Moontanman

Like i said, it's all we have, our point of view is the only one we have knowledge of, the only one we can have knowledge barring some contact of extraterrestrial nature. I do not see your point.

No, without objective evidence you cannot assert this and be honest... No, again you are not being honest, science has many times approached things that were thought to be supernatural in all cases a natural explanation was consistent with the evidence. Now you are strawmanning me, you are making an assumption about that you cannot possibly know then criticizing me for it, totally dishonest like any other apologist...

Projection much? If you want to discuss the nature of reality vs the supernatural i suggest you start your own thread because that is off topic here...

We only know of one planet with life, we cannot objectively say if this is an example of the norm or if it is an extreme example that has occurred no where else...

I have to ask, with only one data point how can it be any other way?

Before it gets pointed out by a moderator i am going to bow out of this, I cannot seem to stay on topic and answer the assertions being put forward by Dbaiba

Yes but the absence of evidence does not allow you to assert anything as real either, There is no evidence for the existence of unicorns, or vertebrate hexapods like centaurs or dragons, does that mean we must allow for their existence or do we assume that in the face of a lack of any empirical evidence of such things they do not exist. You realise this stance allows such evidence to be given, if someone finds a fossil of a centaur the argument changes immediately but until some evidence turns up the default position is there are no such creatures... As for consciousness science actually can give a good explanation of the conscious mind and the inner workings of the mind and such things exist in the same way my imagination can picture the StarShip Enterprise and all the mythos surrounding that subjective inner life but it does not provide evidence that the Star Trek universe is real even though some of the stuff predicted by Star Trek has come to pass, in fact Star Trek is a far better predictor of reality than any religion and it is nothing but fantasy... If the supernatural does exist it exerts no perceptible influence on the natural world, cannot be used to gain or add to the sum total of human knowledge and in fact belief in the supernatural has never explained any natural phenomena and has in most cases actually retarded such knowledge... So why consider the supernatural at all? In cases where some event or effect was thought to be supernatural in all cases a naturalistic explanation led to greater understanding, the idea of the supernatural has never done so.

You link goes nowhere, and your definition of the word sense is taken out of context from the manner i used it.

We only have one data point, no trends can be postulated from one data point, it's possible that silicon life exists in the methane lakes of Titan, I'm not going to hold my breath for it and one of Saturn's moons, the name escapes me right now, has geysers that shoot organic particles out into space. It's just simply too early to rule out the extremes but like DH I am betting that complex multicellular life is uncommon in the universe but i would take the bet that bacterial type life forms are quite common, even in our solar system... DH, did you read my link? It graphically illustrated the point of signal lost and due to distance and why it's unlikely we would detect anyone who wasn't intentionally broadcasting a high powered signal... and yeah i should have pointed out the Arecibo example is mostly urban legend... There also might be life that doesn't conform to our definitions of life as well, maybe an entire planetary ecology made up of one life form that has no cellular structure comes to mind but is of course pure speculation...

http://zidbits.com/2011/07/how-far-have-radio-signals-traveled-from-earth/ There is also the problem of interstellar dust and gas absorbing the signals., I think the DEW line would have directed most of it's energy around the curvature of the Earth and not directly out into space and was designed to specifically do just that.

Again you make an unwarranted assumption, if evidence of something considered to be paranormal is shown to be a part of perceptible reality then is ceases to be paranormal but it would be accepted as part of reality. Lightning is a good example, at one time it was thought to be supernatural, no other explanation was known but it was shown to be nothing more than static electricity by empirical evidence. Meteorites are another example of something thought to be absurd and not part of perceptible reality but now we know rocks do indeed fall from the sky. All it takes to change the paranormal into the normal is empirical evidence.... I do not follow how this is pertinent. Deception would be the operative word here. I still don't follow how this has to do with the validity of the supernatural. I am still looking for a point... The number of people who believe something has no bearing on it's reality... This does not follow, in fact it is the antithesis of what science is. This is possible and yet so far no such evidence has been brought forth, the world and James Randy are waiting... You seriously think this is evidence? Empirical or otherwise?

spammer

Actually no, this is one of things that gets told over and over but in reality the interstellar medium absorbs the broadcasts from earth well within the confines of the local area around the Sun well before the nearest star could listen in to I Love Lucy. The fact that the radio telescope at Arecibo could detect itself across the known universe (one of things claimed over and over as well) does not pertain to passive listening but instead assumes a intentional very powerful signal. Military radars are about the only signals likely to be detected across interstellar distances and in fact signals similar to military radar have indeed been detected from areas closer to the center of our galaxy than us but did not repeat and so were not candidates for evidence of ET even though such radars on Earth would be unlikely to be repetitive in the way a radio broadcast would. This is not quite possible yet but is in the realm of possibility. As I said this is a mistake idea.

I am sceptical of anything that does not have positive empirical evidence, what someone says happened once but cannot be repeated is not evidence of anything. Personal experience is not evidence of anything but a personal experience. Belief has never caused any discernible effect on reality and is meaningless in any context with no positive evidence to back it up. Your OP is a logical fallacy, you have in fact presupposed that the supernatural has some discernible reality when in fact it does not and has never been shown to be evidently true. In the face of a lack of evidence of the supernatural the default position is that the supernatural does not exist... While this applies to religion as a subset of the supernatural religion is in no way needed to determine the reality of the supernatural or belief in such and cannot do so.

Yes, science does have something to say about those things, there is no evidence for them, none whatsoever... except for morality and ethics which are not based in religion and your assertion they are needs to be supported... Precisely, there is no scientific evidence for god, any god, yours or anyone elses, in the face of a lack of evidence for gods the default position is there are no gods... Quite the contrary, Dawkins position is indeed scientific, your's is not and is not supported by anything other than what some people claim to be true... Until you can show some actual evidence for the supernatural the default position is there is nothing supernatural, horsefeathers claimed by someone who cannot show any evidence for his claims of horsefeathers, if you can't show it you don't know it...

Obfuscation From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Simple English Wiktionary has a definition for: obfuscate. Obfuscation means making something harder to understand, usually by complicating sentences needlessly. Weasel words are a form of obfuscation. Obfuscation is usually used when people either do not know what they are talking about or wish to hide their meaning.

This attitude of "religion is the answer" to pretty much any question befuddles me, I would just once like to see some theist of any stripe defend their position honestly, I know I'm going to draw fire with this but as bad as fundamentalist christianity is at defending its position islam is worse. So far the islamic apologists i've encountered are simplistic to the point of an almost childish need to believe, the comparison with santa claus is far more accurate than most would think...

Then I suggest you post those verses because simply claiming that someone else claimed them to say something is just not evidence...

It's a hypothesis, it is personally satisfying to me but of course that is meaningless. But it does show that there are other possibilities the proof of course will be in the pudding but nothing doesn't necessarily mean what we call nothing and a brane collision would appear to us to be a point big bang but it wouldn't need inflation or that is my take on it. I have considered time to be the fundamental dimension, the first dimension if you will, the rest we see are built on time. Most ideas seem to place time as something added on after the fact but again it is just my thoughts on the matter and aren't any better than anyone elses. The idea of nothing is difficult to wrap my head around, once you propose nothing you immediately have something, just my take...

Yes and we have machines that can sense those things as well, are you alluding to the brain in a box meme? I asked for testable predictions, we can make testable predictions for all those things. Please elaborate on what you are asserting...

So far you have not provided "A" only what others say about "A" that is an appeal to authority. No, you make the positive assertions, you must back them up with positive evidence, not what someone else says about the evidence. I suggest you read your scriptures for your self and stop letting others tell you what they mean. I think others here will attest to me posts not being childish or nonsense but everyone has an opinion... Mirror mirror on the wall who is the most self deceptive of them all? I don't have bed bugs and death is just that death nothing more...

You are making the positive assertions, the burden of proof lies with you, you have failed on all counts to even make an attempt to show evidence of your assertions relying mainly on what others say. If you would provide some actual evidence i would be glad to consider it. But you will have to provide it, it's not up to me to make your argument for you.

It's rare that someone makes my own argument for me, thank you very much...

It's our fault, the Americans did it, we messed up the English language, if you don't believe me visit the Appalachian mountains or the southern US, it's all our fault...

Then quote them... None the less this is an appeal to authority, nothing more. Insults will not advance your assertions...