Please validate your belief in your God

[screwtape]

can we at least come to an agreement that after all the very well deserved criticism of corruption that Adams landed clearly on the side of unadulterated Christianity?

No.  I have no idea what "unadulterated" xianity is.  I'm not even sure how you define xianity.  And I think it is not a black and white issue.  Many of the founding fathers hated religion and all the superstitious nonsense that went with it.  Yet they all still used religiousy soundling language because that is what was used then.  It is not clear to me that any of them were on one side or the other.  They were complicated.  Their beliefs were nuanced and sophisticated.

Is that too much to ask?

Yes.  Apparently so is having a coherent conversation with you.

Remember, I operate on the level of Jesus loves me this I know, and the Lord takes me on really cool plane rides and stuff.

What are you saying?  That you have the cognitive skills of a first grader?

And by the way, being here with all of you is just one more cool ride.

And yet you accuse us of being of the lowest moral character and responsible for the massacre of children.  Sorry, Wayne, your cornball posts do not make up for the bigotry.

[Add Homonym]

I decided to throw a dice, to get in touch with God. I wondered what fantastic patterns he would give me. I decided in advance, that I would throw lots of sixes. Here are my results

2   (oh well, maybe another pattern will develop)
3   (oh, amazing, maybe it will count upwards)
5   (oh, no, this is going to be Fibbonacci series)
2   (oh, there goes Fibbonnacci, maybe it will repeat)
5   (oh, there goes the repeat theory, maybe something else interesting will happen)
3   (oh, so God decided to repeat things in a new order, I bet it repeats again next throw)
1   (oh, well, I guess they are all prime at least)
4   (oh, can't make sense of that one)
4   (oh, awesome, maybe I will throw lots of fours)
4   (oh, my God, I'm a prophet)
4   (oh, wow, four fours in a row. I'm a prophet)
6   (wow, the number I was trying to throw in the first place)
2   (hey, I've gone even, now)
3   (hey, Fibbonnacci has turned up again)
3   (hey, a new type of Fibbonnacci sequence)
1   FIIK

I'll do it again, because I wasn't totally satisfied. I could tell that God was talking to me, though. I'll try next time with a more open mind.

3 
3
2
6
2
6
6
6
3   (Jesus, 2x3 = 6. I hope the next throw doesn't screw the whole pattern up)
6   (wow, this is a message)
6   (this is what I wanted the first time. God is teaching me patience. How wise he is.)
6   (awesome, but is God going to teach me about pride, and wreck the next one?)
3   (nope, God is still on track)
-- I almost threw a 5, there, but it fell off the table, so does not count
6
5  (damn. Came back to haunt me. I guess the pattern stopped, because I became out of touch with God.)
5
1
1
1
5  This is really going off the rails, now, so I'm going to stop throwing, and only present information up to the five, and not admit that a 5 fell off the table.
1
3
2

RESULTS: the dice was thrown 14 times, and all throws were factors of 6. Chances of this happening were one in 16,384.

Amazing, huh?

[Willie]

I do appreciate your analysis. 

I did find a way to do it from a book.  let me see if I can make this work.  Source David Barton's Myth or Separation 1992

I just added a pdf to the attachments and options, looked at the preview and didn't see anything.
It will  only have statistics to 87 but lets see if it comes up

File size too big, so I'll put a link to my drop box here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31276689/DivineLawRejectedStatistics.PDF
If you find a way to put it in the body, please do so.

As requested, here's the chart from your scan of Barton's book:



I went looking for data to see what the trend looks like for years outside the range of Barton's chart. With only a little googling, I found stats for teen births for the same 15-19 age group from 1940 to 2010 on the CDC's web site. Bingo. Or so I thought.



I sort of half-expected that the statistics outside the range of Barton's chart would not support his claims. But I didn't expect that the CDC's data would be radically different from Barton's for the same time period. The CDC shows the teen pregnancy rate declining significantly during the very same period where Barton's chart shows a steep incline. Also, the CDC's chart shows significantly higher numbers in general. Even as disreputable as Barton is, I wouldn't expect him to completely fabricate data. It's not his style. He's more of a "cherry pick real data and present it in a misleading way" kind of guy rather than a "make stuff up from scratch" kind of guy. Also, although it's going the opposite direction, the bumps in Barton's chart look like they're in the same places as the one's in the CDC's chart, suggesting that the data is somehow related.

So, what gives? I noticed that Barton cited the DHHS as his source, so I went to the DHHS website and searched for "teen birth rate". I found no data there, just references to the CDC's data. After poking at this problem for a while longer, I finally spotted the key detail that I had been overlooking. It's sort of obvious really. I'd not be surprised if some of you spotted it right away. The key word in Barton's chart is "unwed". The CDC's chart represents the overall teen pregnancy rate, Barton's data represents only the unwed subset. So, there it is. The upward trend on Barton's chart is not due to any increase in the teen birth rate. That was actually declining. What it reflects is a decrease of teen marriage.



Some interesting little tidbits from the CDC's document:

"The birth rate for U.S. teenagers fell 9 percent from 2009 to 2010, to 34.3, the lowest level ever reported in the seven decades for which a consistent series of rates is available (1,3) (Figure 1)."

"Birth rates fell from 2009 to 2010 for teenagers in age groups 10–14, 15–17, and 18–19. The rate for the youngest teenagers was a record low for the United States (0.4)."

"Fewer babies were born to teenagers in 2010 than in any year since the mid-1940s."


That last one's especially remarkable. It's not talking about the teen birth rate, but the absolute number of teen births with no adjustment for population growth.



References:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db89.htm

[wright]

Very interesting; thanks, Willie. As might be expected, the facts are not friendly to Wayne's bizarre contention.

[ParkingPlaces]

As a general rule, Willie, you should avoid facts when talking with Wayne. They only confuse him. Make something up. He understands stuff like that.

My favorite response from him so far, when challenged on some numbers he provided:

I made up the numbers to show that the damage is more than done and any tapering off now after fifty years of the effects of driving Christionity out.  If you thought my numbers were anything but hypothetical for the sake of argument then you completely misunderstood.

[Add Homonym]

The problem is more circular. The graph says "divine law rejected", but if you replace it with "now OK to fuck around without being married", then the graph plots the obvious result of that, because it's OK. If it's OK, then there's no problem, so why complain about it?

A phallacy is in the assertion that all of Divine Law was suddenly rejected in 1963, when Barton's graph shows that it was obviously rejected prior to '63, but by less people. Notice also, that his vertical axis starts at 10, to hide prior industry. It actually took until '87, until "Divine Law" was rejected twice as much as '63.

The reason for the wedding "Divine Law", was not because it was divine, but because un-partnered pregnant women generally cannot survive [certain periods] without welfare, or help from their parents. If both these sources of help are taken away, [along with employment] and a teen knows that unwed pregnancy will result in death, then the figures would fall, without divine law, just due to pure selfishness. The figures are caused, not by rejection of divine law, but by females having a choice about who they marry. Old testament law forces you to marry your rapist, or the first person you had sex with. Custom also dictates arranged marriages, which are now not popular, due to being bad. Divine Law makes no mention of arranged marriages. We had to develop a different ethos for finding partners.

The graph depicts, ironically, the collateral damage in male-female choices, [employment] and welfare options.

Barton may want a return to Divine Law, but that is all about arranged marriages, [female unemployment] and marrying the first idiot you thought you fell in love with, and finding out he's an under-sexed wife beater, or a total bitch. There is no divine law against stupidity.

EDITED in [  ]

[keeta]

your 007 stories don't hold water next to me seeing 911 every single day, at least once, but up to 4 times in one day, for the past 12 years, without fail. and it's not always on the clock it's seen, i've seen license plates, date on my milk jug, telephone numbers, my frickin childhood go-cart my dad just gave me a few years back, was #911...every. day. i have a brain injury. i couldn't plan to look at the clock at that same time every day even if i set an alarm for it..i thought it meant my grandfather was going to die on that day, a few years back, as he was ill several months before, as it turned out he died 4 min past midnight sept 12..i was a little off i guess. 12 years is a long time to see the same number everyday. i wish i knew what it meant. i figure i've lost enough people in my life, someone's just f*ckin with me. bastards.

There is something about 000,000.7 that leaves an indelible mark, particularly after the Richard Kyle, (loving, dedicated christian) episode.

1) that makes zero sense, and i don't think it's JUST my brain injury.
2> do people often look at you with a strange, puzzled look on their face while nodding, with raised eyebrows, saying "hmmmmmm" a lot?
C.)the mear fact that you believe in a fictional book and take it to be true, leads me to think you have a huge laps in judgement, and i wouldn't trust you with a house plant. please wear a condom.

[Add Homonym]

please wear a condom.

keeta, do you look like Emily Daschanel in real life?

[Anfauglir]

.....A number came into her mind and the name of the preacher,(who she had seen on TV).  She dialed the number and so he was able to talk to her.
Now the rational mind would be able to take this account and be forced to attribute it to a prank, because there is no other possible explanation. 

Actually, there is a far more rational explanation.  It didn't happen.

Here's the guys phone number if you want to tell him so.   

Wayne, I must give you credit - you really ARE good at shifting the goalposts.  I've not the slightest doubt that if I phoned the guy and said "did it happen?", he would say "yes it did".  But what would that prove?  I have not the slightest doubt that if I found a parallel story from a Hindu, and phoned them, that I would get exactly the same "confirmation". 

That's why I said - and why you ignored - the next part:

I don't know this guy, never saw him on TV, all I know about is this story I read, but  like the stories I read in the  His Mysterious Ways series, I became attuned to how God works.

Well, quite.  Because you want the story to be true, you automatically accept it IS true.  Just as if the same story was told by a Hindu Priest, you would NOT simply accept that Brahma was behind the tale.

Interested to know whether you would be as ready to believe such a story from a Hindu about Brahma - and how YOU would go about determining the truth of the matter.

Speaking of which…..let's talk about graphs.  Remember, way back when, I said:

….the moment you show me a graph that proves causation between the two factors, then yes - I will change my view.

So, what have we got….

Source David Barton's Myth or Separation 1992 - I just added a pdf to the attachments and options, looked at the preview and didn't see anything. It will  only have statistics to 87 but lets see if it comes up

File size too big, so I'll put a link to my drop box here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31276689/DivineLawRejectedStatistics.PDF

Many thanks for this - unfortunately I can't open it at work because of the firewall, but I'll do so when I get home. 

Hold on though……

The CDC shows the teen pregnancy rate declining significantly during the very same period where Barton's chart shows a steep incline. Also, the CDC's chart shows significantly higher numbers in general. ...... After poking at this problem for a while longer, I finally spotted the key detail that I had been overlooking. ..... The CDC's chart represents the overall teen pregnancy rate, Barton's data represents only the unwed subset. So, there it is. The upward trend on Barton's chart is not due to any increase in the teen birth rate. That was actually declining. What it reflects is a decrease of teen marriage.

Hmmm.  Looks like Willie has done some good work there - thanks Willie! - so I'll await your response to him.  It may, of course, be that the graph he is looking at is NOT the one you wanted us to see, so it would be helpful if you would let us know the precise page of the PDF that you want us to look at…..the precise page that shows the causal relationship between prayer stopping in schools, and a dramatic increase in crime.

Remember - CAUSAL.  Correlation would be irrelevant, since there would ALSO be correlation (as I said) between the Russians decommissioning their Cuban missiles in 1962, and whatever you claim happened after….yet I doubt you are advocating that the Russians get their nukes back on the island to crime down the crime levels in the US.  So I'll stress it again - please ensure that whatever graph you point us to makes clear that there was a CAUSAL relationship.

Which is, after all, the whole point of your argument - that the one led directly to the other.  If you can't prove that, then your argument has no foundation and is nothing more than your interpretation .

Someone once said:

The real test of honesty is when someone can admit that a commonly misconstrued rumor doesn't support their viewpoint as well as their less honest allies say it does.

Wise words.  Looking forward to your response to Willie, and to directing us to the graph showing the causal relationships you are so sure of.

[screwtape]

A phallacy is in the assertion...

I think you meant a different word. 

[Anfauglir]

A phallacy is in the assertion...

I think you meant a different word.

He made himself look a bit of a dick 

[wheels5894]

In the UK we might say is was 'a bit of a cock up'!

[jynnan tonnix]

I took it as a deliberate play on words...but then again, I'm the one who always manages to type "tangenital" for "tagential".

[screwtape]

I try to not leave mine out in the sun. 

[WayneHarropson]

I'm not ignoring any of your responses but did have a moment to add a link for any of you that might like a look into the biblical omniscience of God.  This is one of my favorite bible teachers describing it better than I could.

http://www.gty.org/MediaPlayer/sermons/43-10

All this is to support the claim I'm making in my Why God Let Those Kids Die article that it is not me with special powers, but God sending a sign of his omniscience.

Don't be afraid to listen to a Christian preacher, Abraham Lincoln fashioned his most eloquent speeches having mined quotes and ideas from both the bible and from the evangelists of his day that he and his lawyer friends would travel together to hear.

Take a look at that word omniscience.  omni- science.

[wheels5894]

Wayne,

You couldn't cut out the middle-man for us, could you, and just list the important points. That's nearly a hour of listening and I'm not really up for that length.

[keeta]

please wear a condom.

keeta, do you look like Emily Daschanel in real life?

ummm..dunno who that is i guess i should look her up lol

[William]

I think you meant a different word.

It's the first time I've seen it called an "assertion" 

[ParkingPlaces]

...but God sending a sign of his omniscience.

Take a look at that word omniscience.  omni- science.

Sending a sign. Hmmm. Yesterday I had to get word to my mom that I wouldn't able to call at the time we'd planned because of a horsie emergency at my place. I used email. It worked great. Nobody died. She got my clear message and was able to respond equally as clearly. Three hours later than originally planned I was able to talk to her.

Telling us he knows everything by letting it happen the way it would even without him is fairly inadequate. Well, make that TOTALLY inadequate. If you are allowed to call anything from found keys to dead kids a sign of god, either your standards or his competence are wanting. I have absolutely no ability to envision an omni-dude as incompetent. Hence I assume he just doesn't exist.

The word science means "knowing" Tossing "omni" on front of it makes a new word that means "all-knowing". That's the reason the "science" is included in your magical word. It didn't show up by itself or via divine intervention. Don't be so impressed. The dude, if he is real, probably omnifarts too.

Note that many christians think that science is a horrible thing. Don't point this out to them. They'll be so disappointed.

Your propensity to send links and assume our interest in your POV is so high that we'll suffer through this hour or that hour of any given video, or read .pdf's forever just for you is also wanting. Especially when you do things like that and ignore our complaints that you are showing us statistics from a quarter century ago and claiming they are valid today. When we have shown clearly that they are not. Were they accurate in 1989? Yep, I guess. Are they accurate now? Nope. But the bulk of your claim that the whole frickin' world is falling apart because mandatory prayer was stopped in five states depends on those statistics. And they are no longer valid. Current statistics do not, I repeat DO NOT, and in case you missed it DO NOT support your premise that there is a direct cause/effect thing going on between stopped prayer and crime statistics.

We are looking for a sign that you are able to learn stuff. Otherwise we'll have to give you the label of noscience. And if we have to tell you what that means, your confusion will prove that that label is accurate.

Edit: reworded to make it easier for Wayne to read.

Also got rid of a double negative, which Wayne would claim was caused by the stoppage of prayer

[WayneHarropson]

Wayne,

You couldn't cut out the middleman for us, could you, and just list the important points. That's nearly a hour of listening and I'm not really up for that length.

Sorry,
In Lincolns day the sermons were three hours long.

John MacArthur says that God knows everything past and future. 
There, I cut out the middle man. 
That he treats people like me with a window into it just proves that he isn't entirely silent.  You are just going to have to take my word on that one.

Drag the cursor into the talk a few places and see if you can find anything thought provoking.

[12 Monkeys]

 The Hindu and the Muslim say the same thing about there "God" showing them a window........they have the same proof of it you do,none

 

[ParkingPlaces]

Wayne, you remind me of an old joke.

One person had just spent an hour talking about himself to another guy. Suddenly he seemed to realize that he'd been dominating the conversation. So he said "Oh gosh, listen  to me. All I've been doing is talking about myself. I should give you a chance. So what do YOU think about me?"

If you won't respond to our questions and comments about older things you've posted, what inspiration do you suppose we have to read or listen to something new. If everything we have read or watched is, to put it bluntly, impossible to believe, are you actually thinking more impossible stuff will change us over?

We are all entitled to our opinion. But you keep thinking that yours qualifies as evidence. It doesn't work that way.

[Willie]

Wayne, you remind me of an old joke.

Yeah. Me too.




(My apologies, Wayne. I didn't mean it. I just couldn't resist that perfect setup.)

[Willie]

The figures are caused, not by rejection of divine law, but by females having a choice about who they marry. Old testament law forces you to marry your rapist, or the first person you had sex with.

An interesting conjecture. I'd love to have data for unwed teen pregnancies and compare it to the data for unwed teen births. With that information it would be possible to estimate the number of married teen moms who became married only after discovering that they were pregnant.

Stats for teen fathers would also be great to have. Comparing the number of teen dads to the number of teen births would reveal the number of teen moms impregnated by men who were not teens. I'm not aware of any such data existing, though. Any educated guesses as to what that chart might look like?

[WayneHarropson]

There is a dynamic whereby I'm a little outnumbered.  I don't have the time right now to satisfy each of you with answers to all your posts, but i am grateful for the questions.

Someone suggested that I use a forum that is limited to one.  I do from time to time think of something that might interest you and since we have all agreed that I'm not a scholar, I bring in the information from people who have influenced my thinking that are scholars.  In a way, it makes me feel better about how I'm treated because you just say they are all liars and that what I've come to expect.  I'm not complaining, I like even the negative attention, but somewhere along the line there is possibility that one of you is going to realise that supernatural experiences are not proof of someone lying, nor is it proof that they are crazy, which are both doctines of the Atheist religion that insulates you all from every point that I've tried to make..
When I first started here I issued a challenge but haven't mentioned it much since.  I said:
I'd like to offer you a challenge,
"I bet you can't edit your remarks in such a way as to eliminate invectives , insults, and profanity.  You need me to be a coward do you?  Is that kind of abuse necessary for you to defend your position?

I do appreciate you taking the time to read and comment, but I'll not respond to your flaming aggression.  That's sick puppy material right there."

I'm not avoiding you, and if it makes you feel better I really don't have the answers to a lot of your questions.  I've rather gotten used to the abuse, and you can trust me when I say that I really don't take it personally, because I know from where it comes.  Your nasty tone reflects more on your own position than it diminishes mine, but it rolls right off.

I believe David Barton's charts, only one of five or six were ever actually posted here but I trust most of you were able to pull up the PDF.

David Barton has made some mistakes, but these charts show the sources.  Now, for someone that takes the data at face value the results support the reality that outlawing Judeo Christian values from the public starting at or around "63 did enormous harm.
Like I said, I feel better now that I can see that you treat my sources as poorly as you do me.  How could I take that personally?

One of you ridiculed girls that would be so stupid as to require a husband.  That's telling.  What's more telling is that, unless I missed something, no one else on this forum had a counter argument to that.  So you are pretty uniformly against a principal of two parent families.  That is Atheist.

Now, I forgot, weren't we talking about me?  Where were we anyway.

[Add Homonym]

There's no requirement to marry a pregnant girl; you can just live with her.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/C0771D0225B882D2CA2570DE0006B864?opendocument

[Emily]

Take a look at that word omniscience.  omni- science.

Hi Wayne, I'm Emily.

Take a look at the word universe. Uni(one)-verse. It still doesn't hold any weight.  I've just heard Christians bring this up in an attempt to prove something..........

[Willie]

What about my engine shutting down just as the odometer goes to 000,000.7 after my plane flight with the Christian Richard Kyle, from 007, and the motorola phone I was assigned that the pilot fussed about having the number 0070.  Certainly this stuff is worth reporting.

Are you sure you have the right number of zeroes in that odometer reading? It implies that the vehicle had over 1 million miles on it (either that or brand new).

As to the numerical coincidence, if those same three-digit groups had instead been 343, 007, and 049, (say 000,034.3 on the odometer and 0490 on the phone) that specific combination would have been almost exactly as unlikely as the one that you saw. The difference is that one combination attracts your notice, while the other does not. I also have to wonder how many other numbers in your environment you had to ignore in order to isolate that neat little pattern. Road signs, the money in your wallet, the receipt from your last fuel purchase, the time on your watch, etc. At the very minimum you have to ignore the decimal point and extra digits in the odometer reading and phone number.

By the way, did you notice the neat mathematical pattern in my example numbers?

[Add Homonym]

there is possibility that one of you is going to realise that supernatural experiences are not proof of someone lying, nor is it proof that they are crazy, which are both doctines of the Atheist religion that insulates you all from every point that I've tried to make..

What supernatural occurrences are you talking about?

You seem to thrive on "coincidences". This means that you are unable to tell whether it's a supernatural occurrence, or just something that happened by chance, or was constructed by your own mind. If you can't admit that just some of your coincidences might be just coincidences, then you are not playing in the right field.

I met my uncle in Sydney once, on a street corner. What's so amazing about that? Neither of us lived in Sydney. He lived 250km south, and I lived 1000km north of it, and only went in there once every few years. Same with him. Was this God showing me his awesome ways? Answer: DONT KNOW. There was nothing useful about meeting him.

Supernatural is when you do know, and there is no way you can know if a coincidence isn't something that just happens randomly to humans, who roam around for 80 years.

My father has had 3 consecutive girlfriends with the same birthday. Coincidence from God? Answer DONT KNOW.