Simple question?

Quote: Nareed

Hardly.

You describe confirmation bias, which is real and may play a part. But people believe in such things as astrology, religion, numerology, etc because they want to believe. That's why evidence makes no difference to them. Why they want to believe is a more complicated question, as there are a variety of reasons for it.

No, not at all. What you are expressing above is confirmation bias. You don't want to believe that religious people have real experiences of the divine so you write it off as confirmation bias or some inner desire to believe, which is present in us as human beings and is indeed a complicated question. But make no mistake about it I am talking about real experiences of the divine. The Church doesn't last 2,000 years on confirmation bias. Miracles don't happen because of confirmation bias or because we want them too.

Quote:

You're one to talk... Science has been steadily chipping away at religion for 350 years now, and it's not letting up.

The discipline that is bringing religion down is Cosmology. When we can make a beginning at comprehending the universe, and keep finding natural explanations and causes for everything, the reed you cling to becomes ever slimmer and more precarious.

I had to laugh at this. Science continues to be a great help in discovering the truth. That is why the Church always has and continues to support it. Cosmology in particular with its discovery of an expanding universe and the Big Bang Theory give us the clearest scientific evidence that the Universe has a beginning and has a cause. Something known previously only through philosophy, logic, and theology.

You know as well as I do that science cannot find a natural cause for the supernatural. Please tell me how science can observe, test, and examine the spiritual or supernatural? How can science possibly talk about something that is outside of time and space? Science serves us all very well in getting us to understand the universe but it cannot explain its cause or why it is here. I think the world is starting more and more to recognize the limits of science and the idea that it will be our salvation and will explain everything is clung to by an ever smaller group of people.

Quote: Evenbob

I don't need every bit of info on
my bad neighbor before I know to
avoid him at all costs. I certainly
know enough about the Church's
awful violent greedy past to know
what's at it's heart. And it's certainly
not god or Jesus or anything good.
It's greed and the relentless acquisition
of power and wealth, big surprise.

I find it hard to give credit to you when you will say the above. You have admitted that your exposure to Catholicism is me and a bitter ex-priest named Ed. You have scant often incorrect understanding of the Church's teaching and history. You also admit to being biased, prejudiced, and bigoted towards the Church by others close to you and by the stuff you prefer to read. You focus only on her mistakes and from this you are going to make a judgement and are unwilling to read or learn more? I don't know what to say.

Quote: FrGamble

I find it hard to give credit

Who cares! I'm not the one defending your
stupid Church, YOU ARE. You're the one
that has to be correct with your facts, not
me. I only have to be in the ballpark to
be right about what the Church really is,
to form my opinion. And I'm way past
ballpark, I'm far closer to nailing it time
and time again.

Quote: FrGamble

You don't want to believe that religious people have real experiences of the divine so you write it off as confirmation bias or some inner desire to believe, which is present in us as human beings and is indeed a complicated question.

Oh, I estimate perhaps 1/4 of all people who claim to have had an experience of the divine are truthful. Of the rest, some are truthful but fill in gaps borrowing from other accounts, and some make the whole thing up.

But of that 1/4 who tell the truth, I also believe they've experienced some altered state of consciousness. Research neurobiologists and neurologists induce such things every day in the lab. Some involve hallucinations, some don't. All are rather intense. All are 100% not related to anything supernatural (or subnatural, either; why don't we ever talk about the subnatural realm at all?)

Quote:

But make no mistake about it I am talking about real experiences of the divine.

No such thing.

Again, I mean, "you are claiming some unusual experiences are invariably a result of a deity whose existence you cannot prove, etc. etc. etc. rather than, as evidence indicates, an experience of an altered mental state, etc etc etc." But that's unwieldy and wastes time, so I say "No such thing."

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I had to laugh at this.

So much the better if you go down smiling.

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You know as well as I do that science cannot find a natural cause for the supernatural.

It hasn't found a cause for homeopathy or astrology, either. You're probably right.

Quote: Nareed

It hasn't found a cause for homeopathy or astrology, either. You're probably right.

Amazing Randi is still waiting for
just one person to prove the
supernatural really exists.

Quote: FrGamble

The Archdioceses and dioceses (you are right about the divisions, color me impressed)

You'd be less impressed had your cult not appropriated so much from Roman administration.

Diocese was the term used by Diocletian for the subdivisions of the Empire's provinces, even before he resumed persecuting Christians. I just wasn't sure how current the term still is.

Quote: FrGamble

I've often wondered about the size of some of those endowments and if those places really need more money. However, these places are at the cutting edge and the top of their field.

Harvard is almost a special case. If it gets a return of 15% on its endowment, not impossible, that comes to about $5.5 billion dollars. Its endowment by 2015 was around $37.5 billion. They need donations as much as Pluto needs air conditioning.

A poor elite university like Columbia only has $10 billion in its endowment.

Check these out:

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-million

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/05-food-fight

Quote: Nareed

But of that 1/4 who tell the truth, I also believe they've experienced some altered state of consciousness. Research neurobiologists and neurologists induce such things every day in the lab. Some involve hallucinations, some don't. All are rather intense. All are 100% not related to anything supernatural

You aren't describing religious experience of God at all. It is more like a deep friendship. It is not some intense experience or hallucination, in prayer the experience is like being with a good friend. What you are talking about is an altered state of consciousness this is not my experience of God at all.

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No such thing.

Just because you haven't had such an experience does not mean that it doesn't exist.

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It hasn't found a cause for homeopathy or astrology, either. You're probably right.

Actually its not only that science can't explain or find a cause for the supernatural, science cannot discover a cause for the natural either. Science is limited by space an time and observation it can't go past the Big Bang singularity. That is where philosophy and theology reside.

Quote: Nareed

Check these out:

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-million

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/05-food-fight

Great links

Quote: FrGamble

science can't explain or find a cause for the supernatural,.

A cause? They can't find even the supernatural,
let alone a cause for it. Name a way to
prove the supernatural exists. Go ahead,
I dare you.

'The fundamental laws of physics are very strict and immutable in our universe. If something can occur, regardless of how rare or unusual the event is, it is only because the natural laws allow it and therefore it is a "natural" phenomenon. One cannot exceed nature's rules and therefore the supernatural does not exist.'

The fact that you think it does exist
shows your continuing ignorance
and contempt for science.