Bolshevik

Proving the supernatural would not end atheism. It would move the boundary between natural and supernatural. Discussion would continue. Practically speaking.

It can't be explained naturally. Nobody understands the mind that well. God of the Gaps

When Morgan Freeman answers your letter, how you interpret it is what matters most.

Awesome, let's start with basics:

Gotcha, I see that more clearly after you made some edits. I should add I expressed I did not want to go to Fellowships, but I was informed I did not have a choice. I lied about SIT, and did not enjoy doing it. That became practice.

I lied. That's how you get it over with. I did not believe it was genuine, I did not see options I was willing to make the sacrifices for. And I lied. Usually I tried to skip fellowship somehow. The rest of the time, I lied. But if lying is a dishonest use of words . . Bad Faith?

Was SIT lying? I think so. I SIT for what is still the bulk (more than 50%) of my life. Daily. I began before I can remember. I can't remember learning English. I can't remember learning SIT. To SIT was a COMMAND. To not SIT was to oppose authority. You don't say "PASS" in Twig Fellowship, you OBEY. Fear drove SIT. But fear was not allowed. After a certain age, I broke a sweat every time I manifested. I had done it my whole life, but it kept getting harder. And harder. I knew more Word, took more classes, went Way D moved to New Knoxville. I had SIT for decades. But it kept getting harder, anxiety kept going up. But it was so easy as a young kid. Why was it getting harder? I think it was becoming self-aware. Therefore it became lying. I had passed from not knowing better to knowing better. Of course if children can convince a room full of adults they are genuine, and the children grow to realize they are really faking it, what does that say about the adult's ability to recognize genuine SIT?

Sam Harris is a bit deterministic. Same reason I choose not to be Christian, lack of free will. I would suggest both views are wrong. Creation myths are clues to human psyche (for lack of a better term at the moment) and science and archaeology is in constant change. These stories about the past are questions we will never fully have answers to. I think you've started on a good point about choice, though.

I critiqued one point because all your points were redundant. Which I think you know.

My intent was to emphasize the purpose of the author's story. Dr Seuss' books are nonsense, but with constructive, useful, goals. I am not defending Christianity. Your argument was that The Bible does not hold up to known scientific and historical facts. That past events in the Bible can be proven false, therefore, the Christian God does not exist. A: Genesis clearly did not happen factually as written. therefore B: The Christian God does not exist.

Not cows, turtles. Dr Suess wrote nonsense and it wasn't because he didn't exist. I am not aware that all flavors of Christianity have as heavy an emphasis on The Bible as this argument does. If it we narrowed the definition to certain pockets of Christians that might help.

Dr. Suess wrote Yertle the Turtle. There is no evidence that any turtles ever behaved as extreme as described in that book. Has a study been done to show how an elephant could feasibly hatch an egg? Is there some rule that says the Christian God must write only factual books? (If we are assuming the Bible was God's idea)

You could just "Entwash" your hands of it"

I'm not sure anyone claimed what the purpose of The Bible to be. But I thought this was in the context of testing the Christian God hypothesis. The Bible is not a history book. So when it does not line up with history, I'm not sure that disproves or provides real evidence against the existence of the Christian God.

Why Anecdotes Trump Data

Interesting progression of statements, from more to less certain. And interpretation of results. All concerning past events. The Bible says there was a River Nile in Egypt, too. Testing the Christian God's existence in the present and (near) future would be far more convincing. Can testing be done for that? Or are we limited to past events?

We agree on the Genesis account. But this argument sounds like evidence of absence to me.

I have no idea why you would call it trolling. I had good intentions. If my point was missed, I'm sorry.

You made an assertion that it was a testable claim. I don't see a reference to your study.

I am not making the assertion that the human race was bottlenecked to 8 people roughly 5,000 years ago. There's evidence the human race was bottlenecked thousands of years ago. That should be common knowledge, not news. That's one reason why we are all so alike as a species. Upon googling, it appears this may have happened more than once. But here's a link of the Toba Catastrophe The numbers of people and dates may not align perfectly with a creationist view. But I would never argue there was no bottleneck.

Maybe there's a handicap. Maybe there's not. Maybe it's really about choice. Maybe it's not.

Careful. It's my understanding that the human species going through a bottleneck and nearly being wiped out is a well established scientific fact. Google it. How that is interpreted by the generations following that event and told through the ages may certainly be open to interpretation. Lots of un-falsifiable assertions can be made.

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Albert Einstein (source, google it) IMO, anecdotes seem fine for leading one to ask more questions. Understanding of anything should be under constant change, anyway. If a position is fixed, what discussion can there be.

This book is not about The Way. But it does explain the logic behind much of The Way's materials, IMO. BOOK LINK You may even find it useful.

Cyberbalkinization (scroll down to Interests) ?