Hello everyone :) My name is Nicolai and I'm new on this site. I have been seriously involved with atheism for about two years, and I even think about making a youtube channel soon. it is fun to be anti-religious and also helps others because there are many people who do not like their religion, and on the Internet, atheism is starting to progress a lot, and in my opinion, in the next two hundred to three hundred years Christianity and Islam will disappear, as many of the irregularities start to emerge, and most young people start to growing up.
I divide the religion into 6 parts
-Evolution or creation (Also the big bang and the ages of the earth)
here I think there is no controversy there is a lot of physical evidence of evolution and there is no room to argue
-Everythink in the Holy Book
there is no need for science, the books themselves only show that they are not true through contradictions. Also, there is no knowledge of the earth and space and many stories such as the flood have been proven to be false
-logical arguments for or against the existence of a god
- Morality - is the religion moral and how effect the world
-paranormal things
-dead
although there are many things on the side of atheism and death is also important to analyze because there is no return after her and some people become religious just becouse of that
most of the things point to the conclusion that the Bible and the Qur'an are not the books of God, and that we have come through evolution and the big bang, also the arguments of the religious people are quite worn out and there is no dispute that it does not bring anything useful and there is nothing moral. But I need little help becouse one fortune-teller that was from my country (bulgaria) is also well known in the world as baba Vanga. I am skeptical about these things and I do not trust them, but many of the prophecies are very convincing, and I am pretty confused at the moment. I used to joke with her that if she did not win the lottery then she was not a fortune-teller, but some of her predictions were very convincing. for example, the Bulgarian king Boris 3 visited her in 1942 and she told him "Your country grows wide spread, but be ready to gather in a walnut shell. remember the date of August 28, "and in fact, on that date, he died a year later, shortly after his visit with a Hitler. another prophecy that gave what happened after her death is that "at the end of the century in August 1999 or 2000, Courchez will be underwater and the whole world will complain" and in fact really happened. Here is another prophecy: "fear fear. two American brothers will fall off iron-poured birds. the wolves of the bush and innocent blood will shed like a river. "This is supposed to be the two American skyscrapers at the New York City World Trade Center which they call brothers crushed by a terrorist act (the airplanes are the birds) also in 1989 gave a prediction for the president of the United States will be an African American man. Everyone will put their hopes in the hmmm '' This is a Barack Obama
Also an old colleague told me that his cousin had visited her in an audience and she called him whit his name without knowing him. I searched for some big fails but I could not find anything important.
When I was a Christian, the pastors call that it's somethink satanic
What do you think about that there may be something like a sixth sense without the intervention of a god or devil or is there any diffrent explanation?
Becouse if there are real fortune-tellers the chance the religion to be true become bigger
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@Nickk798
A good start for a list and division of religion into 6 parts. I agree in whole or in part what you listed in the first part of your posting.
Lets see if I can help with your confusion.
My first suggestion: Open up 100 fortune cookies and read them. Notice the pattern of vague imprecise terms and "colorful" artful language found within. You will not find any precise predictions, like: You will marry Gal Gadot known as the new Wonder Woman actor on January 18th 2019 in Hilton hotel in Honolulu Hawaii in deep mutual love. (Insert any name here, while many men would love to marry Gal Gadot we all know that is rather unlikely!)
Now gather up all these fortune cookies, and hang on to them. See if one of them (or more!) gets it sort of right if you are willing to bend the words a little bit to make it "work." And if the fortune mentions a time, even a vague one, check back up on it when that date has come and gone.
Case in point: ""fear fear. two American brothers will fall off iron-poured birds. the wolves of the bush and innocent blood will shed like a river."
If Baba Vanga was such a great prophet that could tell the future, why couldn't she simply say: hey everyone, 2 commercial planes hijacked by terrorist are going to slam into the twin towers of the world trade center in New York in 2001. Might want to avoid going to the twin towers or get on United Airlines flight 175 at 8:14 am est out of Boston Logan airport on September 11th. Or even go a step further to prevent this terrible tragedy and say something like: on August 11th 2001 the dow will close at: 9254.36 With the S&P closing at 1462.43 so yes listen to me when I say don't get on that plane! That sort of prophecy might actually be useful then instead of being highly suspect as just another vague prophecy that Baba like most of her prophecies got wrong. And ya know, save a few thousand lives.
Now one can argue this great prophet can not see the future exactly, is prone to error and only sees weird symbols like "iron-poured birds" (by the way commercial planes do not use such a heavy metal like Iron in their construction!, the goal is to be as light as possible!!) But when you take all the collective words of "prophecy" from someone like baba Vanga and realize they are just as vague and often still completely off the mark at roughly the same rates as the cheap (10 bucks for 1000+ cookies with fortunes in them) fortune cookies you got from your all you can eat chinese food buffet you may realize there may be a problem with claims to a special power.
Realizing that, you can safely dismiss the various "prophets" like Baba Vanga.
Also know if someone had the ability to read the future with any degree of accuracy above random chance, and people figured that out, they could make themselves billionaires, virtually overnight using this special knowledge. Oh 9/11 is going to happen? Lets buy shorts (bets that the market value will drop) on airlines like United. Ding! I quadrupled my money in 24 hours, kaching! And if I feel bad, I will donate 1/2 of the billions I earned on 9/11 support for the families that lost loved ones no biggie I will continue to earn billions more! Money will be almost meaningless to me!
Hope that helps!
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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Can this "fortuneteller" prove they made these predictions?
A good prediction should be unambiguous, time limited, and improbable.
I've read a bit on this woman and it seems that her followers are making up a lot of her predictions after the fact. Something happens and then the followers cite her as having said it at this or that place and at this or that time but there is no actual evidence that she made any such predictions. Each prediction should be examined carefully if you are going to assert that any are true. Quite obviously if anyone at all could make such predictions, places like Las Vegas would not exist. I am in 100% agreement. Until one of these psychics can give me the winning lottery numbers, I am going to regard them as frauds. Anyone can get lucky with a prediction. This is like "Cold Reading" an audience. You make a hundred unfounded assertions but the audience only remembers the one you got right. A fraud by any other name is a psychic.
A past thread about this person.
Yes but some of her predictions like that the 44th USA president will be african american or the prediction whit Boris 3 were clear and they really happen. I don't say that she is absolutly perfect medium and say everythink at 100% true but some of her predictions are not for underrating. Also maybe I take her more seriously becouse of the incident my colleague told me
Do you have any evidence that establishes she actually made those predictions?
@Nickk798
Well she got that wrong. Obama was born in Hawaii (not in africa, so already not african american.) Now many people say "african american instead of "black" as that is politically correct. But when we are dealing in "prophecy" if you want to be regarded as accurate, these distinctions matter. Obama's mom was born in the US, is of mostly english and Irish ancestry. Finally Obama's father was born in Kenya's Nyanza Province. But married Obama's mother, granting Obama's father citizenship. At best, Obama heritage is a 50% mix, Africa. Making the prophecy "44th US president will be African American, only at best, 50% true, and true literal translation, not african american at all, he is american american, with a father who was african american.
I dont know much about Boris 3, so I will skip that one.
I will refer back to your original post where you wrote:
Really? An old colleague told you that his cousin visited Baba Vanga as a member of an audience and then Vanga called him by his name without knowing him? Really? Even believing your unnamed old colleague story that he says he heard from his cousin, (are you really confident this story is 100% true?) Even if you and had good reason to believe all that (the guy is really smart and trust worthy man!)
Which do you think is more likely? That a prophet has amazing powers of vague(ish) future prediction, that shares with random people in the audience by calling them by name cause... magic.
Or there is some trick or play here, where they can get names? Nothing to threaten that no actually god might be real!
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▮ I am an atheist that always likes a good debate. ▮
▮ Please include @LogicFTW in responses directed to me. ▮
▮ Useful list on forum usage. A.R. Member since 2016. ▮
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"I don't say that she is absolutly perfect medium "
Bit of a chunk is she? Likes her food?
NO THEY WEREN'T They have been debunked over and over again. She never made those statements. Her followers declared she made those statements. NO RECORD EXISTS. She died in 1986 and people are just making shit up about her.
She allegedly also predicted Obama would be the LAST PRESIDENT. OOPS - swing and a miss.
RATIONAL WIKI
"There is a lack of evidence that she made many of the claims attributed to her and they are so vague that they can be shoehorned to fit nearly any set of events."
"Written records of what she said are difficult to find.[4] Since Vanga was either illiterate or semi-literate, and did not write any books herself, staff members financed by the Bulgarian government captured what she allegedly said.[4] Vanga's supposed predictions found on blogs and message boards lack citations for where the predictions came from.[1] Fake predictions credited to Vanga have appeared in tabloid media[4] and likely originated on conspiracy websites and Russian social media.["
If you think she actually made a prediction. You need to cite the time, place and person she made the prediction to. Her followers are just writing shit down and attributing it to her.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Baba_Vanga
There is a very common human failing that we count the hits and ignore the misses. If one is to seriously examine someone making predictions, each and every prediction (no exceptions) must be added to the total. In almost every case, it will be revealed that the person made many predictions and only a small percentage came true.
Additionally, many predictions are very vague, and can be interpreted on many ways. I could say that there will be strife next week. Am I a psychic or just throwing out a very vague prediction that has a great chance of being linked to my prediction.
I think that I was wrong. One of my friends told me that he visited her and she say that his child will heal and... it doesn't. I'm sorry that I waste your time whit her, maybe her followers are really lying but she has big reputation in my country and there are not many sceptics about these thinks and for the moment they confused me whit their brainwashing bullshits but thanks for the comments :D
Nickk798 when you hear any claim, and especially if they fall outside of the norm, skepticism must be applied and the case examined. If I claimed that my brother could hold his breath for two minutes, meh,no big deal. But if I claimed my brother could hold his breath for 20 minutes, then the alarm bells should be going off and you should be asking for proof.
You should also think it through. If anyone has the power to really predict the future, what would they do, realistically? First off, they could make themselves a target for murder or kidnap. If they kept quiet, they could play the stock market and become quiet. billionaires.
Realistically, if you woke up tomorrow and could predict the future, if you went public some tyrant would send a hit squad after you because you could reveal their nefarious plans. Of someone would kidnap you so they would play the stock market.
IMO: it is more likely someone got fooled, then repeated the story but embellished it a little, then that person retold the story and embellished it a bit more...
You know how this ends: It ends with crazy stories about someone making super accurate predictions, or walking on water, or being the son of god; that can't hold up to a moments scrutiny.
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I do have to commend you on realizing you were duped pretty quickly:
let's see, just recently, I predicted that our power would go out in a storm, and then it did. I also predicted, quite accurately just yesterday, that someone would win the Mega Millions lottery. Now, you might ask, how could I have possibly known these things beforehand. There is no way I'm going to tell you that. I plan to make a career out of this.
...and just to prove that I'm not just saying I made these predictions to look like a genius, I'm going to put out these predictions for future events.
1. The Detroit Lions will not win the Super Bowl this year.
2. Someone will die in a car crash today.
3. I will not see Megan Whitmer out fixing the roads on my way home from work today (sorry for the local political reference).
There. I am available to speak at your upcoming events and can be had for a fraction of the price of the Clintons.
It's really easy to be fooled by these people. It's like the fakirs that go from village to village in rural communities in poor countries (My experience is the shaman in the Philippines and in Korea, banging their drums and pulling chicken gizzards out of the stomachs of people and calling them evil spirits. The ceremonies are fascinating to watch and "complete bullshit." These people make a living by fooling people. Watch a few of these and see if it does not help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFAvH8m8aI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GITxVhvDlig
NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS A PSYCHIC BEEN ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THEIR ABILITY IN A CONTROLLED SITUATION. NEVER.