Atheists, do you hope you're right?

[Hedshaker]

Your positive claim as an athesist is that there is no God, or supernatural power above and beyond the material world.

Then please point out where I have said that and when you find I haven't have the good manners to apologise for beating your own straw man. But of course, you won't do that. Just remember, we all see what you post.

With that conviction, there comes leaps of faith. Such as matter as you state is energy and it could not have come from somewhere else other than the material existence it is in.

We'll see it you have the good grace to apologise for your straw man.

What I said about the possibility of pre Big Bang energy I openly admit is theoretical, since there is nothing known about that time, and I said so right there in that post. You should pay better attention.

This beliefs holds that this power always existed in one material form or another in the place we call the universe. Your one constant for all of eternity is this power. You have no scientific proof that this is true. This belief holds that this power exists beyond a cause, i.e. the only uncaused phenomena is this power. This belief holds that this power became everything for no good reason, only by chance. And you find this to be based on reason and empirical scientific evidence.

A theoretical hypothesis is not a belief. That's the trouble with you people, everything has to be about beliefs. Even when you don't know what others believe you just make something up based on your own misconceptions. Try for once admitting you don't know when you genuinely don't know. The only claim I make is that I do not believe in your God, or any god for that matter. That is not the same as saying I actively "believe" he, she, it doesn't exist. Nor do I believe the supernatural to be real. I see no reason to accept the word of those who claim, without evidence, that it is. That's all.

What exactly is a god anyway? I'm not asking what you believe it does, just what you think it is exactly.

But as you say you now, that you make no absolute assertions, you realize you are agnostic at heart. Free to stand on no convictions, ready to call anyone who has has any experiences with the supernatural as crazy, a liar, or stupid.

Er, no, others are free to believe whatever they like. It's when they try to tell me about it I have the urge to point out their lack of evidence. Blanket assertion are not evidence. Preaching is not evidence.

 

[Hedshaker]

:cheers:

You owe me a quarter for each usage.:smokie:

Lol, how much is that in real money....... ££££££

 

[alwight]

Many people independently sharing the same experience is however rather more convincing to me than individuals who think that their very different conceptualisations all come from the same metaphysical place.

That's not rational on several counts. One, it assumes that the people who have these extraordinary experiences claim they all "come from the same place", which they don't. And it assumes, on your part, that they should.

I don’t think I did assume that at all, I simply suggested that if people did independently have similar conceptualised experiences then that would indeed be evidence of a transcendent metaphysical place. How is that not rational?
Can I then assume that when people conceptualise that they all do so in private isolation?
I can think of no better private place than inside our own non-metaphysical heads btw, we really don’t need to go off to another plane of existence to think thoughts. :nono:

Why do you assume everyone that claims to have been abducted by aliens must have been abducted by the same aliens, who must have behaved in the same way, each time? Why do you assume that people who have had such an extraordinary experience should recall them in exactly the same way? Witnesses at crimes and accidents are notorious for 'misremembering' what happened. And yet there is no doubt that the crime or accident to which they are witnesses, took place.

As above, I did no such thing.

And I still don't see why you think the number of people involved matters. I can't think of any reason why it should.

It perhaps doesn’t matter if you don’t want to put your metaphysical realm to the test, that you have made your mind up without needing to test it, but if it really is a realm and not just a private place where physical brains do what they apparently evolved to do, process information and initiate actions then it must be a place of communal interaction just as the physical realm is, right?

I think I'd simply not expect that others would somehow believe me, not that it didn't happen.

That would be a reasonable response. But that's not YOUR response. Your response is to assume they are crazy, or lying, or both. Your response is to assume that what they claimed happened, did almost certainly NOT happen.

Poor old PX, you simply believe every farfetched yarn without evidence from anyone because you think that people never make up stuff or seek attention? Pull the other one.

If multiple people all separately had the very same experience as me then that would be more convincing to others perhaps?

But that's not even possible. People can't have the "very same experience" of anything. You don't seem to understand that the experience is not the event. The experience is the perception of the event. And no two humans can perceive an event in exactly the same way. For one thing, they can't even witness it from the same perspective. And for another, everyone has a different personality and set of expectations through which they will 'understand' what they experience. And if their experiences are not even of the same event, how much more will this be true? That's why I used the alien abduction analogy.

I think you are creating another red herring here, I simply meant what I said, multiple people independently describing the same scene or having very similar experiences has at least some evidential value.
Anyway just how many different alien visitors from outer space do you think there are?

If they could each separately without collusion describe what they saw (experienced) and it matched, then that would be a good start.

There is no logical reason that their experiences should "match". And your insistence that they must is just your own irrational bias. Which you seem incapable of recognizing even as it's being held up right in front of you.

Again I’m simply looking for ways to test your transcendental assertions, while you on the other hand seem to be far more interested in not doing so. Shall I simply assume that your metaphysical realm is in no way the same realm as anyone else’s, in that there is never any meeting of minds so to speak, that’s it’s as private and isolated as all the mental processes going on in your physical brain? mmm :think:

OK but if they each had the same experience separately then that might be rather intriguing.

How can anyone have the same experience separately? This is an impossible criteria.

I think you’re probably being deliberately obtuse now. Can you not imagine two people standing near each other and both watching as someone lights a firework, who both then experience what happens and who later explain what they experienced. Was it a banger or a rocket, maybe a roman candle or a Catherine-wheel? What colours, how long did it last, was it a damp squib or a glorious display of light and sound?
Perhaps you have no concept of putting evidence together from eye witness testimony? Perhaps you don’t want to do that as you seek to maintain a smokescreen of mystery and the arcane?

In your world however there seems to be no way to be without bias, unless they simply believe whatever you tell them?

We don't have to believe "Pete" was abducted by aliens just because he says he was. But that's not what's happening, here. You (atheists) are claiming that Pete was not abducted by aliens, because there are almost certainly no aliens like those he describes. And you are basing that claim on nothing but your own excessive and irrational skepticism.

[Keep in mind that we are discussing (through analogy) personal transcendent, metaphysical experiences (of "God") and not the claims of faith-based religious dogma.]

You still don’t seem to want to grasp exactly what an atheist actually is.
It isn’t claiming that no gods exist, it is simply someone who does not believe in gods, typically only while they remain unconvinced by any evidence that other people’s deities have any substance to them. A god concept can remain an unknown truth and disbelieved until convinced otherwise, but if a god wants to commune with me then that’s fine, but until I am somewhat more convinced toward belief I will simply disbelieve.
Likewise I do not on face value automatically assume that Pete is lying, but without evidence I equally don’t intend to believe him either.
It is not necessary imo to have absolute beliefs and things can comfortably remain as unknown. If otoh I discover later that Pete is a habitual liar then I might tend more toward absolute disbelief than I was at first, but also bearing in mind that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence not bald assertions.

 

[Granite]

Lol, how much is that in real money....... ££££££

Cheeky bugger!:sozo2:

 

[PureX]

I don’t think I did assume that at all, I simply suggested that if people did independently have similar conceptualised experiences then that would indeed be evidence of a transcendent metaphysical place.

People have similarly conceptualized experiences all the time. Because all of our experiences are conceptualized. It's how we understand the world around us. "Reality" is a concept, after all.

So that when we experience something profoundly extraordinary, it 'transcends' our concept of reality, and often leaves us 'speechless'; meaning that we don't know how to conceptualize and articulate this experience in our own minds, and for others. We don't know how because we don't know how to fit the experience into our current conceptual paradigm of reality.

This is why people often used myths to understand and articulate these extraordinary experiences. And why we used myth more often in the past than we do, today. Our concepts of reality have expanded over the centuries, so that we experience fewer of these profoundly extraordinary events, and we can conceptualize and articulate them better, now, too, through our advanced understanding of physical reality.

Yet people do still have these experiences, and many of them do still use religious and other myths to conceptualize and articulate them. My point is that it's irrational and intellectually dishonest to dismiss these experiences simply because we don't accept the myths being used to articulate them.

Can I then assume that when people conceptualise that they all do so in private isolation?

These extraordinary experiences seem to occur individually, and only very rarely en masse. But we are social animals, so even though we are each going to conceptualize what we experience for ourselves, we often do so using the pre-conceptions of others. So naturally, a person who is surrounded by religious myth will tend to conceptualize their extraordinary experience using those religious myths. While people who have a similar experience, but are not surrounded by religion to the same degree, may conceptualize their experiences by some other means.

You, however, seem to want to discredit both of their experiences as being "too dissimilar to be believed" when really it's only their method of conceptualizing their extraordinary experiences that is markedly dissimilar.

As an example: "near-death" experiences. Religious people are often met by Jesus, or angels, when they die, and then experience a 'life-review'. While non-religious people are often met by the spirits of dead relatives, and do not experience a life-review. And so on. Skeptics dismiss their stories because they seem to have each gone to 'different places' and were met by 'different beings' and experienced different things. While in fact these discrepancies are more likely the result of how each person chose to conceptualize (make sense of) their profoundly extraordinary experience of dying for a short time and coming back to life. And since there is no physical evidence left from what they've experienced, and only their 'witness' for us to go on, I assume you dismiss them as hokum. Right?

Because you want there to be some logical consensus, or some physical evidence, and you aren't getting it, so you aren't 'buying it'.

I think you are creating another red herring here, I simply meant what I said, multiple people independently describing the same scene or having very similar experiences has at least some evidential value.
Anyway just how many different alien visitors from outer space do you think there are?

Just how many people have to claim they were abducted before you will accept their witness? And how do you logically arrive at that number? And how similar do their accounts have to be? And how did you logically determine the criteria for acceptable similarity?

Again I’m simply looking for ways to test your transcendental assertions, while you on the other hand seem to be far more interested in not doing so.

No, you are looking for ways that work in testing and verifying the physics of reality, to test and verify a metaphysical reality. Which is an irrational quest. And then you use the fact that it hasn't worked to confirm your preconceived bias: that no such metaphysical reality exists. And yet your own consciousness is, itself, an example of a metaphysical reality.

Shall I simply assume that your metaphysical realm is in no way the same realm as anyone else’s, in that there is never any meeting of minds so to speak, that’s it’s as private and isolated as all the mental processes going on in your physical brain?

Access to the realm of consciousness seems universal among complex life forms, yet we do each all seem to experience it individually. And there does seem to be a great disparity regarding self-awareness within that consciousness. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that the same disparity exists regarding any sort of group experience of consciousness (something like telepathy?). Of the life forms that we are aware of, that is extremely rare, if it happens at all. Although a case could be made that it's commonplace at a very low level of effectiveness.

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

You're trying to see if there's a way to prove a negative.

To answer your question: No but sometimes it saves time.

Ha, ha. Good answer. That may be true, but it may not present you in the best light.

 

[alwight]

People have similarly conceptualized experiences all the time. Because all of our experiences are conceptualized. It's how we understand the world around us. "Reality" is a concept, after all.

So that when we experience something profoundly extraordinary, it 'transcends' our concept of reality, and often leaves us 'speechless'; meaning that we don't know how to conceptualize and articulate this experience in our own minds, and for others. We don't know how because we don't know how to fit the experience into our current conceptual paradigm of reality.

This is why people often used myths to understand and articulate these extraordinary experiences. And why we used myth more often in the past than we do, today. Our concepts of reality have expanded over the centuries, so that we experience fewer of these profoundly extraordinary events, and we can conceptualize and articulate them better, now, too, through our advanced understanding of physical reality.

Yet people do still have these experiences, and many of them do still use religious and other myths to conceptualize and articulate them. My point is that it's irrational and intellectually dishonest to dismiss these experiences simply because we don't accept the myths being used to articulate them.

I'm sorry but to cut to the chase you really have nothing to say that convinces me that any conceptualising goes on anywhere but inside the brains of individuals. In the physical world concepts are often the result of shared ideas and discussion between two or more people, but in your supposed metaphysical realm there seems to be no communication going on at all, there is no reason for me to believe it exists.

These extraordinary experiences seem to occur individually, and only very rarely en masse. But we are social animals, so even though we are each going to conceptualize what we experience for ourselves, we often do so using the pre-conceptions of others. So naturally, a person who is surrounded by religious myth will tend to conceptualize their extraordinary experience using those religious myths. While people who have a similar experience, but are not surrounded by religion to the same degree, may conceptualize their experiences by some other means.

You, however, seem to want to discredit both of their experiences as being "too dissimilar to be believed" when really it's only their method of conceptualizing their extraordinary experiences that is markedly dissimilar.

As an example: "near-death" experiences. Religious people are often met by Jesus, or angels, when they die, and then experience a 'life-review'. While non-religious people are often met by the spirits of dead relatives, and do not experience a life-review. And so on. Skeptics dismiss their stories because they seem to have each gone to 'different places' and were met by 'different beings' and experienced different things. While in fact these discrepancies are more likely the result of how each person chose to conceptualize (make sense of) their profoundly extraordinary experience of dying for a short time and coming back to life. And since there is no physical evidence left from what they've experienced, and only their 'witness' for us to go on, I assume you dismiss them as hokum. Right?

Because you want there to be some logical consensus, or some physical evidence, and you aren't 'buying it'.

No, so far I don't buy any of it, and because there is such randomness or individual conceptualising going on then even if it were sometimes true then for the most part clearly it is not always, and you clearly can't help me sort the wheat from the chaff because you don't want to try.
I know from personal experience just how convincing vivid dreams can be, the mind can map the world around it and reconstruct it all within your head without going anywhere else.

Just how many people have to claim they were abducted before you will accept their witness? And how do you logically arrive at that number? And how similar do their accounts have to be? And how did you logically determine that criteria?

Now you are simply throwing up supposed problems and reasons not to test such assertions. My threshold of belief, wherever that is, requires at least some substantive consistent grounded evidence, not a white noise from those with vivid imaginations.

No, you are looking for ways that work in testing the physics of reality, to test and verify a metaphysical reality. Which is an irrational quest. And then you use the fact that it hasn't been achieved to confirm your preconceived bias: that no such metaphysical reality exists. And yet your own consciousness is, itself, an example of a metaphysical reality.

My own consciousness is evidence that my physical brain is still functioning, my thinking may arguably be metaphysical but it's not happening anywhere but inside my head.

Access to the realm of consciousness seems universal among complex life forms, yet we do each all seem to experience it individually. And there does seem to be a great disparity regarding self-awareness within that consciousness. It would be reasonable to assume, then, that the same disparity exists regarding any sort of group experience of consciousness (something like telepathy?). Of the life forms that we are aware of, that is extremely rare, if it happens at all. Although a case could be made that it's commonplace at a very low level of effectiveness.

No, for me consciousness is simply a natural inherent function of the brain which apparently ceases to exist at the same moment our physical life ends.

 

[bybee]

A question: Where do you suppose that insight, inspiration and supposedly "out of the blue" solutions to problems and creativity fit in to communication methods?

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

Then please point out where I have said that and when you find I haven't have the good manners to apologise for beating your own straw man. But of course, you won't do that. Just remember, we all see what you post.




We'll see it you have the good grace to apologise for your straw man.

What I said about the possibility of pre Big Bang energy I openly admit is theoretical, since there is nothing known about that time, and I said so right there in that post. You should pay better attention.



A theoretical hypothesis is not a belief. That's the trouble with you people, everything has to be about beliefs. Even when you don't know what others believe you just make something up based on your own misconceptions. Try for once admitting you don't know when you genuinely don't know. The only claim I make is that I do not believe in your God, or any god for that matter. That is not the same as saying I actively "believe" he, she, it doesn't exist. Nor do I believe the supernatural to be real. I see no reason to accept the word of those who claim, without evidence, that it is. That's all.

What exactly is a god anyway? I'm not asking what you believe it does, just what you think it is exactly.



Er, no, others are free to believe whatever they like. It's when they try to tell me about it I have the urge to point out their lack of evidence. Blanket assertion are not evidence. Preaching is not evidence.

Nicely done. I glanced back through a couple posts it seemed you leaned that way and I tried to pin you into a corner, but you maneuvered well. I do apologize if my characterization offended you.

I understand your points and have been in a similar place myself in the past, where without hard proof I was not gonna have faith, trust. Although funny thing is I did consider myself a Christian then. But had no real faith.

I know my arguments for His existence or my proclaimed experiences alone won't convince anyone.

Sadly it seems in desperation, when life gets downright burdensome do many and I myself as well, turn and say yes I need you God, I'm gonna trust you, even when my intellect says I don't have enough hard evidence. For me, I'm now thankful for those dark times, knowing that is the only thing that moved me to find Him.

 

[noguru]

A question: Where do you suppose that insight, inspiration and supposedly "out of the blue" solutions to problems and creativity fit in to communication methods?

I think it is important to understand the current understanding of human consciousness and behavior.

Neuroscience of free will is the part of neurophilosophy that studies the interconnections between free will and neuroscience. As it has become possible to study the living brain, researchers have begun to watch decision making processes at work. Findings could carry implications for our sense of agency and for moral responsibility and the role of consciousness in general.


Some areas of the human brain implicated in mental disorders that might be related to free will. Area 25 refers to Brodmann's area 25, related to long-term depression. Relevant findings include the pioneering study by Benjamin Libet and its subsequent redesigns; these studies were able to detect activity related to a decision to move, and the activity appears to begin briefly before people become conscious of it. Other studies try to predict activity before overt action occurs. Taken together, these various findings show that at least some actions - like moving a finger - are initiated unconsciously at first, and enter consciousness afterward.

In many senses the field remains highly controversial and there is no consensus among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may be drawn. It has been suggested that consciousness mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious, so its role in decision making is experimentally investigated. Some thinkers, like Daniel Dennett or Alfred Mele, say it is important to explain that "free will" means many different things; among these versions of free will some are dualistic, some not. But a variety of conceptions of "free will" that matter to people are compatible with the evidence from neuroscience.

Neuroscience of freewill

 

[Hedshaker]

Nicely done. I glanced back through a couple posts it seemed you leaned that way and I tried to pin you into a corner, but you maneuvered well. I do apologize if my characterization offended you.

I understand your points and have been in a similar place myself in the past, where without hard proof I was not gonna have faith, trust. Although funny thing is I did consider myself a Christian then. But had no real faith.

I know my arguments for His existence or my proclaimed experiences alone won't convince anyone.

Sadly it seems in desperation, when life gets downright burdensome do many and I myself as well, turn and say yes I need you God, I'm gonna trust you, even when my intellect says I don't have enough hard evidence. For me, I'm now thankful for those dark times, knowing that is the only thing that moved me to find Him.

Fair enough. You are at liberty to believe whatever you wish and chase the society you wish to be part of. And I am entitled to dream of a more rational world for my grand children to enjoy, where those who hope to influence them best have good evidence first.

And I'm not alone by a long chalk. Change is long over do.

All the best. :thumb:

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

A question: Where do you suppose that insight, inspiration and supposedly "out of the blue" solutions to problems and creativity fit in to communication methods?

With your post and alwright's concerning his thinking only going on inside of His head. I took a glance at a psychology today article on our thoughts. In the article a point was made that we are not always necessarily choosing our thoughts and that we have a choice on what to do with those thoughts. To give them life, embellish, actualize, suppress, forget etc... Those thoughts could be caterorgized as good or evil depending on your own moral conscience, you convictions etc...

For the Christian these thoughts do have a spiritual, trancedental connection, and maybe not that our thoughts are somewhere else, but that some other intelligence good or bad is inside our heads, per se.

 

[bybee]

I think it is important to understand the current understanding of human consciousness and behavior.



Neuroscience of freewill

Thanks for your response. I am glad that these things are being studied. Unlocking the workings and the ways of working in the brain are fascinating.

 

[Jamie Gigliotti]

Fair enough. You are at liberty to believe whatever you wish and chase the society you wish to be part of. And I am entitled to dream of a more rational world for my grand children to enjoy, where those who hope to influence them best have good evidence first.

And I'm not alone by a long chalk. Change is long over do.

All the best. :thumb:

May all goodness, peace and love be with you!

 

[JosephR]

they disguise and hypnotize them,,,

memorize the simple minded..

the things I have learned will not be welcomed here..

 

[noguru]

they disguise and hypnotize them,,,

memorize the simple minded..

the things I have learned will not be welcomed here..

Perhaps you should give it a shot, rather than judging prematurely.

 

[PureX]

Thanks for your response. I am glad that these things are being studied. Unlocking the workings and the ways of working in the brain are fascinating.

I have a hard time understanding why we humans don't do far more of this, and then apply it for the sake of our own bell-being.

For example, why haven't we studied the human animal phenomena of 'bloodlust'? It seem to break out on a regular basis all across the world, murdering thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of people, and yet as far as I know, there's been no concerted effort given to studying it, and looking for ways of identifying it in advance, and possibly mitigating it.

When it seems to me that something like this would on the top ten list of obvious contenders for serious investigation.

 

[PureX]

I'm sorry but to cut to the chase you really have nothing to say that convinces me that any conceptualising goes on anywhere but inside the brains of individuals. In the physical world concepts are often the result of shared ideas and discussion between two or more people, but in your supposed metaphysical realm there seems to be no communication going on at all, there is no reason for me to believe it exists.

And yet you live in that conceptual (metaphysical) landscape every moment of every day of your life, and you act in response to it constantly and repeatedly. But you still insist on claiming that it doesn't exist?

I know from personal experience just how convincing vivid dreams can be, the mind can map the world around it and reconstruct it all within your head without going anywhere else.

What you don't seem to be able to grasp is that what you call waking reality is itself a "vivid dream". It's an elaborate conceptualization that you create and carry around in your mind all the time, and that you react to constantly. It is a metaphysical realm of existence. It's where your conscious self 'lives'.

Now you are simply throwing up supposed problems and reasons not to test such assertions. My threshold of belief, wherever that is, requires at least some substantive consistent grounded evidence, not a white noise from those with vivid imaginations.

You can't explore electricity with a ruler. And you can't prove it exists with one either. As long as you insist on using physical processes to explore and verify metaphysical phenomena, you will continue to guarantee failure. Which as near as I can tell, you are adamantly determined to achieve as a result.

My own consciousness is evidence that my physical brain is still functioning, my thinking may arguably be metaphysical but it's not happening anywhere but inside my head.

And yet it is effecting the physical world both within your own body, and in the world around you, and even within the bodies and environments of other people around you. So in fact, it's not really limited to your physical brain at all. You're just choosing to ignore all the ways in which it's not, so you can continue to tell yourself that it is.

No, for me consciousness is simply a natural inherent function of the brain which apparently ceases to exist at the same moment our physical life ends.

None of which logically denies it as a transcendent, metaphysical realm of existence.

 

[gcthomas]

None of which logically denies it as a transcendent, metaphysical realm of existence.

This seems to be an argument of the form:

1. The idea is plausible.
2. I'd like it to be true.
3. I will believe it to be true.
4. You can't prove it's not true.

A little weak, dontcha think?

 

[alwight]

And yet you live in that conceptual (metaphysical) landscape every moment of every day of your life, and you act in response to it constantly and repeatedly. But you still insist on claiming that it doesn't exist?

So you assert but I don't think it's nearly as separate or distinct from physical reality as you do it seems.
Where did I say that a metaphysical didn't exist? I simply doubt that there is any separate metaphysical realm!

What you don't seem to be able to grasp is that what you call waking reality is itself a "vivid dream". It's an elaborate conceptualization that you create and carry around in your mind all the time, and that you react to constantly. It is a metaphysical realm of existence. It's where your conscious self 'lives'.

I believe that only about 20% of what our eyes see is actually used to form a picture in the mind's eye, the rest is constructed by the brain because we don't have the brain power to process it all. We would need an impractically large and heavy brain to do so. Metaphysics is perhaps rather more economical than physical reality?
Metaphysics is thus used and developed by our evolving physical brains, so it isn't very likely imo that a metaphysical place, outside somewhere and separate somehow, conveniently already existed to help with all that heavy processing.

You can't explore electricity with a ruler. And you can't prove it exists with one either. As long as you insist on using physical processes to explore and verify metaphysical phenomena, you will continue to guarantee failure. Which as near as I can tell, you are adamantly determined to achieve as a result.

That's a rather bad analogy imo because as an ex-telecoms guy I know that you can measure distance in a pair of copper wires with electricity. Electricity is electron flow not something metaphysical at all, it's a fundamental part of our physical reality.

And yet it [consciousness] is effecting the physical world both within your own body, and in the world around you, and even within the bodies and environments of other people around you. So in fact, it's not really limited to your physical brain at all. You're just choosing to ignore all the ways in which it's not, so you can continue to tell yourself that it is.
None of which logically denies it as a transcendent, metaphysical realm of existence.

As I have already said, our metaphysical conclusions will often initiate real physical actions, why that would need to be concluded as doing so from a separate metaphysical realm seems rather unnecessary and highly unlikely if you ask me.
When something un-testable is asserted then it can reasonably be dismissed in a similar fashion, although I think I have personally gone the extra mile here anyway.
lain: