Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[Inigo Montoya]

So are either of you going to get around to presenting any evidence or do you prefer to attack the nature of the question's demands for another 90 pages?

I see this alllll the time.

Answering questions with more questions or assaulting the verbiage of them or arguing over why you feel the demands are unfair and in what way....

Admittedly I haven't read all 90 pages. Maybe 15 total but I'm still waiting to see the myriad proofs for your war god.

ALSO I'm officially requesting a nickel for every usage of "prima facie" from here on out. I like to learn new words too but you gotta spread em out man.

[Danmark]

....
Previously you compared a child's experience of Santa Claus and an adult's experience of God. I'll give you few reasons why the two are not comparable.
....

Hold it right there. Why exclude children from the 'experience of God?'
Are we not told that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom?

It is young children who are susceptible to the beliefs in Santa and in God.
They usually grow out of the former. But they continue to get reinforced for their belief in God long after their parents have 'fessed up about Santa. So they don't reject THAT fairy tale until they get old enough to do some independent thinking and independent research.

The analogy is apt.

So you say that an adult's God experiences are a result of childhood indoctrination as well. That's a plausible explanation. However, with regard to Santa Claus we know for sure that the experiences are a result of tricks and indoctrination, while with religious experiences it's merely a hypothesis. It should also be treated as such, and not as something that you know for certainty. If you want to claim that all religious experiences are result of childhood indoctrination and trickery, please provide evidence or arguments to back it up.

I never said 'all religious experiences are result of childhood indoctrination and trickery.'
However childhood experience and indoctrination is an important factor not only for childhood decisions about belief, but in adult religious allegiance.

It's not at all difficult to 'back it up,' as you say. All you have to do is research the religious beliefs that are prominent in various countries. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... opulations

Scan the list under 'By proportion.'

It should come as no surprise there are 15 countries listed that have a Christian population ranging from 99% to 93.5% or that there are 17 countries that have a Muslim population ranging from 99.9% to 94%.

Doesn't look to me like there's much free choice going on. That childhood indoctrination is pretty powerful.

[instantc]

They seem to be wrong 100% of the time. Just like children.

Age doesn't matter. People of all ages seem to have been wrong in their supernatural claims for the last 100,000 years or so.

You seem to be a bit confused here, can you show that every supernatural report in the history is false, or did you mean to say that none of them have been shown to be true?

mmm, ok. I'm assuming that you don't take an adult's testimony of talking to God any more seriously than an adult's testimony of being abducted by aliens, or seeing bigfoot, or meeting spiderman, or being saved by superman, or walking through a brick wall, or reading people's mind, or moving objects with his mind, or being able to predict the future, or being able to talk to your long dead aunt Marge, or seeing a man cut his assistant in half with a saw and then she's ok, etc, right? Or an ADULT claiming to see Santa at a mall, right?

These claims, if done by equally educated and intelligent adults, are all equally credible, right?

I'm not sure what you are going for here, I didn't say that every claim should be equally credible. I would certainly take seriously an adult's report of Bigfoot, but since the relevant forests have been searched for quite a few times, it seems that the reports were quite certainly made up. I would also take seriously an intelligent adult's report of an alien abduction, but since there have been thousands of those reports and not a single alien sight has ever been confirmed, it seems more plausible that the reports were made up in the first place.

[instantc]

So are either of you going to get around to presenting any evidence or do you prefer to attack the nature of the question's demands for another 90 pages?

I see this alllll the time.

Answering questions with more questions or assaulting the verbiage of them or arguing over why you feel the demands are unfair and in what way....

Admittedly I haven't read all 90 pages. Maybe 15 total but I'm still waiting to see the myriad proofs for your war god.

I've also been waiting to see evidence for the supernatural for a while. Do you have any or did you just want to make your presence known and participate without having anything to say?

[no evidence no belief]

They seem to be wrong 100% of the time. Just like children.

Age doesn't matter. People of all ages seem to have been wrong in their supernatural claims for the last 100,000 years or so.

You seem to be a bit confused here, can you show that every supernatural report in the history is false, or did you mean to say that none of them have been shown to be true?

None of the adults' God claims have been shown to be true. None of the children's Santa claims have been shown to be true,

mmm, ok. I'm assuming that you don't take an adult's testimony of talking to God any more seriously than an adult's testimony of being abducted by aliens, or seeing bigfoot, or meeting spiderman, or being saved by superman, or walking through a brick wall, or reading people's mind, or moving objects with his mind, or being able to predict the future, or being able to talk to your long dead aunt Marge, or seeing a man cut his assistant in half with a saw and then she's ok, etc, right? Or an ADULT claiming to see Santa at a mall, right?

These claims, if done by equally educated and intelligent adults, are all equally credible, right?

I'm not sure what you are going for here, I didn't say that every claim should be equally credible.

You said that an adult's claims of the supernatural should be taken more seriously than a child's claims.

Should an adult's claims of talking to God be taken more seriously than an adult's claim of.... seeing Santa?

[instantc]

They seem to be wrong 100% of the time. Just like children.

Age doesn't matter. People of all ages seem to have been wrong in their supernatural claims for the last 100,000 years or so.

You seem to be a bit confused here, can you show that every supernatural report in the history is false, or did you mean to say that none of them have been shown to be true?

None of the adults' God claims have been shown to be true. None of the children's Santa claims have been shown to be true

Child's Santa claims have shown to be untrue, we know where they come from for certainty, that's the whole point.

mmm, ok. I'm assuming that you don't take an adult's testimony of talking to God any more seriously than an adult's testimony of being abducted by aliens, or seeing bigfoot, or meeting spiderman, or being saved by superman, or walking through a brick wall, or reading people's mind, or moving objects with his mind, or being able to predict the future, or being able to talk to your long dead aunt Marge, or seeing a man cut his assistant in half with a saw and then she's ok, etc, right? Or an ADULT claiming to see Santa at a mall, right?

These claims, if done by equally educated and intelligent adults, are all equally credible, right?

I'm not sure what you are going for here, I didn't say that every claim should be equally credible.

You said that an adult's claims of the supernatural should be taken more seriously than a child's claims.

Should an adult's claims of talking to God be taken more seriously than an adult's claim of.... seeing Santa?

If an intelligent adult reports a sight of a flying reindeer, I'd take that as seriously as any other supernatural report at first glance. However, I think that talking to God in a prayer is more plausible than flying reindeers or walking dead men, since if the latter existed we could reasonably expect to have confirmed that by now, couldn't we?

[Ooberman]

....
Previously you compared a child's experience of Santa Claus and an adult's experience of God. I'll give you few reasons why the two are not comparable.
....

Hold it right there. Why exclude children from the 'experience of God?'
Are we not told that we must be like children to enter the Kingdom?

It is young children who are susceptible to the beliefs in Santa and in God.
They usually grow out of the former. But they continue to get reinforced for their belief in God long after their parents have 'fessed up about Santa. So they don't reject THAT fairy tale until they get old enough to do some independent thinking and independent research.

The analogy is apt.

So you say that an adult's God experiences are a result of childhood indoctrination as well. That's a plausible explanation. However, with regard to Santa Claus we know for sure that the experiences are a result of tricks and indoctrination, while with religious experiences it's merely a hypothesis. It should also be treated as such, and not as something that you know for certainty. If you want to claim that all religious experiences are result of childhood indoctrination and trickery, please provide evidence or arguments to back it up.

I never said 'all religious experiences are result of childhood indoctrination and trickery.'
However childhood experience and indoctrination is an important factor not only for childhood decisions about belief, but in adult religious allegiance.

It's not at all difficult to 'back it up,' as you say. All you have to do is research the religious beliefs that are prominent in various countries. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... opulations

Scan the list under 'By proportion.'

It should come as no surprise there are 15 countries listed that have a Christian population ranging from 99% to 93.5% or that there are 17 countries that have a Muslim population ranging from 99.9% to 94%.

Doesn't look to me like there's much free choice going on. That childhood indoctrination is pretty powerful.

I noticed noone addressed this. How do the religious explain this?
What do they think is happening?

[Inigo Montoya]

So are either of you going to get around to presenting any evidence or do you prefer to attack the nature of the question's demands for another 90 pages?

I see this alllll the time.

Answering questions with more questions or assaulting the verbiage of them or arguing over why you feel the demands are unfair and in what way....

Admittedly I haven't read all 90 pages. Maybe 15 total but I'm still waiting to see the myriad proofs for your war god.

I've also been waiting to see evidence for the supernatural for a while. Do you have any or did you just want to make your presence known and participate without having anything to say?

Oh I could participate like you I suppose. If that means giving the OP evidence like it asked for 90 pages ago I guess it WOULDN'T be much like you though.

Maybe instead I'll just ask for more clarification on the difference between Santa Clause beliefs between children and adults? Or see if there's more room for clarity on the revived versus zombie dilemma?

You and a handful of others, a loooooong time ago, ought to have been honest enough to simply say ,"No. I dont have any." Instead we get to pore over 90 pages of Calvinist-like rhetoric where questions become answers and obfuscation is king.

I don't like the question! What's the definition of "is?" Zombies aren't the same as the resurrected! What do you MEAN "evidence?" You're using the wrong toolbox! That's out of context!

How about "I take these matters purely on faith, as is my right, but cannot provide compelling and persuasive evidence."

There's my contribution.

[no evidence no belief]

They seem to be wrong 100% of the time. Just like children.

Age doesn't matter. People of all ages seem to have been wrong in their supernatural claims for the last 100,000 years or so.

You seem to be a bit confused here, can you show that every supernatural report in the history is false, or did you mean to say that none of them have been shown to be true?

None of the adults' God claims have been shown to be true. None of the children's Santa claims have been shown to be true

Child's Santa claims have shown to be untrue, we know where they come from for certainty, that's the whole point.

Not all Santa claims have been shown to be untrue. Some have, but most have simply not been shown to be true.

Similarly, not all God claims have been shown to be untrue. Some have (the world will end on May 26th 2011, for example), most have simply not been shown to be true.

What's the difference?

mmm, ok. I'm assuming that you don't take an adult's testimony of talking to God any more seriously than an adult's testimony of being abducted by aliens, or seeing bigfoot, or meeting spiderman, or being saved by superman, or walking through a brick wall, or reading people's mind, or moving objects with his mind, or being able to predict the future, or being able to talk to your long dead aunt Marge, or seeing a man cut his assistant in half with a saw and then she's ok, etc, right? Or an ADULT claiming to see Santa at a mall, right?

These claims, if done by equally educated and intelligent adults, are all equally credible, right?

I'm not sure what you are going for here, I didn't say that every claim should be equally credible.

You said that an adult's claims of the supernatural should be taken more seriously than a child's claims.

Should an adult's claims of talking to God be taken more seriously than an adult's claim of.... seeing Santa?

If an intelligent adult reports a sight of a flying reindeer, I'd take that as seriously as any other supernatural report at first glance. However, I think that talking to God in a prayer is more plausible than flying reindeers or walking dead men, since if the latter existed we could reasonably expect to have confirmed that by now, couldn't we?

Sure. Supernatural claims that are "witnessable" (if that's not a word, it should be) by third parties are easier to confirm or falsify than those for which the testimony of a single individual is the only possible piece of evidence.

Therefore an adult claiming to have had a long conversation with Batman when he was alone, is more plausible than a man claiming he saw Jesus feed thousands with 7 fishes. There would be reports from those thousands had that actually happened!

[Danmark]

I never said 'all religious experiences are result of childhood indoctrination and trickery.'
However childhood experience and indoctrination is an important factor not only for childhood decisions about belief, but in adult religious allegiance.

It's not at all difficult to 'back it up,' as you say. All you have to do is research the religious beliefs that are prominent in various countries. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_re ... opulations

Scan the list under 'By proportion.'

It should come as no surprise there are 15 countries listed that have a Christian population ranging from 99% to 93.5% or that there are 17 countries that have a Muslim population ranging from 99.9% to 94%.

Doesn't look to me like there's much free choice going on. That childhood indoctrination is pretty powerful.

I noticed noone addressed this. How do the religious explain this?
What do they think is happening?

I've brought up this issue before. I do not recall any of our religious friends addressing these facts. Ignoring the obvious implications appears to be their best argument.