whose financial affairs have been reduced to electronic patterns stored on machines they neither own nor control. The opportunities for, and the dangers of, large-scale electronic malfeasance regarding financial affairs that should be maintained as fiduciary trusts, but are not, has never been greater.
>>
>>Unfortunately, the drive for private profits from among those electronic patterns has never been so persistent or so pervasive, with the result that financial wealth and control of assets has never been so great or concentrated among so few. The system is increasingly designed so as to not require large robberies at particular time points, but to do as effectively or better the same transfer of wealth and control by continual erosion via a plethora of individually small, but collectively substantial, financially corrosive agents.
>>
>>
>>Ken
>>
>>=======================================================
>> List services made available by First Step Internet,
>> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>               http://www.fsr.net
>>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>=======================================================
>>
>
>
>-- 
>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
>art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>
>
>
>

-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com

=======================================================
List services made available by First Step Internet,
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
              http://www.fsr.net/
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

======================================================= List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. http://www.fsr.net mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com =======================================================
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20120718/42f60220/attachment-0001.html>