tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post2330748137037760790..comments2023-09-24T07:53:50.826-05:00Comments on The Atheist Experience™: Today's Show: Deconstructing a MiracleUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-45265200492322879952011-01-02T10:51:45.050-06:002011-01-02T10:51:45.050-06:00Bruce, I don't have a problem with the age thi...Bruce, I don't have a problem with the age thing. I believe this story is being told by an older sibling. I dont know if I could reliably tell you when major events happened in my childhood. Besides, the major part of the "miracle" didn't happen until at least 3 years later with Emily's birth so they may not have taken note since it was, at the time, significant, but not miraculous. Plus, I bet if the sibling who submitted this story thought about it enough, or asked older family members with potentially more reliable memories, they might be able to give a more reliable age. I can understand where its not really a major point of the story. Would it make the story any more likely or change the significance if the kid was 3 or if the kid was 6?Penny Costlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14100523251079925953noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-45636122164074112792010-12-30T21:02:58.138-06:002010-12-30T21:02:58.138-06:00The repetition of threes... First two boys, then E...The repetition of threes... First two boys, then Emily. This is way too common in myths.<br /><br />The repetition of threes is a mark of good story-telling, and therefore very likely to be a fabrication.Adipose Reginahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15448016789699402931noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-81626200055115564802010-12-28T11:31:34.443-06:002010-12-28T11:31:34.443-06:00Failed a CPR test? There's no CPR test. You ta...Failed a CPR test? There's no CPR test. You take a course and get certified. If you don't demonstrate something correctly during the course, they show you right there. Even if he did do everything wrong, he still would have done enough. That's how easy CPR is. You can watch it on TV, get it wrong, and still have the same chance of saving someone's life. I know this is a small, unimportant detail, but being certified myself for four years now, it really irks me when people get stuff like this wrong to validate their stupid stories.Katie (Old Profile-Please disregard)https://www.blogger.com/profile/04110194301899446191noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-45154131684176942642010-12-22T06:50:10.032-06:002010-12-22T06:50:10.032-06:00Previous commenters have already voiced many of th...Previous commenters have already voiced many of the objections I had when listening to the show--and some that hadn't occurred to me. (Loved the 'did they burn her as a witch?')<br /><br />So I'll settle for this minor quibble: she was "between 3 and 4 years old". That doesn't work.<br /><br />Well, I guess if it followed her 3rd birthday but preceded her 4th, she was "between" the numbers. But we still calll that 3. Oh, sure, the first 2 years or so are measured out in months (ie 'he was walking at 18 months old'). But that provides more precision rather than less.<br /><br />Sure, it translates to 3 OR 4.<br /><br />I realize it may just be semantic, but it's yet another detail suspicious for its absence.<br /><br />How could details like no white rooms or white-clad nurses be trusted when even the age of the (hmm) nameless heroine of the tale is hazy.<br /><br />I'd think that, if true, the date would have been noted by the family. Indeed, mightn't all other family events be dated relative to such a miracle? ie "When did grandpa die? Oh yes, it was the winter after Suzy fell in the pool. So it must have been around December of '97."VladTheImpalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15995433986482663832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-40281010047077362772010-12-21T08:53:38.579-06:002010-12-21T08:53:38.579-06:00About the idea that older siblings are able to tel...About the idea that older siblings are able to tell the sex of a fetus, that reminds me of something that happened to a friend.<br /><br />This couple already had two kids, an older girl and a younger boy, then the woman got pregnant again. They asked the older girl (who was about 4 IIRC) what she thought the baby would be, and she said she thought it was a girl. Why? "Because we already have a boy!"Curt Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08048312089881459521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-47459719099046272042010-12-21T03:32:29.343-06:002010-12-21T03:32:29.343-06:00My favourite part was: "A man who has failed ...My favourite part was: "A man who has failed every CPR test in his life, brings her back to life". Isn't it convincing?<br />Oh, we silly atheists...ernobiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872778498473437876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-10033726179927322502010-12-20T18:08:47.148-06:002010-12-20T18:08:47.148-06:00"Hmm.. I think that if an atheist is seen obj..."Hmm.. I think that if an atheist is seen objecting ONLY when their favorite savior is mentioned, if anything that would help turn them against the protest when in fact the main concern is prayer in general." <br /><br />To add onto this comment. The solution by the council may be simply to abstain from mentioning Jesus in the prayer if that is timing of your objection. After all, why didn't you object earlier if you had a problem with prayer, it must have been the mention of Jesus that you found offensive, right? By objecting at the get go, it is made clear that the objection is against prayer itself and not the specific form it was in that day. Its much more clear than waiting 2/3s of the way in before objecting.Kevinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09006028835831638046noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-46627417692003759862010-12-20T16:41:46.051-06:002010-12-20T16:41:46.051-06:00@Kenny
I think that I may agree with you but for ...@Kenny<br /><br />I think that I may agree with you but for a slightly different reason.<br /><br />I think Matt was being unreasonable towards Lynnea in one aspect. <br /><br />I doubt that the people protesting would have foreknowlege of the exact wording to be used in the prayer. There was no guarantee that JC was gonna get a mention. So to object at beginning was on a point of principle. <br />The fact that another objection was raised at the mention of JC was good timing and alertness by the protesters wife. I don't think that aspect of it could have necessarily been planned ahead of time.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16439248183580550162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-17721065379127673852010-12-20T16:24:02.651-06:002010-12-20T16:24:02.651-06:00@Sungyak
The question I would ask you about post ...@Sungyak<br /><br />The question I would ask you about post death experiences is a very simple one.<br /><br />What actually is it that survives death?<br /><br />The soul? the spirit? some other incorporable component of a human being. <br /><br />When dead, the human ceases to function as human and the atoms that made up the human are redistributed elsewhere.<br /><br />The time to attempt to answer what happens after death is when we know that there actually is something that can survive.<br /><br />Basically I am saying "Show me your soul", until then the question is moot.Raymondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16439248183580550162noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-43929647517399395982010-12-20T15:54:38.872-06:002010-12-20T15:54:38.872-06:00Since Matt brought it up in this episode I will po...Since Matt brought it up in this episode I will post my comment here since there was no post here about the NonProphets episode.<br /><br />Matt here says he believes his co-hosts argument was terrible (I forget her name), but I think it was Matt that was wrong and even contradictory based on his past comments.<br /><br />He said that he should have waited until "Jesus" was mentioned in the prayer at the government meeting before protesting. His reasons for this were that since atheists have a reputation for being moody, or that it would have won more supporters from the other side.<br /><br />Hmm.. I think that if an atheist is seen objecting ONLY when their favorite savior is mentioned, if anything that would help turn them against the protest when in fact the main concern is prayer in general.<br /><br />And changing the nature of the protest to satisfy potential allies on the theist side? This sounds awfully like the stuff you'd hear from Chris Mooney and other accomodationalists. I know Matt doesn't agree with their position at all so it struck me as odd that Matt was suddenly caring about the public opinion of atheist views.<br /><br />I guess the reason I object to Matts comments is that he was so boistrous in his disagreement with the co-host when she simply stated that she wouldn't compromise in any way with this sort of violation and I agree with her.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-13223221765935402692010-12-20T15:39:07.773-06:002010-12-20T15:39:07.773-06:00Well, CYA disclaimer: he does cite some things in ...Well, CYA disclaimer: he does cite some things in the article, just not the vast majority of his evidence.Sean (quantheory)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00094694851707164734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-76747180121704381292010-12-20T15:37:36.315-06:002010-12-20T15:37:36.315-06:00Also, the article just doesn't cite anything a...Also, the article just doesn't cite anything at all. So it's hard to tell how hard the author actually tried to verify any of this. I don't think he's lying, but I also don't trust most people to spend as much energy on fact-checking as they should.<br /><br />For example: "After accounting for the length or extent of the NDE, if the NDE were simply a hallucination or concoction of the brain, would we not have varying degrees of vividness and memory of the NDE, unlike the 'all or nothing' that is reported?" Am I supposed to take his word for it that no one ever has a fuzzy or vague NDE? How do we know that people don't have fuzzy NDE's, but when the NDE is fuzzy they are more likely to call it a "dream" than an NDE? In fact, later he says: "Though the weakest NDE with OBE cases, which do not have the clarity or the narrative quality about them and are paranoid in nature, are likely just hallucinations and thus probably not NDEs." Which is it? Is NDE "all or nothing", or are there some which are fuzzy and some which are vivid, just like different forms of hallucination?<br /><br />And this: "But what explains the brilliant light and emotions filled with such bliss after the darkness? Hardly what you would expect a dying brain to produce." What kind of argument is that? Is this guy a neurologist? How does he know better than anyone else what dying brains do? Besides which, we know that <em>conscious and awake people</em> sometimes experience feelings of spirituality and bliss (see Jill Bolte Taylor's extremely strange <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html" rel="nofollow">TED talk</a>). I think the talk is mostly nonsense woo, but notice that Taylor has many of the same sensations as are described as being typically NDE, but they are associated, not with clinical death, but with parts of her brain shutting down or becoming damaged (especially in the left temporal lobe) even while the rest of her mind continues to function fairly lucidly.<br /><br />The whole article just gets more and more ridiculous. At some points he suggests "science can't explain why the experiences are all the same", and at others he suggests "science can't explain why the experiences are not all the same". True, science can't yet explain every facet of unusual mental states. So, what, that means that really bizarre things that people only see when they have oxygen-deprived brains are real?Sean (quantheory)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00094694851707164734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-63152557813734719202010-12-20T14:59:16.447-06:002010-12-20T14:59:16.447-06:00@Sungyak
It is not a "fairly balanced articl...@Sungyak<br /><br />It is not a "fairly balanced article". I mean, almost immediately I came across this sentence: "Most psychic occurrences are spontaneous and therefore hard to test under laboratory conditions." How could the author possibly know this? I mean, we can all agree that there are psychics who are fakes, and others who are simply deluded. The point of controlled testing is to try to distinguish those from any real psychic events that might happen. If you throw controlled testing out the window, you can't know anything about "most psychic occurrences", only about "most claims to psychic occurrences". If we translate that sentence to describe what the author might actually know, instead of what he pretends to know, then the sentence should actually say "When people claim they have psychic experiences, it usually happens to be in a situation where we can't easily check and see if that's what really happened." Doesn't that seem suspicious? Like a magician who can only make things vanish when he's wearing loose clothing?<br /><br />Then there was this howler: "If one doesn't believe we have a soul, then you are stuck trying to explain why we have an area of our brain which allows us to experience an NDE. Some will say it is there from an evolutionary standpoint to ease a person through the dying process." First off, let me just say that I would be absolutely blown away if anyone who actually understands evolution ever said this. Evolution really doesn't give a damn about making people comfortable or happy. So by listing this claim as "some will say", the author is pretending to give the skeptical, scientific side of things, but actually setting up a straw man; he listed something ridiculous as if it was what scientists actually say.<br /><br />But there's a worse problem with that part I quoted. He says "we have an area of our brain which allows us to experience an NDE". But that's not what was shown at all! What they found was that when people were experiencing NDEs, that happened to be the part of the brain lighting up. But that does not mean that the <em>purpose</em> of that part of the brain is to produce NDEs. To give an analogy, when people see the "auras" that proceed migraines (not paranormal auras, but fuzzy dancing patches in their field of vision), there's often an excess of unusual activity in the visual processing centers of their brains. But the purpose of the visual processing centers is not to see those auras, but to see things that are real; the auras are what happen when this normal processing is broken. Similarly, seeing that the temporal lobe lights up during certain strange experiences, does not mean that those parts of the temporal lobe are designed to produce those experiences; it could also mean that those experiences are hallucinations that occur when that part of the brain is temporarily screwed up (which seems to be what NDEs are).Sean (quantheory)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00094694851707164734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-75632836708162286602010-12-20T14:58:34.705-06:002010-12-20T14:58:34.705-06:00Trash: "in my nightmares as a boy. It ...&quo...Trash: "in my nightmares as a boy. It ..."<br /><br />The name Trash is quite similar to tracieh. For a moment I thought I had learned something surprising about tracieh who I had assumed had spent her childhood as a girl.Glenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06557756040896374914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-86398677657380114432010-12-20T13:24:12.614-06:002010-12-20T13:24:12.614-06:00Why is a personal experience of Gods presence the ...Why is a personal experience of Gods presence the proof of her existence?<br /><br />I have met God a few times. He was reoccuring in my nightmares as a boy. It happend when a was between 5 and 9 since I remembered where I woke up. God was really scary and very real in the dreams.<br /><br />But I conquered him, I got rid of the nightmare and I am an atheist.Trashhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17566092314462155177noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-89622603675451659652010-12-20T11:08:11.083-06:002010-12-20T11:08:11.083-06:00@Sungyak
tracieh seems to imply that 50% is not a...@Sungyak<br /><br /><i>tracieh seems to imply that 50% is not an impressive odd. i wonder if 90% would suffice. or 95%? 100%? Who defines these probabilities to be accurate standards of truth verification?</i><br /><br />The point is that the success rate is not beyond statistical noise. That is to say, given the information about the story, this girl's capacity to predict has the same success rate as someone randomly guessing.<br /><br />There's nothing impressive about that.<br /><br />If there were 10 genders, she'd have to consistently beat 10% accuracy. At some point, you'd have to set up some control groups, because it may simply be that the father can't create seed any males, and the girl is picking up on a 100% natural pattern, due to biological circumstances.JThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08881036419280903737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-15670728543825989412010-12-20T10:54:01.319-06:002010-12-20T10:54:01.319-06:00@Sungyak:
Right, 50/50 odds are not impressive. A...@Sungyak:<br /><br />Right, 50/50 odds are not impressive. And no probability would be impressive, since "improbable" will never = impossible. However, odds that anyone can demonstrate they can quite naturally _easily_ achieve are even more ridiculous to assert as amazing or requiring supernatural intervention. If you watched the feed, then you know I achieved a run of 3 in the first test. That is, I asked a person to guess "heads or tails"--and they guessed correctly the first three tries. Would you suggest I witnessed something miraculous or supernatural?<br /><br />To say that a single instance is a miracle would be to assert I witnessed three separate miraculous events during my coin toss experiment. And according to this then, anyone can demonstrate miraculous results--all they need is a coin. Guess long enough, and you'll see a miracle. I guarantee it.<br /><br />Meanwhile, where is the evidence of supernature in NDE? Articles are nice, but peer reviewed articles, appearing in respected scientific journals, demonstrating supernature (with support--rather than mass criticism from the peers following the publishing) would be better.<br /><br />The fact is, even if we had 10,000 people per day confirmed brain dead who were springing back to life telling tall tales, until we can _demonstrate_ a cause, we have to say it's an event we haven't yet explained. But the more it happens, the more inclined I am to discount it as supernature and say that it seems rather quite natural. After all, every cause of every phenomenon ever successfully verified has been natural. When we find one confirmed supernatural cause, then we'll have some reason to accept supernature can reasonably be put forward as a cause. But until supernature is even demonstrated to _exist_, the fact is only things that exist CAN be the cause of other things, and so the assumption of cause will be "natural" (since nature is existent), rather than "supernatural" (as supernature is not demonstrated to exist).<br /><br />Anyone who then wishes to posit supernature as the cause of any event had first better meet their obligation to demonstrate supernature is even existent. Until we have that, we can only presume things that are known to exist as causes--since only things that exist can cause other things.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-89514084570036113142010-12-20T10:19:24.311-06:002010-12-20T10:19:24.311-06:00i wonder what all your thoughts are on post-death ...i wonder what all your thoughts are on post-death experiences (that is, clinically pronounced dead, and the brain is likewise very much dead) that are well-documented globally. <br /><a href="http://lifeafterdeath.info/Paranormal.htm" rel="nofollow">Here's a fairly balanced article.</a> <br /><br />tracieh seems to imply that 50% is not an impressive odd. i wonder if 90% would suffice. or 95%? 100%? Who defines these probabilities to be accurate standards of truth verification?Sungyakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04066518133582818210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-17199535421498967092010-12-20T10:15:49.498-06:002010-12-20T10:15:49.498-06:00This comment has been removed by the author.Sungyakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04066518133582818210noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-29751583622367570872010-12-20T09:07:58.624-06:002010-12-20T09:07:58.624-06:00@ Sean
Thanks for mentioning the 1 in 8 thing. I w...@ Sean<br />Thanks for mentioning the 1 in 8 thing. I was thinking it myself, but then I realized that, had one of the previous two siblings been a girl, it should have made just as much sense to say "she isn't Emily". <br /><br />After all, why is it ok to accept that Emily had two younger brothers who were destined to come before her, but no younger sisters? So the probability should still be 1 in 2.<br /><br />Then there is the question of whether the girl was consistent in her pronouncements. Apparently with each child, the subject "Is this Emily" would come up. Did it come up exactly once per child? If it came up more than once, then did this girl give the same answer each time?<br /><br />This all sounds apocryphal, and considering kait82's observation that there were no medical professionals to pronounce her dead, other than CPR guy, then I would doubt any of this ever happened.<br /><br />@kait82<br /><br />That is brilliant. I wish I had caught that.Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14299046445235601258noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-79380444400422931082010-12-20T05:29:56.195-06:002010-12-20T05:29:56.195-06:00"Would this theist be willing to sacrifice fr..."Would this theist be willing to sacrifice free-will for prophesy?"<br /><br />It sounds like they've already taken steps in that direction: "The family decides they are not going to have anymore children, but then the mother gets pregnant one more time."Sean (quantheory)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00094694851707164734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-74488100989067093132010-12-20T00:50:56.627-06:002010-12-20T00:50:56.627-06:00There is this belief that siblings can tell the se...There is this belief that siblings can tell the sex of a baby before it's born. I'm not that mad on it, but I do know that my kids didn't do a bad job of predicting their successors.<br /><br />Personally I think a 50/50 guess combined with a confirmation bias is most likely here, but if it were actually true though, it is possible that there are indicators that could reasonably explain it. Maybe a certain pheromone or the way the baby responds to physical stimulus.<br /><br />You still don't need supernatural explanations - unless you desperately want them.David McNerneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05607188814624253820noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-33066850731568759802010-12-19T23:23:54.061-06:002010-12-19T23:23:54.061-06:00Kait82;
Of course, the guy who determined she was...Kait82;<br /><br />Of course, the guy who determined she was dead was the guy who failed CPR several times! Not a reliable authority methinks. Perhaps she was just sleeping.....Louishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08165695979185282802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-59898609649357035262010-12-19T21:50:48.908-06:002010-12-19T21:50:48.908-06:00Well the story could be worse, it could have lead ...Well the story could be worse, it could have lead to this wildly accepted myth from 18 century http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uEJbwGYaDsRylanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05413024876396376816noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-20309878233573851052010-12-19T21:46:18.155-06:002010-12-19T21:46:18.155-06:00I agree with a points others have pointed out. I s...I agree with a points others have pointed out. I sort of agreed with Sean's point #3 that it was inaccurate to say she died. My reasoning is a little different though. <br /><br />My understanding is that medical professionals can pronounce a patient dead after clinical death. I dont think its necessary to prove biological death before we can correctly say that the girl was dead and I would accept this as being a technically correct label. <br /><br />However, the flaw I see regarding her "death" is that she couldn't have been pronounced dead by a qualified professional. <br /><br />It doesn't give a lot of specifics, but one possibility is that she received medical care by a medical professional, which had no effect and was then pronounced dead. The CPR failure then figures he could practice his technique for his next big test and has nothing to lose since she's dead anyway and revives her. IF that's what was meant, then I'm surprised that was left out of the story: Trained medical professional fails to revive girl, guy who failed CPR test multiple times suceeds! (I bet the newspaper article would start "He couldn't pass a CPR course test to save his life, but he passed the test that saved hers...")<br /><br />The other posibility is that someone who didnt know anything about the difference between unconscious and dead (Maybe CPR guy even) gave their non-expert opinion that since she wasn't awake and responding, she must have been dead.Penny Costlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14100523251079925953noreply@blogger.com