Lest we forget

[cariad]

Starting off by saying that I am posting this as an individual, not as a member of staff.

I have personally been very troubled by one of the role plays which is being written at the moment, although support Tiger’s right to give the principle that such things are acceptable here. I know that the story being written is only fantasy, and I am sure the people involved do not endorse the behaviours and attitudes they are describing, but all the same it leaves me feeling very uncomfortable.

I have however just read this news report, which I am posting to hopefully redress the balance. It follows events which mark the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.


Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The Holocaust was a uniquely terrible event in human history. We are the last generation who will be able to hear directly from its survivors and liberators. We must ensure their testimony does not die," he said. "We must remember, too, those individuals who stood out against this tide of evil, who risked everything in the name of humanity. We must reflect as well that intolerance, hatred, even genocide did not end 60 years ago.

"Holocaust Memorial Day underlines both our duty to remember the horrors of the past and the responsibility of each of us to shape the future so they are never repeated."

Lest we forget

cariad
__________________________
Uncle Ed's companion and angel

[Rabbit1]

We should never forget ---or the same may happen again ---

[Ozme52]

I agree, but very few people actually learn anything from history and human society is doomed to repeat its follies.

And it seems that we are also doomed to be led mostly by people who think they're smarter than those who came before.

[mkemse]

No More Jewry of ANY KIND EVER ,if WWII did not teach us ANY lesson, then we as a Nation, and World will never learn anything ever again

[Ozme52]

No More Jewry of ANY KIND EVER ,if WWII did not teach us ANY lesson, then we as a Nation, and World will never learn anything ever again

Excuse me? I think I've misunderstood your comment... I hope I've misunderstood your comment.

[mkemse]

Ozme52,

You may have, it is an old Jewish saying meaning No JEWS will ever be used or abused by anyone again, it surfaced after WWII, sorry if you were confused it was not my intent, but many people have seen it but do not know it's mean, i saw in in front of a Synagage a few years back, before Russia fell, it was a had a Hammer and Sicke the old Soviet Flag with a Star of David drapped over it and under it raid "No More Soviet Jewlry Ever Again" I went in to ask and the Rabbi told me it mean no more absue to any Jews any where ever again after WWII

My apologies If my coments were miss understood

[mkemse]

Ozme52,

Also Before Russia or Communist Russia fell after WWII, the Old Soviet Union was notorious for it's Refusal to let Runssian Jews Emigrate anywhere thus "Jwery" Jewry meaning they where held in Russia against their will and unable or allowed to move or emigrate anywhere they had to live and die in Russia or in some cases exiled to Syberia and freeze to death

[cariad]

...if WWII did not teach us ANY lesson, then we as a Nation, and World will never learn anything ever again

I suspect that the victims in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo may suggest that the world shows little sign of having learnt.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

I'm very aware of the evils of the Holocaust. It doens't change the fact that Nazi uniforms turn me on and that thinking of concentration camps get me a hard on. It's been one of my favorite places to be when I've been masturbating. Me, a pervert, NOOOOO:rolleyes:

I totaly understand writing stories with a nazi/holocaust setting. It doesn't make me think it is any less despicable. And I think these stories, (albeit glorifying it) will help us not forget.

But fascism is not dead yet and forgetting becomes so much harder whenever we read about countries like China, Libya or Iran. Fascism is very much alive but has changed it's PR. What we shouldn't forget is that we today can make a difference. So it's not so much a question of forgetting as to get off your ass and demand that your govornements do something about it.

[Uncle_Ed]

I have viewed the role play in question and find my reactions to it are mixed. Primarily I feel extremely weary to see the same old thing wheeled out in the name of "Erotic Writing". In my opinion it shows a questionable sense of morality and a sad lack of originality. I would suspect that most readers will take one look and never return...I hope that perhaps one or two might question the reactions here to it and learn from one of history's greatest episodes of ignorance, intolerance and wickedness. If just one person does that then at least something good will come out of it. Until then I find it a dark stain on our Forum. Just a personal opinion, you understand.

[Rabbit1]

Let freedom ring ---while I find the role play in question --not to my liking ---I do not think it is a stain ---but more of a mark of the freedom we have --to say and do as we please ---but yes we do tend to for get about the lessons from it ----we sat by and seen what Saddam did to his own people in Iraq--as well as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo ---when will we learn to step in sooner and not let thousands of people die at the whim of a dictator

Why can we not help a people sooner ---we did the same thing in WWII
we waited until we were attacked ---do these other people not matter

what is wrong with the world and the US in particular----now we are wanting to pull troops out of Iraq ----what do you think will happen to the people there ----we do not care as long as we do not loose a soldier ----let me tell you that today ----soldiers and Marines and all branchs of the service volunteer-----no one forced them to sign up -----they signed up to put their life on the line ---it is part of the job---

even the reserve and the national guard is all volunteer ---they did not mind taking the college benifits when they signed up ---now it is time for them to do something in return for that ---

I am speaking my opinion ----Why do we no longer Care----it was only a good cause because of 911---now we tire of the cause --or the price is too high----is it too high to keep it from happening agian???

these soldiers and Marines are paid to put their life on the line ---I did many times in the service of my country -----If someone has to die ---God let it be soldiers and Marines ---not the innocent that died in 911---that are dieing in Iraq---when Terrorist blow up hundreds of thier own people to get a few soldiers or Marines -----What the hell is that Telling us?

It tells me they do not care about their own people ---and that we damn well need to be there?

sorry just my opinion as a person who does care and give a damn and is pissed off because he can not be in Iraq with his sons

[mkemse]

Before I post I want to make it very clear my post is a question OT a personal opnion,
Is it at all possible that the majorirt of thosewho have nteered for Miltary Service be it the Armed For or the National Guard did is because it was there only way ofgetting an educatoin to advance there lives when their term of duty is over, meainig, maybe they were unable to afford college in any form, could not or did not qualify for any assiatance forhigher education or for Scholorships and that by volunteering they are trying to assurethemselvesandtheir family their ability to achieve success in their future endevours. I know a few peole who did vlolunterr andthey told e they did so forthe education.This is NOT in any way shape or form meant to condem those who volunteered becausethey wanted to servce their country, I havethe Unmost Respect for all those in the srviceregardless of the reason hey choose to join. I am just wonderingif theredecion was also basedo n future education and finacial needs, so they did not end up spending their lives in a small town with no future, or their families could not afford a formal advanced educaion, they did not qualify for any type scholorship for what everthe reaso

I ask these as a question and do not ask this a a way of making a personal political statement.
No i do not support the War In Iraq i believe it was a foreign policy goneery very bad, but YES 1000% i support out troops,always have always will

[Princi]

The Holocaust is not, unfortunately, a singular or unique event in human history. The Holocaust was simply the most organized and the most well publicized event. The reality of human affairs is that once power is concentrated in the hands of a few, millions will suffer.

The rise of Hitler came out of the ruins of Germany after the first World War, which was coming close to an amicable resolution until Wilson successfully manipulated public opinion in the U.S. to believe intervention was necessary. This intervention lead to the collapse of the Czar in Russia (which was not an admirable regime, but much better the Soviet empire that rose after the Czar's fall,) the complete loss of the Germans (which lead to onerous terms of surrender,) and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which despite its flaws was a very sophisticated and tolerant society.) Intervention does not necessarily lead to positive results. When foreign governments begin poking their nose into the problems of other nations only more problems will arise. Iraq being a good case in point, we had no idea how that society had evolved and no idea how to deal with the multiple elements of that society when we did get involved; now there are more problems and many of the assets needed to defeat actual enemies are being sidelined in Iraq.

As for the roleplaying of Nazi concentration camps, not my thing at all. Free speech, however, is free speech. If that is what somebody gets off on, that is their issue (assuming it really is an issue) to deal with. Their fantasies should not be supressed because some find it tasteless. No ones tastes or moral codes are necessarily correct and should not be imposed upon others.

Regards,
Princi

[mkemse]

One other place not mentioned but very much in the midst of Genocide is Darfur

[Rabbit1]

I did not mean to imply that all military ----entered only for the college benifits ----there are however many that did enter the National guard and Reserve --for that purpose for help with their college ---never even thinking they would be called upon to put their life on the line ----I know I commanded a Marine Reserve Unit ----And I stressed during our trainning that we could be called upon at anytime to lay our lives down in the service of our country ---many were shocked when called up during the first Gulf conflict ---and they did not want to go ---but they signed the dotted line and had little choice ---Because in the Reserve if you fail to show up for Training or if activated ---you are put on active duty to serve out your term of service

Most of our Brave Men and Women in the Service of our country Knew and know exactly what it meant to Enlist ---they knew that they may be asked to pay the price with their life ----and sadly many have ----and it would be a real dishonor to them to pull out before the task is completed as they would have gave their lives in vain ---Just like the friends and family I lost in Vietnam ---

there was a new show on the other day and the men and women in the service of our country in Iraq were finally interviewed and they were discouraged by the talk from back home ---of leaving ---they take it as lack of support ---as we think they can not do the job they were sent to do

that was their words not mine ---yes there are a few who do not want to be there ----but for the most part they know what they are doing is right and they invited anyone who has doubts to come and follow them ---not just come into the country and look around all safe and secure and meet with heads of government ---to come and folllow them into the streets meet the real people of Iraq ----not the extremest---the real people that follow their ways of life ---

has anyone in our government taken up that challege ---don't think so

The peace loving people of Iraq do not sell papers or get rating on TV

[mkemse]

Rabbit1,

As I mentioned my post was a question nothing more, I do not know, since you are Miltary you have a much better gauge then I so, that was reason for my post, I was seeking answers rather then offeriing either personal opionion or stating fact and I appreciate your recognizing that, thank you

[TomOfSweden]

I am speaking my opinion ----Why do we no longer Care----it was only a good cause because of 911---now we tire of the cause --or the price is too high----is it too high to keep it from happening agian???


I think we do care and I think the reasons behind the our problems to get organised stem from some basic problems modern democracies in the world are facing. We, (humans) like to define ourselves by what we're not. So the democratic political system in all democratic countries have followed much the same polarised pattern, (please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere on earth. I would love to be).

Is there not in every democratic country two dominant parties? One is liberal/leftist? Mostly pacifistic and tend to negotiatiate with every enemy even when negotiation is pointless, (Saddam! Hitler!)? The reason they keep doing it even after everybody agrees on it being pointless is because they can't agree on which affirmative action to chose? They also tend to be cultural relativists and don't want to step on the sensitivities of various cultural groups which off-course is totaly paralysing because you always step on somebodies toes, no matter what you do. It effectively ties your hands behind your back?

The other party being the conservative/right-wing, seemingly driven mostly by fear? More police, more hard-line, more army more agressiveness? More paranoia all around? Also it's voters tend to be from the lower and uneducated classes which makes the analysis of the conflict very shallow and choice of action that the voters agree on far too course and simplistic?

Is there any democratic country on earth I didn't sum up correctly here, (give or take a label)? It's certainly true for Sweden and most countries in Europe.

If this is the case we have one political party/side who understands the problem but are unwilling to do what ever is needed and the other political side who is willing but lacks the understanding to pull it off. I know, extremly simplified but I do think it sums it up.

To be absolutely clear. When I say political party, I do mean the voters. The party just do and say what the voters want them to. That is the nature of democracy.

Just caring isn't enough.

[Ozme52]

Ozme52,

You may have, it is an old Jewish saying meaning No JEWS will ever be used or abused by anyone again, it surfaced after WWII, sorry if you were confused it was not my intent, but many people have seen it but do not know it's mean, i saw in in front of a Synagage a few years back, before Russia fell, it was a had a Hammer and Sicke the old Soviet Flag with a Star of David drapped over it and under it raid "No More Soviet Jewlry Ever Again" I went in to ask and the Rabbi told me it mean no more absue to any Jews any where ever again after WWII

My apologies If my coments were miss understood




Also Before Russia or Communist Russia fell after WWII, the Old Soviet Union was notorious for it's Refusal to let Runssian Jews Emigrate anywhere thus "Jwery" Jewry meaning they where held in Russia against their will and unable or allowed to move or emigrate anywhere they had to live and die in Russia or in some cases exiled to Syberia and freeze to death

No offense intended mkemse, but if you're going to make political or social commentary of the sort that creates intense debate and want to be understood, I strongly suggest a spell checker, a grammar checker, and maybe even a fact checker. (Your representation of historical events and timelines are a little off.)

As to the saying... I believe you've misquoted the translation from what was probably written in Russian in Cyrillic... or maybe in Hebrew in Hebraic.

"No More Jewry" and "Never Again" have opposite meanings...

I have lots of contacts in many communities and have never heard a Jew say "No More Jewry"

"Never Again" on the other hand is quite often spoken of. I doubt it is a matter of "my confusion."

[Ozme52]

I think we do care and I think the reasons behind the our problems to get organised stem from some basic problems modern democracies in the world are facing. We, (humans) like to define ourselves by what we're not. So the democratic political system in all democratic countries have followed much the same polarised pattern, (please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere on earth. I would love to be).

Is there not in every democratic country two dominant parties? One is liberal/leftist? Mostly pacifistic and tend to negotiatiate with every enemy even when negotiation is pointless, (Saddam! Hitler!)? The reason they keep doing it even after everybody agrees on it being pointless is because they can't agree on which affirmative action to chose? They also tend to be cultural relativists and don't want to step on the sensitivities of various cultural groups which off-course is totaly paralysing because you always step on somebodies toes, no matter what you do. It effectively ties your hands behind your back?

The other party being the conservative/right-wing, seemingly driven mostly by fear? More police, more hard-line, more army more agressiveness? More paranoia all around? Also it's voters tend to be from the lower and uneducated classes which makes the analysis of the conflict very shallow and choice of action that the voters agree on far too course and simplistic?

Is there any democratic country on earth I didn't sum up correctly here, (give or take a label)? It's certainly true for Sweden and most countries in Europe.

If this is the case we have one political party/side who understands the problem but are unwilling to do what ever is needed and the other political side who is willing but lacks the understanding to pull it off. I know, extremly simplified but I do think it sums it up.

To be absolutely clear. When I say political party, I do mean the voters. The party just do and say what the voters want them to. That is the nature of democracy.

Just caring isn't enough.

Tom,

I'm not sure it's as black and white as that... but as one who tends to lean to the right... my concern is that while I have no problem with knocking you flat on your back for bloodying my nose or even one of my friends' noses, (a somewhat simplified analogy,) I don't want to be the bully of the neighborhood either.

I'm concerned that this time... we've been just that... the neighborhood bully. I don't know... it's something that will be better understood in 20 years...

[mkemse]

Ozme52,

No More Jwery, Never again was posted in front of a synogage, I was simply relating what I saw and what I was told both those there, he said there will never be jews held againts agiant their will, ever again
i was simply tell what I saw and what a Rabbi told me and explained to me
nothing more nothing less, maybe they gave me the wrong translation, i had never seen that expression before i have never seen it since i was it and received the explanation I recieved

[Ozme52]

No More Jewry of ANY KIND EVER ,if WWII did not teach us ANY lesson, then we as a Nation, and World will never learn anything ever again





Ozme52,

No More Jwery, Never again was posted in front of a synogage, I was simply relating what I saw and what I was told both those there, he said there will never be jews held againts agiant their will, ever again
i was simply tell what I saw and what a Rabbi told me and explained to me
nothing more nothing less, maybe they gave me the wrong translation, i had never seen that expression before i have never seen it since i was it and received the explanation I recieved


MY point is that you aren't even accurate at quoting yourself.

[mkemse]

I am human i make mistakes, sorry, but have a great night anyway

[cariad]

and mkemse, I for one embrace your humanity, and forgive you your mistakes, particularly since if were not for some very skilled teachers and some equally good friends, I would not write for if I did it would be unintelligible to all but the initiated.

Generally I use all the tricks available, then hope, post and hope again. But I also follow CC's recently reiterated advice to me - "It occurs to me that you still have dyslekky moments, usually I can work out what you mean, but I do wonder whether people who know you less well, or are reading it in a more emotional state, might 'fill the gap' differently, and misinterpret you. You might want to consider asking someone to read through to check on things that are going to be key messages"

hugs
cariad

[mkemse]

cariad,

thank you for your kind remarks, I appreciate them
I also enjoy reading what you ost when you do, it is always very well said
hugs back to you

[TomOfSweden]

Tom,

I'm not sure it's as black and white as that... but as one who tends to lean to the right... my concern is that while I have no problem with knocking you flat on your back for bloodying my nose or even one of my friends' noses, (a somewhat simplified analogy,) I don't want to be the bully of the neighborhood either.

I'm concerned that this time... we've been just that... the neighborhood bully. I don't know... it's something that will be better understood in 20 years...

I agree with the basic theory. But what if you only will lose in the long run from knocking the guy on the back. If it's only down to pride and the other guy will never back down, then it's not the smart thing to do. Pride in international politics is never helpful.

Sometimes punishment, simply doesn't work. If the person being punished doesn't accept the punishment. All you've done is strengthen the behaviour. Then you'll need to break the person down mentaly to win. And that's a lose-lose.

Can you tell that I lean to the left? But I'm a bit of a disgrace for the leftists though, because I root the the right in lots of issues, (like invading Iraq for one).

edit: And yes off-course it's a simplification. Off-course. Simplifications are more fun to read.

[mkemse]

TomOfSweden,
i am trying to determine from your post if you supported the invaion of Iraq by the US or not, you also have a typo in your post
because I root the the right in lots of issues, (like invading Iraq for one).
i assume you meant I root to theright or forthe right?? not making fun justnot sure hat you mean
If you mean you supported the United States Invasion of Iraq, it may very well go down in United State Histioy as the biggest Foreign Policy Blumder we as a Nation have ever had,

[TomOfSweden]

TomOfSweden,
i am trying to determine from your post if you supported the invaion of Iraq by the US or not, you also have a typo in your post
because I root the the right in lots of issues, (like invading Iraq for one).
i assume you meant I root to theright or forthe right?? not making fun justnot sure hat you mean
If you mean you supported the United States Invasion of Iraq, it may very well go down in United State Histioy as the biggest Foreign Policy Blumder we as a Nation have ever had,

I supported an invasion of Iraq. There's more positions than just for or against. There's an infinite number of alternative strategies rather than the sceniaro that played itself out.

Who knows what had happened if USA hadn't done what they did. I think the way it happened was better than talking about it for another 10 years. If that's my options then I'm all for USA, (go USA w00t). But in my head, (without a degree in international politics, anthropology, sociology, conflict studies etc ) I can think of a myriad of ways to do the invasion that would lead to a much more stable post-war Iraq.

I'm not sure I understand the difference between rooting "for or to the right". I cast my vote on the conservatives last year. Simply becuase they are in practice the liberals here. I hate politics. Trying to confuse us with non-sensicle labels that made sense in the 19'th century. I'm a liberal and that doesn't really fit on the right-left scale.

[mkemse]

I beelive the difference is you can be a liberal democrat but support a right wing idea and plan, or you can be a liberal democrta and not support them,
Our Presiednt as a matte r of public record said prior to going into Iraq that "We will be in and Out in 90 days" now everyone is asking "90 days from when" diplomacy should KWya be TRIED first, invasion and military action should alwaysbe the last option
If i have a squabble with my neighbor I woulsd rather try anddiscuss the issue with him rather then call the police and talk

[Thorne]

...There's an infinite number of alternative strategies rather than the sceniaro that played itself out...
I can think of a myriad of ways to do the invasion that would lead to a much more stable post-war Iraq...


You have to remember, you're talking about a region which has been almost constant turmoil since the first ape started walking around on two legs. People in the middle east have been killing one another for political, economic and religious reasons, or for no reason at all, without any help from the rest of the world. The only time they seem to stop and band together is when the rest of the world stick their noses in and try to calm things down.

As I see it, speaking as a US citizen, we have several options.
1) We can get together with the rest of the civilized world and isolate the middle east. Build a virtual wall around it and don't let anyone in or out. Just trade them small arms for oil and watch them kill themselves off.
2) Several years ago I recall reading about the US developing a neutron bomb, one which would destroy life without destroying infrastructure. So just sterilize the place and be done with it.
3) Help the Israelis take over the Temple Mount and rebuild their Temple. As I understand it, this will signal the end times and we won't have to worry about much of anything anymore.
4) Use every political means at our disposal and instigate yet another Arab/Israeli war, but this time keep the UN from stopping Israel when they start winning.
5) My favorite: Crank up the space program so we can move the rational part of Earth's population (both of us) to a new solar system. Leave the Earth to the zealots.

[mkemse]

TomOfSweden,

The current reality is whether the United States is involved in a conflct there or NOT the Middle East and Iraw specificly will see no peace or stability well beyond my life time thier sectarian war will go on for years to come and nothing the United States does will quell this, plus we as a nation have no right to be involved in a sectarian war there, we as a nation have other issues to deal with,, like drug traffacking, homlessness gas prices ect, i would love the see the US put as much tim, effort, energy into solving the problems of our own homeland as we always seem to have policing the world
This does nt mean donothelp other nation, it means let's take care of our own first
Their used to be a say "If you want and need your country rebuild get into a war with the United States, they will happily rebuild your country for you"

[TomOfSweden]

You have to remember, you're talking about a region which has been almost constant turmoil since the first ape started walking around on two legs. People in the middle east have been killing one another for political, economic and religious reasons, or for no reason at all, without any help from the rest of the world. The only time they seem to stop and band together is when the rest of the world stick their noses in and try to calm things down.

As I see it, speaking as a US citizen, we have several options.
1) We can get together with the rest of the civilized world and isolate the middle east. Build a virtual wall around it and don't let anyone in or out. Just trade them small arms for oil and watch them kill themselves off.
2) Several years ago I recall reading about the US developing a neutron bomb, one which would destroy life without destroying infrastructure. So just sterilize the place and be done with it.
3) Help the Israelis take over the Temple Mount and rebuild their Temple. As I understand it, this will signal the end times and we won't have to worry about much of anything anymore.
4) Use every political means at our disposal and instigate yet another Arab/Israeli war, but this time keep the UN from stopping Israel when they start winning.
5) My favorite: Crank up the space program so we can move the rational part of Earth's population (both of us) to a new solar system. Leave the Earth to the zealots.

You're forgetting that 300 years ago Europeans where doing exactly the same thing as the Arabs are doing now to each other, to other religions and to women. You are treating the Arabs, (and Persians) like they will always be like this. In the 13'th century the Arabs where the enlighetened people and the Europeans where the retards. 500 years of currupt Ottoman rule wiped out any head start they had.

...and you're just wrong in that they have always been like this. There's an evolution and we in the West started our journey towards democracy and enlightenment 300 years ago and the middle-east started in the 1950'ies. Just comparing their culture to ours as is just isn't fair. You've got to give them some time to catch up. 50 years is not a lot in these circumstances. It takes many more generations for these values to catch on, and I'm sure they will. They did here and there's no reason it couldn't over there. Don't forget that we take on many values from our parents and the changes in values between generations are very gradual.

...and don't judge them to harshly. We still aren't free from sin and have plenty of problems. Just the fact that women and men don't have equal oportunities or pay, or that we still have rampant racism. USA has increasing numbers turning to religion. How's that for belonging to an enlightened age? Who's up for throwing the first stone? We aren't at some final stage of enlightenment. We are just as the people in the middle-east right in the middle of evolving our culture to something new. Evolution is constant and ever changing.

I'm with you on the space plan. Too many religious freaks down here for my taste.

[TomOfSweden]

TomOfSweden,

The current reality is whether the United States is involved in a conflct there or NOT the Middle East and Iraw specificly will see no peace or stability well beyond my life time thier sectarian war will go on for years to come and nothing the United States does will quell this, plus we as a nation have no right to be involved in a sectarian war there, we as a nation have other issues to deal with,, like drug traffacking, homlessness gas prices ect, i would love the see the US put as much tim, effort, energy into solving the problems of our own homeland as we always seem to have policing the world
This does nt mean donothelp other nation, it means let's take care of our own first


Why hasn't USA the right to get involved in a sectarian war? The rest of the world thought it was ok to get involved in the Yugoslav civil war. Korea. Vietnam. A whole number of countries in Africa.

I'm of the complete oposite opinion. It's better for the rest of the world to stop civil wars with violence and force them, (who ever "them" may be) to sort it out through a democratic process. It worked in Yugoslavia so why wouldn't it in Iraq. And I'm sure USA would have been a lot better off without the vast amounts of casualties and structural damage of the American civil war. Civil wars are always a bigger disaster than ordinary wars because they tend to go on for much longer.



Their used to be a say "If you want and need your country rebuild get into a war with the United States, they will happily rebuild your country for you"

I'm going to go right ahead and assume this is your atempt at humour and that you don't actually believe this.

[mkemse]

The simple fact remains that BUSH used WMD as his reason(among others) for going into Iraq and he was told by Inspectors and everyone else that WMD's did not exist, yet he had to go in anyway
and the reality after our Mid TErm election is, and he has made this very clear to the Citizens of the United Staes, "I am the decison maker and me only" well Mr. Presiednt, we have system of checks and balances, congress has war powers, you do not alone, you need to be open and honest with the people of our country as to why we went in, how we will get out and you refuse to be honest with with Americans on this
You went in with NO plan and you still have NO plan, or if you do the American people have no see or heard it, even members of your own party are starting to distance themselves from you, and in our mid term elections many, many Repbulicans declined on your offers to campaingn for them, beucase they did not want that to effect the results, the American Pepole are tired you your faied Iraq policy and the Midterm elections we had last november speak this message very, very cleary, we want a change and now
We know what your goal is Iraq is, we do not know how you plan to achieve this goal, all we know is you want ti keeop sending troops in

[mkemse]

Why hasn't USA the right to get involved in a sectarian war

Becuase we have a history of getting invloved in conflicts we have no right to be involved in, the United Stae has to stop policing the world and take of it it's own people first, for Iraq, we had no plan goinging, we have no plan to leave

[mkemse]

I am disabled, i can not work, i recieve Social Security disablitiy, but my cost of living increase every years is about $20-$25, i can not afford decent food, but as a nation we can pour Billions into Iraq for a war, I would like to have a steak every now and then and not have to live on Ramon Noodles, or Micro Wave Dinners but the governent does not "allow me this luxury" because of of limited funds I have to live on, this is only part of what i mean by taking care of it;s own first, I have Meidcare D from the governemnt to pay for my medication, but the pharacutial compaies are now telling me i need to pay more out of my pocket for medication, if i could do this i would not need my medical insure, i can't ven adford maintencne medication for myself but we have money to bomb Iraw with, is there some wrong with this picture??

[TomOfSweden]

Why hasn't USA the right to get involved in a sectarian war

Becuase we have a history of getting invloved in conflicts we have no right to be involved in, the United Stae has to stop policing the world and take of it it's own people first, for Iraq, we had no plan goinging, we have no plan to leave

That's "no right" according to you. Aparently there are those who don't agree. Like most US voters for one. I don't suport every US atempt to police the world, but it's good that they do.

I would like to see a USA more focused on trying to police the world together with other democratic nations. I think the world does need policing. Now more than ever.

What post WW2 US history lacks is negotiating with other democratic nations about how the world should be run.

[TomOfSweden]

never mind

[mkemse]

In a civilized country as the United States is, Yes, I believe I should recieve more from my Government, Yes, i paid into the system for 45 years working.Yes, I am intitled to equal back of it back, when the United States cost of living increases yearly up to 5& and my income is only increased by the governemnt by 2.5% with me paying into it, YES iam intitled to more, ifi never worked, then no, i didnot pay into the system I do not deserve more back, Yes I paid into it as i said for 45 years I am intitled to at lease have a cost of living adjusted yearly to the United State cost of living, it do notbelievethis is an unfair request to make
You have ajob, you get paid US dolar equal say $5.50 an hour ALL your felow co workers in the same position make $7.50 an hour, same work, same qualification, yes there is something wrong
Our countries minimum wge has been at $5.50 an hour for almost 15 years but our govrnemnt gives the president and congressmen an 8% cost of livingi ncrease EVERY year, why are they intitled to 8% and myself only 2.5% when I pay in??

[TomOfSweden]

In a civilized country as the United States is, Yes, I believe I should recieve more from my Government, Yes, i paid into the system for 45 years working.Yes, I am intitled to equal back of it back, when the United States cost of living increases yearly up to 5& and my income is only increased by the governemnt by 2.5% with me paying into it, YES iam intitled to more, ifi never worked, then no, i didnot pay into the system I do not deserve more back, Yes I paid into it as i said for 45 years I am intitled to at lease have a cost of living adjusted yearly to the United State cost of living, it do notbelievethis is an unfair request to make
You have ajob, you get paid US dolar equal say $5.50 an hour ALL your felow co workers in the same position make $7.50 an hour, same work, same qualification, yes there is something wrong
Our countries minimum wge has been at $5.50 an hour for almost 15 years but our govrnemnt gives the president and congressmen an 8% cost of livingi ncrease EVERY year, why are they intitled to 8% and myself only 2.5% when I pay in??

I erased my post since I didn't think it added anything. Sorry about that. Fairnes is a discussion I'd rather not get myself into because the variables are so incredibly subjective and infinate.

[mkemse]

Fairnes is a discussion I'd rather not get myself into because the variables are so incredibly subjective and infinate.

fair enough and thnk you, lt's make everyone on the planet milllioniare and that would solve alot of issues LOL

[Rhabbi]

This is a sensitive subject, and I know people who were in these camps.

Not only were Jews there, but any group that the Nazi's did not want around, including people like some of the people in this forum, me for instance. My personal views would have caused me to end up in one of the Nazi camps, something to think about.

Nevertheless, I am turned on by some of the situations that existed in there, and I am willing to admit it. I have dad to come terms with much worse in my journey into who I am. So, I can understand and appreciate the role play aspects that are involved, but we have to remember two things.

That role play is not the real thing.
That the real thing should never be allowed

That said, the same thing is happening in different part s of the world. My personal faith tells me that this is an unavoidable and intricate part of human nature, yet if we do speak out against it we are condoning it

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

Just something to think about and remeber when we lay back in our comfortable beds and think that it cannot happen here.

[mkemse]

Rhabbi,

thank you, but i also believe Jews were by far and away the greatest majority of victims and only Jews as far as I know were victimised by the "Night Of Broken Glass" , I heard never heard or read of any non jewish areas being attacked on that night, please correct me if i am wrong,and apologise for not knowthe German spelling of ther name of that night

[Thorne]

You're forgetting that 300 years ago Europeans where doing exactly the same thing as the Arabs are doing now to each other, to other religions and to women. You are treating the Arabs, (and Persians) like they will always be like this. In the 13'th century the Arabs where the enlighetened people and the Europeans where the retards. 500 years of currupt Ottoman rule wiped out any head start they had.

No, I'm not forgetting. True, during the dark ages in Europe the Arab nations were more advanced in sciences and mathematics. The difference is, back then you couldn't kill 2000 people by running a horse drawn coach into a building. Or spread radioctive dust over hundreds of square miles of urban areas with a few pounds of explosives.


...and you're just wrong in that they have always been like this. There's an evolution and we in the West started our journey towards democracy and enlightenment 300 years ago and the middle-east started in the 1950'ies. Just comparing their culture to ours as is just isn't fair. You've got to give them some time to catch up. 50 years is not a lot in these circumstances. It takes many more generations for these values to catch on, and I'm sure they will. They did here and there's no reason it couldn't over there. Don't forget that we take on many values from our parents and the changes in values between generations are very gradual.
First you said that they were more enlightened than the Europeans, now you say we have to give them time to catch up? In other words, they have Devolved.
Personally, I don't care which religion they practice, or who they can con into practicing with them. Everyone is entitled to their own personal beliefs. What I object to is their trying to force their beliefs on the rest of the world through violence and terrorism.(And yes, I know the Roman Catholic Church is just as guilty of this historically.) In my opinion, if your religion is so screwed up that you must force people to accept it, it isn't a religion.


...and don't judge them to harshly. We still aren't free from sin and have plenty of problems. Just the fact that women and men don't have equal oportunities or pay, or that we still have rampant racism. USA has increasing numbers turning to religion. How's that for belonging to an enlightened age? Who's up for throwing the first stone? We aren't at some final stage of enlightenment. We are just as the people in the middle-east right in the middle of evolving our culture to something new. Evolution is constant and ever changing.
It's my understanding that religion in the US is in decline. Except for the very vocal religious right wing fanatics, most people of faith are more interested in their personal form of worship than in organized religion. A quote from the remake of "Flight of the Phoenix" comes to mind. The Arab character says, "Faith brings people together, religion drives them apart."


I'm with you on the space plan. Too many religious freaks down here for my taste.
Anyone ready to book a flight to Alpha Centauri? Shouldn't take more than 10,000 years to get there!

[Rhabbi]

I think that you are right about the Jewish neighborhoods being the only one's victimized that night, though I could be wrong. Like you, I cannot recall the German name, but I am sure that someone here Can.

I was not trying to minimize the suffering that the Jews went through, it is just that so many people only know about the Jews. The Nazi regime also rounded up other undesireables, like sexual devients, gypsies, and anyone who would not cooperate with there pogroms.

[mkemse]

Kristallnacht - German for Night Of Broken Glass,

i am not trying for 1 seond to minimize what happeed to others, i know there were other the Nazi's killed, but not 3 million "others" the Jews literaly lost an entire generation of people and what is scarier then this is Hilter came within 45 days of conquering the whole world

[mkemse]

And amazingly enough I know alot of people who still contend what happened never did, they contend the file photos and films and all are defense department films made to look like it happened, 1 person i know even said "Sure many few few hundred, but there is no way in H***L 3 million

[Thorne]

Kristallnacht - German for Night Of Broken Glass,

i am not trying for 1 seond to minimize what happeed to others, i know there were other the Nazi's killed, but not 3 million "others" the Jews literaly lost an entire generation of people and what is scarier then this is Hilter came within 45 days of conquering the whole world

According to Wikipedia:
5 to 7 million Jews, based on Nazi documentation, with total murdered coming to 9 to 11 million, "though some estimates have been as high as 26 million."

I don't think this takes into account the millions of civilians killed on the Russian Front by the advancing German armies.

And if Hitler had allowed his generals to prosecute the war Russia would have been knocked out in 1941 with the fall of Moscow, although most scholars believe that Stalin would have kept his army fighting from the Urals. But with the bulk of Soviet industrial and farm lands in German hands it would have been a tough fight. The German army was halted by the Russian winter withing sight of the Kremlin! The month that they lost because of Hitler's poor decisions cost them the war.

[Ozme52]

... and what is scarier then this is Hilter came within 45 days of conquering the whole world

How do you figure that?

[Ozme52]

According to Wikipedia:
5 to 7 million Jews, based on Nazi documentation, with total murdered coming to 9 to 11 million, "though some estimates have been as high as 26 million."

I don't think this takes into account the millions of civilians killed on the Russian Front by the advancing German armies.

And if Hitler had allowed his generals to prosecute the war Russia would have been knocked out in 1941 with the fall of Moscow, although most scholars believe that Stalin would have kept his army fighting from the Urals. But with the bulk of Soviet industrial and farm lands in German hands it would have been a tough fight. The German army was halted by the Russian winter withing sight of the Kremlin! The month that they lost because of Hitler's poor decisions cost them the war.

Right you are... including and maybe especially the decision to lay seige to Stanlingrad... because of its name and "importance" in Hitler's mind... instead of bypassing it and proceeding into the Crimea where all the oil reserves were... the oil the Third Reich needed to continue their advances into Russia and elsewhere.

[TomOfSweden]

No, I'm not forgetting. True, during the dark ages in Europe the Arab nations were more advanced in sciences and mathematics. The difference is, back then you couldn't kill 2000 people by running a horse drawn coach into a building. Or spread radioctive dust over hundreds of square miles of urban areas with a few pounds of explosives.


That's fair, but you still have to give evolution time to work. I mean, you have to. There's no other way you or anybody else can do anything about it. We are part of the same planet and there's no way we can avoid each other. The globalisation is speeding up. There's loads of muslims in USA. One in ten Swedes where born in an other country or their parents where. We've got a huge mosque in central Stockholm. Arabs and the Arab culture is everywhere now.



First you said that they were more enlightened than the Europeans, now you say we have to give them time to catch up? In other words, they have Devolved.


Not devolved but froze. They thought they had the worlds most advanced and enlightened culture, (which was true at first). They where Europes and the regions only culture that allowed followers of other religions to stay and live, which for the time was extremly progressive. They had big churches and synagogues that where under the protection of the sultan. What went wrong is that the evolution of the culture stopped and Europe wizzed past them. The same thing that happened to the Roman empire where the "barbarians" ended up having a far superior culture.

If history teaches us anything it's that whenever people become chauvinist about their culture it stops evolving and in time becomes obsolete. Let's try to avoid that ok?

With superior culture I mean the most tollerant culture that allows for the maximum amount of diversity and still holding together. According to the US researcher Richard Florida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida), cultures like this have historically always been and are always the richest and most technologically advanced cultures in the world.

He floated the concept of gay-index as a way to measure this. Cities that are gay friendly, ie has the highest proportion of openly gay citizens has invariably the highest per capita income. Tollerance makes money. I agree with him 100%. In other words, a cultures superiority can be measured in money. I like things that can be measured.



Personally, I don't care which religion they practice, or who they can con into practicing with them. Everyone is entitled to their own personal beliefs. What I object to is their trying to force their beliefs on the rest of the world through violence and terrorism.(And yes, I know the Roman Catholic Church is just as guilty of this historically.) In my opinion, if your religion is so screwed up that you must force people to accept it, it isn't a religion.


I don't think Islamic terrorism is about trying to convert anybody. It has to do with what muslims consider is the "holy lands" and about attacking any un-believer that dares invade or colonialise it. That's at least what Osama said was his driving force and a good summary of what Islamic terrorisms main philosopher said, Qutb (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qutb).

[himind]

Peace has made precious few headlines in the world,but it's the one thing most common people desire above anything else.If only these guys so intent on blowing themselves up along with the whole world would open their minds for a few seconds and talk to the people the presume to fight for...

[TomOfSweden]

Peace has made precious few headlines in the world,but it's the one thing most common people desire above anything else.If only these guys so intent on blowing themselves up along with the whole world would open their minds for a few seconds and talk to the people the presume to fight for...

To be fair. Most muslims aren't suicide bombers. Pretty far from all. And most of them don't suport it. The public outcry of Imams against Osama after 911 was massive and backed by every major Imam in the whole world. Except in Gaza. None of the other Imams could afford not to. Lets just get things in perspective. The only Imams who suport Al Qaeda and Osama are crazy fanatics, even in the eyes of the muslim world. Saudi Arabia has had democratisation reforms as a result of 911 and they have aknowledged that they have problems and are trying to deal with it, (since they're the country who's the most responsible for 911).

It is not, "us" against "them". It's more of a class strugle. The poor uneducated losers in the world against the people with money. The problem is that the uneducated tend to pick the wrong targets for their rage. That is the major problem and we have it on both sides. Our uneducated blame Islam and their uneducated blame Western imperialism. Even though there off-course is some truth to it, it is as we all know far more complex.

[mkemse]

Ozme52,
How do you figure that?

I was told this, I was told it is written in history books

[Rhabbi]

According to Wikipedia:
5 to 7 million Jews, based on Nazi documentation, with total murdered coming to 9 to 11 million, "though some estimates have been as high as 26 million."

I don't think this takes into account the millions of civilians killed on the Russian Front by the advancing German armies.

And do not forget the civilians that were murdered by Stalin after the war. Right after the world vowed "Never Again" the Communist Government did the same thing that Hitler did, yet we ignored it because they were an ally during the war, and they soon had the Bomb. It is possible that more Jews were killed in Russia in the years after the war than in Hitler's extermination camps.

Sometimes it makes you wonder, why does a group o0f people that is so small stir up so much hate? Could it truly be possible that the Bible is right, the Jews were chosen by God, and the rest of the world wantas to wipe them out to prove that God does not exist.

There were some powerful stories that came out of the Holocaust to, the most stirring of which is "Schindler's List." Why would a womanizing profiteer take it upon himself to preserve the lives of 1100 factory workers? That is a question that makes no sense unless you factor something bigger than him into the equation.

[mkemse]

try watching "Shoah"





fini

[Thorne]

That's fair, but you still have to give evolution time to work. I mean, you have to...Not devolved but froze.
It seems to me that evolution HAS worked over the last thousand or so years: their culture has frozen, as you say, or gone backwards. Our culture has advanced. But cultural evolution and biological evolution work under different rules. And I believe cultural evolution works a lot faster.


If history teaches us anything it's that whenever people become chauvinist about their culture it stops evolving and in time becomes obsolete. Let's try to avoid that ok?
My point exactly. One facet of the extremist Islamic beliefs seems to be that change is bad. Therefore, no progress.
I'm not an historian, so maybe my facts are off a bit, but I think one can safely say that the beginning of the fall of Arab culture began with the rise of Mohammadism. Once again faith degenerated into religion and the common man suffers while the priests/medicine men/Imams/what-have-you flourish.

[Thorne]

Sometimes it makes you wonder, why does a group o0f people that is so small stir up so much hate? Could it truly be possible that the Bible is right, the Jews were chosen by God, and the rest of the world wantas to wipe them out to prove that God does not exist.
"I know we are the chosen people, but once in a while couldn't you choose someone else?" (Tevya, "Fiddler on the Roof", movie version)
Jews and Arabs have been fighting over the Holy Land since the Exodus, at least. Their hatred of one another has become almost ingrained in their philosophies. I think the early leaders of the Catholic Church have to bear a large part of the blame for Christian hatred of Jews. They needed to distance themselves from the Hebrew faith and making the Jews responsible for the death of Christ was one of the ways they went about it.


There were some powerful stories that came out of the Holocaust to, the most stirring of which is "Schindler's List." Why would a womanizing profiteer take it upon himself to preserve the lives of 1100 factory workers? That is a question that makes no sense unless you factor something bigger than him into the equation.
Actually, I think it's a testament to the basic goodness of mankind. The vast majority of Germans knew nothing of what actually went on in the concentration camps. It wasn't until he started using slave labor that Schindler learned the reality of the "Final Solution". By working with the people in his factories he learned that they were not the subhuman animals that the Nazis portrayed them as. They were people, just like anyone else. It doesn't minimize the enormity of what Schindler did, but I think guilt was the primary driving force behind his actions.

[Ozme52]

Ozme52,
How do you figure that?

I was told this, I was told it is written in history books


Cite your source.

[himind]

It seems to me that evolution HAS worked over the last thousand or so years: their culture has frozen, as you say, or gone backwards. Our culture has advanced. But cultural evolution and biological evolution work under different rules. And I believe cultural evolution works a lot faster.


My point exactly. One facet of the extremist Islamic beliefs seems to be that change is bad. Therefore, no progress.
I'm not an historian, so maybe my facts are off a bit, but I think one can safely say that the beginning of the fall of Arab culture began with the rise of Mohammadism. Once again faith degenerated into religion and the common man suffers while the priests/medicine men/Imams/what-have-you flourish.



The fall of Arab culture sis not begin with the rise of Islam. IN fact for 2-4 centuries following the death of Mohammed, Baghdad was the cultural and technoligical capital of the world in many ways..Many of the ancient texts have reached us through Islamic scholars who preserved Arabic copies when the originals were burent in Constantinople.It's only later with the rise of the Seljuk Turks and other factions that Islam underwent a change and became more and moe xenophobic.Some Islamic scholars are of the opinion that this happened due to influence of the Crusaders,but I don;t think that would be an accurate description. But one thing I have to admit is tha tIslam does give out very conflicting signals,broadmindedness in some ways and extreme narrowmindedness in others.

[TomOfSweden]

It seems to me that evolution HAS worked over the last thousand or so years: their culture has frozen, as you say, or gone backwards. Our culture has advanced. But cultural evolution and biological evolution work under different rules. And I believe cultural evolution works a lot faster.


I think we agree with each other but just using different formulations. According to Richard Dawkins meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) theory, cultural evolution can speed up if it allready has evolved somewhere else and there is a will to incorporate the new ideas. So there's scientific backing for your statement. Beating biological evolution in speed doesn't require much though. It's slooooooow.



My point exactly. One facet of the extremist Islamic beliefs seems to be that change is bad. Therefore, no progress.
I'm not an historian, so maybe my facts are off a bit, but I think one can safely say that the beginning of the fall of Arab culture began with the rise of Mohammadism. Once again faith degenerated into religion and the common man suffers while the priests/medicine men/Imams/what-have-you flourish.

I think you're wrong. The spread of monotheism and the extreme intollerance toward other religions and moral codes brought with it some very positive effects. The major effect was reducing xenophobia in trade. You knew you could trust others if they followed the same religion. It's regidity and inflexibility meant stable rules for trade. This was translated to big money and win-win within each region following the same religion. This is quite measurable.

Other positive effects are the monotheistic religions holy books. The rules needed to be written down to be permanent. You needed to read to understand them which enhanced literacy which we all obviously know is a great skill for book keeping, (= more money). Also measurable. There's a clear link between litteracy and BNP.

Islam is a development of Christianity. It's not a new religion. The religious text might not be all that different than the Bible, but it had one strength over it. There's no question that the Koran is the words of Mohammed. Every part of the new testament can be questioned. When Mohammed lived the versio vulgata, (ie the modern Bible) was only one of many variants of the new testament. Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament) the info.

It's aparent that Mohammed wanted a more cohesive religion without really changing anything. I've read both the Bible and the Koran. They're pretty interchangable, (yes, I have a thing for religious history). Also when Islam first spread it wasn't meant to be the religion of the people. At first Mohammed had planned it to only be the religion of the ruling elite. Islam isn't anti-christian. It has never been. They embrace it as an integral part of Islam. Mohammed was first and foremost a great polititian and general. There are plenty of letters written in his own hand that have survived that we can read. We know his personal opinions. This is a major difference to christianity. We know absolutely nothing about Jesus other than what says in the Bible, and there was so many different versions of the Bible back then that it's easy to imagine that it could get very confusing.

I think it's more correct to say that the rise of Mohammedism is what made the Arab culture superior to the west European in so many ways. They embraced other religions more than Christians, which off-course meant that they had a greater inflow of ideas, (=more money according to Richard Florida).

I'd say the high-point of Arab culture was more likely something like 800-1200 during the rule of the Caliphate. In no other time in history did they crank out so many inventions western Europe could steal. Modern mathematics and our alphabet being the most significant. After that the area started to get invaded from every direction which ended it's period of inner stability. Under the rule of the Ottomans the Arabs lived under the yoke of a standard imperialistic police state which always sonner or later ends up being corrupt and hampering development. So development was painfully slow up until about 1920, at which time they'd lost any head start they had.

I don't think any ideas spread and become totaly dominant in a region if there's nothing to gain from it. But that doesn't mean that they can't linger a lot longer than what's useful. It's hard to see how being christian of muslim today will lead to any fiscal gains over the non-believers. We have laws that regulate trade so morality doesn't really count in that sector any longer. And people tend to like learning to read for other reasons than reading religious texts.

My very long rant here was just me trying to explain how religion has been great for the world.

[mkemse]

Cite your source.

I was told this in school, apparently me teacher(s) were wrong

[Guest 91108]

Many teaches say what they were told and do as the are required by the system.
very foolish way to teach.

This should become a whole other thread.

Growls at education system.

[TomOfSweden]

Many teaches say what they were told and do as the are required by the system.
very foolish way to teach.

This should become a whole other thread.

Growls at education system.

Did somebody mention Intelligent Design?

[mkemse]

How do you figure that?

This is the information I recieved on my post, hope this clears it up for you


the time they distroyed the heavy water plant ... (Heavy water was needed for nuclear bombs) they
were 45 days away from full production when the arm forces distroyed the heavy water plant.

[Thorne]

Other positive effects are the monotheistic religions holy books. The rules needed to be written down to be permanent. You needed to read to understand them which enhanced literacy which we all obviously know is a great skill for book keeping, (= more money). Also measurable. There's a clear link between litteracy and BNP.
In much of the Christian world, literacy was restricted to the wealthy and the ruling elite. Very few middle class members were able to read Latin, and almost none of the poor. And the Church made sure that almost everything was written in Latin. Actually, I believe the Jews, and possibly the Arabs, were among the most literate in Europe and Western Asia. Almost every Jewish boy had to learn to read Hebrew so that he could read the Torah. I don't know about the Chinese or Japanese, but I expect that they were also very literate.


My very long rant here was just me trying to explain how religion has been great for the world.
While I will admit that religions in general have sometimes had a positive effect in the world, overall I believe they've done more to hold back progress and divide people than any other institution. While attitudes around the world have changed, and some aspects of religion have changed with them, I feel it is mostly because the churches could see that failure to change would result in loss of power. I was raised a Catholic and back in those days the church was just starting to allow Catholics to marry non-Catholics as long as any children were raised Catholic. But it was because people were doing it anyway, and saying to hell with the consequences. So they had all those potential Catholic children being raised in other religions. I believe it was even harder for Jews to marry outsiders, but I'm not all that familiar with any other religions.
But my point is that, in general, religious institutions resist change to the point of ridiculousness. It took the Vatican what, about 600 years, to admit that Galileo was right, and that the Earth does indeed revolve around the sun. Back in the early 80's I worked with a man who was a preacher in a small church. He believed that,since the Bible states there are four corners of the Earth, the Earth had to be flat. All evidence to the contrary was wrong or blasphemous. And Christian views on evolution in this country (USA) at least, are absurd beyond belief. And equally absurd are the fanatical atheists who want to erase God and Jesus and Christ from the American dictionaries. Children in school can get into serious trouble just by wishing their teachers a Merry Christmas instead of the sillier Happy Holidays.
Ah well. If only the rest of the world were like me. What a boring world THAT would be!
'Nuff Said!

[Ozme52]

This is the information I recieved on my post, hope this clears it up for you


the time they distroyed the heavy water plant ... (Heavy water was needed for nuclear bombs) they
were 45 days away from full production when the arm forces distroyed the heavy water plant.

Goes to show how some teachers like to "impress" their students with over blown statements that don't hold water... heavy or otherwise.

That would assume those first, early large scale heavy water plants could actually produce enough weapons grade materials to make a bomb. It assumes the first bomb and/or bomb tests worked (I don't believe the first few Manhatten Project test firings worked. The first few only scattered their detonation materials across the desert... and we only actually officially set off one bomb with fissionable materials...) It assumes that the Luftwaffe could have delivered such a weapon... and it assumes that the allied forces might have capitulated after the first explosion...

After all, we had only accumulated enough material to create and deliver two bombs on Japan... and it took two explosions... and that's all we had available in our arsenal... and likely all we would have had for up to another year. Atomic weapons were expensive and we could actually do more damage during a fire-bomb raid.

Don't forget, Tojo didn't want to surrender despite the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emperor, Hirohito, used the A-bombs as his rationale to finally, successfully override the Imperial Army hierarchy.

[TomOfSweden]

In much of the Christian world, literacy was restricted to the wealthy and the ruling elite. Very few middle class members were able to read Latin, and almost none of the poor. And the Church made sure that almost everything was written in Latin. Actually, I believe the Jews, and possibly the Arabs, were among the most literate in Europe and Western Asia. Almost every Jewish boy had to learn to read Hebrew so that he could read the Torah. I don't know about the Chinese or Japanese, but I expect that they were also very literate.


Yes, and these few litterate created masterpieces. Thomas of Aquinas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas) would never have happened without the church. I'm sure of it. He was a monk who devoted his entire life to proving gods existance but all he did was to make it clear that god probably doesn't exist. It just took 700 years before people caught on and started putting two and two together. Or Schopenhauer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer) did. People have extreme subconcious fears of breaking with the social norms. Even the people who try their hardest to do it rarely do. Just look at the Indie pop kids. They all try so hard to be different they all look the same.

Freeing your mind and thinking in new ways is extremly rare and far apart. It can take centuries before there comes a guy with a new idea. When did atheism have it's big breakthrough? 150 years ago, and we've still got religious people around. Aristotle gave us the logical system with which we today can invalidate all the supernatural claims of any religion. This was 2300 years ago. Ideas catch on so extremly sloooooow.



While I will admit that religions in general have sometimes had a positive effect in the world, overall I believe they've done more to hold back progress and divide people than any other institution.

You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?

[ElectricBadger]

the time they distroyed the heavy water plant ... (Heavy water was needed for nuclear bombs) they
were 45 days away from full production when the arm forces distroyed the heavy water plant.
First off, the Germans were very, very far from doing anything threatening with nuclear weapons. They were struggling to create a prototype chain reactor when they were overcome by the allies, and they came close but failed. The Americans, meanwhile, had accomplished this in Dec. 1942 at the U of Chicago -- and still took 3 years to make bombs, even dedicating HUGE resources to it (~equivalent to $21.5 billion today, nearly as much as the ~equivalent $24 billion the US spent on all small arms for the entire war) -- and Germany was dedicating almost no resources to the program at all (the US built entire towns for the project, Germany assigned about 40 scientists). Finally, there is some controversy over whether Heisenburg, the head of the German project, was intending to ever create a bomb at all.

Secondly, the lack of heavy water wasn't a big deal; there wasn't enough being made in the entire world to enable any serious production, and while it's theoretically possible to achieve a chain reaction with heavy water it's really, really hard to do. Graphite is far superior and is what enabled American production.

Thirdly, it's very doubtful a couple of atomic bombs in the hands of the Germans at that late date would have accomplished anything. The blitz did far more damage than any bomb was likely to accomplish, and did little more than solidify the British resolve to resist.

To correct a few errors, though: there were no "live" (using fissionables) misfirings during the American program, although it was a huge concern. We also did have another bomb available when the war ended.


Aristotle gave us the logical system with which we today can invalidate all the supernatural claims of any religion.
Although I'm not a believer, I will forward that logic is pretty worthless for disproving religious possibility. You can't prove something doesn't exist; and you can't prove that something you don't know about has no effect on anything. Indeed, the fact that we constantly find new forces and phenomena is actually a very strong argument in favor of the existence of "things beyond our understanding."


You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?
Hope is generally the biggest appeal, I would expect: we all fear death and the unknown it contains, and the promise of a heaven (and threat of a hell) are pretty strong motivators. In the same way, it gives a purpose to life, something everyone struggles with at some point. It also gives a morality and method for a stable society. Also, the existence of a benevolent being willing and able to work in favor of its followers was one of the original big selling points: precursors like Zeus were followed because their wrath was feared, not because they were swell personalities.

[TomOfSweden]

Although I'm not a believer, I will forward that logic is pretty worthless for disproving religious possibility. You can't prove something doesn't exist; and


You're starting in the wrong end. Nobody ever proves that something doesn't exist. It's impossible. I hear it all the time in the religious debate and it's rediculous. This is me proving you're gay. I have no evidence you're not, so you must be gay. In logic it's called "argument from ignorance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance) and is a logical fallacy. Even Aristotle knew that.



you can't prove that something you don't know about has no effect on anything. Indeed, the fact that we constantly find new forces and phenomena is actually a very strong argument in favor of the existence of "things beyond our understanding."


Now it's getting interesting. Yes, there evidently is things beyond our understanding. A very valid point. But that's saying absolutely nothing. Litteraly. The error in supernatural religions is that they draw conclusions from this where the evidence is at best hearsay or according to science, pure fantasy. It gives no suport what so ever for god. Nothing.

Just saying it's a matter of faith isn't good enough. We all need evidence to believe. All of us. It's just that we often need to accept other peoples words as evidence rather than to work it out ourselves. Most of us do. I don't know for a fact that the world is round. I'm just hoping that science isn't lying to me. After we have gathered the evidence or collected explanations from authority figures we draw conclusions. This is how all people function.

Using supernatural religions as a way to explain the world is the old paradigm, because we today know that they don't have the answers. We can work that much out for ourselves. Religious people are turning to obsolete authority figures to explain the world. That is the basis for religion. When people stop it'll dissapear, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen any time soon.



Hope is generally the biggest appeal, I would expect: we all fear death and the unknown it contains, and the promise of a heaven (and threat of a hell) are pretty strong motivators. In the same way, it gives a purpose to life, something everyone struggles with at some point. It also gives a morality and method for a stable society. Also, the existence of a benevolent being willing and able to work in favor of its followers was one of the original big selling points: precursors like Zeus were followed because their wrath was feared, not because they were swell personalities.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah. Sadly you might be right. People needing a big daddy in the sky is an amusing thought. The proffesor, (a European proffesor. You call teachers proffessors in USA and I don't know what you call the heads of departments) of philosophy at Stockholm university has "christians are really childish" on his car. Funny.

edit: sorry for falling asleep. Now I'll activate my brain. You have explained why people might turn to religion as such. But not why people would turn to monotheism or christianity specifically? Which was my question to begin with. Why would somebody convert from, lets say mithraism or sol invictus, (the two dominant faiths of the time) to christianity. Especially if they in the begining where persecuted. It needs a bit more advanced argumentation.

God told them to isn't a valid argument :)

[Thorne]

You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?

I haven't the slightest idea why anyone would voluntarily convert to ANY religion. It is my view that all religions only perpetuate superstition, of one form or another. Most people are born into a religious group, the same group their parents where born into. This was the case with myself, but I stepped away from it.

People will join church groups, for social reasons primarily I think, and therefore enter into the religion promulgated by that church. Many of these groups perform good and honerable services to their community. But the propaganda which accompanies those services is pervasive.

And of course, there's always the "convert or die" method of recruiting new members. That's always filled the churches in the past. "God told them to" may not be valid, but "that soldier with the nasty sword told me to" will convert thousands!

[mkemse]

thorne,
I haven't the slightest idea why anyone would voluntarily convert to ANY religion

the reason is some religions require both spouses to be of the same religion, so if they want to get married some spouses be it the female or the male may be required by that relgion to convert before marriage so the marriage is recongnized, example i believefor example that if a person is of say Muslim up brining, theirreligion may require a person to convert from say christianty or jewdism to Islam for the purposee of marriage, or even coonvert from a reformed version of the same religion to orthodox of the same
I am not defending any 1 religion, but an Orthodox Jew MUST marry and Orthosed Jew and not one who is of Reformed Jewdism

Similar to Catholosism, unlike most religions I have heard about, if you are catholic and wish to marry a cathilic you must go through church mandated cousling before the church wil regonize the union even if both spouses are Catholic

[TomOfSweden]

I haven't the slightest idea why anyone would voluntarily convert to ANY religion.

I do think it's important to understand though. Religious superstition still does a lot of damage. The subject interests me deeply.



It is my view that all religions only perpetuate superstition, of one form or another. Most people are born into a religious group, the same group their parents where born into. This was the case with myself, but I stepped away from it.

People will join church groups, for social reasons primarily I think, and therefore enter into the religion promulgated by that church. Many of these groups perform good and honerable services to their community. But the propaganda which accompanies those services is pervasive.


These are all nice reasons, but religions tend to make some remarkable claims. Believing things like that we go to heaven after we die isn't just superstition. That's standing all reason on it's head.

If that's all it takes to make people superstitious, then it should be super easy to get people off it? All we need is a scientific comunity club and having meetings where we read scientiffic reports together. Do you really think it's that simple?

Hmm... Maybe that's why Sweden is such an atheist country. We've had socialist comunity clubs for 140 years now where most workers got together in studygroups and studied science. I'm not kidding. It was organised by the unions. It's called ABF, (Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund, ie the workers education society). It's a theory. Anyhoo I'm just thinking aloud. The goal wasn't to get people off religion off-course but to get them more highly qualified jobs. It still may have worked.



And of course, there's always the "convert or die" method of recruiting new members. That's always filled the churches in the past. "God told them to" may not be valid, but "that soldier with the nasty sword told me to" will convert thousands!

Yeah, but that doesn't in the least explain how religion still can survive today in the West. We're suposed to be the educated ones.

[himind]

Religion feeds a deep seated insecutiry within most people.No matter how much we like to think ourselves as advanced,we have created asociety that puts excessive demands on its citizens,many of whom are unable to do all that is asked.For such people religion and preachers hold a special promise because they make them feel good about themselves.Of course,I'm talking about the overzealous ones here.Some people actually say,"this is as reasonable and undisprovable an explanation as any I've heard till now."To understand why so many kind of people take to religion is an exhaustive task..

[Thorne]

These are all nice reasons, but religions tend to make some remarkable claims. Believing things like that we go to heaven after we die isn't just superstition. That's standing all reason on it's head.

If that's all it takes to make people superstitious, then it should be super easy to get people off it? All we need is a scientific comunity club and having meetings where we read scientiffic reports together. Do you really think it's that simple?

First of all, I want to make sure we are differentiating between faith and religion. One can have faith in God, or Jesus, or Muhammad, or Santa Clause or the Tooth Fairy, without becoming entangled in an organized, or even disorganized, religion. Faith is simply a belief in something. I would venture to say that a very large majority of people have some form of faith, even without religion.
Religion is the codification of people's beliefs, setting everything down so that all of the members of the religion believe the same things. (I realize that this is a simlplified definition, but it's no less valid.) My quarrel is not with people's faith but with the religions which try to exploit those beliefs.
I have seen many people, struggling to make ends meet, living paycheck to paycheck, but still willing to put that money in the collection plate every week while the preacher is riding around in fancy cars,wearing expensive clothing and telling his flock that if they DON'T put that money in the plate they're going to hell!
History is filled with stories of religious groups killing other religious groups for no other reason than their different beliefs. And it's still going on today, all over the world.
As far as education is concerned, that doesn't necessarily eliminate the need for faith. But I do think it tends to separate people from the religious groupies. I feel that those with a good education tend to be more tolerant of other's beliefs and less inclined to take the word of a smarmy guy in a $500 suit as gospel.
But the vast majority of people in this world are brought up from infancy being taught a specific belief system. Overcoming that upbringing is very difficult. And, as you say, the need to believe that there is some kind of afterlife, something beyond the mundane world we live in, will always draw people to some form of belief system.

[Ozme52]

To correct a few errors, though: there were no "live" (using fissionables) misfirings during the American program, although it was a huge concern.

Actually EB... that's what I actually said.



(I don't believe the first few Manhatten Project test firings worked. The first few only scattered their detonation materials across the desert... and we only actually officially set off one bomb with fissionable materials...)



We also did have another bomb available when the war ended.


Are you sure? Our two bombs weren't even using the same technologies, we had so little in the way of fissionable materials. One was enriched uranium and the other plutonium.

[TomOfSweden]

My quarrel is not with people's faith but with the religions which try to exploit those beliefs.


I guess we're annoyed with different aspects of religion. I have a problem with adults clinging to childish notions of how the world functions.

People "exploiting" peoples faiths is just a natural development. Is NASA "exploiting" peoples belief in science that we can go to different worlds? Are the Greens "exploiting" that we believe in the global warming, (which finally last week got some serious proof backing it)?

We are social animals. We like doing things together and especially with people we have something in common with. If people believe in a supernatural god then they'll off-course like to hang out with others who share the idea. Off-course strong people are needed to hold them together. We can call them sect-leaders, popes, chairmen, doctors, proffessors or presidents. They all do the same thing but with different connotations but given power for different reasons.

[himind]

Easy to say that but what about the innumerable sect-leaders who mislead their throng?It's human nature to from groups but shouldn't we take a long hard look at the kind of groups we're forming?

[TomOfSweden]

Easy to say that but what about the innumerable sect-leaders who mislead their throng?It's human nature to from groups but shouldn't we take a long hard look at the kind of groups we're forming?

Now you're on thin ice. Please define misslead. A good start is to define the meaning/purpose of life. Moralism is always bad.

[himind]

If you're asking someone to give up his life or to take lives for the sake of you rreligion,I guess you are being misled.I mean, look at Manson, or the Aum sect in Japan...There other examples too but those would come under the grey area in between.There's this religious leader in India whio tells his followers not to seek medical help because he claims to treat all illnesses with cucumber juice and such. Now you may argue that people are doing this of their own free will,but aren't they being misled?Does freedon=m include the freedom to be fooled and taken for a ride without anyone to help you out in this?

[TomOfSweden]

If you're asking someone to give up his life or to take lives for the sake of you rreligion,I guess you are being misled.I mean, look at Manson, or the Aum sect in Japan...There other examples too but those would come under the grey area in between.There's this religious leader in India whio tells his followers not to seek medical help because he claims to treat all illnesses with cucumber juice and such. Now you may argue that people are doing this of their own free will,but aren't they being misled?Does freedon=m include the freedom to be fooled and taken for a ride without anyone to help you out in this?

You hit the nail on the head straight away. Thanks. Whether or not they're being fooled is the big question. But what if using that cucumber juice will lead to them going to heaven? Once you've opened the door to the possibility of the supernatural and a intelligent all-powerful being you've destroyed any platform from which to judge anybody. What if they are right and you wrong?

Since the whole basis of faith in religion requires that you don't scientifficaly scrutinize it, you have taken away your tools to attack the sects you are claiming are missleading others. Which religion is best or most correct? Which is most moraly upstanding?

If you judge those sects and you yourself are religious you are making claims that your gods moral code is superior to others. You have no basis for making this claim since you cannot prove whether your or the other god is the correct one. Naturally, because making a religious stand requires that you don't analyse evidence suporting the supernatural. See, it's a logical dilemma?

Or you could just say that you are right and they are wrong and base your prerogative on sheer numbers or superior fire-power. But then we're not discussing ethics any longer.

This whole dilemma evaporates if you call yourself atheist. Then we can judge them by how much actual damage they are causing. The biggest problem in the world today, I'd say is people activelly fooling themselves and ignoring evidence. The sects are just cashing in on the rampant ignorance.

hmm...I'm a bit tired. This looks tight at a glance, but please let me know if I've got any logical holes in this. I'm going to bed now. Good night world. :wave:

[Rhabbi]

This whole dilemma evaporates if you call yourself atheist. Then we can judge them by how much actual damage they are causing. The biggest problem in the world today, I'd say is people activelly fooling themselves and ignoring evidence. The sects are just cashing in on the rampant ignorance....

You're half right here, the sects are just caching in on the ignorance. Or, rather, the leaders of the sects are doing so.

People are innately gullible and want to believe they have a chance for a better life, even if it is through suicide. There are people who twist the words of every religious teacher in history to accomplish their purposes, but that is not the fault of religion. Believing that is like believing the moon is made out of green cheese.

If the entire world were populated by atheists, people would still fight. Often we make the mistake of looking at all the bad that was done in the name of religion; instead we should look at the good that was done in the name of religion and see where that gets us. There are religions out there that not only do not sanction violence, but refuse to be a part of it.

[TomOfSweden]

People are innately gullible and want to believe they have a chance for a better life, even if it is through suicide. There are people who twist the words of every religious teacher in history to accomplish their purposes, but that is not the fault of religion. Believing that is like believing the moon is made out of green cheese.


It's the twisting part I have problems with. It says in the Bible that the world was created in six days. How could you possibly twist that in any way to make it more perverted? It's just plain lies, and it always was. When it was written they didn't know it, but today we know it is. All the supernatural claims in all religions are bullshit.

My point is that if you are open to the possibility of the supernatural then you've taken away any reference point to judge what is twisted. The, "what if the Satanist are right" argument.



If the entire world were populated by atheists, people would still fight. Often we make the mistake of looking at all the bad that was done in the name of religion; instead we should look at the good that was done in the name of religion and see where that gets us. There are religions out there that not only do not sanction violence, but refuse to be a part of it.

Yes, I'm sure you are right. But the upside is that then we might fight over relevant issues. It will make it a lot easier to understand conflicts in the world. Nearly all conflicts that have ever been in the world are all basically an "I was here first"-quarell. Maybe it would help to take away all the symbols and coloured robes and just see the conflicts for what they are, money-grabbing.

[himind]

I feel only a religion or sect that tells you that it's way is only one of many to view the same truth deserves recognition. A religion that preaches hate can't be the way to God,not as almost every religion defines Him anyway...

[TomOfSweden]

I feel only a religion or sect that tells you that it's way is only one of many to view the same truth deserves recognition. A religion that preaches hate can't be the way to God,not as almost every religion defines Him anyway...

That's valid if your an atheist. If not we still haven't solved the "what if the Satanists are correct about god" problem. If god exists, how do we know what it wants? How can we comunicate with god in a way that we can validate the comunication? How do we know what is comunication from god and what is just noise? I doubt every strange notion that pops up in my head is a message from god. How can I distinguish between random thought and devine messages?

[Amberxiao]

Ooh... this has been fascinating to read. I love religious discussions.

*takes a deep breath*

I also have somewhat odd beliefs and views of religion.

I am a highly skeptical pagan. Instead of going the atheist/agnostic route of saying, if we can't prove something, we shouldn't believe in it, I have the tendency to believe in everything. I know, how is that skeptical? Well, it's like this: I believe in different planes of reality. That there is a reality, a metaphorical and sense-related reality in saying "The sun rose." This is contradicted by scientific thought which informs us that the sun remains in place and the earth turns and revolves around it. However, if I was writing a poem, I'd never write anything about "the beautiful earth-turn".

I don't think that we, as humans, can judge the truth of someone else's reality. We can only judge our own truth. And I think that people need to find what resonates in their own soul, as opposed to just doing what their friends, parents, culture, etc. thinks is right. A part of me lives in great fear that one of the very belief-centered religions might be right, and that I might go to hell not just because I don't practice that religion but because I'm so adamantly against the idea that one should be blamed or punished for a belief. A god who acts in that manner is not a god I want to serve. Yes, this is an assumption on my part, that everyone has a right to their beliefs. It might be a wrong assumption, but it's one of the few things I believe in absolutely. I believe that when people assert the opposite that it is done out of insecurity about their own belief and not out of true spirituality.

I don't think that the fact that I believe in the supernatural means that I automatically lose the right to have that belief. My own religion (which I've created and which suits me and probably no one else) is not based on the idea that it is Right and all others are Wrong. Now, as I said, it's possible that my religion is Wrong and that some other religion is Right. Again, as I said, that possibility scares me. I'm arrogant, some would say, in assuming that I have the right to judge God. I don't know what happens after death. I only know that spirituality has enriched my own life more than anything else. I know that it has not caused me to run out and try to convert anyone or see anyone as lesser to me because they have a different religion. It's made me work on my own issues to become a better person, by my beliefs, of course, or perhaps by Hers (my Goddess').

So, as to "what if the Satanists are right?" Well, I've read some Satanic writings of Anton LaVey and they actually aren't at all what we imagine. They question authority and have strong views on serving yourself first and being honest and firm about who and what you are. I don't remember all the details, but it's not about calling up demons or performing Black Masses or sacrificing people or animals. So, if they're right, I wouldn't mind too much, I don't think.

As for fundamentalists of any sort (and there *are* pagan fundamentalists, too), those are the people I hope are wrong. But note my language: I'm not saying they *are* wrong. I think they're wrong because I believe that the universe is way too vast to be summed up in one religion, but I realize that that belief is not based on anything that can be proven.

On the other hand, I'm not a scientist and cannot prove on my own, without being told, that the earth really turns. I believe it, because I know how the scientific process worked, but for all I know there's no earth and I was born yesterday with a whole bunch of implanted memories and a whole environment designed to make me think I've been alive for 30 years. Do I think that's likely? No, not at all. But it is possible and I have no real proof to the contrary.

And: "How can I distinguish between random thought and devine messages?"

Well, I know that I can distinguish between those two things, but that's because I've chosen to have faith in my Goddess. I will admit that it could all be a delusion. I don't think it is, but who knows. The way I can tell is that the divine stuff usually seems to have no reason and then have changed something drastically later. Or it is something that I know is right already but am resisting doing for some reason.

And incidentally, sometime in 2000, I wrote a story about a woman who was a sadist in the French department and was writing fantasy stories where women were superior. I did not know about BDSM at the time, and in fact, believed (*rolls eyes*) that it was wrong and that no one would ever want to be submissive and that people who said they were were being brainwashed by their abusive partners... *hem* *hem* Switch here. Um, anyway. I opened the document again last Friday and I discovered a very short story about my life -- HIGHLY autobiographical, down to the street I lived on, in which I took advantage of someone and made them into my sex slave. The last part was fiction, but clearly expressed my own dominant side. I do not remember this story. I thought maybe I had saved the other story under another title, but that story doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. This one does. I have no idea how that happened or why. I know I couldn't have written the story I found because I know I did not see myself that way at that time. Clearly I somehow tricked myself into revealing the truth when I thought I was writing something else. Any rational ideas on how that could have happened? I'm serious here, not trying to be argumentative: *are* there any rational reasons I'm missing?

The other thing I keep in mind is my own sense of morality. Again, I tend to be pretty arrogant, to some people's mind, in assuming that I have the right to have my own sense of morality, but on the other hand, this world IS the only world we know, and it only makes sense to do what's right by the standards of this world. If a god really wants us to blindly follow and not question things by our own sense of morality, again, I feel that god does not deserve my service. So, if I were to receive a message from the divine that *felt* like a message from the divine but was advocating something I felt was morally wrong, I wouldn't do it.

What I find interesting in all of this, as a kind of rambly personal aside, is that I see now that I'm talking of gods in much the way I would talk about possible dominants. I do feel that way: that in religion, we are creating a relationship with the divine and there is some sort of contract between the devout/believer and the god, and both sides need to have fair expectations of each other. To me, a god asking for blind obedience and for someone to go against their personal morality -- these things are wrong and abusive. Other people would say that I don't have the right to say that because I'm merely human and cannot possibly comprehend what is truly Good or Evil... then again (at least from the perspective of those who believe in Genesis), isn't it because we *do* know about Good and Evil that we aren't granted eternal life? I think people do have an innate moral compass, and that in reality, we do all agree about what's truly right and wrong... the problem comes when we add to the list of "wrong" things in order to make ourselves feel superior. Again a personal belief that I have no way of measuring. And it's a little off-topic. I'm rambling a lot here, and I apologize.

[cariad]

I am loving this thread. I know it is off topic as far as the site is concerned, but I am addicted to considered debate.

Oh and please ramble on Amberxiao. I read your post completely engaged, taking each point as you made it, considering and agreeing or disagreeing. And there was a mixture of both.

Thank you for that exercise, and for the pleasure of reading such a gentle well articulate thesis.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

Instead of going the atheist/agnostic route of saying, if we can't prove something, we shouldn't believe in it,


I'd just like to point out that it annoys me when agnostics and atheists are clumped together. The agnostics belong to the religious since they don't deny it. It's seen as some kind of middle-ground but it's really not. Agnostics judge the evidence for and against the supernatural and somehow manage not to see that the supernatural camp has no evidence or credible theories at all to back it up. That to me is taking a stand. A very definate stand.



I have the tendency to believe in everything. I know, how is that skeptical? Well, it's like this: I believe in different planes of reality. That there is a reality, a metaphorical and sense-related reality in saying "The sun rose." This is contradicted by scientific thought which informs us that the sun remains in place and the earth turns and revolves around it. However, if I was writing a poem, I'd never write anything about "the beautiful earth-turn".

I don't think that we, as humans, can judge the truth of someone else's reality. We can only judge our own truth. And I think that people need to find what resonates in their own soul, as opposed to just doing what their friends, parents, culture, etc. thinks is right. A part of me lives in great fear that one of the very belief-centered religions might be right, and that I might go to hell not just because I don't practice that religion but because I'm so adamantly against the idea that one should be blamed or punished for a belief. A god who acts in that manner is not a god I want to serve. Yes, this is an assumption on my part, that everyone has a right to their beliefs. It might be a wrong assumption, but it's one of the few things I believe in absolutely. I believe that when people assert the opposite that it is done out of insecurity about their own belief and not out of true spirituality.


Aren't you mixing up human interpretation of the world with the actual physical state? I live in a different plane of reality then, let's say somebody colourblind. But both of us can understand the physical properties of colours just as well. The goal of the scientiffic language is to minimize the room for interpretation, (hence all the boring maths). I'm sure that with enough shrooms I can see god, that will never be any proof for gods existance. We all know that our senses aren't particularly fine tuned. So we can't really trust them. You do agree on that one, right?



I don't think that the fact that I believe in the supernatural means that I automatically lose the right to have that belief. My own religion (which I've created and which suits me and probably no one else) is not based on the idea that it is Right and all others are Wrong. Now, as I said, it's possible that my religion is Wrong and that some other religion is Right. Again, as I said, that possibility scares me. I'm arrogant, some would say, in assuming that I have the right to judge God. I don't know what happens after death. I only know that spirituality has enriched my own life more than anything else. I know that it has not caused me to run out and try to convert anyone or see anyone as lesser to me because they have a different religion. It's made me work on my own issues to become a better person, by my beliefs, of course, or perhaps by Hers (my Goddess').

So, as to "what if the Satanists are right?" Well, I've read some Satanic writings of Anton LaVey and they actually aren't at all what we imagine. They question authority and have strong views on serving yourself first and being honest and firm about who and what you are. I don't remember all the details, but it's not about calling up demons or performing Black Masses or sacrificing people or animals. So, if they're right, I wouldn't mind too much, I don't think.

As for fundamentalists of any sort (and there *are* pagan fundamentalists, too), those are the people I hope are wrong. But note my language: I'm not saying they *are* wrong. I think they're wrong because I believe that the universe is way too vast to be summed up in one religion, but I realize that that belief is not based on anything that can be proven.


You missed my point a bit. Sorry, for being unclear. The issue is whether or not human morality comes from an external source. Can we and are we working it out for ourselves or do we need to be told by a god? Christians for example believe in that humanity was told by an external source. Somehow comunicated through a myriad of people, (by thought control?) and written in the Bible. It's a mystery to me how christian know which people have had their minds under gods control, and which people just are plain crazy or lying. But nothing else about christianity makes sense so I'll just let that one slide.



On the other hand, I'm not a scientist and cannot prove on my own, without being told, that the earth really turns. I believe it, because I know how the scientific process worked, but for all I know there's no earth and I was born yesterday with a whole bunch of implanted memories and a whole environment designed to make me think I've been alive for 30 years. Do I think that's likely? No, not at all. But it is possible and I have no real proof to the contrary.

And: "How can I distinguish between random thought and devine messages?"

Well, I know that I can distinguish between those two things, but that's because I've chosen to have faith in my Goddess. I will admit that it could all be a delusion. I don't think it is, but who knows. The way I can tell is that the divine stuff usually seems to have no reason and then have changed something drastically later. Or it is something that I know is right already but am resisting doing for some reason.


This is where I think your otherwise excelent post loses it a bit. You've presented a tautology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_%28logic%29). The evidence you present to believe in the godess derives from your belief in the godess. You are obviously capable of making a coherant case so I won't dwell on this. Why not follow through and draw conculsions from the evidence you yourself have collected?

The religious theories of god and the supernatural are proper scientiffic theories. Nobody is contesting that. The only difference between them and theories like evolution is that nobody bothers to test the religious theories because we know that the results will be inconclusive. What do we all do in a situation where we don't know? Schrödinger cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat). We off-course don't make any sure fire claims, leave it on the pile of maybes and stick to whatever makes the most sense. So on the one hand we have the supernatural improbable theories backed up by nothing, and on the other hand the non-supernatural theories plenty of evidence and a large number of plausible explanations for the world. That anybody in that situation still chose to believe in "the godess" is well....strange.

I find the subject very fascinating. Not the supernatural as such, but the large number of people who in spite of evidence take it seriously. That's....to me is just amazing.



And incidentally, sometime in 2000, I wrote a story about a woman who was a sadist in the French department and was writing fantasy stories where women were superior. I did not know about BDSM at the time, and in fact, believed (*rolls eyes*) that it was wrong and that no one would ever want to be submissive and that people who said they were were being brainwashed by their abusive partners... *hem* *hem* Switch here. Um, anyway. I opened the document again last Friday and I discovered a very short story about my life -- HIGHLY autobiographical, down to the street I lived on, in which I took advantage of someone and made them into my sex slave. The last part was fiction, but clearly expressed my own dominant side. I do not remember this story. I thought maybe I had saved the other story under another title, but that story doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. This one does. I have no idea how that happened or why. I know I couldn't have written the story I found because I know I did not see myself that way at that time. Clearly I somehow tricked myself into revealing the truth when I thought I was writing something else. Any rational ideas on how that could have happened? I'm serious here, not trying to be argumentative: *are* there any rational reasons I'm missing?


You tell me. I think people generally are smarter than they give themselves credit for, (and act). And they pick up on many more things than they think they do. You aparently knew yourself better at the time than you give yourself credit for.




The other thing I keep in mind is my own sense of morality. Again, I tend to be pretty arrogant, to some people's mind, in assuming that I have the right to have my own sense of morality, but on the other hand, this world IS the only world we know, and it only makes sense to do what's right by the standards of this world. If a god really wants us to blindly follow and not question things by our own sense of morality, again, I feel that god does not deserve my service. So, if I were to receive a message from the divine that *felt* like a message from the divine but was advocating something I felt was morally wrong, I wouldn't do it.

What I find interesting in all of this, as a kind of rambly personal aside, is that I see now that I'm talking of gods in much the way I would talk about possible dominants. I do feel that way: that in religion, we are creating a relationship with the divine and there is some sort of contract between the devout/believer and the god, and both sides need to have fair expectations of each other. To me, a god asking for blind obedience and for someone to go against their personal morality -- these things are wrong and abusive. Other people would say that I don't have the right to say that because I'm merely human and cannot possibly comprehend what is truly Good or Evil... then again (at least from the perspective of those who believe in Genesis), isn't it because we *do* know about Good and Evil that we aren't granted eternal life? I think people do have an innate moral compass, and that in reality, we do all agree about what's truly right and wrong... the problem comes when we add to the list of "wrong" things in order to make ourselves feel superior. Again a personal belief that I have no way of measuring.


ok, let's follow your reasoning. I've interpreted it as, in your state of existance there are three possible scources for morality for humanity.

1) There is no god and we make up our moral standards alone.
2) There is god but does not have moral codes for us to follow or they are optional and we make up our own moral standards.
3) There is a god and does have moral codes for us to follow.

In the first two cases god can be ignored. In the third case gods rules should be followed blindly and all we can do is interpret them as best we can.

See the problem? A god with optional moral codes doesn't really have moral codes to follow does it?




And it's a little off-topic. I'm rambling a lot here, and I apologize.

ha ha ha. Yeah, off-topic and then some. I think I'm more guilty for it than anyone else here. But since it's Cariads thread and she let's us get away with it I'll just keep going. :)

[Amberxiao]

Whew.

Well, after your other post about being worried about how you come across, I must admit, I was looking forward to seeing your response here :). Anyway, the problem is that I can't really counter your arguments as a scientist, which is making me feel really stupid. I want to be very clear on my wording on that, because I most certainly do NOT mean that you are making me feel stupid.

First, then, an apology. The last time I had this conversation, it was with someone who considered himself an agnostic, not an atheist, and it had a very similar feel to it. I did not mean to suggest that they are the same thing, but that this particular argument/discussion was common to both.

The basic misunderstanding or difficulty lies here:

"Aren't you mixing up human interpretation of the world with the actual physical state? I live in a different plane of reality then, let's say somebody colourblind. But both of us can understand the physical properties of colours just as well. The goal of the scientiffic language is to minimize the room for interpretation, (hence all the boring maths). I'm sure that with enough shrooms I can see god, that will never be any proof for gods existance. We all know that our senses aren't particularly fine tuned. So we can't really trust them. You do agree on that one, right?"

No. I'm not mixing up physical reality with personal interpretation. I'm saying that personal interpretation reveals or creates another reality that is equal to physical reality. And as far as trusting senses, we really only have a few sources of information:

1. our senses
2. our logic
3. other people/hearsay, which is filtered through 1 & 2.

Logic cannot create data, therefore ALL our data about the world comes, in some way, from our senses. There was apparently an experiment done in which they somehow proved that if no one was looking, a single particle of light could be in two places at once, but if someone was looking, it was where they expected it to be. Again, I have no way of knowing if this was true, but it's really interesting to me. This is sort of what I believed before I heard about the experiment anyway. For example: love. How do you know you love someone? It feels a certain way to you, physically and emotionally, but how do you describe that to someone who's never felt love before? How do you convince them that it exists, at least for you? I'm not trying to tell you you should believe in something spiritual or supernatural. I'm trying to explain why I do. For me, the feeling is as great as the feeling of love, and yet it's different. It's like submission, but it's different than that, too. When I do magic, it's like being dominant, but different. It's not something I can easily explain, since it's well, like an emotion. It's the same sort of feeling as reading something really well-written and feeling your skin shiver at how -right- it is. Not necessarily nice, but -right-.

Now, as for the moral code -- there are a couple of problems here:

1. You seem to have an assumption that in any relationship between the supernatural and the natural that the supernatural must always be right, or that the supernatural is somehow separate from the natural or that the supernatural is way more powerful than the natural and thus you end up in a Might makes Right situation. I don't believe that at all, so your three possibilities don't really make sense to me. What I really believe is that I am God, and everything exists within me, and at the same time, I'm not God, and everything exists outside of me. Everything is God. And Nothing is God. Everything else we "call" God is just faces that make sense to us as individuals. But I don't think that God, in this sense, has any desire other than to learn more. I think we are souls in bodies because bodies do allow us to experience things through our senses, which are less accurate, but deeper and more "real" than the view God would have. Which is another tangent from the discussion about why I believe what I do and whether the existence of the supernatural means it's either irrelevant or defaultly demanding blind obedience. Again, if there's a supernatural "moral code", it would be to experience things through our senses, and really, I think it's true that we can't really escape that too easily or for very long, without having major nerve damage. So, I guess we are in agreement on that one.

The other thing is that I don't think the lack of a moral code makes the supernatural irrelevant anymore than any other emotion is irrelevant. Yes, they are irrelevant when trying to look at the world in a purely logical manner, but not when trying to actually live *in* the world. A smile at the check-out is not really relevant to completing a purchase, but it's generally appreciated, and thus not irrelevant to the people engaged in the smiling. Similarly, an angry comment would affect the two people as well, and the more negative aspects of spirituality can cause equal problems.

*rereads* Whoops... I haven't been responding rightly. I forgot what the context was. As for *that*, the problem is that I don't believe in omniscinet or omnipotent deities. I think they get their information as much from us as we get it from them. I'm going to go back to the whole dominant thing:

Let's say you tell your submissive to wash the dishes. But in some way, washing the dishes is causing harm to someone, and you don't see that, but she does. So, she doesn't wash the dishes, and then explains why. What do you do? Or what if you tell her to eat something with eggs, not knowing she's allergic? Should she eat them blindly, or inform you of the allergy?

In the case of the supernatural, I think that if there's some sort of intelligence, rather than just random spiritual energy, it is aware of how little we know about it and thus does not expect more than we are capable of and trusts us to do what we decide is right (i.e. our own moral system, not an imposed one).

As for my Goddess... I don't think she is omnipotent or omniscient or It. She is a form, just as we are a form, and equally connected to the source and separate from it as we are. I think that, being somewhat between, she has a greater impersonal awareness, but a lesser ability to experience individual moments in their totality.

I think I'll close on this:

"That anybody in that situation still chose to believe in "the godess" is well....strange. "

*grins* Well, I've never claimed to be normal ;) And as for Shrodinger's cat: I believe it is simultaneously alive and dead and in the process of dying all at the same time. And probably pretty angry, as well, no matter what state it's in.

[TomOfSweden]

Well, after your other post about being worried about how you come across, I must admit, I was looking forward to seeing your response here :). Anyway, the problem is that I can't really counter your arguments as a scientist, which is making me feel really stupid. I want to be very clear on my wording on that, because I most certainly do NOT mean that you are making me feel stupid.


Good. I don't want you to feel stupid. My goal is to understand you by testing your arguments. With any luck we'll both learn something :)




The basic misunderstanding or difficulty lies here:

"Aren't you mixing up human interpretation of the world with the actual physical state? I live in a different plane of reality then, let's say somebody colourblind. But both of us can understand the physical properties of colours just as well. The goal of the scientiffic language is to minimize the room for interpretation, (hence all the boring maths). I'm sure that with enough shrooms I can see god, that will never be any proof for gods existance. We all know that our senses aren't particularly fine tuned. So we can't really trust them. You do agree on that one, right?"

No. I'm not mixing up physical reality with personal interpretation. I'm saying that personal interpretation reveals or creates another reality that is equal to physical reality. And as far as trusting senses, we really only have a few sources of information:

1. our senses
2. our logic
3. other people/hearsay, which is filtered through 1 & 2.

Logic cannot create data, therefore ALL our data about the world comes, in some way, from our senses. There was apparently an experiment done in which they somehow proved that if no one was looking, a single particle of light could be in two places at once, but if someone was looking, it was where they expected it to be. Again, I have no way of knowing if this was true, but it's really interesting to me. This is sort of what I believed before I heard about the experiment anyway. For example: love. How do you know you love someone? It feels a certain way to you, physically and emotionally, but how do you describe that to someone who's never felt love before? How do you convince them that it exists, at least for you? I'm not trying to tell you you should believe in something spiritual or supernatural. I'm trying to explain why I do. For me, the feeling is as great as the feeling of love, and yet it's different. It's like submission, but it's different than that, too. When I do magic, it's like being dominant, but different. It's not something I can easily explain, since it's well, like an emotion. It's the same sort of feeling as reading something really well-written and feeling your skin shiver at how -right- it is. Not necessarily nice, but -right-.


This is a bit confusing. No, you can't explain love to somebody who hasn't felt it before. You, (or me) have no idea if the way you experience love is the same as for other people. So far I'm all with you with seperate realities. This is all pretty basic stuff which I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't agree with. But then you go into particle of light being at different places depending on who looks. Light is energy. Energy behaves the way energy does. No mind control in the world can change that. You do agree with that one right? physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics)



Now, as for the moral code -- there are a couple of problems here:

1. You seem to have an assumption that in any relationship between the supernatural and the natural that the supernatural must always be right, or that the supernatural is somehow separate from the natural or that the supernatural is way more powerful than the natural and thus you end up in a Might makes Right situation. I don't believe that at all, so your three possibilities don't really make sense to me. What I really believe is that I am God, and everything exists within me, and at the same time, I'm not God, and everything exists outside of me. Everything is God. And Nothing is God. Everything else we "call" God is just faces that make sense to us as individuals. But I don't think that God, in this sense, has any desire other than to learn more. I think we are souls in bodies because bodies do allow us to experience things through our senses, which are less accurate, but deeper and more "real" than the view God would have. Which is another tangent from the discussion about why I believe what I do and whether the existence of the supernatural means it's either irrelevant or defaultly demanding blind obedience. Again, if there's a supernatural "moral code", it would be to experience things through our senses, and really, I think it's true that we can't really escape that too easily or for very long, without having major nerve damage. So, I guess we are in agreement on that one.


Ok, so you're a pantheist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism). ie we are god. So where does the supernatural come into the picture? It doesn't sound like you believe in the supernatural at all. You sound like more like an atheist in denial.

[Amberxiao]

Good. I don't want you to feel stupid. My goal is to understand you by testing your arguments. With any luck we'll both learn something :)

Indeed! And I forgot I had written that -- by the end of the post, I no longer felt stupid. I seem to be getting better/more comfortable with this kind of conversation. And that's definitely a good thing.


This is a bit confusing. No, you can't explain love to somebody who hasn't felt it before. You, (or me) have no idea if the way you experience love is the same as for other people. So far I'm all with you with seperate realities. This is all pretty basic stuff which I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't agree with. But then you go into particle of light being at different places depending on who looks. Light is energy. Energy behaves the way energy does. No mind control in the world can change that. You do agree with that one right? physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics)

I'm not sure I agree on that. The experiment was one of quantum physics, and I learned about it in What the bleep do we know?! The premise of the movie/documentary is that we, as Observers, are in ultimate control of our reality, and that the reason we have a more fixed view of reality is that we don't believe other things are possible. I'm not sure I agree with that, either.


Ok, so you're a pantheist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism). ie we are god. So where does the supernatural come into the picture? It doesn't sound like you believe in the supernatural at all. You sound like more like an atheist in denial.

Ha ha! Good question. And you're right - I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe in a natural reality that has not been discovered or accepted by those who only look to the physical world. I think there are deities and spirits, just as I think there are plants and animals. That is, as I said, they are as differentiated from each other as we are, but do not exist, except in a few situations (possession being one), in the physical world, though they may affect it at times. Again, I believe this because of things I have experienced through my emotions and senses. An atheist, I assume, would not believe in deities or spirits of any kind, whether they are called natural or supernatural.

[TomOfSweden]

I'm not sure I agree on that. The experiment was one of quantum physics, and I learned about it in What the bleep do we know?! The premise of the movie/documentary is that we, as Observers, are in ultimate control of our reality, and that the reason we have a more fixed view of reality is that we don't believe other things are possible. I'm not sure I agree with that, either.

That film is just fiction. I don't think anybody in the team has claimed any of it is true. Like all good science fiction they take real science and change it a bit to make it more entertaining. Nothing wrong with that but you shouldn't confuse it with theories put forward by real researchers.

I supose this new "mockumentary" trend can get quite confusing for people who don't have experience from the academic world.



Ha ha! Good question. And you're right - I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe in a natural reality that has not been discovered or accepted by those who only look to the physical world. I think there are deities and spirits, just as I think there are plants and animals. That is, as I said, they are as differentiated from each other as we are, but do not exist, except in a few situations (possession being one), in the physical world, though they may affect it at times. Again, I believe this because of things I have experienced through my emotions and senses. An atheist, I assume, would not believe in deities or spirits of any kind, whether they are called natural or supernatural.

The supernatural is a force in the world that can break the laws of nature. I'm sure, (quite positive) there are aspects of the laws of nature we haven't fully understood yet. So far we agree. To take flaws in our mathematical models of nature assume that the laws are being deliberatly broken is just dumb and not any evidence at all for the supernatural. Whether you'd like to call these anomilies we haven't understood yet for spirits or dieties is of no consequence. The important thing is what you believe they can and can't do.

All it means to be an atheist is that one doesn't believe that there is a force in the world that can break the laws of nature.

I hope you don't believe that the spirits can comunicate with us because even here there's been masses and masses of research and science have come up with nothing. Assuming from this that all spirits are shy in the presence of scientists is a bit naive, wouldn't you agree? We do know how neurons send messages within the brain so we can measure any thoughts being transfered from an external source and it just doesn't happen. We just haven't figured out exactly how complex thought works mechanically or chemically.

Our brains are very fast at working out stuff from incomplete evidence and sketchy data, (often leading to false conclusions). That is the strength of our brains, that's why we are the creative machines in the world. It's easy to understand how we can feel like we are getting external signals to it, but I'm certain it has never happened. Our brains can't really distinguish between what is internal thought and what is things comming in from outside. We have use various clues to distinguish them. If we can't see the clues then it can be easy to get the feeling it's god/spirits.

Human perception was part of my degree so I can pull research out my ass to back my shit up all day.

[Amberxiao]

That film is just fiction. I don't think anybody in the team has claimed any of it is true. Like all good science fiction they take real science and change it a bit to make it more entertaining. Nothing wrong with that but you shouldn't confuse it with theories put forward by real researchers.

I saw it as an interesting "What if" question.


I supose this new "mockumentary" trend can get quite confusing for people who don't have experience from the academic world.

Indeed. Though I wish you had worded it as "the scientific academic world". I have plenty of experience with the academic world, just in humanities rather than science. You will note that I said I wasn't sure I agreed with it or not.


All it means to be an atheist is that one doesn't believe that there is a force in the world that can break the laws of nature.

Fascinating! Then, yes, I would be an atheist by your definition. As would a good number of pagans.


I hope you don't believe that the spirits can comunicate with us because even here there's been masses and masses of research and science have come up with nothing.

However, here you define "laws of nature" as something that can be proven by our scientific methods of today. I don't know what I think about spirit communication, but the one thing I believe is that IF it does exist, it's not something that can be commanded by the receiver for just anything. The spirit would likely only communicate if it had something important it wanted to say... which means that shyness would not be a reason for it not to show up under research conditions, but rather that research conditions would not be a reason for it *to* show up.

I think our understanding of the world is limited by our technology. Surely you don't think we've reached the end of discovery about the world? That science today is capable of understanding *everything*?

Without certain tools (i.e. the telescope), we would still be thinking that the Earth was in the center of the universe.

Personally, I hope that we never do learn everything, because then, there would be no point in living. Nothing new to discover. It would be terribly boring.


Assuming from this that all spirits are shy in the presence of scientists is a bit naive, wouldn't you agree? We do know how neurons send messages within the brain so we can measure any thoughts being transfered from an external source and it just doesn't happen. We just haven't figured out exactly how complex thought works mechanically or chemically.

But does this work if internal=external?


Human perception was part of my degree so I can pull research out my ass to back my shit up all day.

Cool. That must have been really fascinating! My degrees are, alas, in French and Russian, and therefore, not at all helpful in this debate. I wish I had more time to learn everything I want to learn, and this is one area that I'm definitely interested in.

[TomOfSweden]

Indeed. Though I wish you had worded it as "the scientific academic world". I have plenty of experience with the academic world, just in humanities rather than science. You will note that I said I wasn't sure I agreed with it or not.


Well actually. Nearly all the academic subjects are based on aplying the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method). There's only a very few subjects that are exempt. The study of aesthetics being the prime example. Language is very much a scientific subject. It doesn't need more than a glance at linguistic theories to understand that. It's pretty far from unsubstantiated opinions or vague feelings.



However, here you define "laws of nature" as something that can be proven by our scientific methods of today. I don't know what I think about spirit communication, but the one thing I believe is that IF it does exist, it's not something that can be commanded by the receiver for just anything. The spirit would likely only communicate if it had something important it wanted to say... which means that shyness would not be a reason for it not to show up under research conditions, but rather that research conditions would not be a reason for it *to* show up.

I think our understanding of the world is limited by our technology. Surely you don't think we've reached the end of discovery about the world? That science today is capable of understanding *everything*?

Without certain tools (i.e. the telescope), we would still be thinking that the Earth was in the center of the universe.

Personally, I hope that we never do learn everything, because then, there would be no point in living. Nothing new to discover. It would be terribly boring.

But does this work if internal=external?


You got me. All very good points. But as you say. These are all what if sceniaros without evidence. I'm not denying any of it. I think chances are pretty good that if we encounter an intelligence out there in space somewhere, we probably wouldn't register it as intelligence, or understand it's comunication if they tried it. It could go either way. The aliens could have allready come here and colonized earth, but without our understanding or knowledge, and they could just as well have judged human comunication as just random noise. We will never be sure.

As soon as anybody floats a theory like this I always compare it's merits to the flying spagheti monster (http://www.venganza.org/) theory. If the evidence is as unsubstatiated as it is for that one, then we might as well ignore it.

But most supernatural theories ignore the premises of how the brain works. It's just a chemical computer. There's no magic involved and there's no soul. If it is, it dies when we die. There's nothing that leaves the body when we die. This has all been searched for and measured to eterntity. I understand the philosophical premise where the external and internal are the same. But then you're in a quagmire of definitions. What is you? Is your actions the result of your decisions? If you somehow have power over your body, then we can define the external as being that which is not part of your chemical make-up in the brain. Now we're in a position where we can measure external influence. If there's no border between the internal and external then there's no you, right? If you do a line of coke, it's your brain that gets high, not the person next to you, right?



Cool. That must have been really fascinating! My degrees are, alas, in French and Russian, and therefore, not at all helpful in this debate. I wish I had more time to learn everything I want to learn, and this is one area that I'm definitely interested in.

Now I think you're underestimating yourself. Intelligence or academic prowess isn't equated to skills in maths or sciences. I'd say that the most successful academics are the most critical minds. The ones that are the last to accept any theory. The ones who would never make do with, "sounds about right". That needs a sharp mind.

[Amberxiao]

Ooh, this is just getting more and more fascinating! And thank you very much for the compliment.

As for the scientific method and academics with critical minds:

True, but when analyzing literature and language, you're dealing with a lot less tangible types of "fact", so there is almost never a "right" answer. Yes, languages work through rules, but those rules change based on context, rather than based on facts. In any case, I was replying to your statement that having human perception as a specialty meant that you had pretty instant access to research on the subject. I was lamenting my lack of such. Which, interestingly, is not really underestimating myself, since it means I'm doing alright without it ;).

I've never studied aesthetics, either, but that also sounds fascinating, and I think it might be related to my thoughts on this subject, since a good description of what I'd call "divine" is Beauty.

And actually, I have no problems whatsoever with the flying spaghetti monster. I think it exists as an idea. Now, what that means in regard to the tea in China, I don't know, but it does exist as an idea. Where did that idea come from? Well, obviously, we're in agreement, that it came from inside of someone's head. I believe more strongly in scientific theories than random ideas like that, and I believe more strongly in my own experiences/experiments and my own logic than things that have been done by other people. The fact that I am not a physical scientist in any way limits what sorts of experiments/experiences I have done. The fact that a number of my experiences are things that have to do with coincidence and thus, *seem* connected rather than *be provably* connected is another drawback. In other words, I will probably continue to believe what I do unless *I* prove myself wrong, and I'm not trying to do that right now. I'm not trying to prove myself right either, I'm simply acting on the knowledge and experience I have. This may prove to be wrong, but so far, it hasn't been harmful, which is the main thing. If someone thought it was harmful, I'd evaluate their reason for doing so (i.e. I have done this with Christianity, obviously) and whether it was valid. Well, as I said, if the Christian God in the sense of sending all non-believers to Hell is the Truth, I'm out of luck, because I refuse to worship a God that vastly unjust until/unless I'm given the perspective that it really is just (i.e. I die and suddenly have True Knowledge of Life and it happens to show me that it really is just -- which I highly doubt). It may be harmful in that I might be wasting my life on a delusion, but on the other hand, it's a mostly benign delusion, hurts no one else (unless they want it *evil grin*) and adds meaning and purpose, whether real or not, to my life. So, I don't have any strong motivation to poke at it and see if it stands up to all the latest scientific processes of determining reality. I also don't know, after 5 years in grad school, and looking at another 5, whether I want to enter a whole new area of study just so that I can know for sure when I really don't think that's possible.

Because in truth, you cannot say for certain that the flying spaghetti monster is false. You can say it is unlikely, but not impossible. So, there's a hierarchy in my head of most likely to least likely scenarios. I like to occasionally indulge the least likely and see what I can come up with and stretch my brain a bit. The whole, I woke up this morning and had all these "memories" implanted in my brain, and maybe I really didn't start existing until Right Now is one that I like to entertain every once in awhile.

And not only is there a hierarchy in my head, but as I said in one of my other posts, I think there are levels of reality as well. I think there is physical reality, which is what science studies, but there is also cultural reality (which the social sciences study), internal reality (things like the way an emotion feels to a certain person, or the way they perceive a particular color), metaphorical reality (the sun rises), and ... If there are all these levels of reality, why not a metaphysical reality? And where do ideas fit in this? Ideas can become cultural reality. Any idea. It doesn't have to be a religious idea: look at all the stuff we put into the different genders, and half that stuff came from logical scientist people. Of course, they in turn, were informed by their own culture, but the reason men and women are as different as they are today has a lot less (in my honest opinion) to do with physical differences (including hormones) and a lot more to do with the history of our cultures and what things over the years have been added to those basic visual differences. For example, the whole sissy-maid male sub fantasy. Why isn't there a corresponding female cross-dressing fetish? Because women are still viewed as essentially lower on the scale: animal - woman - man - God. In other words, the corresponding fantasy would probably be the pony-girl one. So women who dress/act as men may be stigmatized for acting out of what's right by some people, but it's not a humiliation. This is a reality that has been created in our society, and perhaps it's effected genes, I don't know, but it's just as real even if it's not measurable by traditional methods. This kind of reality is more easily changed than physical reality, and it isn't as obligatory: just because the idea exists in culture doesn't mean that all have to believe IN it (in the sense of believing that other possibilities are wrong). On the other hand, women do all have vaginas.


But most supernatural theories ignore the premises of how the brain works. It's just a chemical computer. There's no magic involved and there's no soul. If it is, it dies when we die. There's nothing that leaves the body when we die. This has all been searched for and measured to eterntity.

Yes. Through the methods we understand today, and of physical properties. How do we know that there isn't something coming in and out that is simply unmeasurable by our methods/equipment. For example, you can't really prove the animal - woman - man - God thing in physical testing, either. Does that mean it doesn't exist and has no effect on the world? I don't think you *can* really know. This goes back to the "why is the sky blue?" question. The typical answer is that the sky is blue because of the various elements in the atmosphere and the way our eyes are set up. But this doesn't really answer the question, because the next question is: why do those elements and the way our eyes are set up cause the sky to look blue and not orange? In the end, I don't think we've got an answer to that question yet. For one thing, we don't even know if we really are seeing the same thing. Can you describe blue without recourse to other colors? We may know the physical properties of "blue", but we don't know why it looks "blue". We can prove that the majority of people will call the same things that have those properties "blue", but what if I'm really seeing orange? You don't know.

And yes, more what if scenarios, but I'm responding to your very strong language of "no magic" "no soul" "nothing". I want to know how you know for sure that that's true. Without that, then clearly you are operating under a belief. Because you've moved away from saying that you're not going to believe something you don't have proof in to saying that you're actually going to believe it *isn't*... And I'm curious as to why.


I understand the philosophical premise where the external and internal are the same. But then you're in a quagmire of definitions. What is you? Is your actions the result of your decisions? If you somehow have power over your body, then we can define the external as being that which is not part of your chemical make-up in the brain. Now we're in a position where we can measure external influence. If there's no border between the internal and external then there's no you, right? If you do a line of coke, it's your brain that gets high, not the person next to you, right?

Ah yes, and here we get back to my paradoxes. I think we're both. But this I'm not sure I can explain. Your coke question is a good one. I've heard stories of people "stealing" highs, but obviously, I have no way of validating those stories, so we'll leave them out.

I think that we are all life. And life just *is*. At the same time, we have personalities, very different personalities, in different bodies. So, how can everything be inside? And when someone died, wouldn't that make the whole universe disappear?

So, what I think is this, and this is something I thought up *before* seeing the movie, and although you said it has no basis in science, well, I don't have basis in science really either. But what I think is that our shared view of the world creates the world. That is, to a certain extent, I live in my world and you live in your world, but when we share space, we live in our world. Part of your reality intermingles with part of my reality and we end up with a new reality. This is something that I thought was a definite weakness of the movie: it didn't say what happens when two observers are both manipulating the world. And so there are as many possible universes as there are creatures with consciousness, and which universe we are currently inhabiting at any given moment is the universe that contains the most things that most people really carry around in their heads. As people die and are born, it changes, so it's changing all the time.

Does that mean that in the Dark Ages people might have fallen off the face of a flat earth? No, I wouldn't say that. But it's unlikely that they would have actually returned home, and saying they fell off would be a metaphorical reality of what really happened. I'm not even sure they would have drowned at sea. Maybe something else will come up about our reality, some 4th dimensional thing and someday we'll be laughing at how stupid we were to think that the Earth was just a sphere. *shrugs*

What I'm saying is that life exists. Physical reality exists. As humans, we discover new things about this physical reality. But I think we also affect and change the direction it might go through our own perception and expectations. One of the problems with the scientific method in this regard is that you have to start the experiment with some sort of hypothesis that will be proven or disproven. I think the hypothesis itself changes the possible results.

Basically it goes like this: I live in the universe. I experience the universe in a certain way, differently from other people. This makes my experience of the universe unique. Which in turn shapes my view, opinion, and expectations of the universe. All of this is happening inside my head. It is all happening to *my* universe. But my universe is also your universe, and yet not your universe. I think all three universes exist simultaneously (mine, yours, ours). And mine happens to exist within me as well as without me. But it's not your universe, so it only affects you when they come into contact, and only in ways we both expect. In other words, if I were to drink a lot of alcohol in your presence while you didn't, we'd both be expecting me to get drunk and for you not to.

To be honest, I'm not sure how firmly I believe this. But I find it very interesting, and a lot more realistic than a notion that we already know all there is to know.

So, in my universe, deities exist and work with me. In yours, they don't. I think we're both right about our own universes. And as for the truly mad: are they mad because they have no sense of reality? Or because they have a clear view and it's too much to take in?

[TomOfSweden]

You obviously missed courses like "poetry for mathematitians". Even if you only breeze through linguistics as a humanist the theories they use are all taken from serious scientific research. We can use scientific theories we can't understand. A little bit like us using a mobile-phone even if we can't build one. Just because you don't understand a theory, doesn't make it irrelevant.

There's one logical hole in your post. Christianity is just a random idea somebody had a while back. It has and has never had any suport. If you take science seriously and seriously consider christianity you also must accept every other concievable religious theory. Note that this does not mean all other religions that exist today and has ever existed. It means the infinte variations that could possibly exist. Beside it being impossible it's off-course just a waste of time.

Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't make it right or even having a grain of truth to it. I saw some statistics that one out of four africans believe that fucking virgins can cure AIDS. Does this mean we should take the theory seriously or just assume that education is a problem on the continent?

And to reiterate an earlier post I did in this thread:


You're starting in the wrong end. Nobody ever proves that something doesn't exist. It's impossible. I hear it all the time in the religious debate and it's rediculous. This is me proving you're gay. I have no evidence you're not, so you must be gay. In logic it's called "argument from ignorance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance) and is a logical fallacy. Even Aristotle knew that.


Now it's getting interesting. Yes, there evidently is things beyond our understanding. A very valid point. But that's saying absolutely nothing. Litteraly. The error in supernatural religions is that they draw conclusions from this where the evidence is at best hearsay or according to science, pure fantasy. It gives no suport what so ever for god. Nothing.


If your only demand on a theory is that we can't invalidat it, then you'll quickly end up with a situation where you have an infinate number of theories with equal validity. That's the situation all thinking christians invariably end up in.

I and science need the tiniest shred of evidence before taking any jump of faith. It needs very little, but something, even the tiniest of circumstancial evidence is needed. None of all of the religions have got even that. Same goes for the soul. In a situation like that. If we still chose to believe in an imortal soul we can impossibly discriminate against any other cooky theory, (=infinate number of theories).

If I see somebody spontaneously burst out in laughter or just smile, it rubs off on me. That's no evidence for anything supernatural is it?

As for your theory on dimensions. It doesn't have to mean anything supernatural. Off-course my perception of the world is different from yours. Off-course. When we tell each other things we're talking about different universes/dimensions. I'll buy that. The big question is if there's a world outside all people. The real world if you will. Does the world vanish when we close our eyes only to reapear when we open them? Is that pan-flute peruvian band playing in each city in world the same people following you? Or is it different bands? I think there's a real world no matter if nobody has seen it, and science agrees with me.

[Amberxiao]

I don't see how if I say that everything is possible, I give the same validity to everything. I don't see why I can't have the hierarchy I have of belief and reality, that is that I see some things as more likely than others.

As for Christianity, I was raised Catholic, which means I know a lot about different religious rituals and not a lot of actual theology (since I stopped being interested in junior high, and then started being interested in non-Christian religions after that). I will say this: I think a lot of Christians are way too literal. I think religions are meant to be applied to the spiritual side of the world, not the physical side of the world: that is, any language relating to the physical world should be taken metaphorically and not literally. For example, the 7 days of Creation. A lot of Christians and atheists (and some agnostics) seem caught up on this seven day thing. Why? I don't get it. The Christians should be thinking about it in spiritual terms not physical reality and the atheists shouldn't care. Of course, the reason they care is that the Christians start making all kinds of stupid claims about the physical world. I agree that religion should not start trying to tell science what to do: for me, they operate in different areas of reality and expertise.

Now, obviously, Christianity also conflicts with my own basic belief that no religion is the only right one. Because *that* is an area that leaves for a lot less wiggle room. But Christianity does exist. So, I believe that reality does exist for someone. I just really hope it doesn't then apply to me. And more importantly, I really hope that it doesn't apply to people who've never heard of Christianity. Those are the people I really think would be unjustly harmed if it's true, and it's mainly because of them that I could never be Christian again.

Now, as for the other end: I never asked you to believe in an immortal soul. In fact, I didn't ask you why you didn't believe in one. I asked you why you believed the theory was impossible -- not just improbable. Improbable, I can deal with, but impossible?

Finally, dimensions. Yes. I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe the universe itself is sentient, i.e. everything in it, including rocks, trees, etc. That is, I think our sentience is linked to our life. So, if all the people closed their eyes, first of all, some of us would be dreaming or imagining things in our heads.... second of all, if we all disappeared, there would still be plants and animals and stars. I think their sentience is so different from ours that it's impossible to communicate with them or know how they communicate with the scientific tools of today. So, until nothing exists, something will exist. But yes, I believe it's all natural, not supernatural. And I believe nothing is something, so I think something will always exist, even if it's nothing. I don't believe things can be destroyed, only transformed.

But I'm glad you asked the question, because it's the same question as the tree falling in the forest question. I think the other trees and the dirt see the tree fall, and so yes, it falls. But if there were no trees and no dirt, then there wouldn't be a tree *to* fall.

And I'm interested in science agreeing, since I don't know how scientists can perform an experiment without having some idea of what they're expecting. That is, they may not have seen it with their physical eyes, but they've read about it or heard evidence from others who've seen it, or something. They know about it, or there wouldn't be a way of studying it. Again, as soon as someone has an idea, it exists as an idea in someone's head. And without an idea, where does the research come from? How can a scientist really test whether something exists that *no one* has thought of without someone thinking of something and thus rendering that "something" invalid?

[TomOfSweden]

I don't see how if I say that everything is possible, I give the same validity to everything. I don't see why I can't have the hierarchy I have of belief and reality, that is that I see some things as more likely than others.


Ok, sorry. That's what I'm getting at. I thaught you had a number of theories, (like the christian one) that you judged on equal merit. I guess not. I agree to some extent. It's just that in this hierarchy of plausible theories, for me I only put reasonable theories on it. Christianity just isn't...again, because it has no suporting evidence what so ever.



As for Christianity, I was raised Catholic, which means I know a lot about different religious rituals and not a lot of actual theology (since I stopped being interested in junior high, and then started being interested in non-Christian religions after that). I will say this: I think a lot of Christians are way too literal. I think religions are meant to be applied to the spiritual side of the world, not the physical side of the world: that is, any language relating to the physical world should be taken metaphorically and not literally. For example, the 7 days of Creation. A lot of Christians and atheists (and some agnostics) seem caught up on this seven day thing. Why? I don't get it. The Christians should be thinking about it in spiritual terms not physical reality and the atheists shouldn't care. Of course, the reason they care is that the Christians start making all kinds of stupid claims about the physical world. I agree that religion should not start trying to tell science what to do: for me, they operate in different areas of reality and expertise.

Now, obviously, Christianity also conflicts with my own basic belief that no religion is the only right one. Because *that* is an area that leaves for a lot less wiggle room. But Christianity does exist. So, I believe that reality does exist for someone. I just really hope it doesn't then apply to me. And more importantly, I really hope that it doesn't apply to people who've never heard of Christianity. Those are the people I really think would be unjustly harmed if it's true, and it's mainly because of them that I could never be Christian again.


Ok, so let's say the Bible is only metaphores. If we accept this then it isn't really saying anything is it? Since the whole nature of metaphores is that they are open to interpretation. And if it isn't saying anything then what? Is it even a religion? Is it anything at all. If there's no way of distinguishing fact from metaphor in the Bible then Christianity is just nothing but pretty words?



Now, as for the other end: I never asked you to believe in an immortal soul. In fact, I didn't ask you why you didn't believe in one. I asked you why you believed the theory was impossible -- not just improbable. Improbable, I can deal with, but impossible?


You don't live in constant fear from sinking through the ground each time your out for a walk. You don't look under the bed for monsters each time you go to the toilet at night. It's all for very good reasons. Both these scenarios could in the right setting be possible but they are highly improbable. See what I'm getting at? Who cares what's impossible? Anything is possible. Anything. It's impossible to function as a human being if we keep every avenue open. That's off-course why religious people just pick one religion and stick to it, completly ignoring that all other religions use exactly the same, (false) argumentation for it's validity.



Finally, dimensions. Yes. I don't believe in the supernatural. I believe the universe itself is sentient, i.e. everything in it, including rocks, trees, etc. That is, I think our sentience is linked to our life. So, if all the people closed their eyes, first of all, some of us would be dreaming or imagining things in our heads.... second of all, if we all disappeared, there would still be plants and animals and stars. I think their sentience is so different from ours that it's impossible to communicate with them or know how they communicate with the scientific tools of today. So, until nothing exists, something will exist. But yes, I believe it's all natural, not supernatural. And I believe nothing is something, so I think something will always exist, even if it's nothing.


Ahhh....now I get it. Nothing wrong with that theory. It's just that when you where talking about spirits and dieties I got worried. I asumed that when you said comunicate you meant talking. My fault. Sorry.



I don't believe things can be destroyed, only transformed.


I'm not going to argue that one since Einstein proved it a hundred years ago. Messing with that guy requires guts.



And I'm interested in science agreeing, since I don't know how scientists can perform an experiment without having some idea of what they're expecting. That is, they may not have seen it with their physical eyes, but they've read about it or heard evidence from others who've seen it, or something. They know about it, or there wouldn't be a way of studying it. Again, as soon as someone has an idea, it exists as an idea in someone's head. And without an idea, where does the research come from? How can a scientist really test whether something exists that *no one* has thought of without someone thinking of something and thus rendering that "something" invalid?

Yeah, I know I love it. Where do ideas come from? It's such a fascinating subject. I'm going with the meme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) theory until a better one turns up.

[himind]

Keeping away from all the physics,for I remember reading somewhere Feyman saying,"Nobody understands Quantum theory", I'd just like tp put a question forward,one I read in a sanskrit text about 2500 years old that still rings true today.

"Why is it that Brahma(God) made this world and left it so?
If being all powerful he leaves it so He is not good
And if not all powerful,He is not God"

I've found that the deeper I tried to go into the question, the murkier it became, and with no true answers that would stand the test of logic and proof, I felt it was better left to individual faith, for it was important to the psychological health of a lot of people I came across in everyday life.That's something I've stood by. The only exception I make is to beliefs and practices which harm humankind.

[TomOfSweden]

Thanks for that quote. I'd say Feynman beautifully sums up everything I've written in any thread about religion here so far. We really don't know. Having faith into any one theory or religious practice is stupid and educated people have no excuse for picking one over the other.

I strongly believe that all outspoken faith in the supernatural harm humankind. Humans are social animals. We tend to take things seriously if enough people believe something. This is why any and all faith in anything supernatural is dangerous and harmful.

Sorry if I hurt anybodies feelings, but believing that we'll go to heaven after we die, just isn't clever. If enough people believe this in spite of evidence, then uneducated people who cannot work this out for themselves might put their trust in religious leaders, (instead of people who actually are educated in how the universe works). These uneducated people can get manipulated into driving planes into skyscrapers. If going to heaven wouldn't be obvious to them, they might think one or two times before taking the chance. Only because ordinary people, people who should know better is letting this religous drivel, this poison, pervert our minds.

Too long have atheists, sat on their ass letting the world go to shit just because of some confused concept of "each to their own". When people are dying for religion at an increasing rate, then it's time to put ones foot down. Religion is bullshit. It shouldn't be so hard to understand is it? I can prove it. I have time and time again, here on this forum. Just sitting on ones ass feeling superior over the deluded religious followers, some atheists might think is fun, but it does nothing for me. I just feel frustrated over all the tragedy it's causing.

Religious education is active uneducation. On purpose confusing us and on purpose keeping us in the dark ages. I belive religion is the biggest problem we have today, and I believe we have to combat it, or it will perpetuate itself keeping potentially brilliant people ignorant. That is nothing less than a crime. A crime against all humanity.

[TomOfSweden]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6376211.stm
muahahaha.

Hmind, I hope you count the Vatican into one of those dangerous sects. They still believe in excorsism. Muahahaha.

It really doesn't add to it making up jokes about Catholics. They manage making fun of themselves for maximum impact all on their own.

Here's a challenge for you all. I promise that I can in a pedagogic way explain away and dispell any arguments for supernatural superstitions anybody still has on this Forum. If you dare. Cariad had a go, (and I still admire you for it). I failed, but I still claim circular reasoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_argument), is so a logical fallacy.

[cariad]

Smiles - I think we were both guilty of circular reasoning Tom. And that is not a negative criticism of your arguments. As I have been following this debate, attempting to take it neither from the standpoint of there is a supernatural, and this is my proof (which is my natural position), nor from the there is not a supernatural, and I can find fault in any 'proof' you produce (which is closer to your natural place), and as well as finding it hard to write in short meaningful sentences, it is incredible hard, if not impossible to start from a neutral position.

Trying to challenge myself as I have read what you have put, I can only say that I have a lot of 'evidence' which is enough for me to be convinced that the supernatural is a very real part of the world we live in. I will admit that much of this 'evidence' is circumstantial and or based on the balance of probability, although a proportion would be hard to explain by any other means.

To me, the most difficult question is, is the evidence repeatable. In a scientific study one looks for a results which are consistent within a given set of parameters. So, although, for example, early man could not have given a scientific explanation of gravity, he could have shown that every time he let go of a stone it fell to the ground. Supernatural forces are not so predictable however. But, if one is take a psychological approach to the proof rather than a physical one, one does not expect consistent results, and we have to rely on things like balance of probability as the best proof that we can have.

Is it reasonable to apply this lower test to supernatural forces? For me, the answer is yes, because I believe that they are much closer to humans in their characteristics than to inanimate objects; so I only look for psychological level of proof.
I like things that can be measured. with an acknowledgment that I might be quoting you out of context.

You, I suspect are not prepared to accept this lower level of evidence, and therefore find the case to be unproved.

Hence my opening statement that we are both guilty of circular arguments.

Perhaps that is the real definition of faith, is one prepared to step from the circle of disbelief into the circle of belief.

cariad

edit - oh bother I realise I have just posted into this when I had promised myself I would keep out it. Where is a nice Dom with a gag when I need one...

[TomOfSweden]

I'd say you hit the nail on the head with repeatability. But when you're studying the supernatural, what you're looking for is the lack of repeatability. There must be some proof that the laws of nature is at some point inconsistent. Which is admittedly hard, and we've quite a bit to go before having consistent theories that cover everything. The best we have is to judge which explanation is the most reasonable, (and that doesn't mean just picking whatever sounds good. It requires masses amount of proof).

God or anything supernatural isn't needed any longer to make a consistent model in the world. We've seen life spring up in vacuum from nothing but a couple of aminoacids and start reproducing in a laboratory spontaneusly. Introducing the concept of god into modern science today is standing it on it's head, making the models infinitely more complex. It just sounds easy..ie somebody just fixed it so we don't have to worry. But if god makes something from nothing, displacing matter each time it medles in the world, the effects would rapidly become catastrophic for us. Or maybe god thinks of that :)

There's not a lot in psychology that is considered science. The biology and neuroscience parts of psychology is very much proper science. But not the study of behaviour. Yes, they aply the scientific method, but their results are not repeatable in a way science accepts, which invalidates it as a scientific subject.

Trying to prove god by counting how many people have seen god just isn't valid evidence. Not acording to science. To reiterate. Because of the nature of the human brain, we cannot trust our own senses. We have to use external measurement devices. The human brain interprets all data instantly. Everything is filtered and nothing we see can be considered as raw data. Ie if we believe in god we can see god, if we don't we won't. This much psychology can tell us.

"Perhaps that is the real definition of faith, is one prepared to step from the circle of disbelief into the circle of belief."

I agree. But to quote Martin Luther. "The authority of Scripture is greater than the comprehension of the whole of man's reason." ie just don't think. Faith is based on and needs blind unreasoning.

I still admire you for your courage. You are very intelligent and give me a good match. I too have promissed myself never to post in this thread or any relgion thread many times. I just get sucked into it. Where's my Master when I need one. It's just that I feel strongly about this subject. We've got religious propaganda blasting us continously from every direction. Even in atheist Sweden the assault of brainwashing propaganda is massive. I just feel we've got to fight it or it'll take over and take us out of the enlightened age. Each time I see polititians telling scientists what they can and can't study I always feel uneasy. The only measure should be whether people suffer from teh science. Right? Not if god likes it or not?

[cariad]

I'd say you hit the nail on the head with repeatability. But when you're studying the supernatural, what you're looking for is the lack of repeatability. There must be some proof that the laws of nature is at some point inconsistent. Which is admittedly hard, and we've quite a bit to go before having consistent theories that cover everything. The best we have is to judge which explanation is the most reasonable, (and that doesn't mean just picking whatever sounds good. It requires masses amount of proof).

I would disagree that one is looking for lack of repeatability, rather one is looking for repeatable or at least frequent inconsistencies or illogicalities in the physical world which cannot reasonably addressed by physical sciences, and I do not exclude the fact that more answers will be found as scientific knowledge progresses. I hope someone will take me for a very cold shower if I ever suggest that everything we do not currently understand has to have a supernatural explanation.


God or anything supernatural isn't needed any longer to make a consistent model in the world. We've seen life spring up in vacuum from nothing but a couple of aminoacids and start reproducing in a laboratory spontaneusly. Introducing the concept of god into modern science today is standing it on it's head, making the models infinitely more complex. It just sounds easy..ie somebody just fixed it so we don't have to worry. But if god makes something from nothing, displacing matter each time it medles in the world, the effects would rapidly become catastrophic for us. Or maybe god thinks of that

Your example begs the question of how do you generate the first amino acids. That in itself does not prove the existence of a creator God, but it is a question to which I am yet to hear a plausible alternative answer. I do not see modern science and God as being in conflict, to take the relatively simple example of gravity which I cited before. That is fully predictable by simple equations without a supernatural constant or variable to complicate it. I would challenge anyone who plays the supernatural card as an easy explanation to an unsolved problem. I would also argue that there are times it is the only reasonable answer – that is unless as a primary condition you have discounted it as being unacceptable. I am always very sceptical of healings, the placebo effect works in all areas of life, however when you have a pair of scans, one showing a long term lesion and then a few weeks later, after request for supernatural intervention, another showing no lesion, one has to look beyond known science for an explanation.

Grins – well I would say that thankfully God is a pretty clued up guy, and yes, I think He would have thought of the issues regarding meddling.


There's not a lot in psychology that is considered science. The biology and neuroscience parts of psychology is very much proper science. But not the study of behaviour. Yes, they aply the scientific method, but their results are not repeatable in a way science accepts, which invalidates it as a scientific subject.

I could not agree more, very little of psychology is a science. That does not mean that it is invalid though, just that it has to be considered in a different light.


Trying to prove god by counting how many people have seen god just isn't valid evidence. Not acording to science. To reiterate. Because of the nature of the human brain, we cannot trust our own senses. We have to use external measurement devices. The human brain interprets all data instantly. Everything is filtered and nothing we see can be considered as raw data. Ie if we believe in god we can see god, if we don't we won't. This much psychology can tell us.

Is science the only acceptable proof of anything? I fully agree it is the easiest, but unless we wish to limit our thinking and appreciation of the world we have to go beyond its tempting simplicity.


"Perhaps that is the real definition of faith, is one prepared to step from the circle of disbelief into the circle of belief."

I agree. But to quote Martin Luther. "The authority of Scripture is greater than the comprehension of the whole of man's reason." ie just don't think. Faith is based on and needs blind unreasoning.

The authority of scripture, of God, of the church and secular bodies is something I have been giving a lot of thought to recently. It is a debate in its own right, but I would utterly refute your suggestion that the quote you gives means just don’t think. I don’t know the dynamics of your relationship with your slave, other than you are clearly delighted with her. I am quite sure that she has accepted your authority in at least many areas of her life, I am equally sure that you do would not wish her to stop thinking, to squash her personality or just blindly accept you.

I was brought up to accept the Christian faith because it was right, no questions asked. If you don’t understand that just shows that you are not old enough or not clever enough to understand. Now be a good girl and get your Sunday dress on. Hardly surprisingly, I rebelled against that, there is nothing blind or unreasoning about my belief. Furthermore, when I have interchange with people who have blindly accepted, I will gently challenge them to consider it. Not because I wish to change to their mind, but because I think it is important that something as important as a faith which influences the way you lead your life is carefully considered.


I still admire you for your courage. You are very intelligent and give me a good match. I too have promissed myself never to post in this thread or any relgion thread many times. I just get sucked into it. Where's my Master when I need one. It's just that I feel strongly about this subject. We've got religious propaganda blasting us continously from every direction. Even in atheist Sweden the assault of brainwashing propaganda is massive. I just feel we've got to fight it or it'll take over and take us out of the enlightened age. Each time I see polititians telling scientists what they can and can't study I always feel uneasy. The only measure should be whether people suffer from teh science. Right? Not if god likes it or not?

Nothing like a little flattery – but it cost more than that to buy me ;) . But we could have a great dinner party for two, which would last well into the next day…

I am fortunate I live in part of the world/country where I do not have religious propaganda continuously thrust at me. In my view propaganda is wrong, even if what it is promoting is right. It encourages a blind acceptance and yes even possibly a brain washing. Further more, the God whom I believe in gave us freewill. If one accepts his existence and power then who better to brain wash us, yet he chose not to. If God thinks it is wrong to brain wash people into believing in him then it must be wrong for people to do so. (hmmm, that is rather a nice complete argument if you think it through.)

Should politicians tell scientists what they should and should not study? I would like to say that an ethical monitoring body, with a perfect crystal ball, (not politicians) should do so. Not all scientific discovery has been used for the good of mankind. But reality is that any such bar is only likely to delay the work, so I would propose that rather than barring scientific study and education we put even greater resources into ethical education which will hopefully ensure that discoveries are used wisely.

I don’t think the frontiers of science should be stopped because they might throw doubt on the supernatural. I have no wish to live with my head in the sand. I am confident enough in my faith to think that it will not be shaken by any discovery. If however it is, then I will have to reconsider my position in light of all the new evidence.

You say that you fear being taken out of the enlightened age. I went through to stage of embracing science as the beautiful explanation for our world, and just eagerly awaiting more discoveries to give more explanations. To me that was the dark age of my reasoning. My enlightenment came when I start to see how the physical and supernatural worlds co-exist, and I cannot see why God should not be pleased with each discovery which we make, regardless of which bit of the world it belongs to.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

Dammit, you didn't go for the simple baits :) You're good.

You say god is an intelligent being involved with the humans. Why christianity. Why not Budhism, Pantheism, Hinduism, Satanism or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? They can't all be right. The concept of god is diametrically different for all of them. If your vision of god is correct, they must be wrong. Why and how? How did your deduction work?

There's other problems regarding the christian god. If he's imnipotent, why would he care about us? It's not like we care about ants. What's in it for god? What does it care? And if god hasn't got the same chemical value system, (in the brain) as humans, how can god relate to us? How can god understand what we value and what we want? If it does because it built our brains, then we hardly have free will do we? Not to mention the big question if we really have free will, which is pretty far from obvious.

I'd hardly think the scientific method is the easiest method of evaluating data. That degree was a bastard to complete. But it's pretty much all we've got today. The Greeks introduced a couple of new ones, but Imhoteps, (the one we use today) is still the best some 4500 years later. Is there any other method used today for judging any complex system? Besides just using common sense. I'm mean, it's not like Christianity is a system of finding truth. It's just one hypothesis. And to judge it we need to use a method. Is there a better one than science?

You're quite right about me valueing my lovely, sharp, outspoken and wonderful slaves brain. I wouldn't have it any other way. It was undoubtedly her intelligence I fell in love with. She's good. I wish I had her brain.

So does a combination of flattery and dinner work on you? ;)

[cariad]

If we are debating the nature of God, does that mean that we have agreed that he/she/it/they exist?

...and dinner and flattery, that comes close to playing dirty.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

If we are debating the nature of God, does that mean that we have agreed that he/she/it/they exist?

...and dinner and flattery, that comes close to playing dirty.

cariad

Yeah I know. I play to win. I'm ruthless. You didn't answer how you know the other religions are wrong?

[cariad]

I can see little point in debating the merits of different religions if we have not reached an agreement on the existence of the supernatural. You are not going to side track me that easily.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

I can see little point in debating the merits of different religions if we have not reached an agreement on the existence of the supernatural. You are not going to side track me that easily.

cariad

It's not side tracking, it's proving my point. If we assume the supernatural exists, we have still no reason what so ever for being christian in particular.

If the supernatural exists what makes you think you have any idea what god wants? What makes you think god gives a rats ass about anybody. God might just as well have created the world to cater for the mice, and it only speaks to them? The devil might have created man to make life hard for them in laboratories. It's equally plausible. The nation of Islam might be right, ie the white man is the spawn of Satan. Or the Christian Donatists, who claim that the Bible is the work of Satan, Or the Greek pantheon, Or the Norse Sagas . That's my point. What if god just is a prankster and thinks it's fun stiring up trouble, like the god Loki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki)? It's a more credible god then the christian one.

All religions are false, because they make claims they have no backing to make. Just proving the supernatural exists is very important if you're religious but it makes no case for any particular religion. What if this supernatural diety acts completely random? What if there is a god but no system of it's actions at all?

If you just settle for presenting some vague psychological evidence that their may exist something supernatural but fail to make a case for the nature of this supernatural force, then you are just weaseling out of it. Since we don't know what is "genuine" acts of god and which aren't it's impossible to work out from gods actions the nature of god. A statistician would have a field day with christian claims.

Here's a little thought. Propaganda that convey messages we share are rarely labeled as propaganda. We all like having our views confirmed. I just saw the film Pans Labyrinth (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/). It was a nice little fairy tale. A beautiful and gruesome story. That film was blatant christian propaganda. It really hammered in the Bible and the story of christ. Some things where even confusing if you didn't understand christian concepts. Since it's for kids, I assume the point is that kids should ask their parents about them. Christian propaganda is absolutely everywhere.

[cariad]

Smiles - still not convinced it is not a side track, since to me it is actually a subsequent debate.

Once one has decided that there is a supernatural element, unless one just wishes to sit feeling smug and do nothing about it, it is logical to try to understand it better. And I fully agree, the mere existence of the supernatural does not evidence one creative force, let alone a God as is understood by Christians, and most certainly does not support that faith nor any other.

I use the term faith as opposed to religion, because to me they are two different things. Faith is focused on the supernatural and my relationship with it, religion is about manmade interface between myself and the supernatural.

In an attempt to understand it is foolish not to look at what established faiths offer as understandings. I have looked at some, but most certainly not all, and have listened sympathetically to adherents of those faiths. In each case I considered the logic and completeness of the faith, and tested it against my experience. I do not believe that this is the place to post why I believe other faiths which I have looked at to be wrong. That statement in itself will have upset some people, and I hasten to stress that it is just a statement of my own personal belief.

I do however think it is acceptable to say that I think Christianity is right, (and TDS, if as mod of this forum, you wish to edit this post, please do not hesitate to do so). My personal journey to faith included initially rejecting all established churches since the religion and tradition masked what I have come to accept as the truth.

Tom, I know you reject the bible, and apart from giving some either inaccurate or misleading statements regarding its date, depending on how you interpret what you say, you give no evidence for it being wrong. Having stepped away from established churches I looked at the explanation of the supernatural as explained in that series of texts. I looked at it in the same way that I looked at other faiths, with a completely open mind. The difference is that it made logical sense to me, and matched with my experience.

Eventually, and that is after a degree of challenging of myself and the texts, decided that for me, the Christian faith was the truth and decided to embrace it. I remain analytic in my study of it, but can only say, that for me, the more I discover, the more it makes total sense.

-----

I have not seen the film to which you referred, so cannot make an observation on whether it is propaganda or not. To me, propaganda is something which encourages someone into a blind acceptance of something as fact. That I believe to be wrong. I do not accept that it is wrong to use literature, whether on paper or on the screen, as a means of encouraging thought. As a teenage I was inspired by the Isaac Asimov books, they triggered my imagination and encouraged my interest in some sciences, but I would not say that was propaganda, just positive use of a media. Without having seen the film you mentioned I would not like to say whether I believed it was doing more than offering Christianity as a possible explanation.

cariad

[himind]

I prefer Hinduism. "There are so many paths to the top of the hill,but the view is always the same".For me the true test of any religion is the ease with which it embraces other religions.Whenver one starts presuming the truth is its divine right, I fail to find it of interest,although I don't decry it unless lives are at sake.

[TomOfSweden]

Smiles - still not convinced it is not a side track, since to me it is actually a subsequent debate.


I do think it's part of the same issue. As far as I'm concearned, what we are discussing is whether believing in the supernatural is smart or stupid. As I see it there's two distinct parts of the issue.

1) Is there such a thing as the supernatural?
2) If there is, how does it work?

More issues can be introduced like, if there is one or more conciousnesness governing the supernatural is it intelligent? And if it is, how intelligent? With that I mean, knowing everything doesn't help if you can't draw the correct conclusions.



Once one has decided that there is a supernatural element, unless one just wishes to sit feeling smug and do nothing about it, it is logical to try to understand it better. And I fully agree, the mere existence of the supernatural does not evidence one creative force, let alone a God as is understood by Christians, and most certainly does not support that faith nor any other.


Yes, but how can you? Does god control everything, or just a little? What laws govern the supernatural? It's only possible to reason about the nature of the supernatural if you beforehand define the premises, (just as all christian scholars have to do). But if you can't, (which is the reality in which we live) then you can never ever make any claim on the nature of god what so ever. It just gets silly. Any conclusion will be an argument from ignorance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance). Mathematically there is one chance among the infinite that the the christian theory of the universe is correct. If you in spite of this make any claim what so ever about the nature of the universe, then you are ignoring the premises. You would then be pretending to have a plausible explanation when you have no such thing. There are a number of interesting theories backed by pretty numbers on the nature of the universe. Christianity hasn't even got that.



I use the term faith as opposed to religion, because to me they are two different things. Faith is focused on the supernatural and my relationship with it, religion is about manmade interface between myself and the supernatural.


I'm only interested in discussing faith in the supernatural. I've got no problems with religion. I think, I and the rest of humanity need plenty of guidance in life. I have no problems with religions giving guidance. But for me personaly, if the whole religion hinges on a premis that is impossible to back up then I would stay far away from it.



In an attempt to understand it is foolish not to look at what established faiths offer as understandings.


Considering the history of mankind I beg to differ. The more people believe something and the longer they have believed it the greater chance people accept it as truth no matter what, (I've seen and read plenty of research on this and I'm sure I can dig it up again if nobody here belives me). This means that we should be even more critical toward any philosophical system that is old, like christianity for example



I have looked at some, but most certainly not all, and have listened sympathetically to adherents of those faiths. In each case I considered the logic and completeness of the faith, and tested it against my experience. I do not believe that this is the place to post why I believe other faiths which I have looked at to be wrong. That statement in itself will have upset some people, and I hasten to stress that it is just a statement of my own personal belief.

I do however think it is acceptable to say that I think Christianity is right, (and TDS, if as mod of this forum, you wish to edit this post, please do not hesitate to do so). My personal journey to faith included initially rejecting all established churches since the religion and tradition masked what I have come to accept as the truth.


Again, you can't use logic and reason about the nature of god, because you don't have any material to work with. If there is a god you or anybody else will never know what god wants. That is cold hard fact. Considering the vastness of the infinite, chances are pretty good that all religions are wrong. That's cold, hard statistical facts.



Tom, I know you reject the bible, and apart from giving some either inaccurate or misleading statements regarding its date, depending on how you interpret what you say, you give no evidence for it being wrong. Having stepped away from established churches I looked at the explanation of the supernatural as explained in that series of texts. I looked at it in the same way that I looked at other faiths, with a completely open mind. The difference is that it made logical sense to me, and matched with my experience.

Eventually, and that is after a degree of challenging of myself and the texts, decided that for me, the Christian faith was the truth and decided to embrace it. I remain analytic in my study of it, but can only say, that for me, the more I discover, the more it makes total sense.


I've admitedly mostly used wikipedia. It's all the data I have access to here. The books I've read on it have all been lent and returned from and to the library. As far as I know I haven't written anything inaccurate. I might have been off by a half a century or so, or been wrong on proportions. And we are talking history here, which means that all facts are at best pretty ify, no matter what camp you're in. But I haven't written anything I can't back up with some sort of source. And compared to most other texts in the world, we actually do know quite a lot about how the bible came to be. We do after all have the meticulate records of the Vatican to access. There's no shortage of research that's been done in the field.



I have not seen the film to which you referred, so cannot make an observation on whether it is propaganda or not. To me, propaganda is something which encourages someone into a blind acceptance of something as fact. That I believe to be wrong. I do not accept that it is wrong to use literature, whether on paper or on the screen, as a means of encouraging thought. As a teenage I was inspired by the Isaac Asimov books, they triggered my imagination and encouraged my interest in some sciences, but I would not say that was propaganda, just positive use of a media. Without having seen the film you mentioned I would not like to say whether I believed it was doing more than offering Christianity as a possible explanation.


Propaganda is just about spreading information very agressively. Like a political campaign for instance. I have no problems with propaganda as such. Christianity makes quite a number of unsubstantiated claims, and I think it's bad hammering in guesswork as truth.

[cariad]

Tom, I will post a reply to you in a moment. With my mod's hat on, and, not as part of that reply can I ask you not to state that something is a lie. As you have said we are dealing with sensitive subjects here, and whilst you may believe that the Bible is wrong, and this forum encourages people to give their opinion, I think it is approaching a breach of the rules of this site to go further.

Thanks,

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

No matter what I have the greatest respect for you Cariad. And when I've been bad you tell me off in the nicest possible way. You are sharp and you deserve more respect than I just gave you. Sorry about that.

[cariad]

Smiles - and I have the greatest respect for you too Tom, and thank you for the modifications you made, I can put my mods hat away now, try not to be distracted by your flattery, and attempt to finish my reply to you.

Hugs

cariad

[cariad]

I have to admit that most of this reply has been penned by ColinClout. I was chatting to him when your post appeared, and copied it over to him. Since he has already typed out what he thinks, and I agree with him and certainly cannot express it any more eloquently, I will post his replies. (He does not visit the site anymore.) The last section is straight from me, since he had to leave to attend to other matters, I am sure you will note the change in style - he uses bigger words and more complex syntax.

-----


I do think it's part of the same issue. As far as I'm concerned, what we are discussing is whether believing in the supernatural is smart or stupid. As I see it there's two distinct parts of the issue.

1) Is there such a thing as the supernatural?
2) If there is, how does it work?

More issues can be introduced like, if there is one or more consciousnesses governing the supernatural is it intelligent? And if it is, how intelligent? With that I mean, knowing everything doesn't help if you can't draw the correct conclusions.

1) A serious question over the idea of a purely naturalistic multiverse is that of determinism. If there is nothing except nature (nothing supernatural) then we seem to be left with a mechanistic multiverse, where all effects proceed from natural causes. This means that the event of someone having the thought 'There is nothing supernatural' is itself only an effect of natural causes. As such, it has no definite truth value.

2) there is nothing irrational in stating that reason cannot answer everything. Once a supernatural being such as the Christian God has been hypothesised, it is rational to admit that He cannot be fully comprehended or explained.


Yes, but how can you? Does god control everything, or just a little? What laws govern the supernatural? It's only possible to reason about the nature of the supernatural if you beforehand define the premises, (just as all christian scholars have to do). But if you can't, (which is the reality in which we live) then you can never ever make any claim on the nature of god what so ever. It just gets silly. Any conclusion will be an argument from ignorance. Mathematically there is one chance among the infinite that the the christian theory of the universe is correct. If you in spite of this make any claim what so ever about the nature of the universe, then you are lying. You would then be pretending to have a plausible explanation when you have no such thing. There are a number of interesting theories backed by pretty numbers on the nature of the universe. Christianity hasn't even got that.

You say 'Mathematically there is one chance among the infinite that the the christian theory of the universe is correct. If you in spite of this make any claim what so ever about the nature of the universe, then you are lying.' This is misleading. In the first place, one chance among the infinite is a vanishingly small chance, but it is not the same as no chance at all. If an extremely unlikely chance had not taken place, then the necessary circumstances for human evolution could not have taken place, yet to argue after the event that since it is so unlikely it has not happened is nonsensical.

Secondly, to make a statement on the basis of limited knowledge, is not lying. In fact, as you yourself argue, there is no other basis on which we can make any statement. Christians say that they believe, on the basis of all the available evidence, that existence has certain attributes, and choose to live on the basis. Non-Christians do the same, making a different interpretation of the evidence.


I'm only interested in discussing faith in the supernatural. I've got no problems with religion. I think, I and the rest of humanity need plenty of guidance in life. I have no problems with religions giving guidance. But for me personaly, if the whole religion hinges of a premis that is a lie then I would stay far away from it.

You have introduced (at least) two value judgements there: 1) humans need 'guidance' (towards what? away from what? for what purpose?) 2) our actions should be predicated on the truth, not on lies. The most important question here, then, is: where do these values come from? Why should we adhere to them?


Considering the history of mankind I beg to differ. The more people believe something and the longer they have believed it the greater chance people accept it as truth no matter what, (I've seen and read plenty of research on this and I'm sure I can dig it up again if nobody here belives me). This means that we should be even more critical toward any philosophical system that is old, like christianity for example

Of course we should be critical - but that holds good for all thought systems. And it is impossible to be intelligently critical without an understanding of what it is we are criticising. And to take an example: if you have known from a very young age that your mother's name was Helen, would that knowledge hold less weight for you than someone telling you today that she was called Derek? the age of a belief is not strictly relevant - more important is the evidence in support of it. One might even argue on the contrary that the fact that for centuries thousands of people have found something credible, whereas a newer theory is as yet untested, counts in favour of older beliefs, but that is not an absolute argument.


Again, you can't use logic and reason about the nature of god, because you don't have any material to work with. If there is a god you or anybody else will never know what god wants. That is cold hard fact. Considering the vastness of the infinite, chances are pretty good that all religions are wrong. That's cold, hard statistical facts.

I agree with you - the exercise of human reason and imagination could never have come to an accurate conclusion about God. That is precisely why Christianity has never argued that it could.

As human beings we can speculate on the nature of the universe, and we can produce any number of theories that will more or less 'save appearances' (i.e. account for all known phenomena). God is the only one in a position of perfect knowledge (which, to respond to one of your earlier points, means he does not need to infer anything, and therefore can't infer wrongly) who can make a totally accurate statement about the nature of things.

Christians state that God has made such a statement, has revealed what we could not have discovered for ourselves, and what we could not have been sure of otherwise.

Yet once that revelation has been made, it can be tested against our knowledge from other sources, judged on its own evidential merits, and we can see what credibility it has. Are the texts reliable, does the world picture they present match our own experience, and so on. On this basis, like any thinking person, we can then decide whether or not we think this is the most likely picture of how things are.


I've admitedly mostly used wikipedia. ... end

The bible most certainly has a set of answers. Other faiths have other sets of answers, sometimes complimentary, sometimes opposing, but they are still a set of answers. Now clearly they cannot all be right, but it is possible that one has the complete truth, it is possible that all have parts of that truth, it is possible that some or all are completely wrong.

I think it is part of our individual development to decide for ourselves which, if any, we embrace, using all the tools we have at our disposal to make the best decision possible. Himind has gone down a similiar route and found a different answer. Other people have posted their different conclusions.

Although I have made a personal decision to believe what the bible says, I completely agree with you that it is wrong to hammer it as the truth. I will willingly share with anyone who invites me to do so, what it says; I will tell them why I believe it is right; but I will always leave them with the challenge to decide for themselves.

Colin Clout & cariad

[TomOfSweden]

1) A serious question over the idea of a purely naturalistic multiverse is that of determinism. If there is nothing except nature (nothing supernatural) then we seem to be left with a mechanistic multiverse, where all effects proceed from natural causes. This means that the event of someone having the thought 'There is nothing supernatural' is itself only an effect of natural causes. As such, it has no definite truth value.

2) there is nothing irrational in stating that reason cannot answer everything. Once a supernatural being such as the Christian God has been hypothesised, it is rational to admit that He cannot be fully comprehended or explained.


I've never claimed there's no supernatural force. I think that after studying the evidence it's the most likely conclusion. But that's not what this discussion is about. Not personal opinion but proof. The supernatural has no evidence what so ever suporting it, so it makes a weak case. All we have is blank spots on the map. We, (the humans) used to asume that the blank spots was covered by the supernatural because we had no other explanation. Today we do, and little by little the supernatural explanations are losing ground.

We can only use reason if we have premises to work from. If the material we are drawing conclusions from is infinate, then we can't say anything.

Let's create two possible hypothetical universes. One allows for the supernatural and the other doesn't. The non-supernatural is complex but has it's limitations and we can make plausible theories, while the supernatural one is infinate since the supernatural has no limits. This isn't a case against the supernatural, but if we believe in the supernatural then we can't say anything about it. That's where reason fails us.


[COLOR="Navy"]
You say 'Mathematically there is one chance among the infinite that the the christian theory of the universe is correct. If you in spite of this make any claim what so ever about the nature of the universe, then you are lying.' This is misleading. In the first place, one chance among the infinite is a vanishingly small chance, but it is not the same as no chance at all. If an extremely unlikely chance had not taken place, then the necessary circumstances for human evolution could not have taken place, yet to argue after the event that since it is so unlikely it has not happened is nonsensical.


Sorry, you missunderstood. What I meant was that if something is extremly unlikely, then it's stupid to have faith in it being true. It's a bit like buying a lottery ticket, taking multi-million dollar loans on the assumtion that the ticket will be the jackpot. This I think we all recognise as stupidity. Yet the chance of the christian theory of god being correct is less but it's still taken seriously by so many.

We have no idea whether or not human evolution is unlikely or not. I belong to the camp who believes that given the right circumstances life springs up easily. And aplying this to statistics, means that the universe is teeming with life. But this is off-course assumptions, because if we aply statistics again, we'll quickly realise that we're drawing assumptions from one single specimin, (earth) which we all know is bad science.


[COLOR="Navy"]
Secondly, to make a statement on the basis of limited knowledge, is not lying. In fact, as you yourself argue, there is no other basis on which we can make any statement. Christians say that they believe, on the basis of all the available evidence, that existence has certain attributes, and choose to live on the basis. Non-Christians do the same, making a different interpretation of the evidence.


This is where christian logic fails. You're still stuck on trying to prove whether the supernatural can be true or not. That's only step one. Christianity isn't about having faith in any supernatural force. It's about atributing it a whole host of attributes that we have no reason what so ever to give it. That's not making a different interpretation, that's just deluding yourself. Interpretation is about actually looking at the data, not just making stuff up.

I'll respect a "maybe christian". Somebody who would like the christian belief system to be true, but doesn't really know. Somebody who thinks the Bible is a great ethical system and who thinks the church is a great place to meet other nice people. It would be great if we went to heaven, but probably we won't. Going any further than this is deluding yourself or drawing erroneous conclusions.


[COLOR="Navy"]
You have introduced (at least) two value judgements there: 1) humans need 'guidance' (towards what? away from what? for what purpose?) 2) our actions should be predicated on the truth, not on lies. The most important question here, then, is: where do these values come from? Why should we adhere to them?


Yes. I think guidance is nice. I think I was pretty clear that that part was a value judgement from my side. I won't claim it as irrefutable truth.

Next one. Truth is needed for comunication. If we don't strive toward truth then we cannot comunicate. Even such a thing as drawing conclusions. correctness is a synonym to truth. If we don't strive toward truth we cannot make conclusions that make any sense at all. It is a value judgement as far as I'd like us to strive toward truth because I enjoy being able to reason. If I wouldn't strive toward truth all my actions would be random.


[COLOR="Navy"]
I agree with you - the exercise of human reason and imagination could never have come to an accurate conclusion about God. That is precisely why Christianity has never argued that it could.

That's just pretty words. Saying that christians don't claim to understand everything about god isn't the same thing as christians don't claim anything about god. Once you make any claims as to what god wants, ie the commandments you've invalidated that claim. Christians attribute a lot to god. Just the thing about going to heaven. That's a very definate claim of the nature of god and the supernatural.


[COLOR="Navy"]
As human beings we can speculate on the nature of the universe, and we can produce any number of theories that will more or less 'save appearances' (i.e. account for all known phenomena). God is the only one in a position of perfect knowledge (which, to respond to one of your earlier points, means he does not need to infer anything, and therefore can't infer wrongly) who can make a totally accurate statement about the nature of things.

Christians state that God has made such a statement, has revealed what we could not have discovered for ourselves, and what we could not have been sure of otherwise.

Yet once that revelation has been made, it can be tested against our knowledge from other sources, judged on its own evidential merits, and we can see what credibility it has. Are the texts reliable, does the world picture they present match our own experience, and so on. On this basis, like any thinking person, we can then decide whether or not we think this is the most likely picture of how things are.


Or it was all just make belief from the get go and then you've got what? The whole belief system hinges on nobody fibbing along the way. That's quite a number of assumtions. I'm not arguing on what's more likely or trying to talk you into anything. The non-supernatural theories have numbers. Things to measure. Things you and me,(with the proper training) can check for ourselves. It doesn't hinge on some dude in a beard 2000 years ago wasn't having a psychotic episode. If you're saying that it makes no difference to you then I'd say you where gullible.


[COLOR="Navy"]
The bible most certainly has a set of answers. Other faiths have other sets of answers, sometimes complimentary, sometimes opposing, but they are still a set of answers. Now clearly they cannot all be right, but it is possible that one has the complete truth, it is possible that all have parts of that truth, it is possible that some or all are completely wrong.

I think it is part of our individual development to decide for ourselves which, if any, we embrace, using all the tools we have at our disposal to make the best decision possible. Himind has gone down a similiar route and found a different answer. Other people have posted their different conclusions.

Although I have made a personal decision to believe what the bible says, I completely agree with you that it is wrong to hammer it as the truth. I will willingly share with anyone who invites me to do so, what it says; I will tell them why I believe it is right; but I will always leave them with the challenge to decide for themselves.
Colin Clout & cariad

That's what I don't like about the religious. It's if religion is about some personal journey. It just isn't. It's about the pursuit of truth. Working it out and comparing theories. Not buying into one theory when it has the same evidence as another. It's not the same thing as taking a personal journey and "finding yourself". That's psychology or something else. The supernatural claims in the world are completly seperate from the religions they come with.

I'm sure the religions of the world are great for humanity. They seem to fill some very important social function for people. Because they can aparently make people ignore the problems of the supernatural claims. I've got a friend who's the member of the world pantheist movement (http://www.pantheism.net/). He is adamantly atheist but needs some spiritual guidance and likes being with others who share his views. It's a religion and a church. They've just eliminated making any crazy claims they can't back up. I have no problems with that church.

[cariad]

Apologising for the delay in replying to you - I am going to be offline for a few days - perhaps someone else wishes to pick this up in the meantime...

cariad

[cariad]

Let's create two possible hypothetical universes. One allows for the supernatural and the other doesn't. The non-supernatural is complex but has it's limitations and we can make plausible theories, while the supernatural one is infinate since the supernatural has no limits. This isn't a case against the supernatural, but if we believe in the supernatural then we can't say anything about it. That's where reason fails us.

That sounds good to me. Although I am not sure where it takes us, since ruling out the option of saying there is not a supernatural element to our world merely because it would be make our world too complex to understand, if clearly not sound.

As someone who has embraced a particular faith I do have the canon of sacred texts and a body of experience, published and unpublished to help make sense of the world. And I know I am stepping into the circular argument territory there, so will back off. Smiles.



We have no idea whether or not human evolution is unlikely or not. I belong to the camp who believes that given the right circumstances life springs up easily.

And given the same evidence I have decided to join the other camp.

Actually the story of creation was a mile stone in my accepting the Bible as a God inspired text. I know you quote dates for the when the Bible was written, but I believe that those are for when it was assembled. The first 5 books of the bible in particular are significantly older than the dates you quote. As a child I was taught the story of creation, never really challenged it, but never really accepted it either. It struck me one day, just how amazing it was that someone with little scientific knowledge beyond how to use the stars as a compass and sighs of nature to find water could so accurately predict the process of evolution as science has now shown us. Unlike some people, I cannot accept that creation took 7 days, but I understand that the term used in the original Hebrew not only means day, but also a period of time. That makes the first few chapters of the bible not only plausible, but also in line with scientific discoveries. (With apologies to all creationists.)


This is where christian logic fails. You're still stuck on trying to prove whether the supernatural can be true or not. That's only step one. Christianity isn't about having faith in any supernatural force. It's about atributing it a whole host of attributes that we have no reason what so ever to give it. That's not making a different interpretation, that's just deluding yourself. Interpretation is about actually looking at the data, not just making stuff up.

The core of Christianity is about having a relationship with God, everything else leads to or flows from that. Is this relationship delusional - perhaps - although to me, there is much more pointing in the direction that it is real, than pointing in the other direction. Why do I attribute certain attributes to God; a combination of what the Bible says, the experience of other trusted, level headed Christians, and my own critical experience.


I'll respect a "maybe christian". Somebody who would like the christian belief system to be true, but doesn't really know. Somebody who thinks the Bible is a great ethical system and who thinks the church is a great place to meet other nice people. It would be great if we went to heaven, but probably we won't. Going any further than this is deluding yourself or drawing erroneous conclusions.

It is a great ethical system, and the church can be a great place to meet nice people, but come to that so are many other places. My closest friends are Christians, but there are also people at my church whom I do not naturally warm to, and beyond the church walls there are oodles and oodles of wonderful people who are not Christians.

I have addressed the delusional aspect of it above, and as for erroneous conclusions, I can only say that mine seem logical to me.


That's just pretty words. Saying that christians don't claim to understand everything about god isn't the same thing as christians don't claim anything about god. Once you make any claims as to what god wants, ie the commandments you've invalidated that claim. Christians attribute a lot to god. Just the thing about going to heaven. That's a very definate claim of the nature of god and the supernatural.

Having read what CC wrote, I think the point he was making is that, from a Christian perspective, we do not make claims as to what God wants, e.g. the commandments, we let Him do that Himself.



Or it was all just make belief from the get go and then you've got what? The whole belief system hinges on nobody fibbing along the way. That's quite a number of assumtions. I'm not arguing on what's more likely or trying to talk you into anything. The non-supernatural theories have numbers. Things to measure. Things you and me,(with the proper training) can check for ourselves. It doesn't hinge on some dude in a beard 2000 years ago wasn't having a psychotic episode. If you're saying that it makes no difference to you then I'd say you where gullible.

I have asked myself these questions, and can only say that non-supernatural theories leave too many gaping holes which do not appear to be in the pattern of science to be able to fill. That leaves me with finding a supernatural answer, and of the systems I have looked at, the one which seems to best stand up to any test I choose to throw at it is Christianity.


That's what I don't like about the religious. It's if religion is about some personal journey. It just isn't. It's about the pursuit of truth. Working it out and comparing theories. Not buying into one theory when it has the same evidence as another. It's not the same thing as taking a personal journey and "finding yourself". That's psychology or something else. The supernatural claims in the world are completly seperate from the religions they come with.

Perhaps I am tired, but you have lost me in this paragraph, and I can't grasp the point you are making. After carefully consideration I have decided to have faith in one particular set of explanations. I could have avoided, on principle, going for any given set and played lucky dip taking bits from all faiths. That would certainly have been a fascinating study, but would not necessarily have lead me any closer to finding out the truths. Instead I choose to learn more about God by devoting such time to exploring the faith which I have decided to embrace.


I'm sure the religions of the world are great for humanity. They seem to fill some very important social function for people. Because they can aparently make people ignore the problems of the supernatural claims. I've got a friend who's the member of the world pantheist movement (http://www.pantheism.net/). He is adamantly atheist but needs some spiritual guidance and likes being with others who share his views. It's a religion and a church. They've just eliminated making any crazy claims they can't back up. I have no problems with that church.

I have briefly looked at that site, and superficially, to me, there are many unanswered questions, but that is only on the basis of about 10 minutes, but I am not tempted to explore further.

I don't think religions are good for humanity, I believe that we all have a need to find out answers for ourselves regarding the existence or otherwise of the supernatural, and if it does exist, the nature of it. From what I have seen however, religions cause conflict, because it is only a matter of time before the people involved in the organisation of religions become ambitious and work to find arguments from within their faith to justify extension to their power.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

That sounds good to me. Although I am not sure where it takes us, since ruling out the option of saying there is not a supernatural element to our world merely because it would be make our world too complex to understand, if clearly not sound.


My point is that it's impossible to work out the nature of god even if it did exist. Maybe my line of reasoning was a bit hard to follow. It has a tendancy to get a bit fuzzy when I'm discussing purely abstract issues.



As someone who has embraced a particular faith I do have the canon of sacred texts and a body of experience, published and unpublished to help make sense of the world. And I know I am stepping into the circular argument territory there, so will back off. Smiles.


So you believe in god because you want god to exist? If true, at least it's honest. But not really a case for gods existance, is it? I might as well say that I'm am atheist because I don't want god to exist. A bit silly isn't it? Hardly anything to base a religion on.



And given the same evidence I have decided to join the other camp.


But you'd hardly bet on it being right, would you? Since you admit that the proof is full of holes?



Actually the story of creation was a mile stone in my accepting the Bible as a God inspired text. I know you quote dates for the when the Bible was written, but I believe that those are for when it was assembled. The first 5 books of the bible in particular are significantly older than the dates you quote. As a child I was taught the story of creation, never really challenged it, but never really accepted it either. It struck me one day, just how amazing it was that someone with little scientific knowledge beyond how to use the stars as a compass and sighs of nature to find water could so accurately predict the process of evolution as science has now shown us. Unlike some people, I cannot accept that creation took 7 days, but I understand that the term used in the original Hebrew not only means day, but also a period of time. That makes the first few chapters of the bible not only plausible, but also in line with scientific discoveries. (With apologies to all creationists.)


I'm really fascinated about how the bible came to be, but I think it's a bit of a side-track. We have no idea if it's the word of god or not. It's just an assumption christians make. If we don't even manage to come up with a likely model for how supernaturality works then the Bible isn't very relevant is it? If the supernatural didn't control the hands of the people writing it, then it isn't the word of god, right? If we have different interpretations of it, then well....we can't really draw any conclusions and....I think it's best to create a new thread about just that.



The core of Christianity is about having a relationship with God, everything else leads to or flows from that. Is this relationship delusional - perhaps - although to me, there is much more pointing in the direction that it is real, than pointing in the other direction. Why do I attribute certain attributes to God; a combination of what the Bible says, the experience of other trusted, level headed Christians, and my own critical experience.


That's fine, but you have no idea if it is in fact god you're adressing or just thin air, do you? Considering the nature of human perception, even if you personally have seen god, doesn't prove a thing.



I have addressed the delusional aspect of it above, and as for erroneous conclusions, I can only say that mine seem logical to me.


Again, this is just down to you believing in god because you want god to exist. It's not really a case for god.



Having read what CC wrote, I think the point he was making is that, from a Christian perspective, we do not make claims as to what God wants, e.g. the commandments, we let Him do that Himself.


ok, but how do you know what is the "voice" of god and what just is wishfull thinking/hallucination/delusion?



I have asked myself these questions, and can only say that non-supernatural theories leave too many gaping holes which do not appear to be in the pattern of science to be able to fill. That leaves me with finding a supernatural answer, and of the systems I have looked at, the one which seems to best stand up to any test I choose to throw at it is Christianity.


That's a contradiction. Just saying "god thought of it" is just avoiding the issue. A supernatural model of the universe is a lot more complex than a non-supernatural, because you have so much more variables. The plain fact is that the supernatural model has more holes in it than the non-supernatural. Just because on a very superficial level it looks simpler doesn't mean the maths of it are any simpler.

Again, just because you or I don't understand the maths of a theory, doesn't mean nobody does.



Perhaps I am tired, but you have lost me in this paragraph, and I can't grasp the point you are making. After carefully consideration I have decided to have faith in one particular set of explanations. I could have avoided, on principle, going for any given set and played lucky dip taking bits from all faiths. That would certainly have been a fascinating study, but would not necessarily have lead me any closer to finding out the truths. Instead I choose to learn more about God by devoting such time to exploring the faith which I have decided to embrace.


But you're only talking about your personal journey. It's as if it's an emotional standpoint. A bit like going with what ever feels the best for you. The supernatural elements of religion is a scientific theory. A model. As with all scientific theories we can have leanings toward one or the other model. But if the theory is too flimsy, like all the supernatural theories of the world. Then having a firm faith in it is stupid. There's a number of serious scientific theories on the mechanics of the universe works, (no, christianity isn't one of them) and no scientist would say, this is what I believe the rest of you are all wrong. They might sound like that's what they're saying, but it's not what they mean.

Believing in a scientific theory as a scientist is diametrically different than believing in a scientific theory as a religious follower. It has to do with comparing theories and doing the maths. If you don't have a degree in quantum mechanics it's a bit arrogant to pick your own version and just go for it, just like all religious people have to do. I think popular science is fun. I do my best in following the research but I don't have the proper education in the subject to formulate my own complete theory on the mechanics of the universe works or even evaluate what christianity says about it. That would be arrogance to the extreme. If religious people on top of this have the bad taste to vote for laws based on religious ethics, then I feel like grabbing for my gun. Hobby philosophers pissing those who have done their homeworkd and actually know better, (most often scientists) in the face. Yes, I think we should leave the big decision to the proper scientists, of the simple reason that they understand things that we don't.

The religious comunity disregard serious science and treat all these big questions like a big joke. If they didn't they'd learn the maths. They might look all sinceare when they're pondering the bible, but it requires that you selectivly ignore critical problems of the model and only vote with your heart.

That's what I mean with it not being a personal journey. Growing as a person, and developing your morals and finding yourself is a personal journey, but has very little to do with basic religious theories on the universe and the supernatural.



I have briefly looked at that site, and superficially, to me, there are many unanswered questions, but that is only on the basis of about 10 minutes, but I am not tempted to explore further.


It's one of the ancient Greek religions. linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism)

Pantheism is simply put the idea that everything is god. Our natural universe is god. So they believe in god, but they don't belive in the supernatural. They believe that it's up to humans to figure out what god wants all by themselves. Because we define what god is and should be. They use the study of ethics to build moral codes for the religion. Their religious masses are based on providing a service for the good of the comunity, and let the comunity decide on what they want.

I really don't get what the point of it is, but good luck to them.



I don't think religions are good for humanity, I believe that we all have a need to find out answers for ourselves regarding the existence or otherwise of the supernatural, and if it does exist, the nature of it. From what I have seen however, religions cause conflict, because it is only a matter of time before the people involved in the organisation of religions become ambitious and work to find arguments from within their faith to justify extension to their power.


I think religions are good for humanity simply based on the fact that they exist. They aparently fill a need. Practices that humanity doesn't need has a tendancy to disapear. That's the beauty of evolution. It may very well be that with the good bits we get some bad bits, but over the whole, it's aparent that it does a lot of good. Again, simply based on the fact that religions exist. Why? I have no idea. If anything in this thread, it should be aparent that I'm the wrong person to ask.

[cariad]

My point is that it's impossible to work out the nature of god even if it did exist. Maybe my line of reasoning was a bit hard to follow. It has a tendancy to get a bit fuzzy when I'm discussing purely abstract issues.

I took that point, and agree with it. At the best we can work out where we need a supernatural filling. However the fact that we are unable to work out the nature of God does not mean that he does not exist.



So you believe in god because you want god to exist? If true, at least it's honest. But not really a case for gods existance, is it? I might as well say that I'm am atheist because I don't want god to exist. A bit silly isn't it? Hardly anything to base a religion on.

Not quite:
1. I believed in a God because to me it is the answer which makes sense.
2. I wanted to know more about God, so looked at how the various (but admittedly not all) faiths explained God.
3. I found one which made logical sense and fitted my experience of supernatural.
4. I studied the sacred texts of that faith to discover more what they revealed of God's nature.
5. I brought that information into real life and considered it and tested it.
6. I discovered more about God.
7. I found that the more I read and considered, the more spiritually aware I became, developing an appreciation of the tri-fold nature of humans - physical, emotional and intellectual, and spiritual - and how these interact.
8. I returned to step 4.



But you'd hardly bet on it being right, would you? Since you admit that the proof is full of holes?

Although there are many theories, some well grounded, and some less so; to my knowledge there is no complete proof on either side.


I'm really fascinated about how the bible came to be, but I think it's a bit of a side-track. We have no idea if it's the word of god or not. It's just an assumption christians make. If we don't even manage to come up with a likely model for how supernaturality works then the Bible isn't very relevant is it? If the supernatural didn't control the hands of the people writing it, then it isn't the word of god, right? If we have different interpretations of it, then well....we can't really draw any conclusions and....I think it's best to create a new thread about just that.

Smiles - after you...


That's fine, but you have no idea if it is in fact god you're adressing or just thin air, do you? Considering the nature of human perception, even if you personally have seen god, doesn't prove a thing.

I do not think not being able to see something is serious proof of it not existing. If you are referring to talking to God - I have seen too many things change as a result of doing so for it to be purely placebo, imagination or chance.


ok, but how do you know what is the "voice" of god and what just is wishfull thinking/hallucination/delusion?

That is a discussion in itself, and is one I have had many times. I have heard God, as in I would be amazed if someone who had been in the room at the time would not have heard him, twice. Once was over something I knew I should I do, but kept finding excuses about. The other time I was driving, and unbeknown to me a small child was about to come round the corner directly into my path. By following the instructions of that voice, in the moment before I could know there was a potential problem, that small boy was not seriously injured, or killed.

Other times, I 'hear' a voice in my head, which I have learned to recognise. I cannot give you any evidence that it is not wishful thinking or delusional, except that it has a nasty habit of always being right, of often making a decision on the basis of information I don't have, and is always in line with what the Bible teaches.

The other way I 'hear' from God, is not direct communication at all, but by learning what sort of thing He likes, my conscience will prick if I am stepping outside of those boundaries - that is no more supernatural than your slave knowing what you do and do not like, because she has made a study of you.


That's a contradiction. Just saying "god thought of it" is just avoiding the issue. A supernatural model of the universe is a lot more complex than a non-supernatural, because you have so much more variables. The plain fact is that the supernatural model has more holes in it than the non-supernatural. Just because on a very superficial level it looks simpler doesn't mean the maths of it are any simpler.

Again, just because you or I don't understand the maths of a theory, doesn't mean nobody does.

I think we have been round this one before. I fully agree that a model of the universe which includes the supernatural is bound to more complex, because there is an additional dimension. That in itself does not indicate whether it is right or wrong.

To me, the supernatural model has less holes in - but I fully admit that is because I temporarily suspended disbelief to view it with an accepting mind, (ref my much earlier comment about choosing which circle to stand in).

Because you and I don't fully understand any theory, of either 'side', does not prove it one way of the other.


But you're only talking about your personal journey. It's as if it's an emotional standpoint. A bit like going with what ever feels the best for you. The supernatural elements of religion is a scientific theory. A model. As with all scientific theories we can have leanings toward one or the other model. But if the theory is too flimsy, like all the supernatural theories of the world. Then having a firm faith in it is stupid. There's a number of serious scientific theories on the mechanics of the universe works, (no, christianity isn't one of them) and no scientist would say, this is what I believe the rest of you are all wrong. They might sound like that's what they're saying, but it's not what they mean.

Why do you say that the supernatural elements of religion are a scientific theory? I would say (if I have to find a discipline for it) that it is closest to a psychological theory - in that, to me, it is a study of a force with personality. In all the years of physics which I studied, personality was never a factor - with the possible exception of the sadistic temperament of one of my physics masters.


Believing in a scientific theory as a scientist is diametrically different than believing in a scientific theory as a religious follower. It has to do with comparing theories and doing the maths. If you don't have a degree in quantum mechanics it's a bit arrogant to pick your own version and just go for it, just like all religious people have to do. I think popular science is fun. I do my best in following the research but I don't have the proper education in the subject to formulate my own complete theory on the mechanics of the universe works or even evaluate what christianity says about it. That would be arrogance to the extreme.

Well, my quantum mechanics does not progress past a foundation unit I did at university, which was a shame, I loved that unit and found a real beauty in it, in the same way that I loved the unit I did on astrology, so I don't have the knowledge either to follow latest papers. That does not mean however that I reject the science. I agree popular science is fun, but I do get frustrated when initially theories are expounded, and after a few trips round the press they return as facts.


If religious people on top of this have the bad taste to vote for laws based on religious ethics, then I feel like grabbing for my gun. Hobby philosophers pissing those who have done their homeworkd and actually know better, (most often scientists) in the face. Yes, I think we should leave the big decision to the proper scientists, of the simple reason that they understand things that we don't.

Do I understand that you are suggesting leaving governing our countries to a group of scientists? *shudders at the thought* I live with someone who has a PhD in a physical science, and most of the people he works with have the same. Many of them work in ground breaking research, so they are still actively exploring their small area of science. I also regularly attend dinner parties with some of these people - and yes, I am very grateful for the work they do, and without doubt our world is a better place for it - but the thought of them governing the country. Please, no.


The religious comunity disregard serious science and treat all these big questions like a big joke. If they didn't they'd learn the maths. They might look all sinceare when they're pondering the bible, but it requires that you selectivly ignore critical problems of the model and only vote with your heart.

I disagree that the religious community disregards science. I am sure there are a few small groups which do, but I am sure I can find you a corresponding group of nutty scientists - so please don't discredit a whole community because one small subgroup is wacky. I personally refuse to ignore critical problems of the model which I have embraced. That does not mean that I have all the answers, but then, nobody, of any discipline does.

I think you are right when you said I voted with my heart when I decided to step into the circle of belief. After that I have been very analytical and critical.


I think religions are good for humanity simply based on the fact that they exist. They aparently fill a need. Practices that humanity doesn't need has a tendancy to disapear. That's the beauty of evolution. It may very well be that with the good bits we get some bad bits, but over the whole, it's aparent that it does a lot of good. Again, simply based on the fact that religions exist. Why? I have no idea. If anything in this thread, it should be aparent that I'm the wrong person to ask.

I think faith is good for humanity, and we are also social beings. I think they are two needs which we have. I don't think we have a need for religion.

I do know one thing that this thread has shown me Tom; you are great guy to get me thinking about some of the basics which I have accepted for too long - so I sincerely thank you for the challenge. We may not agree, but I have a great respect both for what you say, and how you say it.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

I took that point, and agree with it. At the best we can work out where we need a supernatural filling. However the fact that we are unable to work out the nature of God does not mean that he does not exist.


Not quite, sorry. We can't even work out whether we need a supernatural fillling. First we need to have any working modell at all. That's still pretty far off. If we'll ever get one.

The supernatural theories are only on the table of all the other theories. They're not any more complete or offer any more a comprehensible picture of reality. You might say, "this one makes sense to me because of [this] and [the other], this is what I believe is true". That's fine and something we all need to do. But having faith in it, and banking on a thing like, you'll go to heaven after you die, is drawing a much too strong conclusion. At best it could be something you wish might be true.

Praying to god to help you with some disease IS deluded. That if anything is wasting energy, and we should all be well aware of it. Even saying stuff like, "I have nothing to lose by preying to god so I might as well do it" is still deluded. If you open up the possibility of a supernatural entity listening, the chances that god is evil and punishing anybody making a request is just as great. They're unsuported by the same amount of non-evidence.

Again, the ethical parts of a religion is a seperate issue than the supernatural claims. You might think the ethical guides are great. It's great if they are, I'm not going to debate it. But I am attacking the supernatural claims. Don't pick a religon based on it's scientific claims. They are all so old, the thoeries where made obsolete long ago.



Not quite:
1. I believed in a God because to me it is the answer which makes sense.
2. I wanted to know more about God, so looked at how the various (but admittedly not all) faiths explained God.
3. I found one which made logical sense and fitted my experience of supernatural.
4. I studied the sacred texts of that faith to discover more what they revealed of God's nature.
5. I brought that information into real life and considered it and tested it.
6. I discovered more about God.
7. I found that the more I read and considered, the more spiritually aware I became, developing an appreciation of the tri-fold nature of humans - physical, emotional and intellectual, and spiritual - and how these interact.
8. I returned to step 4.
the nature of God does not mean that he does not exist.


I'm going to go right ahead and attack step one. How did it "make sense". When we're discussing a thing like whether heaven exists, I don't think it's too much to ask qustions like how? Where is it? What is it? What do people do there? Is there even people there? Will I be me or transformed into something different? Will my thought be retained? What is the soul? Can it be measured? How is it transported? What medium does it use?

None of these are answered in the Bible. I'm not saying the claims in the Bible isn't true. It might very well be. But just settling for, "sounds good to me" or "nobody can prove it isn't true", shouldn't satisfy anyone in these modern times, with sofisticated measuring devices. Strictly speaking, you have no reason to believe anything in the bible is true, so being a little bit more explanation might not be all that amiss. Granted that the Bible is old, but if it's true they should have had all that information back then, right?

I've also got issues with your experiences of the supernatural. We discussed this earlier. The problems are:

1) Human perception is fallible. We can't trust our senses. We tend to see what we want to see.
2) Science has never ever been able to register anything that breaks the rules of nature as we know them.

Your next problem you've yet to solve is that the satanists could be right and the christians wrong. Even if your experiences with god are correct, you have no idea if "your" god is the christian version of it. That's just an assumption you've made. A pretty big assumption. For all you know, it could be little alien jr, in a saucer in orbit, stealing dadies mind-control laser for a laugh. Aren't you just being effected/swayed by the religious beliefs of people around you? People tend to stick to a faith most people have in their vicinity. That in itself is a argument against any of the supernatural being true. Just based on the fact that there are so many different ones.

I know I'm a bit silly now, but how did you test it?

Again, I've got no quarel with christian ethics. Only it's supernatural claims, and I've got no wish in discussing the ethical parts of it. I can well imaging that studying the Bible gives you spiritual awareness, but that's no case for you going to heaven, is it?



Although there are many theories, some well grounded, and some less so; to my knowledge there is no complete proof on either side.


I think my work is done here. So you admit that you problably wont go to heaven once you die? Is that what you're saying?



I do not think not being able to see something is serious proof of it not existing. If you are referring to talking to God - I have seen too many things change as a result of doing so for it to be purely placebo, imagination or chance.


I've heard that a lot. I did LSD in my youth. Not only have I seen god, I've seen gnomes, talking skeletons and people surfing on music. Our minds are very malleable. With or without LSD. We have to use external measuring devices. We cannot trust our eyes or ears. Just using personal experience alone just isn't good enough. Seeing it is only step one. Next step is proving it somehow. You know your dreams aren't real, right? So why couldn't your supernatural experiences just as well have been a dream?

If a lot of people believe something allready and their experiences get strengthened by others we tend to believe what we are seeing is real. That's certainly true for me. Each time I've had a broken heart I've seen my girls face in almost every other woman I see at a distance.

In the 50'ies there was a claim by some UFO-"nuts" that they saw a flying saucer. Before the 50'ies no UFO sightings had ever reported UFO's as saucer shaped. The closest had been football shaped, (the round kind, in Europe). After this event there's hundreds a year, and it's ever increasing.

The sheer number of christians alone means that their religious experiences should be taken with masses of pinches of salt. I'm willing to bet most christian miracles are witnessed in south America. Just a wild guess based on the fact that it's the most devout christian area in the world.

It just doesn't prove a thing. If you can't work it into a credible model then you've got nothing. We know for a fact that their are things in the Bible that can not be taken litterarily, right? So how do you know which parts should be? For all we know, it could all be metaphores for the highly regular and un-supernatural.



The other way I 'hear' from God, is not direct communication at all, but by learning what sort of thing He likes, my conscience will prick if I am stepping outside of those boundaries - that is no more supernatural than your slave knowing what you do and do not like, because she has made a study of you.


I'm not going to dwell on this. But it's interesting that you call god "he". It's the second time in this thread you've given god human qualities.



I think we have been round this one before. I fully agree that a model of the universe which includes the supernatural is bound to more complex, because there is an additional dimension. That in itself does not indicate whether it is right or wrong.

To me, the supernatural model has less holes in - but I fully admit that is because I temporarily suspended disbelief to view it with an accepting mind, (ref my much earlier comment about choosing which circle to stand in).

Because you and I don't fully understand any theory, of either 'side', does not prove it one way of the other.


That's exactly my point. The difference is that I'm well aware that we might go to heaven, but we probably wont. Only based on logic. As you have told me before, you do in fact believe strongly in heaven. This to me makes no sense. Not if you agree that the non-supernatural model makes just as good a case for it as the supernatural.



Why do you say that the supernatural elements of religion are a scientific theory? I would say (if I have to find a discipline for it) that it is closest to a psychological theory - in that, to me, it is a study of a force with personality. In all the years of physics which I studied, personality was never a factor - with the possible exception of the sadistic temperament of one of my physics masters.


Because they are. They make scientific claims. They make claims that, if true, would invalidate the non-supernatural theories. Priests pretend like it's only about taking a stand on the ethical issues. That is only one part of christianity. The part, if you will, within the realm of psychology.

We haven't proven yet if there is such a thing as the supernatural. Let's wait with attributing it things like personality until we've settled that one.



Well, my quantum mechanics does not progress past a foundation unit I did at university, which was a shame, I loved that unit and found a real beauty in it, in the same way that I loved the unit I did on astrology, so I don't have the knowledge either to follow latest papers. That does not mean however that I reject the science. I agree popular science is fun, but I do get frustrated when initially theories are expounded, and after a few trips round the press they return as facts.


You seem to have a good grasp of how science works. That's great. You are also aparently great at breaking down this problem into bits, and attacking each one. As I see it, your main hole is linked directly to your own experiences with the supernatural. Since those are easy to explain with the non-supernatural, it's beyond me how you can subscribe to the supernatural claims of christianity. You seem a little bit too smart.



Do I understand that you are suggesting leaving governing our countries to a group of scientists? *shudders at the thought* I live with someone who has a PhD in a physical science, and most of the people he works with have the same. Many of them work in ground breaking research, so they are still actively exploring their small area of science. I also regularly attend dinner parties with some of these people - and yes, I am very grateful for the work they do, and without doubt our world is a better place for it - but the thought of them governing the country. Please, no.


No, that's not what I mean. I think democracy is a great idea, but it would be nice if people knew their limits and not take a stand on things they haven't studied. It's not too much to ask is it? But now we're surely gliding into the domains of political opinions. I'll just leave it.

Priests don't study quantum mechanics in school, so they shouldn't tell people god exists. They are most probably the right people to interpret the Bible and teach us about it's ethical merits, but they do not have the education or qualifications to argue for gods existance. Which is why they don't off-course. They all say stupid stuff like, "it's up to us all to decide for ourselves". That's just avoiding the issue.



I disagree that the religious community disregards science. I am sure there are a few small groups which do, but I am sure I can find you a corresponding group of nutty scientists - so please don't discredit a whole community because one small subgroup is wacky. I personally refuse to ignore critical problems of the model which I have embraced. That does not mean that I have all the answers, but then, nobody, of any discipline does.

I think you are right when you said I voted with my heart when I decided to step into the circle of belief. After that I have been very analytical and critical.


Granted that I was a bit harsh here. But as I've said earlier in this thread. The only thing the christian supernatural theories have going for them is personal experiences not reproducable in a laboratory. Science is great at measuring which stimuli our brains react from. If no scientist has ever been able to measure a message from god, then well...chances are pretty good nobody ever has recieved a message from god. This must be the one most studied field in history, so you can't blame it on nobody trying. The plain fact is that all of the evidence christian supernatural theories has are all highly circumstantial. Maybe O.J. was in fact guilty? Who knows? But are you willing to bet on it? I mean really? If you are then I do think you take this issue very lightly.



I think faith is good for humanity, and we are also social beings. I think they are two needs which we have. I don't think we have a need for religion.


I'll just leave this. Religion means something else depending on who you ask. I'm a atheist. I believe that the evidence points towards it being wise to have faith in that god doesn't exist. There's aparently a lot of us. It's fair to say that Nietsche and Richard Dawkins are our greatest profets. Do I follow a religion? I think it's a pretty open question. We all have external ethical guides to our lives. Isn't that all religion is, really?

I do see myself as a highly spiritual person. I do believe we can send energies to one another. I don't believe there's something physical actually being sent, but whenever I'm around happy, intelligent and energitic people it feels like I have more energy. Is this belief a religious belief?

Religion is such an obvius part of how we think that we cannot imagine a paradigm of thought not including god or the supernatural. We have no words to describe the ununderstandable in any other way. An atheist is a non-teist. We have a very long way to go before we manage to break with god and religion being a natural part of our language and way to reason.



I do know one thing that this thread has shown me Tom; you are great guy to get me thinking about some of the basics which I have accepted for too long - so I sincerely thank you for the challenge. We may not agree, but I have a great respect both for what you say, and how you say it.

Cariad

And you're by far the bravest religious person I've ever had the great privilige to have one of these discussions with.

[cariad]

Not quite, sorry. We can't even work out whether we need a supernatural fillling. First we need to have any working modell at all. That's still pretty far off. If we'll ever get one.
Perhaps we should try discussing the equally serious topic of chocolate then. This was why a number of posts back I suggested that moving onto a discussion of supernatural theories was premature, without first agreeing on a need for one.


The supernatural theories are only on the table of all the other theories. They're not any more complete or offer any more a comprehensible picture of reality. You might say, "this one makes sense to me because of [this] and [the other], this is what I believe is true". That's fine and something we all need to do. But having faith in it, and banking on a thing like, you'll go to heaven after you die, is drawing a much too strong conclusion. At best it could be something you wish might be true.
You have slightly lost me here – yes I do believe that I will go to heaven when I die, and I suppose you could say I bank on it, but it does not effect how I live now, or the rest of my belief.


Praying to god to help you with some disease IS deluded. That if anything is wasting energy, and we should all be well aware of it. Even saying stuff like, "I have nothing to lose by preying to god so I might as well do it" is still deluded. If you open up the possibility of a supernatural entity listening, the chances that god is evil and punishing anybody making a request is just as great. They're unsuported by the same amount of non-evidence.
I have known too many people to have long term healings as a result of prayer not to do so. I would fully agree that some healings are psychological, but enough are very real for it to approach delusion. I would go as far as to say that there is a lot to be lost by not doing so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cariad<U_E>
Not quite:
1. I believed in a God because to me it is the answer which makes sense.
2. I wanted to know more about God, so looked at how the various (but admittedly not all) faiths explained God.
3. I found one which made logical sense and fitted my experience of supernatural.
4. I studied the sacred texts of that faith to discover more what they revealed of God's nature.
5. I brought that information into real life and considered it and tested it.
6. I discovered more about God.
7. I found that the more I read and considered, the more spiritually aware I became, developing an appreciation of the tri-fold nature of humans - physical, emotional and intellectual, and spiritual - and how these interact.
8. I returned to step 4.
the nature of God does not mean that he does not exist. [/quote]


I'm going to go right ahead and attack step one.
I would have been disappointed in you if you had not – grins

How did it "make sense". When we're discussing a thing like whether heaven exists, I don't think it's too much to ask qustions like how? Where is it? What is it? What do people do there? Is there even people there? Will I be me or transformed into something different? Will my thought be retained? What is the soul? Can it be measured? How is it transported? What medium does it use?
None of these are answered in the Bible. I'm not saying the claims in the Bible isn't true. It might very well be. But just settling for, "sounds good to me" or "nobody can prove it isn't true", shouldn't satisfy anyone in these modern times, with sofisticated measuring devices. Strictly speaking, you have no reason to believe anything in the bible is true, so being a little bit more explanation might not be all that amiss. Granted that the Bible is old, but if it's true they should have had all that information back then, right?
The existence or otherwise of heaven, and what happens after death, did not form part of my decision to belief. I know that often evangelists preach the believe or you will go to hell theme, but I made my decision without either the threat of hell or the promise of heaven. I based it solely on the desire to have a relationship with God. There are many things which the Bible does not cover – far more than it does if you are after details, although there are a significant number of broad principles. I only have the broadest idea of how my car works, and I have only read a few pages of the manual. I know enough about it to trust it to do what it is supposed to. In the same way, although some of the questions which you have raised I would be interested to know the answer to, I am not going to let not knowing effect the things which I do.
The supernatural is not the only thing which cannot be proved, the much quoted example is emotions. These are felt, they are demonstrated and expressed, but as for ‘proof’ it is only circumstantial, yet I would be surprised it you were to deny them. Even the natural which world I know is far broader than anything which can be proved by a scientific rule or set of equations.


I've also got issues with your experiences of the supernatural. We discussed this earlier. The problems are:

1) Human perception is fallible. We can't trust our senses. We tend to see what we want to see.
2) Science has never ever been able to register anything that breaks the rules of nature as we know them.
1. That does not mean that what we see is wrong.
2. Why try and measure everything by science? And to take what you mentioned above, physical healings. There science has been able to measure, and have been unable to provide an explanation.

Your next problem you've yet to solve is that the satanists could be right and the christians wrong. Even if your experiences with god are correct, you have no idea if "your" god is the christian version of it. That's just an assumption you've made. A pretty big assumption. For all you know, it could be little alien jr, in a saucer in orbit, stealing dadies mind-control laser for a laugh. Aren't you just being effected/swayed by the religious beliefs of people around you? People tend to stick to a faith most people have in their vicinity. That in itself is a argument against any of the supernatural being true. Just based on the fact that there are so many different ones.

I know I'm a bit silly now, but how did you test it?
Well, I asked God and a little alien to a meeting and only God showed up, so he sort of got it by default.
Not quiet sure what you asking here. How did I test what?


Again, I've got no quarel with christian ethics. Only it's supernatural claims, and I've got no wish in discussing the ethical parts of it. I can well imaging that studying the Bible gives you spiritual awareness, but that's no case for you going to heaven, is it?
No it is not.

I think my work is done here. So you admit that you problably wont go to heaven once you die? Is that what you're saying?
Sorry – your work is not done. Just because something has not been proved does not make it not so, it merely makes it unproven. And for the record I have every expectation of going to heaven when I die – and I have heard they have great calorie free chocolate cake there.


The sheer number of christians alone means that their religious experiences should be taken with masses of pinches of salt.
Not sure I take your point there – because a significant number of believe something is so, you are saying that it is less likely to be so? Looks confused.

I'm willing to bet most christian miracles are witnessed in south America. Just a wild guess based on the fact that it's the most devout christian area in the world.
That could well be the case, however the only miracles I would quote or rely on are those where I have personally seen the evidence and know the people involved. I have seen too many well meaning people claim miracles when there are more likely explanations.


It just doesn't prove a thing. If you can't work it into a credible model then you've got nothing.
If you have a model into which you cannot slot all the evidence, the model ceases to be credible. It is a weak defence to claim that the evidence must be wrong since it does not fit the model.

We know for a fact that their are things in the Bible that can not be taken litterarily, right? So how do you know which parts should be? For all we know, it could all be metaphores for the highly regular and un-supernatural.
An interesting discussion – but another one.

But it's interesting that you call god "he". It's the second time in this thread you've given god human qualities.
Because that is the limit of my language. The God I know is not a machine or just a force therefore cannot be called ‘it’. There is personality there, and many of the attributes which we attach to humans, therefore God has to be he/she. Why do I choose to call God he – well it is easier than using he/she all the time, and a short answer as to why I opt for he because it is convention to do so. Again – that could be a discussion in its own right, but I believe that God encompasses both male and female attributes.

That's exactly my point. The difference is that I'm well aware that we might go to heaven, but we probably wont. Only based on logic. As you have told me before, you do in fact believe strongly in heaven. This to me makes no sense. Not if you agree that the non-supernatural model makes just as good a case for it as the supernatural.
Same evidence, different conclusion, I guess because we put different weight on different elements. To me the supernatural model is more sound than the non-supernatural one. Complexity does not make something wrong, unless the complexity is being used to disguise a flaw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cariad<U_E>
Why do you say that the supernatural elements of religion are a scientific theory? I would say (if I have to find a discipline for it) that it is closest to a psychological theory - in that, to me, it is a study of a force with personality. In all the years of physics which I studied, personality was never a factor - with the possible exception of the sadistic temperament of one of my physics masters.

Because they are. They make scientific claims. They make claims that, if true, would invalidate the non-supernatural theories. Priests pretend like it's only about taking a stand on the ethical issues. That is only one part of christianity. The part, if you will, within the realm of psychology.
I am not aware of Christianity making any claims which invalidate non-supernatural theories, it merely makes claims as to an explanation of the gaps in those theories.


We haven't proven yet if there is such a thing as the supernatural. Let's wait with attributing it things like personality until we've settled that one.
Happy to go along with that one!

You seem to have a good grasp of how science works. That's great. You are also aparently great at breaking down this problem into bits, and attacking each one. As I see it, your main hole is linked directly to your own experiences with the supernatural. Since those are easy to explain with the non-supernatural, it's beyond me how you can subscribe to the supernatural claims of christianity. You seem a little bit too smart.
Whilst I will lap up the compliments I cannot agree that a reasonable balance suggests that my experiences with the supernatural can be explained by the non-supernatural.
I really think we have to go back to what you said at the very start of this discussion about circular arguments. I am convinced we are probably both as guilty as each other of it, and I am honestly not sure how possible it is to step out the circle which we are in because of our beliefs and see things from the other circle. Which is, as I said then, where the step of faith comes into play. That tiny bit of faith which gives a person the confidence to step out of the circle of non-belief into the circle of belief, of accepting that there could possibly be supernatural explanations. At that point everything falls into place, but without doing that, I am not sure it is possible to see it. I am sure the reverse also applies.


Priests don't study quantum mechanics in school, so they shouldn't tell people god exists. They are most probably the right people to interpret the Bible and teach us about it's ethical merits, but they do not have the education or qualifications to argue for gods existance. Which is why they don't off-course. They all say stupid stuff like, "it's up to us all to decide for ourselves". That's just avoiding the issue.
Why do you need to have studied quantum mechanics to be able to know if God exists? By suggesting that he can only be proven by that particular discipline you are not taking a very narrow view.

Granted that I was a bit harsh here. But as I've said earlier in this thread. The only thing the christian supernatural theories have going for them is personal experiences not reproducable in a laboratory. Science is great at measuring which stimuli our brains react from. If no scientist has ever been able to measure a message from god, then well...chances are pretty good nobody ever has recieved a message from god. This must be the one most studied field in history, so you can't blame it on nobody trying. The plain fact is that all of the evidence christian supernatural theories has are all highly circumstantial. Maybe O.J. was in fact guilty? Who knows? But are you willing to bet on it? I mean really? If you are then I do think you take this issue very lightly.
Regarding OJ, I could not be bothered to follow the trial, so I cannot give an opinion on it. I have read that science has shown brains functioning differently when people pray, but I would not offer that as evidence, since it could also be to do with a psychological state. I have also read of studies being done in hospitals of blind tests were some people where prayed for by a community of believers and others were not, and the apparently the evidence is fairly conclusive. However without knowing the full background to such tests I am not prepared to rely on them in argument, which is why I can only fall back on my own experiences and those of people I know and trust.

cariad

[TomOfSweden]

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Perhaps we should try discussing the equally serious topic of chocolate then. This was why a number of posts back I suggested that moving onto a discussion of supernatural theories was premature, without first agreeing on a need for one.


I agree, but you in spite of this continue to believe in the supernatural which off-course means it needs to be adressed if we want to reach a conclusion.


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You have slightly lost me here – yes I do believe that I will go to heaven when I die, and I suppose you could say I bank on it, but it does not effect how I live now, or the rest of my belief.


I took it as an example since I thought most christians believe that non-repentant sinners didn't get in. But still, reaching heaven still does have an impact, since it'll effect your level of fear of death. If the 9/11 terrorists wouldn't have believed that they'd go to heaven, I'm certain their actions would have been different.


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I have known too many people to have long term healings as a result of prayer not to do so. I would fully agree that some healings are psychological, but enough are very real for it to approach delusion. I would go as far as to say that there is a lot to be lost by not doing so.


You've got a causality issue. In logic it's known as Post hoc ergo propter hoc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc). Just because B takes place after A, doesn't mean that A causes B.

There's been so much research into this that it's silly. Maybe your friends is the special case, but I saw research where they evaluated sick pilgrims at Lourdes. If I remember correctly, from about three million a year who visit the shrine there are 50 000 reported miraculous healings which correlated exactly to the same number for the population in general. None of these healings are stuff that science can't explain. No regrown limbs or anything the medical proffesion would label as impossible.

Science can tell us that there is no link between praying and healing from diseases. I'm not trying to be cheeky or anything but this was too easy to shoot down.

And then off-course you still have to link the healing to christianity. Good luck.


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The existence or otherwise of heaven, and what happens after death, did not form part of my decision to belief. I know that often evangelists preach the believe or you will go to hell theme, but I made my decision without either the threat of hell or the promise of heaven. I based it solely on the desire to have a relationship with God. There are many things which the Bible does not cover – far more than it does if you are after details, although there are a significant number of broad principles. I only have the broadest idea of how my car works, and I have only read a few pages of the manual. I know enough about it to trust it to do what it is supposed to. In the same way, although some of the questions which you have raised I would be interested to know the answer to, I am not going to let not knowing effect the things which I do.
The supernatural is not the only thing which cannot be proved, the much quoted example is emotions. These are felt, they are demonstrated and expressed, but as for ‘proof’ it is only circumstantial, yet I would be surprised it you were to deny them. Even the natural which world I know is far broader than anything which can be proved by a scientific rule or set of equations.


But now you're back into making this some emotional stand point.

Chosing which authority figures to trust is important, since we cannot understand everything. A very valid and important thing to do. You've chosen to make the authors of the Bible trusted authority figures in your life. But wouldn't it be nice to have the figures of authority in our lives actually have to prove they've got the goods. If the engine runs you know the mechanic did his job. How do you check the priest did his? What do you measure? Or do you just go on faith and vague feelings? Treat your priest the same way as you would a car salesman. There's no reason to have any more respect for the priest. They're both salesmen.

It's nice that you have a relationship with god. There's many names for the super-ego (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_ego). You don't need anything supernatural for that.


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1. That does not mean that what we see is wrong.
2. Why try and measure everything by science? And to take what you mentioned above, physical healings. There science has been able to measure, and have been unable to provide an explanation.


No, but if I'm the only one who saw/heard it then maybe I should find something to back it up with. Especially if I'm claiming something as whacky as talking to god.

We need to measure it somehow. Science is a good measuring system. Again, science is only a method to judge the truth, not a model by which we compare against. Science doesn't have the truth, but it may allow us to find it. The alternative to science is to not be systematic and just go on vague feelings. Common sense is the most common non-scientific method of judging the truth. You tell me which method is the most likely to come up with the best result?

Just because science can't measure it, doesn't mean science is wrong. Shouldn't that rather lead us to suspect that there's probably nothing to measure? We really don't have any other way to reason. We can make wild theories and dream a little, but from that to having faith is a pretty big plunge into the dark.


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Well, I asked God and a little alien to a meeting and only God showed up, so he sort of got it by default.
Not quiet sure what you asking here. How did I test what?


You don't know that. It's only assumptions. In spite of the large amounts of religious people in the world, nobody ever has been able to produce any tangible evidence that they've spoken to god. If you make this claim, you'll need hard proof of it, or it is bullshit. I'm not calling you a liar. I'm calling you, "person who draws faulty conclusions". No, it's not a case of "either you have faith in it or you don't". The brain can only recieve messages in a few limited number of ways. We can measure it. God has yet to show up in any experiments.

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Sorry – your work is not done. Just because something has not been proved does not make it not so, it merely makes it unproven. And for the record I have every expectation of going to heaven when I die – and I have heard they have great calorie free chocolate cake there.


sigh. Not this again. Look. The christian supernatural model doesn't have any more proof suporting it than the muslim, budhist, satanist, raelian, aum shin ri quo or heavens gate. No more. It doesn't make more sense or is any way more logical. They are equally as plausible. They are also equally as plausible as the infinate number of religions that nobody has thaught up yet. If I would make up a religion now on the spot, that version of the after-life would be equally plausible. This is pretty much what I've spent all this time exemplifying.

If your only demand on a theory is that nobody can invalidate it then you are gullible. I've got this great car here that is in tip top condition. I know it works because I've never driven it. Would you like to buy it?


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Not sure I take your point there – because a significant number of believe something is so, you are saying that it is less likely to be so? Looks confused.


I'm only talking about belief in the supernatural modells of the universe. Ok, I'll let you do the work. Why do you think that Americans tend to be christians, Arabs muslim and Asians budhists?

People are off-course effected by the opinions of people around them. This is why, the more people believe in something that cannot be proven, the smaller chance it is being anything to the claim.


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That could well be the case, however the only miracles I would quote or rely on are those where I have personally seen the evidence and know the people involved. I have seen too many well meaning people claim miracles when there are more likely explanations.


To quote my slave on this subject the other day, "Even if the pope himself would shoot lightning bolts from his fingers and pull rabits out his ass still would not prove a single word in the Bible is any less bullshit. It's not a case for anything".

There's no correlation between miracles being performed and any religion. None. Not even if the voices in your head tell you it is.

To reitterate. Proving the supernatural is true is only step one. You've got the same causality problem. You cannot link the miracles to any particular supernatural force, intelligent or not.

We've yet to find a link between suposed miracles and anything. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A miracle has yet to be a likely explanation for anything. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it was a divine intervention.



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If you have a model into which you cannot slot all the evidence, the model ceases to be credible. It is a weak defence to claim that the evidence must be wrong since it does not fit the model.


It's the other way around. If there's any evidence that doesn't fit, the model by necesity must be wrong. Since the supernatural models have no evidence, niether for nor against and the models will stick around for all eternity. But I have a sneaking suspicion that they'll never be any more credible.


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Same evidence, different conclusion, I guess because we put different weight on different elements. To me the supernatural model is more sound than the non-supernatural one. Complexity does not make something wrong, unless the complexity is being used to disguise a flaw.


No, we use different evidence. You also draw faulty conclusions from it. You have somehow managed to link your personal experience that you claim are proof of the supernatural, to christianity.

You assume the miracles performed and the voices you've heard in your head come from a supernatural force as the one you have identified in the Bible. This in logic is Affirming the consequent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent).


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I am not aware of Christianity making any claims which invalidate non-supernatural theories, it merely makes claims as to an explanation of the gaps in those theories.


The non-supernatural models we have are based on the universal laws being constant. If they are not, (as in the supernatural) then we cannot draw conclusions. If the supernatural would exist then we would not be able to draw conclusions since the laws would keep changing. All scientific models for the universe today are built on the assumption that god doesn't exist.

Then there's always level two. If god would exist, what laws govern the supernatural. Saying that he's god so he could do what ever he wants is pure assumption. You cannot say anything about what god is or isn't capable of.


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Whilst I will lap up the compliments I cannot agree that a reasonable balance suggests that my experiences with the supernatural can be explained by the non-supernatural.
I really think we have to go back to what you said at the very start of this discussion about circular arguments. I am convinced we are probably both as guilty as each other of it, and I am honestly not sure how possible it is to step out the circle which we are in because of our beliefs and see things from the other circle. Which is, as I said then, where the step of faith comes into play. That tiny bit of faith which gives a person the confidence to step out of the circle of non-belief into the circle of belief, of accepting that there could possibly be supernatural explanations. At that point everything falls into place, but without doing that, I am not sure it is possible to see it. I am sure the reverse also applies.


So basically. When we take a step into a realm where we don't aply logic systematically and where there's been no conclusive scientific find ever...then it makes sense? You're making it far too easy for yourself. No, I'm not guilty of circular argument. I'm too careful.

I'm open to the possibily of the supernatural. When any evidence shows up I'll be the first convert. And not necesarily to any existing religion.


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Why do you need to have studied quantum mechanics to be able to know if God exists? By suggesting that he can only be proven by that particular discipline you are not taking a very narrow view.


ok, that's just me. I trust people who've studied subjects that are scientific. I might trust un-scientifically schooled people on other subjects rather than explaining to me complex mathematics. If all a person has to say is that it's a matter of faith, then it's a dead give away that the guy hasn't a clue.