Moontanman

No it was Basler migraines blood pressure medicine made them go away. I don't know, running around believing that the thinks that happened during sleep paralysis would have been detrimental as far as I am concerned, they certainly were when I was a child. The point is that your brain can fool you in many ways, that is why the dinosaur sighting was considered irrational...

The truth is often quite rough, I feel no obligation to hold your hand and tell you the universe cares about you or anyone else. People who hallucinate have problems, some are bad enough to be medicated. If you honestly thought that wine turns to blood and crackers turn to the flesh of someone long dead you would be labeled a kook unless of course you are talking about religion. No other part of our society gets a pass on evidence except religion. Whether or not I have unusual experiences in my life is only relevant if I believed it to be true despite a lack of evidence. I have sleep paralysis, yes with the little aliens and everything, I've had visions of red numbers and symbols float in my field of vision while completely awake, Both these things have explanations, if I had not been skeptical these things might have ruined my life..

Our brains are quite capable of fooling us, it happens a lot and most people are medicated for those hallucinations or delusions if they can't tell the difference... unless of course it's religion...

It's late and night in your neighborhood, maybe 2 am and no one is but you have to take out the garbage, When you get the street you see a 30 meter sauropod walking down your street, you run up to it, you fell it's rough skin as it walks by, you can smell it and climb on it's back if you want. You finally realize you have to get a video so you run inside to get your camera and the beast is gone, no trace of it anywhere to be seen. Weeks pass and evidence of the dinosaur is found, no destruction, no Volkswagen sized piles of excrement. So other guy says he saw a dinosaur too but his was a theropod and could not be the same one you saw but he has no physical evidence for it either... You know you saw it, it was real as anything you have ever seen but after much times passes and no trace of the dinosaur is ever found. If you are honest you have to admit that it's likely the dinosaur was never there and you imagined it no matter how real is seemed to you at the time. My apologies to Aron Ra for any misrepresentation of his story...

I do not have the burden of proof in this, you are making a positive claim, an extraordinary one BTW and it's you that needs to provide proof, I simply do not believe you... BTW the dragon this was just my attempt to explain critical thinking, I have a better story by someone else that might illustrate it better if you still have questions as to personal experience and evidence..

Yes, they are hearsay at best, not evidence of anything but what someone else believed..

Again, all you have is an assertion with no evidence, no better than people who report being abducted by aliens, at best you have had a delusion.

It's more likely you dreamed it than it was real... but if you cannot show it to anyone else then no matter how fervently you believe it you cannot honestly call it knowledge. More to the point your dream or vision has no more relevance than any anyone else's dreams, vision, or belief claims with no evidence...

Exactly, if you can't show it to someone else it is not knowledge. Like I said earlier, millions of people think they get abducted by aliens every night does that mean I have to consider their reports factual? Only I can see it or interact with it, that makes it an unsupported assertion unworthy of anyone's belief...

There is nothing but empty assertions in everything you claim, gullibility is the root of everything you have asserted. I might disagree with some of the rest of the posters but your assertions are nothing but claims made on faith, that is gullibility... You have absolutely no evidence but you assert it as if it were true based on nothing but baseless assertions. I can't prove your assertions aren't real any more than you can prove my invisible dragon isn't real. That which can be asserted with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence... I think Jesus is not real because anyone could have made up his character, the idea of Jesus is based on several other gods made up by people. Humans have created many characters beyond Jesus in power and scope and none of them are real, Yahweh has no physical evidence any more than Thor or Zeus and your claim that Jesus is real because he was made up by God is nonsense of the highest order...

Gullibility...

There is a word for your world view... I see no reason to continue to discuss this with anyone who can't see a problem that is that blatant...

I set up a 75 gallon aquarium two weeks ago with extensive filtration and lighting and I can already see a shift in life forms, a bottle with no aeration for a month...

So your miraculous evidence is a conman?

Define a miracle... Oh and yeah, give me some evidence that Jesus performed miracles... I've seen a mans leg grow three inches under a pastors healing touch, very impressive if you don't know the con...

I have to say that at some point i have seen an image similar to that under the microscope in relation to paramecium but my interest in protozoa is limited to growing them as food for other animals and not technically accurate in any way...

I think we have taken this thread off topic, if you really want to discuss this in detail i suggest you start your own thread. I have to say that if god is real and he wants me to know he is real then he knows exactly what would convince me. I could say something flippant like move planets or raise the long dead but technology could conceivably do these things, I have no idea how and see no reason to speculate in that direction. But the burden of proof isn't on me, I simply do not buy what theists are selling so proof would depend on what god you are selling. If you take a literal translation of the bible as factual then the god of the bible is demonstrably not true.

No, for it to be empirical you have to be able to demonstrate it to someone else, really really believing something does not equal knowledge. My analogies with alien abduction is just to show that people can claim experience of anything but if you can't demonstrate it then its not evidence of anything but what you believe. And yes BTW we talk about aliens here from time to time but that is not part of this conversation except that it has better evidence than your god...

As soon as one of my elders or anyone else produces empirical evidence i will listen... BTW why is your dream of Jesus any more relevant than an alien abductees dreams, which BTW they claim are not dreams...

Well you get to be pissed that i make light of your belief and I get to keep demanding evidence... Since i am 60 years old I think that if god exists and wanted me to know it he would know exactly how to convince me and done it by now..

They might imply that, they might imply almost anything you want but the proof is in the pudding. If Jesus is really god then yes that would be possible but I don't expect it to happen and until it does it remains speculation at best right up there with you telling me that aliens abduct you every night and that they are going to abduct me to prove your abductions are real. While this remains in the realm of possibility until it happens it's just horse feathers...

Knock your self out, my lack of belief does not define me, it is not in anyway possible to defame my lack of belief. In fact if you could do that you would win me over... I do not insult you I respect you as a human being but your beliefs are only as vulnerable as they are unsupported. It is impossible for you to insult me be belittling my lack of belief in magic sky fairies, if only your belief was backed by enough evidence to be as invulnerable as my lack of belief... My lack of belief in no way offers an alternative to belief, I have nothing to sell you, I simply am not buying what you are selling. Only a poor salesman requires faith, my lack of belief requires no faith...

Again, your beliefs are not immune to a good "kicking in the guts" in fact if your beliefs cannot stand the criticism then your beliefs might need to be looked at a little closer.

I disagree, if you think I was actively proselytizing you should report me. And your point would be? You nor me have the right to not be offended because of differing points of view, your religious opinions are not sacred to anyone but you. If you think my lack of belief in magical sky fairies is offensive i suggest you join a club, I'm quite sure you can get many members and i would still not profess respect for your beliefs, just your right to hold them...

SwansonT is not god? So all my shrines and prayers are for naught? Damn it I always make the wrong choice...