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Atheists, at what point, objectively speaking, if any, would you consider the supernatural happening right in front of your very own eyes?
I’m just trying to get an objective number from you guys where you would concede that something beyond the natural is happening. Here’s my scenario.
Someone claims that he is a prophet from God and thus can predict the future without fail (Dt 18:21-22). To prove himself to you, he asks you to come up with any two-outcome event (such as a coin toss) under your own controlled conditions, and he will state the outcome of the event before you reveal it or even before that if that’s possible. ...
... It is assumed that you are so smart, you can come up with two outcome events under your own controlled conditions in which it would be impossible for the self-claimed prophet to know the outcome. (For example, you could flip the coin in another state in a private location and blindfold the prophet in a private secured dark room monitored by a trusted friend to make sure he wasn’t cheating somehow.)
How many correct “guesses” in a row would have to occur before you would concede that something beyond the natural is happening? I’m simply looking for a number. But here are some facts to help you see how probability works.
The chances of guessing correctly N number in a row of a two-outcome event is given by one out of 2^N (or mathematically, P = 1/[2^N].) where 2^N is the number 2 multiplied by itself N times.
For just one event and guess, the guesser has an obvious one out of two chance or 1/2 chance of guessing right (P = 1/[2^1] or P = 1/2.
For two correct guesses in a row, the chances are one out of four, P = 1/4 (and for three, P = 1/8 and so forth).
For 100 guesses in a row, the chances are one out of 1.267 x 10^30 (= 2^100). (Note that there are “only” about 7 x 10^9 people on earth at this time, that is about seven billion.)
For 270 guesses in a row, the chances are one out of 1.9 x 10^81. (Note that scientists believe there are “only” about 10^80 atoms in the entire known universe.)
I believe Jea said in an earlier post that even if the guesser guessed one million times in a row, that would only prove that he or she was just a good guesser. ...
... (Note that even MS Calculator can’t handle a number that large, 2^1,000,000.) If she provides a number, I’ll concede that I may have been mistaken about what I thought she said.
For me, 100 guesses in a row would definitely convince me that something beyond the natural was occurring, probably less than that, but it’s at least a start.
Remember, I’m just looking for a number. Thank you for your help understanding atheism..
So far with 15 answerers, no atheist has provided a number. Is the number less than one million? If so, what is it? If you can't give a number, then why couldn't it be over one million for you?
For the purposes of trying to get an objective answer, if you do not provide a number, I'll assume that the number is greater than one million for you. If it's less, let me know. Just answer the question.
It's been over an hour and with at least 16 atheist answerers, but still NOT ONE number from an athee-evo. Apparently even if the atheist went out into a remote part of the woods in CA with no one around him, set up a tent with the window shades closed, flipped a coin all day long for 12 hours inside the tent, recording the sequence of heads and tails as he or she was flipping, for a total of about 2000 coin flips, put the head-tail sequence record in a sealed envelope, traveled to NYC ...
where the prophet was who had been monitored by the atheist's trusted friend to make sure he never a room the whole time and had no access to any outside information, had the prophet first present his record of what the sequence was, then compared the two records and they were a perfect match, even then the atheist would attribute the feat to just him being a good guesser or anything other than something supernatural had just occurred.
Correct me if I am wrong atheists. I'll give it until tomorrow to see is even just one atheist will provide a number.
CONCLUSION: After one full day and 32 answers, not one atheist provided a number. This proves at least three things we Christians have long suspected.
1) Atheists (at least in this forum) are simply not smart enough to devise any experiment whatsoever that could be used to prove something beyond the natural was going on. No matter what they came up with, they would assume that some clever magician could out trick them in some way.
To his credit, James Randi, a magician, skeptic AND atheist, was at least capable of devising experiments that would allow those who claimed to have special powers to prove themselves, and even offered $1 million to those who could.
2) There IS NO way of proving anything supernatural to athee-evos. When they ask questions like, “Can you prove there is a God?”, it’s already a moot point in their minds. They have no intentions whatsoever of accepting any proof, no matter how credible. No matter what proof was provided, even by God himself, they still would never concede there is a God.
Even if their dead grandmother came back to life, they would just assume that either she was never dead to begin with, or some pharmaceutical company came up with a new drug that is able to bring people that appear to be dead back to looking alive again.
Even in the scenario above, if the atheists saw with their own eyes, under their own controlled conditions, someone guess correctly a coin flip (even before the coin was flipped) one million times in a row or more, at best they would believe the man was just be a really good guesser or some sort of really good magician. As Jesus said, “‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Lk 16:31).
3) Most atheists are cowardly and gutless (especially the ones in this forum). They’re scared to death to simply provide a number, be it 50, 100, 1000 or even one trillion. The reason is obvious. Any number would imply that there was the tiniest remotest chance of the supernatural having occurred, and their fellow athee-evos would hound them to death to even entertain that possibility.
Atheists, I’m not going to award best answer to someone who doesn’t have the guts to put down a number. But I will use this post to explain why knowledgeable Christians don’t waste time answering questions about God’s existence since you really are not interested in an answer, and there is no answer you would ever be satisfied with.
31 Answers
- WOOWHOLv 72 years ago
Atheist at what "POINT" ( objectively speaking ) if any would you "CONSIDER" the "SUPERNATURAL" happening right in front of your "own eyes" what is one calling "SEEING"
examining the question the SUBJECT of the question is at what "POINT" implying wha
t are your STANDARDS your MEANS of determining X to be the case .....beginning with and the use of a dictionary ( very simple tool ) the word "GOD" is as AMBIGUOUS as the word SUPERNATURAL
, actually its in the catagory of SUPERNATURAL .
.... SUPERNATURAL adjective a concept ( proposition/ proposal ) of and assertion of an order of EXISTENCE beyond the VISIBLE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE ,especially of or relating to "God" or a god ,demigod spirit or devil
DEPARTING from that which is USUAL or NORMAL especially as to "APPEAR" to transcend the laws of NATURE ..
..an . EVENT X occurs ... which is very different from BOB SAID X which is what ones PROPHACY and prediction scenario is ...and the math presentation was a DISTRACTION ...
.. using a simple one LIGHTENING was once viewed as the WRATH of GOD the word God is ambiguous its a label people slapped on as a CAUSE or EXPLANATION . due to LACK of investigation ..
. then BEN FRANKLIN does his KITE experiment in 1752 PRINTS his results describes his experiment which could then be REPLICATED and will have the same RESULTS consistently .....BEN CONCLUDED LIGHTENING was a form of ELECTRICITY .
...People used to wear a lot of WOOL people were aware of " STATIC ELECTRICITY " ( i bet the SHEEP HERDERS ( wool ) also knew about STATIC ELECTRICITY when they wrote the story about the BOX plated with gold that they covered with a wool blanket ) they just decided to call it "GOD" or "SPECIAL POWERS " ..
... I can also PREDICT the exact DAY and TIME of my DEATH and also CAUSE it to HAPPEN ...
.. Just like some claim the BIBLE predicts the NATION of ISRAEL ...
. actually that was a result of a sequence of ACTUAL EVENTS of ACTUAL PEOPLE working and negotiating and Wars toward that Goal .
... odd thing about BIBLE PROPHACY and Nostradamus its so VAGUE lacks specificity , never does a person write in say 1300 BC that on January 20th 2017 TRUMP will be president of the USA ...
to begin with there was most likely no word january and there was no USA or a Donald Trump and actually there is NO evidence to date of a HEBREW writing system or alphabet PRIOR to 1000 BC so a 100 GUESSES would CONVINCE you of something BEYOND NATURAL ... is GUESSING NATURAL do people do it on a frequent basis ....
can I GUESS my sisters WEIGHT can a so called "PSYCHIC " tell people a prediction by doing a "COLD READING " I am getting the letter J do you know someone whose name begins with J ...
. just throwing this one out a test pronounce "ZEE" now pronounce "US" now say it together ZEE + US .... what does ZEUS spell the Greek God equal to the Roman god JUPITER .
... odd thing how the STORY says you SHALL call him EMMANUEL .... but gets the name JEE ....SUS
Hebrew no J and J is an invention of the 17th century but the Greeks and Romans had a "Z" the same people who PAUL /SAUL TARGETS in his letters who had a concept the GODS IMPREGNATED HUMANS .. so the Concept was not Foreign to them
actually had the concept as part of their religion... maybe the early jews / Christians " adopted it from Greek and Roman MYTHOLOGY after Alexander the great ( Greek ) invades the region in 325 BC and has influence for 300 years
- Anonymous2 years ago
I'm sorry but with all the your updates there was far too much to read. I'm just answering your original question and the first few updates as I understand them.
Anyone predicting the result of a two possible outcomes event has at least a 50% chance of being correct. Being able to do this once or twice wouldn't surprise me at all. Being able to do it more that this would be surprising but still possible. Obviously, if a person were able to do it maybe twenty times running then I'd be inclined to accept that it wasn't mere chance.
However, this is the sort of thing that illusionists and "magicians" do all the time and in some cases, with a pack of cards, they seem to be able to predict, every time, the result of something with 52 possible outcomes.
There is a huge difference between something happening that I cannot explain; cannot "see how it's done", and "the supernatural". If a person was able to make maybe a couple of hundred correct "guesses" in a row then I would certainly accept that something was happening that was beyond my understanding but I'd want other people involved, tests to be done, for the person to repeat this "trick" in other places with a different audience, over and over again before I would even consider something "supernatural".
This is accademic though because I have never encountered anything like you describe. I've seen and been impressed by "magicians" and I've heard of people who seemed able to do the sort of thing you describe more often than would be statistically expected, but that's all. I really can't identify "a point" at which I would concede that something "supernatural" was happening because nothing remotely "supernatural" has ever happened to be. Also, in the example you give, so far as I know, there is no evidence at all than anyone is able to do something like you suggest in "test conditions". It's like asking at what point I'd be willing to accept that fairies existed. I can't snswer because, so far as I'm concerned, fairies DON'T exist, there is no evidence to support their existence and no one that I know of suggests that they exist. At what "point" would YOU be willing to accept that a person can turn base metals into gold?
I can't see why this question is directed at atheists. Are you suggesting that religious people are more gullible, more easily taken in?
Added, looking at some of your updates and comments, you keep asking for "a number". You need to read the answers you have again and try to grasp that it's WHAT happened that is important, not the number of times it happened. I imagine that a magician or illusionist can, for example, "find the card that a member of the audience chose" 100% of the time, as many times as they are asked to do it before they ever try their trick in public. That's not "supernatural" though. A few centuries ago being able to see what was happening on the other side of the world would have been "supernatural". Nowadays, however many times we see it (on TV, the Internet etc,) it's not.
Again though, what has this to do with atheists?
Added, I took your question to be genuine albeit badly thought out and expressed. I wrote a long and carefully thought out answer but thats nothing to the length of your "contribution". Wow, you really ARE disturbed!
- vorenhutzLv 72 years ago
I won't give you a number either. What are you going to do about it? Some things you could do:
Define "supernatural"
Describe a method to distinguish supernatural processes from unknown natural processes
Complain about it.
My bet is you'll complain, you seem like the type.
- Anonymous2 years ago
I don't know if atheists realized this. but every single time they read one of my posts there seeing the supernatural right in front of their very eyes.
You ask how is this so? I was an atheist for some 27 years of my life. Their lifestyle killed me quite literally.i died of a crack cocaine overdose 30 years ago. I was without heartbeat or respiration and my lungs were flooded with a massive quantity of crack cocaine smoke. The doctors had already tagged me and we're ready to put me into the freezer. Well I came back about 24 minutes later. I got up off of that stainless steel table. I got dressed and I told the doctors the story of my little trip to hell and then to heaven to be the first person to come back from the dead and have it be documented! That Supernatural buddy I'm a Christian because I saw the evidence in person.
Want proof that God is real? Read my story verify it for yourself I made it public anybody that wants to get a copy of the records can do so.
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- PyriformLv 72 years ago
Basically, nobody thinks your test is a good way of judging the supernatural.
If it were something very well controlled, such as the lottery, that might be a different matter. I think if somebody one the lottery on all 6 numbers twice in a row, I would accept that. At least, I would accept it as evidence that they could somehow predict the future. Even then, whether that prediction was by supernatural means, or some natural means that we were not aware of, is still open to question.
You seem to be trying to present the case as if it were a dichotomy between believing in incredible odds or the supernatural, but we cannot rule out the possibility of an unknown natural cause. Past cases have shown us that phenomena that people put down to the supernatural often have a natural cause that they did not know about.
Edit:
" Even if their dead grandmother came back to life, they would just assume that either she was never dead to begin with, or some pharmaceutical company came up with a new drug that is able to bring people that appear to be dead back to looking alive again."
Wow! Talk about moving the goal posts. That scenario is nothing like the one you insist upon us providing an number for. I think if my grandmother came back to life, I would accept that as proof of the supernatural.
- Anonymous2 years ago
anything
- Anonymous2 years ago
If something floated or moved on its own, I would be content with conceding at that point.. But I still wouldn't know what it was. could be a ghost, or djinn, or something still unknown.
How bout instead of "assuming a number" you actually listen to what we're saying? Might be the most productive.
- River EuphratesLv 72 years ago
Your eyes can be fooled into 'seeing' any number of things ('magicians' and 'illusionists' take advantage of this), so it would have to be something pretty impressive.
A severed limb being restored would probably do it (as long as I was able to inspect the person first). A dead person coming back to life (and not just someone who is 'clinically dead' - I'm talking a corpse).
- ANDRE LLv 72 years ago
I'll consider it as being as likely as a rocket from Krypton delivering a super powered individual to Earth, wherupon that individual dons brightly coloured clothes, and flies around and saves people with his super powers.
The bible contains a great deal of disproved nonsense. These is no likelihood that anything from it will be shown to be anything other than more of the same.
- Anonymous2 years ago
When there was objective evidence of it. But that would remove it from the supernatural category. Nothing "supernatural" exists, by the very definition of the word. It literally means beyond reality. Beyond reality there is only pretense and conjecture.
Supernatural simply does not exist, period. Everything real had a rational explanation. Nothing that is real needs any faith at all.
Why must dishonest theists always put words in my mouth I didn't say? YOU may have said such a stupid thong, but I certainly did not. I swear, if christians couldn't lie on here, there would only be 3 christians left, and I can name all three. You Dave are not one of them.