jaimehlers you portray my beliefs as having only a foundation in feelings when you know that they are based upon God's direct demonstrated interventions in my life.
I know no such thing. The reason is because you have consistently refused/been unable to provide any solid evidence to back up your stories. You believe them to be true because they feel true to you, but that is not even close to the same thing to being able to demonstrate them to be true. This goes back to your mistake of certitude when there's nothing solid to base it on - you might as well build a house on sand.
That is hardly touchy feely stuff.
On the contrary, it's exactly like the following quote: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
What you are trying and failing to do is box me in with others whose faith you have managed to dislodge that base their "beliefs" on un-demonstrated faith. You cannot do that with me though you're doing your best.
I'm not trying to 'dislodge' anyone's faith. This isn't about 'dislodging' faith in the first place. I couldn't care less that you believe in your god. It's about getting people off of the idea that their faith can substitute for actual knowledge.
But what has happened is you discredit your arguments and diminish the credibility of your reason to continue hounding me about having unsubstantiated faith, when you know all too well that I would be unreasonable to dismiss the continual interventions. They may fail your standards of courtroom evidence but only if a circumstantial cases were never allowed, but you know that a circumstantial case can be a good case, and in my case it's open and shut.
This is not a courtroom, Wayne (thankfully). It isn't about technicalities, or objections, or any of the other things you see in courtrooms. What it's about is providing us with evidence to support your argument. And you've not been able to do that. What you're actually giving us are stories which you believe are so compelling that a person who hears them all cannot help but agree with you that your god exists (which, incidentally, is why you've declaring that I know your stories are true, etc). But they aren't compelling, especially to someone who doesn't share your belief system to begin with. Your certitude that you know the truth is blinding you to the way things are actually working out. That's why it's such a serious flaw for you.
I am as uncertain as any scientist that I have fully captured the intentions and machinations of God.
That isn't what scientific uncertainty is about. Scientific uncertainty is about not biasing the results of an experiment to match predictions. Yeah, they may have done the experiment a hundred or a thousand times before, but they still perform it as carefully as they did the first time (at least, if they're competent), because they might discover something new with it. If they started biasing their experiments, like, oh, not keeping records of failures and only recording successes, then they'd defeat the point of doing the experiments, because they'd only be getting the results they wanted. That's exactly like what you're doing with your visions - you're only recording the ones that seem to have meaning to you.
I'm absolutely uncertain of my interpretations of God's intentions, but in all that uncertainty of myself is absolutely no uncertainty about God's repetitively demonstrated power in my life. That repetitively demonstrated power does find its counterparts in the Scriptures so my reasoned judgement is that those that wrote the scripture were experiencing the same repetitive demonstrations that caused them to write of the phenomena that characterizes my experience. It is both reasoned and rational to arrive at the certainty that God exists, and for me it would be the height of idiocy to arrive at any other conclusion.
You having "no uncertainty about God's repetitively demonstrated power" is exactly the problem. For all that you actually know, for all that you've actually been able to prove, it could simply be coincidence (you've admitted as much by saying that my explanations are plausible). Therefore, your certitude is built on a foundation of sand. It may seem solid to you, in your own mind, but it doesn't stand up to examination. Yet your certitude is actually leading you to ignore the warnings of others who are able to see the problems that you've blinded yourself to. It is leading you astray.
A scientist may doubt his understanding of how the speed of light works but he doesn't doubt for a moment that light exists. (Unless of course he's blind).
A scientist has ample evidence that light exists. He doesn't have to take it on faith, or try to interpret things that have nothing at all to do with light in order to 'prove' it exists. He can share that evidence with others, in ways they can actually measure and test, and doesn't have to claim that light is hiding itself from a-light-ists to try to avoid explaining why there's no evidence he can give them.
To the Blind maybe.
Blindness takes more than one form. Convincing yourself that what you want to believe in exists and then refusing to even consider the slightest possibility that it doesn't actually exist is also blindness.
Wrong again.
Wronggo
Then prove it. Provide evidence that actually demonstrates your god's existence, that we can test and examine for ourselves. What you're actually asking us to do is to take your word for it, and that isn't going to work.
It's demonstrated, feelings aren't controlling it here reason is.
You do know what rationalization is, right? It's when a person comes up with reasons to support something that isn't based on reason. That's what you're doing here, you're rationalizing your belief that your god exists with reasons that make sense to you (but, incidentally, don't make sense to people who don't already believe as you do).
What's so touchy feely about an earthquake for heaven sake?, give up jaimehlers.
Earthquakes happen all the time, as you said yourself. For that matter, major earthquakes happen frequently in places like California, where you live. You've claimed three, that happened to coincide with events in your own life, were caused by your god in part to comfort you (a feeling, how about that). What about all the other earthquakes that have happened through your life? You haven't claimed any of them as being caused by your god. Are we supposed to just accept that these three earthquakes are special, while all the other earthquakes that happened before, during, and after that period of time were natural? Simply because you say they're special?
Just because they are well seasoned arguers doesn't lend merit to to their case, OJ's defense attorneys held their own arguments in high regard, and only fools were persuaded by them.
You hold your own arguments in high regard, yet how many people have you actually managed to persuade with them? And how many of those didn't already share your religious belief?
Your explanations were worthy of regard even though they fell short of overturning the repetitive pattern they sought to dismember.
That 'pattern' only exists in your own mind and those you've successfully managed to convince, you know. To everyone else, it's meaningless. And as long as you refuse to provide verifiable evidence, you're not going to succeed in proving that this pattern you've detected has any real meaning.
Wrong , yet again.
Then prove it, as I stated above.
And as long as you continue to deny the repetitive demonstrations I submit to you, and continue to call them feelings, you will continue to discredit your own ability to reason.
I don't 'deny' anything. I'm waiting for you to provide verifiable evidence that people can test, instead of anecdotes that you've interpreted to order. The burden of proof is on you, and you've abjectly failed to meet it. The more you try to pass the buck and pretend that you've done a great job of being convincing, the deeper you dig the hole you're in.