Interesting.  I independently wrote a vision analogy for this very question on page 27 without having seen this discussion.

I can easily name one well-known object which emits light in both the visible and ultraviolet regions.  It's called Sol, or more commonly, "the sun".  Is it supernatural?  Good question; stay tuned.

I think the term "supernatural" can only be used in a relative sense.  You can't say anything is wholly "supernatural" -- instead, things and beings can often achieve ends that others cannot, and so those abilities are supernatural from the perspective of those others.

Bees and butterflies can see the ultraviolet; they have a supernatural visual ability with respect to humans.  Meanwhile humans have many supernatural abilities with respect to bees and butterflies.

The sun itself does not appear to be supernatural; from what we can tell, it arrived in its present state by natural processes without an 'intelligence' involved (but we can't claim to know that).  If a being had intelligently constructed it, it would technically be a piece of technology.

However, its ability to emit ultraviolet and visible light seems supernatural to human ability.  In fact I'm pretty sure humans don't emit visual light, we just reflect it.  No matter my will power, I cannot emit light, without using some other object or being to indirectly achieve a supernatural result.

Thanks again for your response.  I know I sound redundant as I keep saying it over and over again "Thanks," but I really mean it.  Excellent work here.  That is an excellent example of Ockham’s Razor at its finest.  However, there are also many scenarios in which Ockham’s Razor does not lead one to the truth.  One great example, I think, is the movie The Life of David Gale.  Now I’m warning you, there are some spoilers here…

In the movie, Gale (Spacey) goes on trial for murdering a woman who was a colleague of his.  He claims he is innocent, but the evidence against him is entirely damning.  In fact, they have a video tape of him with the woman gagged and tied up.  Ockham’s Razor at this point would certainly point to his guilt.  Indeed, it is applied and he ends up getting the death penalty for it.  However, just after he is executed the full video tape emerges revealing the whole truth—which is that he and the woman who died plotted this thing together to prove the epistemological limitations of the legal system and their ability to accurately determine the guilt of a person with the kind of certitude that warrants the death penalty.  The system killed an innocent man. 

Now Ockham’s Razor was obviously applied here.  It was a “possibility” all along that Spacey was innocent (just as it was a “possibility” that a burglar broke into your house).  And it was not an outrageous possibility.  He was claiming that he was innocent, and the woman was a close friend of his.  But other evidence pointed rather clearly to his guilt.  Yet even with the video evidence against him, it was still possible that he was innocent, that the video evidence didn’t tell the whole truth.  But to imagine such a scenario would have been contrary to Ockham’s Razor because it would have added “additional complications.”  This is an example of how tightly interwoven Ockham’s Razor is with our finite knowledge.

Now that is just one example of Ockham’s Razor not working.  What I am saying is not necessarily to throw out the Razor, but to recognize that it is not an inerrant method of discerning truth.  Ockham’s Razor is really only as “sharp” as you are (hmm… I think I just coined a new tagline…hehe).  It is completely contingent upon your finite knowledge of the situation—which may or may not be knowledge enough to make an accurate judgment.  What Christians claim is that a very important piece of knowledge of the situation is found in the testimony of the church—which is a testimony of God revealing Himself through Jesus of Nazareth.  If the testimony of the church is true, and if Jesus Christ did live, perform miracles, say what he said, die on a cross, and raise again, this is information that must be dealt with and must shape our understanding of reality. 

But the event of Jesus is not the only piece of information that must be dealt with, I think.  We must also consider the claims of the Muslim, and the Morman, and the Taoist, and the Buddhist, and the Hindu, and we must fit that information into our understanding of reality as well—with the same critical eye with which we examine everything.  I have a friend who said that he laid his hands on someone and healed them of their blindness.  I have another friend (C.S. Lewis’s step-daughter-in-law, in fact) who said that she calmed a storm “In the name of Jesus” while they were out on a boat.  I have another friend who is a Taoist who says that he has found himself levitating and able to see through walls while meditating.  That same friend said that Chinese scientists have actually conducted experiments with the miracles performed by Taoist masters.  Then we have other information such as recorded in Carl G. Jung’s Synchronicity—which was a series of experiments done on the paranormal—which speaks of several phenomenon that seem to indicate the existence of ESP.  I have heard of several occasions in which doctors have given a diagnoses of certain death to a patient, only for something “miraculous” to happen, thus finding the patient to be completely free from the ailment and able to live a normal and healthy life from there on.  For example, there is the historically documented and verifiable case of C.S. Lewis and his wife Joy.  Joy had a kind of cancer that weakened her bones.  One day, Lewis prayed over Joy that God would let him carry the burden over her cancer.  Almost immediately, she felt better and was found to have some new source of strength in her bones.  Meanwhile Lewis began to fall ill, contracting a condition in which the nutrients in his bones were being depleted.  This state continued in both of them for about a year until Joy’s cancer came back, and Lewis began to feel better again. 

Are there scientific explanations for all of this?  Possibly.  It may be the case that science will be able to explain all of this in full detail at some point in the future.  But as of right now, these things seem to be more congruent with more supernatural worldviews.  You may call this a “God of the Gaps,” but I think that would be a false accusation.  It would only be God of the Gaps if you took a bottom-up perspective and said, “I can’t understand this scientifically, thus: God.”  However, that is not how religions such as Christianity operate.  Christianity claims to have received direct revelation of God through Jesus, a divine bestowal of understanding concerning reality from the transcendent “top” to the immanent and finite “bottom.”  The claim is that these ideas are not fabrications of men—filling the gaps—but illumination from God.  Take on the presuppositions of Christianity, and really seek to understand them deeply, and it makes quite compelling sense.

The ability to falsify something or not is really irrelevant to that something’s truth, as you and I know well from the IPU and BIV (Brain-In-Vat/Matrix world) arguments.  Neither does being able to prove something “beyond a reasonable doubt” (such as in the court case of the Gale scenario mentioned above) necessarily equate with truth.  All that is really necessary from an intellectual perspective, perhaps, is compelling evidence—part of which, according to Christianity, is the entirely subjective element of the Holy Spirit.  However, and I may touch on this more in the future, I think we are being myopic if we think that the intellectual is not the only thing that matters in leading a person to belive one thing or another.  As we see, I think in Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric, belief is persuaded through pathos and ethos as well as logos.

About making predictions concerning the way things would be if there was God (or gods, etc.) …ok.  First of all, you and Dawkins and I all understand that to imagine and presuppose such a God is to presuppose something unimaginably complex.  Again I say that if we are being intellectually honest with ourselves at all, it would then be inextricable from our set of “predictions” to say that this unimaginably complex God would very likely poke himself or herself outside of our little imagined box of predictions in one way or another (or many ways, for that matter).  The only rational, intellectually honest position would be one of radical epistemological humility.

Now that is not to say that such “predictions” would be a complete waste of time either, especially if you are presupposing a God who has revealed Himself to humanity such as we see in Christianity.  I’m just saying that such predictions could not be held up as an absolute standard against which anything that doesn’t fit should be thrown out as rubbish.    Rather in this case we would expect to see some of our predictions fulfilled, and some of them not to be fulfilled.  There would be certain motifs that we could expect to see in the universe that would be in harmony with the way God has revealed himself, but we would also not be surprised to perhaps find other motifs that we cannot explain and don’t fit within our imagined predictions.  And this is exactly what we have before us.

What would be a much more conducive experiment, I think, would be to ask the question, “What else would you expect it to look like if God manifested himself in the form of a Jewish carpenter in the first century whose last three years of life was spent revealing the ultimate reality to humanity?  What remnants of evidence do you think we would see today if miracles were performed, and the dead were raised over 2000 years ago?”  The reality of the situation is that our understanding of ancient history is slippery at best even with natural events: why would you expect the miraculous in ancient history to be any different? 

I mean, today we are typically skeptical about any claim of the paranormal—be it UFOs, or God, or ghosts or whatever.  If we start with the presupposition, “Nothing paranormal can happen,” and move from there, we can usually imagine scenarios that might explain the phenomenon naturally.  C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

Despite all the scientific research to the contrary, many people still believe that cigarettes do not cause cancer.  Despite all the scientific research, there are people who believe that Global Warming is a fabrication of “those liberals.”  Despite knowing that 8 cents could give a meal to a starving child in Africa, we go ahead and buy that DVD, that new couch, or just one more beer.  Seeing is not believing.  Knowing is not believing.  Believing is believing.  This seems to be the natural implication of the “hermeneutical spiral” as well as the Critical Realist epistemology that nearly all working scientists seem to hold.  This is the implication of the Christian phrase “Faith seeks understanding” and “I believe in order to understand.”  It is what Lewis meant in his oft-quoted (but seldom cited) essay “Is Theology Poetry:” “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun is risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.” 

There is a ton more that could be written at this point concerning Critical Realist epistemology, and hermeneutics, and so on and so forth, but I've got to stop for now. 

Oh man... it's taken me about a week to read through this whole thread during lunchtimes at work and whatever time I can muster at home and I've finally reached the current end!

 Anyway, good news everybody!  I've just received confirmation from the Prime Minister, and I can now officially apologise on behalf of New Zealand for Ray Comfort!  Sorry he's adding to the problems over there.

Personally I'm pretty inexperienced in participating in this whole debate, but I've been devoting a lot of my reading time lately to bringing myself up to speed, without quitting work to put myself through university again a few times.  What I wanted to comment on was Ray's painter-->painting  building-->builder argument.

Sorry if this point has already been discussed here, I may have missed it, as this is an insanely long thread.

Not that I'm saying Ray's argument neccesarily works anyway, but the whole "creation is proof of a creator" surely only works if you first label the universe a "creation" ?

Would I be right in calling this a bit of circular reasoning?  He's started with his conclusion, redefined something else to point to that conclusion, and then used that redefined thing as proof of the conclusion.

Speak for yourself. I do blame the Christians of the past for their atrocious actions. I also blame the Christians of the present for theirs.

Hi Kinnith, the others answered most of your questions, so I'll just spotlight a few.

Then He is not omniscient and/or omni-benevolent.  Did you see my post in this thread with "The Argument from Experience for the Non-Existence of an Omniscient and/or Omni-benevolent God"?  What do you think of that?

Personhood of the embryo is the real issue here.  The whole soul infusion at the moment of conception is not realistic.  Division (for twins) and recombination have already been mentioned, and the odd implications for soul splitting and joining that follow.  If the second soul (for twins), is added by God significantly later (at the split), then that soul is not infused at inception, is it?  Do clones (which do not require sperm) have souls?  There will have to be some serious juggling when or if this is applied to humans.  Isn’t it “the breath of life” that gives humans a soul in Gen. 2:7?  How do embryos have a soul without “the breath of life” that they receive upon exiting the womb?  What is the significance of being born (exiting the womb), if it is not a significant marker for the mother’s release of “personal identity” and/or “tenure”?  If unconscious embryos, blastulas, and zygotes, let alone newly born infants, are considered persons with souls, why are they not counted as persons in a census unless they are at least one month old in Num. 3:15-16?  If unconscious embryos, blastulas, and zygotes, let alone newly born infants, are considered persons, why is their "potential as persons" not financially valued unless they are at least one month old in Lev. 27:6?  Does the doctrine of ‘original sin’ also apply to an embryo, blastula, or zygote?  If so, exactly how can an embryo, blastula, or zygote commit a sin?  Will they go to heaven or hell if killed before birth?  If they themselves are/were innocent, why should they be killed without even a chance to accept or deny God (Prov. 6:16-17, Hosea 9:16, 13:16, Gen. 38:24)?  When God killed all of the embryos, blastulas, and zygotes in the pregnant women in the great Flood, were those prenatal “persons” sinful or innocent?  Were those unborn embryos, blastulas, and zygotes killed by God in the Flood more or less righteous than Noah and his family, who God saw fit to save?  Why or why not?  Why should we believe that God values the deaths of unconscious embryos, blastulas, and zygotes when, in addition to commanding their death in pregnant women (e.g. The Flood, Hosea 13:16), He commands the deaths of actual children (e.g. The Flood, Num. 31:15-18, 1 Sam. 15:3, 2 Kings 8:12, 2 Kings 15:16, Is. 13:16-18, Ezek. 9:6, Hos. 13:16)?  Weren’t the children murdered by Moses in Numbers 31 as helpless as any embryo against the wrath of god?  Many Christians are comfortable amending the Big Ten Commandment, “thou shall not kill” for reasons of a “just war."  Why can’t the commandment not to kill also be amended for an abortion, in the least, for the health and welfare of the mother?  Many Christians believe that the bible prohibits abortion, because they believe that a fetus is a person and the Commandment not to kill would apply to it.  But Exod. 21:22-25 reads: “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.  And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”  Then life for life.  The then life for life is only invoked for the pregnant woman’s death.  When it’s just the “fruit” that’s lost, it’s only a punishment and/or fine, just as every major religion in the region steadfastly contended.  Why isn’t death automatically required for the death of the fetus, but is automatically required if the pregnant woman is killed?  Some apologists (http://bibletools.org/index.cfm/fa/Bible.show/sVerseID/2100/eVerseID/2102) try to say that since this verse is merely “manslaughter,” as opposed to “murder,” and that the crime would surely be death if the expulsion of the “fruit” was intentional.  Was there even such a differentiation of law back then or is this an anachronistic ad hoc explanation?  If we are to assume laws were the same back then as they are now, don’t we see an example just 1-2 verses earlier in Exod. 21:20-21 of an acceptable action that we would currently consider a “murder,” proposing that if a slave is beaten and killed, then the master is punished, unless the slave continues on for a day or two, then the master is not punished at all... “for he is money” (let alone actions requiring OT punishment that aren’t even currently recognized at crimes at all in any civilized society, such as stoning daughters who lost their virginity, or stoning those who practice witchcraft, etc., Deut. 22:13-21, Ex 22:18)?  Doesn’t bibletools.org’s poor anachronistic harmonizing actually put a spotlight on our improved modern ethics over the bible’s outdated ones?

Many of us did once believe in this book and we are sharing with you reasons why we don't anymore.

Thanks for your time.

 We are most certainly designed!!!

Praise the ability to change fur patterning through stripping branches!  Certainly shows the understanding of molecular bio at the time. It's funny how people can say with such certainty that genetics were suddenly changed due to this "fall" with being kicked out of some garden.  So, we are to actually read about branches next to mating livestock and "how it affects their epigenetics" - then think "the fall" actually is talking in knowledgable terms about purposeful alterations in genetic-everything when molecular bio is clearly not understood in the book itself?  Credulous behavior.

 Neurodegenerations, from very acute to "normally" very latent, "bob" is simply recognizing that we need to become scatter-brained and have bowel problems.  Forget bowel problems!  They are loosing their biblical grasp!  It is becoming harder to retain prior christian quotes and song - oh the shame.  Wait the soul will save you!  ...wait, nevermind.  We get Alzheimer's disease, sharks don't?  This brings up a real issue here, what are "bob's" good deity maufacturing processes?  Since the theistic side loves to mechanopocentricize things: "bob's" GDMPs.   With 1 in every 3 people needing glasses, amung many more frequent problems, the GDMPs are really embarrassing.

 This thread is huge!

Oh, and Sapient was perfectly justified to say "numb nut."  Bringing out those pictures are misleading to America, they are misinforming those who don't know a good amount about evolution.  To pick on Sapient saying that, but not even give a larger concerned statement about their attempted propagation of misinformation, is just macabre.

 Here is a funny bit out of the recent Science mag:

*part of conclusion*

These developmental data suggest that resistance to science will arise in children when scientific claims clash with early emerging, intuitive expectations. This resistance will persist through adulthood if the scientific claims are contested within a society, and it will be especially strong if there is a nonscientific alternative that is rooted in common sense and championed by people who are thought of as reliable and trustworthy. This is the current situation in the United States, with regard to the central tenets of neuroscience and evolutionary biology. These concepts clash with intuitive beliefs about the immaterial nature of the soul and the purposeful design of humans and other animals, and (in the United States) these beliefs are particularly likely to be endorsed and transmitted by trusted religious and political authorities (24). Hence, these fields are among the domains where Americans’ resistance to science is the strongest.**

**Paul Bloom and Deena Skolnick Weisberg, 2007, “Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science,” Science, 316(5827), 996-997, 18 May 2007

 ***Pandasthumb.org pointed this out.

Experiences like this are very powerful and and I can certainly understand why it would have such a strong impact on your life.

If you're interested in understanding the nature of the event I think you first have to compare probabilities. In other words, is it more likely that: Angels exist, or that very realistic halucinations of Angels exist.

Strangely enough, it seems like our brains are hardwired for these kinds of experiences. I don't know if this pertains to your experience in particular, but there is a specific area of the brain that controls our sense of being in our bodies. If it's stimulated electronically we can have an out of body experience right there in the neurology lab under controled conditions. I bet the grad students have a lot of fun with that. Also there are certain kinds of epileptic seizures that give you the feeling of being in the presence of god, or being at one with the universe if you're from an Eastern culture. From what I understand, these experiences seem totally convincing.

On the other hand look at the kinds of problems we have to face if angels exist. Even from the few details you gave of your experience, it seems that angels can sometimes be invisible? Just this one supernatural power raises many more questions than it answers.

Sidenote: To Kelly / Sapient.

I could tell you guys were nervous, so I won't harp on your "B" game, as you call it. I could not have done any better than some flustered stammering in that situation, so I commend you for seeing it through. You did a great job.

Warning: Baseless Personal Opinions Ahead

In general, I'm not a fan of the Dawkins/Harris approach of open mockery. It feels better in the short run but I'm not convinced it works better in the long run. You can catch more flies with honey, as the saying goes.

It's up to you guys, but in a debate format I would tighten up the message and stick to the fundamentals -- stuff like what George Smith writes about in The Case Against God. It's one thing to "win" a debate by making the other guy feel really, really small, but that's not the point. The debate is not for Ray and Kirk -- they are hopelessly lost -- it's for all the people in the middle of the road watching. The people that accept evolution to some extent, but still have this fuzzy compartmentalized logic-free zone where an ill-defined belief in something is rooted. Those people need the fundamental arguments, in a gentle, inviting form, to really shake loose the shackles.

You guys know all this though, so I'll shutup now. Great job! Can't wait to see you do it again somewhere else!

Before the debate, I think I personally would have planned to approach it just as Brian and Kelly did. However, seeing the Nightline edit was a real wake-up. I think if any of us are going to be on camera (unlikely for most of us), we need to do our best to be always smiling. Interrupting a rant about "you will go to Hell" to politely point out that the opposition is just using fearmongering instead of logic seems good. If I ever have an opportunity like this, I think I will study the uncut debate and try to figure out how to ensure that I can stop the opposition while never providing the network with a single shot that can be cut to my disadvantage.

Of course I would fail at some point, but that would be my goal. In reality, I've got a pretty hot temper in a live situation. I probably would have been shouting at those guys. I think Brian and Kelly have a lot better foundation personality-wise for getting to that genial debating goal than I have. Even on these boards, I have to reedit many of my messages about 5 times before posting to make sure my message doesn't get lost in my tone of frustration.

God doesn't appear to consider the fetus a baby. This verse was mentioned by gatogreensleeves but some translations are more complete than others. I prefer the New Revised Standard Version as it is generally considered to be about the best we can do with available texts.

Exodus 21:22-25 "When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's hunband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Here is more interesting information: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia

It is estimated that up to 50% of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among known pregnancies, the rate of miscarriage is approximately 10% and usually occurs between the 7th and 12th weeks of pregnancy.

So 50% are lost before women know they are pregnant, then 10% of the remainder are lost later. That makes it about 55% of all babies being called back to Heaven before they have even developed a brain. We have to assume that these numbers are better now than they were 100 years ago and far better than 1000 years ago. Even if you believe in the soul, this would argue against the soul entering the body at conception since the number of souls in Heaven who had never even developed a brain in life would far outnumber those who did, especially since the "path is narrow".

And since we have already determined in Exodus 21:22 that God does not value a fetus as much as a human, it looks like we shouldn't be looking to God to decide this issue for us.

And when they try to do that we point out the NT verses in which Jesus gives his ringing endorsement to the ENTIRE OT. 

Thanks to Scottmax and Miketwo's excellent replies to Flatlanderdox's excellent post. Flatlanderdox - we've found you at last! A theist that can make a coherent arguement!

Scottmax and Miketwo said basically everything I want to say, so I'll just recap briefly.

Noting that Occam's Razor can't deliver 100% truth does nothing to reduce it's necessity as a tool for disciplining our inquiries. Pragmatism calls for us to favour parsimony in our inquires.

The evidence of supernatural things is, as you noted then moved away from, necessarily not evidence of supernatural things at all but only natural things that we don't understand. The supernatural cannot leave evidence of itself in the natural world.

 Thanks.  You are right -- his post was excellent.  It looks like a rational thought process, except that we disagree on standards of evidence and the actual presence of that evidence. 

Flatlanderdox is not the kind of theist I'm "worried" about.  His (her?) recognition of the potential validity of other religions is strong evidence that he's not going to support laws that discriminate against non-Christians.  That's where my concern has always been -- people can believe what they want, just leave me alone! 

Yeah, but our posts (and sometimes even accounts) get deleted when we try to engage them on their own turf. I really hate that. 

I am not really trying to reach the "fully indoctrinated". I am trying to reach the many, many good Christians who acknowledge the fact that they are not Bible scholars but who want to live by God's word. It is a multistep process.

1. Get them to understand that the Bible does not support their position so that maybe they will not take what their religious leaders say at face value. Just getting to this point is a huge victory, even if we get no further.
2. Once they have moved away from trust in the religious institutions, show the agregious aspects of the Bible. Show that they do not truly base their morality on the Bible, but instead create it based on what they think is reasonable, due in large part to the ethics of the society around them. This is a big improvement since it shows that atheists have the same basis for determining morality as Christians. If we get no further, that is still not such a bad place.
3. If the Bible is not entirely reliable as a source of insight into the mind of God, maybe God exists, maybe even Jesus exists, but maybe the Bible does not reflect the reality of that God. This is the road to free thought and honest evaluation. Remove the anchor of the Bible and Christians become free to question true morality, consider science on its own merits, etc.
4. After this, some folks will naturally continue to question. We need to be there to answer questions and show that it is possible to abandon superstition and still live a happy, fulfilled life. Once we get to this stage, it is mostly up to the theist to evolve their own worldview.

You can't help people that won't help themselves. They are wrong in thinking that the OT doesn't count and they are wrong in thinking that we don't understand. However, if they don't want to stay and argue to try to show that they are right, there's really nothing we can do about it. We have a lively exchange of ideas on these forums. If most theists would rather only hear stuff that confirms their pre-existing beliefs they are indeed in the wrong place and should go to church instead.

Look, this is an internet forum, not a PR firm. Anyone who wants to criticize the RRS for not employing the latest and greatest public opinion tactics should donate a couple million dollars so Brian and Kelly can hire some professional lobbyists to tweak their message. 

I only have a minute due to the fact that I am in the middle of 12 hour shifts, but I wanted to remark on the following..

Exodus 21:22-25 "When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's hunband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

There is nothing about this verse that shows GOD doesn't care about a fetus since he is giving the father of the baby the right to decide the punishment from forgiveness all the way to a "life for a life". The father demands, then a judge decides, it's the legal system GOD set up from the begining that we still use today. The second part of the verse sets up balances. In other words the father cannot ask for the lives of the attackers entire family, only the life of the attacker. One person could not purposfully break another persons leg and then ask for the victim to have BOTH of the attackers legs broken. It wouldn't be fair. Finally this verse has nothing to do with abortion which is the premeditated decision by a mother and/or father to end the life/destroy the fetus of thier own unborn child. This is an example of an attack, which results in a death, which is murder. Not abortion.

Just one more quick thing, scottmax quoted me a few posts back where I said I assumed my argument could be followed out to it's logical conclusion. That remark wasn't meant as an insult to the reader about thier intellegence, but as my admission that I thought my point was clear and didn't need to be elaborated on further, and that I didn't realize I had not did a good enough job of making my point. If condescension was read into it it wasn't implied at you by me. You can assign any tone to the written word. From when I first got here I was called a "whiner", and a "self-pitier", I couldn't take remards like that as anything other than an insult so I was put on self-defensive mode from the moment I arrived and so from that point on I felt that everything being pointed at me was meant to be in a condescending tone because of those initial insults. I have leaned since then from posters such as whirlygig that that is not the case and even apologized for my one "snicker". My other posts were not written in any other tone but to state my beliefs. If condescension or some other negativity was read into by the reader. That is something beyond my ability to control.

I will try to get back here after the weekend and elaborate further on the angel, but just to answer whirlygig, no I don't think people who see things are crazy. I myself had no vested interest in anything anyone could call unexplained, ufo, unicorns or otherwise before the incident. I had never had an experience before then and have not seen anything since then. I have only told my wife and two pastors here in the states. I wrestled with the fact of whether what I had seen was real or not for a long time, but it is just hard to convince yourself to "un-see" something you have seen. Afterwards I prayed to GOD to that if the angels were real would he please tell me what it was that he wanted me to do, and that if he wanted me to believe that my experience was true I would need something from outside myself before I would begin to believe it. I made it very clear that I was not trying to order him to do anything, I was just saying that I did not consider myself to be wise enough to distinquish between the voice in my own head, which is the general thinking everyone does, and what was GOD talking to me. I always have a hard time believing it when I will hear Christians say "GOD said to me" because in the bible, except for explicit prophets, there was most always some tangible occurance, burning bush or other, that came along with GODs words.

Soon after this I was contacted by a pastor from Kenya (i live in Va), who without me telling him anything about my personal life, or my contact with the angel, started to send me emails that were related to personal problems going on in my life that I had never told the pastor anything about. Also, his emails are always in broken english, but the parts relevant to my life are always in perfect english, surrounded by his own words in broken english. He says these messages are given to him by an angel.

I am out of time, I will tell you more info about the angel itself after the weekend and elaborate further if I can, but my Windows Infrastucture Classes start this week and they talk up ALOT of my time.

Also, sorry to hear about your sleep paralysis, I have experienced it only once or twice in the distant past, it's not something I would call "fun".

-kin

Here is an interesting fact kinda on the subject. In all the years of the catholic church, cannon law, the law of the catholic church, has only made one rule on the treatment of ones wife. The rule says that the stick you use to beat your wife with must not be any larger than the size of your thumb. This is where the expression "Rule of Thumb" comes from.

Those christians are great people aren't they.