I’ll post some pictures of Josh’s brain scans and maybe a link or two to some videos that I already have of him just being him and some of the things he’s doing this year if you care to see them. I’ve said elsewhere that he’s not a puppet for my amusement, and he may or may not but I will ask him about making a video today when he wakes up. I’ll tell you right now that if people are judgmental or rude he just won’t do it. He doesn’t feel like he has anything to prove to anybody. I’m in agreement.
I don’t even really know how we got on the subject of him except for somebody asked about empirical evidence of miracles. Reasons for faith… My son is mine.
I was just sharing my experiences and perspective.
Are you a parent Boomer47?
I want to tell you a story that colors my perspective and possibly presents a similitude of my relationship with Josh.
I’m not sure you’ll understand unless your parent though. I can’t judge that until you reply.
Like I said, I will ask Josh if he wants to talk today.
Here are some videos for you to get to know him a little.
I realize that these are not videos of him talking about God. We haven’t made those yet. These are videos to let you know who he is so you kind of understand. Maybe then we can get past that part.
That’s a called an ‘ad hominem fallacy’, where you attack the person instead of the argument. Same fallacy when you claim “you just don’t understand, but will if you understand my perspective” It’s a common argument used by theists in lieu of evidence or reasoned argument.
Any argument I or you present must be able to stand on their own merits. . Status as a parent does not make an argument about your son’s health any more or less true.
So far you have made claims based on your subjective perceptions. That’s fine if that’s good enough for you. It isn’t for me. I will only accept empirical evidence. I think the concept has already been explained to you.
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"Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, is a term that refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion to some irrelevant but often highly charged issue. The most common form of this fallacy is “A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong”.
I’m no expert…as I’m sure you are not an expert in this area.
I am very pleased for you that there is a relationship, contact, growth with your son. Also understand your “claim” is extraordinary, not mundane, therefore it does require demonstrable, repeatable evidence under a scientific setting. Questions carefully thought out so there are no subtle leads.
I am in no position to evaluate such things…
I just wanted to tell you a personal story that wouldn’t have the same significance if you’re not a parent.
I’m not attacking you. I know plenty of awesome intelligent people who are not parents. I’m just trying to make my perspective understood.
How are you not? How are your unknown peers more knowledgeable about what you will perceive as accurate than you?
You appear to be very intelligent and thoughtful as do many people on this forum.
I haven’t asked Josh yet because I haven’t looked at all the messages that I have and I don’t know if people are going to be nice.
Don’t get me wrong he can handle assholes… But I don’t want one of his first times trying to communicate with people outside of his household to be an argument.
Educational standard. My middle kid want to be a specialist in medicine, it will take regular pre-med, then regular med, then practicum, then specializing.
A decades worth of learning and practice before he is qualified.
I am no where near the scientific level of learned experience it would take to engage a scientific study of your son.
As do you. However, my intelligence (ability to learn and apply what I’ve learnt) hasn’t “changed” through the years - my method for assessing information has. My decisions are made on my ability to accurately assess to a standard that I’ve set for myself.
I’m using the word ‘attack’ in a specific sense. IE implying my status as a parent is relevant is an ad hominem fallacy .
I think I understand your perspective well enough. IE You accept your subjective perception as real, and think god did it (?)
Don’t have the interest in understanding you more than that so far. This in internet debating forum. Friendships formed here are quite different from those formed in the real world. For me, it begins with trust, which takes some time.
So far, I’ve seen a believer who believes in miracle. I do not. I’m also a bit disappointed that you did not bother to learn the meaning of an ad hominem fallacy [ which I posted for you] . Instead all you saw was ‘personal attack’
I’m afraid we have yet to form common ground. I gave up trying to get people to understand me over 40 years ago. I’m here for discussions with like minds in terms of reasoning. So far that has not included many believers. So far it’s been my experience that mostly ,such people are unused to reasoned discussion and have little if any interest in learning. I’m hoping you might prove to be the exception
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That’s an admirable self-evaluation. Thanks for sharing your experiences with me.
@ Campello
So ‘God’ is ineffable, beyond words, comprehension and experience. If I weren’t an atheist, that would be my idea of a god. Utterly inexplicable. However suggesting that miracles could be presented as evidence for the existence of such a god is puerile nonsense. Its like suggesting proof for the Loch Ness monster could be established by the impermanent wake it leaves in the water as it passes, but not quite.
Miracles are supposedly unique events where the immutable consequences of natural law are suspended. The earth stops revolving; iron axe heads float on water; burning bushes talk; people revive three days after renal failure. Events so unique they can’t happen and don’t.
Its in this uniqueness that science is unable to prove anything about them or about the god that reputedly produces them. Science only measures and quantifies things in tangible reality where such activities can be reliably repeated.
Miracles defy reality and lack ‘concreteness’. There has never been any repeatable scientific research to prove the veracity of miracles or the god that supposedly produces them.
Father Pio.
Has it not struck you as peculiar that a priest of exalted celebrity, noted for piety and holiness, levitation and the ability to guess some woman’s son might have died during the Great War (!), has not yet been canonised? The ‘miraculous’ stigmatic wounds of this enigmatically ignorant priest, examined by church pathologists and psychologists on separate occasions revealed the stigmata as skin necrosis, hindered from healing by the consistent application of caustic chemicals, gleaned from their experience with Italian soldiers during the Great War seeking to avoid returning to the front. Two official Vatican ordered Apostolic Visitations, in 1958 and 1961, as well as a special investigation by a very suspicious Pope John XXIII at that time, revealed that Father Pio had surrounded himself with a small army of fanatical supporters, mostly female, overwhelmed with the proximity to a real miracle-working celebrity, that were described as “a vast and dangerous organisation”, which included at least one woman with whom he was having sexual relations. It was specifically noted that Father Pio was not an ascetic, nor had healed any sick people, or restored anyone’s sight and no evidence of miracles on his part could be established, not even by the Catholic Church!! More than one Vatican appointed investigator detailed Father Pio’s persistent and lies dishonesty, leaving one to wonder how God could allow “so much deception.”
The sordid details can be read here.
I am not sure what it is that you think we’d be expected to understand about Catholics from the life of Padre Pio that is exceptional from any other tale of misguided hero worship and gullibility of the uneducated masses. Even the Vatican was officially unimpressed and dismissive.
I will pass on Dr Castanon and the incorruptible zombie wafer/tissue issue and the miracles of Fatima because I have visited these tedious and tiresome subjects before and been thoroughly unimpressed due to any sort of rigorous and open, much less, scientific examination. You can put that down to my possession of a higher standard of scepticism than most.
I am unimpressed too with your insistence that no understanding of Catholicism or Catholic faith can be possible without a thorough understanding of miracles, events that have never been adequately evidenced to ever having occurred. On the contrary, I feel I understand quite a bit on both subjects but probably not at all what you might have had in mind. The testimonies and documents reporting the experience of God and miracles may well be countless, but quantity alone does nothing to prove the truth of any of them.
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Why? Am I a lesser person? Am I lacking your capacity for empathy? Am I incapable of trying to walk in another’s shoes?
IMO the sole difference is that you had a direct first-person experience.
FYI I have a debilitating medical condition that has forever changed my life. I won’t go into details, it is quite yucky and messy. But I don’t complain, I just get on with life and enjoying every moment. I don’t need a god to get me through the tough times, I have myself.
I think I explained in the post. Either way, I do not think that the lack of children makes you a lesser person. Who would even think that way?
I was going to tell a story that had to do with the connection between a me and my youngest daughter. I used the word lactation. Several of the people that I know that don’t have children are sensitive to that word.
I’m sorry that you suffer. Messy suffering is the worst.
Please understand I am not attempting to attack you. I am trying to point out flaws in our thinking, flaws we take for granted until they are pointed out.
I use the word “our” because I know that I have flaws and prejudices.
I still giggle when I read this. Fuck them. For fucks sake.
Their eyeballs must pop out when you say “menstration”!!! Whaaaaa???
Sits in a corner, legs crossed, staring at a wall, acting as if I was deaf.
He’s just quoting the party line.
At the heart of Catholic belief is the miracle of the mass. This rite is performed daily by many thousands of priests. all over the world. It is the most important rite in Catholicism. It is believe that at the apex of the mass, the bread and the literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus. Their outer form does not change.
Martin Luther used that belief as part of his rebellion which became the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s position was that the bread and wine become imbued with the body and blood of Jesus in a spiritual, not literal sense. I think it’s fair to say that many believers, then and now did not quite grasp the distinction
Tia appears intelligent??? Already she has been busted on the “Faith” argument and just recently on the “Personal Experience” bullshit. She is wriggling and squirming her way around while claiming things are too personal and making emotional appeals to be understood while at the same time asserting she can not explain. This is intelligence? Really? What is, is evasive bullshit disguised as “I just want to get along and not offence anyone.”
As soon as she is pinned down on an issue, she happily bubbles on as if it never happened. Delusional is an understatement.
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He’s just quoting the party line.
At the heart of Catholic belief is the miracle of the mass. This rite is performed daily by many thousands of priests. all over the world. It is the most important rite in Catholicism. It is believe that at the apex of the mass, the bread and the literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus. Their outer form does not change.
Martin Luther used that belief as part of his rebellion which became the Protestant Reformation. Luther’s position was that the bread and wine become imbued with the body and blood of Jesus in a spiritual, not literal sense. I think it’s fair to say that many believers, then and now did not quite grasp the distinction
Relatively speaking, yes. Certainly fresh air compared to most apologists we see here. I guess that’s damning with faint praise, which is not my intention.
IMO opinion Tia seems sincere and as open minded as she’s able, given the dogmatic beliefs and general woo which have been inculcated within her brain. (Yeah, I realise that’s patronising, but it’s my honest opinion)
With perseverance she may learn to think for herself, outside of the confines of restrictive beliefs. (again with the patronising)
Mate it took me 20 years to go from catholic to agnostic theist to atheist. The journey long, with a lot of dead ends and was often painful. Not to mention terrifying. IE to realise that I’m almost certainly alone, there is almost certainly no soul or afterlife. When a devout Catholic, my faith was a powerful crutch, and I have missed it…
In some ways I would prefer to believe. However, my atheism has never been a choice, rather an inevitable conclusion
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