The Atheist Prayer Argument Is A Dull Generalisation Predicated On INEXPERIENCE

Tangle writes:You have history here Mick, we know you. 4,726 posts here and another 5,937 at your very own site so don't give us that crap.
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If you open a thread here you know that you're supposed to discus and defend your position not shoot and drive on.
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This is a discussion and debate site, if you just want to preach, find a pulpit or start a blog.

The Problem With Sceptics.My problem with sceptical people/unbelievers, is that they have already concluded nothing happened before they even hear the testimony. That is because they work from a list of generalised principles. They then apply those generalised principles to everyone ubiquitously meaning in a very real sense it doesn't even matter what the event was they have already chosen a preconceived conclusion that the explanation is natural, that the person in question is mistaken in some way even if they aren't.In other words they IMPLY a false dichotomy of; "only we the sceptics are never mistaken, anyone that isn't like us and experienced something paranormal is automatically mistaken."This is when scepticism becomes an unhealthy philosophical position of condescension towards anyone that experiences something that doesn't fit within the sceptic's ideology of unbelief in everything except natural cause.How should we really treat a sceptic?We should treat sceptics the same way we would treat all the people that didn't witness the murder.That is to say, back in the day certain witnesses saw Jack The Ripper and they all gave fairly similar descriptions. Imagine if in answer to this we argued thus; "No, humans are filled with bias and errors, you didn't really see anything and none of the rest of us saw that man acting out a crime."This would be a truly absurd objection, for what type of ignorance is it when people don't witness something? It is just ignorance of itself, it is just bare ignorance.EXAMPLES;Experiencer; "I got wet, it started to rain."sceptic; "I didn't see any rain." (mike; so what.)Another example;Experiencer; "I saw a black swan."Sceptic; "I didn't see any black swan." (mike; so what.)Another example; (this time from my own life, it happened to me the other month)I saw someone go into the pharmacy, so according to covid rules I waited outside. Someone came up to me (a sceptic) and asked, "there is nobody in there why aren't you going in?" I looked and he was right, but I said, "but someone did go in there." But I could see he didn't believe me from a supreme look of incredulity on his face so I opened the door and a man got up from a chair where he was hidden from us. We both laughed a little of course. No big deal, but illustrates my point perfectly; his comments meant nothing logically because he didn't experience the event, I did.In this instance, why would anyone care about what the sceptic thought since he didn't experience the event?Another example;Lisa sees someone commit a crime.Sceptic; "Sorry, but nobody else saw that person commit that crime."CONCLUSION; We all know that the bare ignorance that comes from not experiencing something simply doesn't count as anything.Nobody would care what someone that didn't witness a crime says about not witnessing it because their ignorance comes from pure ignorance in and of itself. (a lack of the experience)Yet sceptics seem to think that they are in a better position to judge, like that man at the pharmacy thought he knew better, and nothing I could say would change his mind he had to see it for himself. So then ultimately there is an arrogance that comes with sceptics, they genuinely seem to think they are the only ones qualified to judge a matter. Even look how Goku acted the same here in his questions, he genuinely believes only he and atheists can know things and anyone that experiences something is instantly put under the "delusion" category or, "mistaken by human bias."But how do you know that? You don't even know the intelligence someone may apply to his experiences, it may exceed your own scepticism.For example I watched a ghost video on utube, and I debunked pretty much all of them. I knew the natural answers. My sister even got angry at me once for not believing one of these videos and I told her how it was done and she later confessed I was correct.Conclusion; just because someone experiences something and believes it as a genuine paranormal event doesn't mean it follows they don't know how to apply a proper sceptical criteria. A healthy scepticism is within reason and is perfectly fine but to jump to conclusions a person is automatically wrong in and of itself is more of an incredulity from unbelief, it comes across as more of an agenda.For example I noticed Goku didn't apply any scepticism to his own paranormal experiences, he didn't offer up all the mistakes he could have made but because I am a Christian and my ideology is against his he did apply those things to me. (double standard) I also note that when he gave those experiences a while back I deliberately held my tongue even though it was a perfect opportunity for me to be sceptical towards his personal experiences.If a person can be sceptical like I can and also experiences something paranormal, he has the edge on a mere sceptic because a mere sceptic with a sceptical ideology where s/he will only accept a natural answer before you even tell them the experience is an ignoramus of the event from bare ignorance. Their opinions on human bias and so forth are all they can offer as generalisms and thus are applied fallaciously as non-sequiturs if they didn't experience if they were actually indulged, for they cannot evaluate the experience having not experienced it making them poor witnesses that should largely be ignored despite their supercilious attitude problem whereby they think they are the only ones that can think correctly.If anything they are POOR critical thinkers if they think no event is beyond what natural chance coincidence would allow because that implies a poor understanding of probability where you allow super-coincidences to be acts of random chance way beyond what chance could perform to the point you could even give clear teleology a natural cause such as saying, "it's a coincidence that it says please help me written in the sand."But in practical terms nobody would believe it a coincidence. People of normal intelligence know when something out of the ordinary occurs because it juxtaposes itself against the fact those things don't generally occur and thereby creates a stark contrast.No, I am not saying you can't win the lottery by chance but I am a good critical thinker so I know that it can be by chance because of the numbers, but if the numbers are not there and yet you hit something that's 1 in a thousand or whatever, you did not have one thousand bites at the cherry. This is then multiplied if it happens consecutively, by itself. So then if you get two events consecutively that are 1 in 1000, it becomes 1 in 10002 = 1 in a million.But I didn't have a million attempts, I had two attempts. Meaning by what standard do you measure the point where there is a line whereby random chance alone cannot cross? For an ideological sceptic like Goku the proof is in the pudding, there is no line, no matter what the incident it is a coincidence.But ask yourself this, if you email someone and they keep emailing back intelligible, accurate answers what are the chances this is a person or persons genuinely answering you back? At what point do you say, "God is answering."? It would seem Goku's answer would be, "that point never comes".That doesn't make sense. If someone is answering, they are answering and as an atheist you simply don't want to ever infer or even allow it to be possible they are answering so you forever fall back on just name-tagging it, "coincidence" and flippantly discarding it. (cognitive dissonance)

MtW writes:Like I say I am a writer, which means I waffle on.

Tangle writes:I'll grant that you waffle on. So why not stop waffling and give us some actual evidence? You seem to claim that prayer works and that miracles happen, so prove it.
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It should be really easy to do, why haven't you done it instead of waffling on with your pseudo-philosophical points?

mike the wiz in Message 28 writes:Sorry if I give that impression a few things are at play.1. I don't like confrontation. As I said recently, I am more of a writer than a fighter. It just seems a forum like this was geared more towards fighting.

That's part of the problem, laypeople like you are making claims about honest people like you just did here, that basically the mainstream scientists wouldn't make. A lot of you are die-hard atheists, and that is your real motive, so there is usually a disparity between what scientists say we must accept and what atheists INSIST we must accept.

2. I try to be an interlocutor as best I can, rather than taking the role of an adversary. You may have misunderstood my intentions because they may appear troll-like.

3. I write in the hopes there are types of people, readers and lurkers, that will be more open-minded, rather than the old crowd that have their minds firmly made up.

Percy writes:I wish I had the time to research this, too, but I don't. But to the best of my recollection, the way you see yourself likely diverges greatly from the way others see you.

Percy writes:The title is your opportunity to characterize your thread, and you used it to cast an insult. No atheist had even said anything in the thread yet, and already you're insulting them. Pretty confrontational, don't you think?

MtW writes:I don't claim prayer works in the context of debate,

The point of the topic isn't to try and perform something impossible.

The events of my life can't be repeated. You're right, anything that can't be tested or repeated or directly evidenced if fantastical as a claim makes poor science.

mike the wiz writes:What a silly error to believe the small portion of words and actions on forums would be an accurate measure of me.

How others see me is irrelevant, they don't see me. They don't know me. Why is it about me?

Why do you feel the need to say all these personal things when we were just discussing my posting activity?

I am expressing honest things about myself. You can't refute things about people that live out things of which you are not even aware. You don't know the issues of my life.

I was saying that it may APPEAR that if I write a topic then go away I am trolling, but that isn't my intention. I then gave reasons for it.

How is that insulting? OBVIOUSLY I was talking about the general experience of atheism we get online. Where is the insult? They don't have experience of prayer and it is a generalisation.

You propose debate should include snowflakism. Debate can be a hard and tough thing, you seem to be overly sensitive here.....indeed, the rhetorical device, PLAYING IT UP comes to mind since you even take issue with the thread name I gave.What a REACH.

mike the wiz writes:Percy your style was always subtle. You make insinuations a lot. You're fairly docile but you are still indulging the ad-hom attack because when creationists come here you always allow them to get chewed up and spat out in terms of personal attacking.

That's why you're not the worlds most objective admin, because you should know that the debate shouldn't be about the person. You should have noticed as an admin that Tangle's posts were both contentless and personal and that a lot of his posts seem to only exist to incite fighting.

Why don't you notice this?

MtW writes:Black swans are found in south Australia and Tasmania.
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Atheists; "I don't know anyone that has seen a black swan in New York, none of my friends do. Indeed if I ask many people from all over the world who I know online they also don't know of any and don't know anyone that does, therefore they don't exist."

This is the atheists general argument for prayer.

The usual argument goes something like this with many of the popular atheist speakers; "children get bad illnesses, parents are praying all over the world, if prayer is real show some scientific proof of it. The truth is prayer doesn't work." (or something like this as an argument)
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What is the problem with the argument? Well it depends on the silent-assumption that God is a being made in the image of human reason, that should and would do everything a human being says God should and would do. (not a person filled with biases please note, like if you argue for answered prayer as a believer.)

Tangle in Message 29 writes:if you just want to preach, find a pulpit or start a blog.