#11

Nope. In the story, she gives consent. And it is a spiritual, not a physical occurrence, much like what happened to her relatives (Elizabeth and Zechariah)... and what happened to other people throughout the OT when the Spirit came upon them and extraordinary things happened.

#14

Trump may be Satan's Love Child, affectionally called, the Beast... and the Man of Sin.

At the least he perfectly fits all of the dozens of descriptions in the book, and is a vile authoritarian dictator, leader of the largest military in the world.

- Face it

I did. You are just whining now.

What I said was consistent with the rest of the story; God gets refused all the time. You do it yourself.

#16
#16

Let's have a scientist respond:

Funny, she seemed perfectly happy with the outcome; being the mother of the savior of her people and of the world, which was her belief.

But hey. I get it. "New Atheism' was a terrible flop that alienated even agnostics with it's arrogance and dismissal of the opinions of others... based upon nothing other than its own
opinions.

Nobel Prize winners in Physics include agnostics, atheists, and theists alike, most of whom show no such arrogance given their understanding of how little they really know about life, the universe, and everything.

Especially as that knowledge changes quickly and dramatically almost annually.

Materialism has been taking a beating in the last few decades, no matter it's self assured adherents.

Also hilarious is people adement about the details and circumstances of events they claim could not have possibly occurred.

"Frank is an expert on the final stages of the evolution of stars like the sun. His computational research group has developed advanced supercomputer tools in order to study how stars form and die.

So he would incline to a materialist view, surely?

But no, he says, quantum physics blew all that away. And some neuroscientists just haven't caught up:

"A century of agnosticism about the true nature of matter hasn't found its way deeply enough into other fields, where materialism still appears to be the most sensible way of dealing with the world and, most of all, with the mind.

Some neuroscientists think that they're being precise and grounded by holding tightly to materialist credentials. Molecular biologists, geneticists, and many other types of researchers " as well as the nonscientist public " have been similarly drawn to materialism's seeming finality.

But this conviction is out of step with what we physicists know about the material world " or rather, what we don't know.

Adam Frank, "Minding matter" at Aeon"

from "Astrophysicist: Materialism Is on Shaky Ground"

more at the link

"While it might sound strange to hear a physicist talking this way, we might wish to keep in mind that

As Eric Holloway points out, no materialist theory of consciousness is plausible and many have been labeled bizarre by people with no ax to grind in the matter.

Simple "explanations" like a consciousness signature or point in the brain have not turned up.

Research that does not assume a materialist approach to the mind has been fruitful. In any event, one of the most widely noted effects in medicine, the placebo effect (you get better in part because you think you will), does not have a materialist explanation.

As neurosurgeon Michael Egnor has noted, the findings of modern medicine have, if anything, confirmed the idea that the mind is immaterial.

Materialism may be taking a beating but science is not."

there are links to each of these assertions at the link

- miracles.

Ah... now you're talking! &^)

I appreciate you not being the arrogant absolutist we so often see here... admittedly they are on both sides of the issues. Being open-minded is SO '60's these days!

"No Materialist Theory of Consciousness Is Plausible

All such theories either deny the very thing they are trying to explain, result in absurd scenarios, or end up requiring an immaterial intervention"

Eric Holloway
Senior Fellow, Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence

Eric Holloway is a Senior Fellow with the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence, and holds a PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Baylor University. A Captain in the United States Air Force, he served in the US and Afghanistan. He is the co-editor of Naturalism and Its Alternatives in Scientific Methodologies.

- If Jesus was aborted, a lot of wars and deaths of innocents could have been avoided.

Would that be due to his actual Teachings... or to the people that distorted and perverted them to this very day for their own purposes?

Humans can F up anything at all.

#45

You can start by reading the provided article and then doing your own research. I bet you come up with much the same info that I do.

What you will find is opinions on several sides.... but among professionals sans the animosity we see here so often to anyone who dares to have a different opinion... or even an open mind.

I usually take it as a carry over from the daily threads that get all personal all the time, but really, it's not helpful or productive... though you are not the worst offender by far, and I'm no angel.

- Nah. If he was, he'd brag about it.

#44 | Posted by lee_the_agent

F, Lee... you F'n crack me up!

(pls don't take that as flirting!)

#50

See? At least that was attempted humor. Much better than denying the possibility of anything other than materialism as explanatory of phenomena we observe.

#50

You have until #69 to admit that was NOT the first time!

- the young man runs away naked.

I am NOT my Clownshack's keeper!

But to answer the question, you or I might have run away, too, when the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus, rather than pulling our swords and taking off the ear of Malchus, a servant of the high priest, to protect Jesus as Simon Peter did. He was pissed.

Know one really knows; Matthew in other places used clothes symbolically, and there are various theories of who he was. I like the young disciple theory, John Mark running away, and tossing the bright white linen cloak that would make him easy to find.

Here's the Anti-Trump, Bernie today: