Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

[Daylightstar]

The spiritual philosophy behind it is that God does not interfere in human affairs. He is simply the source of everything and he waits for us to return to him by our own efforts. We are here to act as we see fit and reap the consequences. Its called cause and effect, and it works through karma and reincarnation. The spirit world teaches that we will live countless lives in a cycle that will eventually lead us to spiritual perfection and unity with God.

Belief is a silly sad thing.

 

[Daylightstar]

The spiritual philosophy behind it is that God does not interfere in human affairs. He is simply the source of everything and he waits for us to return to him by our own efforts. We are here to act as we see fit and reap the consequences. Its called cause and effect, and it works through karma and reincarnation. The spirit world teaches that we will live countless lives in a cycle that will eventually lead us to spiritual perfection and unity with God.

So Scorpion, where did things go wrong for you.

Is reality not enough for you? Or is reality too much for you?

 

[Scorpion]

So Scorpion, where did things go wrong for you.

Is reality not enough for you? Or is reality too much for you?

Define reality.

 

[Donn]

Logical fallacies are a set of rules for debating or arguing. The rules do not prove that a statement is necessary false.

No.

When you debate on the basis that only the material world exists, then it could be said that your subsequent logic might rely on a false premise.

No.

Supernatural events are rare. True psychic ability is rare.

No.

Perhaps one day science will say, there appears to be a non-materialistic influence on living things, rather than discard results that appear to be in error because they do not fit the expected repeatability model.

No.

When it comes to science I agree with your model because it works. Your model cannot explain some strange happenings.

It can. You don't listen.

Physical evidence or repeatable proof is the mantra of the religion of secular humanists. You believe that you know the answers to what the Ultimate Reality is – and therefore you know what rules to apply to test other theories of the Ultimate Reality. Your absolute belief leaves no room for doubt.

No.

And science of DNA has ended the mind-body debate?

No.

 

[Donn]

Define reality.

You know how when you die you go to the spirit realm and then evolve into higher levels of being?

Not like that.

 

[tsig]

You have had evidence of esp, and so you have reason to believe in a spirit world. The spirits teach suicide is a mistake. We are here for experience sake, and even if the experience is hard, it is still beneficial to the soul.
To cut yourself off is to limit the opportunity for spiritual growth, and the problem will be moved on to affect your next incarnation. I recommend going to a spiritualist church for healing, as this will cleanse your aura of negative energy's that you may have attracted to yourself by feeling low. It is a difficult cycle to break out of without help. You could of course seek medical advise, as they have medication that can help.

Taking an advantage of another's weakness to pitch your woo is about as low as one can go.

 

[tsig]

Unlike you, mstricky has some beliefs.

So? They don't seem to be helping.

 

[Scorpion]

Taking an advantage of another's weakness to pitch your woo is about as low as one can go.

I support her beliefs, I advise against suicide, I recommend getting healing in A church, I suggest she could get medical advice.

Where exactly am I trying to take advantage?

 

[tsig]

Have you ever been to a spiritualist church? because that is what I am advising. Going to church and getting spiritual healing. How exactly is that dangerous?

Since spiritual teachings tend to focus the guilt back on the sufferer "You just don't have enough faith" they can be very dangerous.

 

[Scorpion]

So? They don't seem to be helping.

All she may need is the support of others in a church, and not be on her own.

Another thing I want to say to mstricky is this.

Remember your daughters. Not wanting to hurt them saved you last time, so even if you feel you could harm yourself, you do not want to hurt them.
So live for the love of your daughters, that is something worth living for.

 

[tsig]

Tell it to little old ladys in Russia that were put in mental hospitals for believing in God. During Stalins time they were given aversion therapy in hospitals, but when they were finally released they went back to church.

You are swinging at pitches that were never thrown.

 

[Scorpion]

You are swinging at pitches that were never thrown.

Everyone here is trying to put down religious beliefs (almost everyone).
I cited the religious repression in Russia as evidence it does not work.
Even in that extreme circumstance where little old ladys were put in mental hospitals for twenty years and given all kinds of aversion therapy using drugs, they went back to church when they were released.

 

[tsig]

So, religious repression has been tried and failed. You cannot crush the God out of peoples hearts.

That's a shame 'cause if you could crush the god out of human hearts you could make God wine.

 

[tsig]

Logical fallacies are a set of rules for debating or arguing. The rules do not prove that a statement is necessary false. When you debate on the basis that only the material world exists, then it could be said that your subsequent logic might rely on a false premise.

When a person wants information on a subject, one goes to those who are qualified in that discipline. I am giving you the opinion of people who are qualified in that area. You can choose to believe, or not believe.

If I tell you that I had histoplasmosis, and my immune system was fully functional, the medical experts will tell you that that is not possible. One or two might admit that it might be possible, but would be extremely rare. So when I say that this happened to me and two others they would be extremely sceptical – but that does not change the truth of what happened.



See my answer above.



Simply wrong – why is it so simple? Perhaps from a point of view of imposed limitations it might be. You are deciding to restrict yourself to a particular definition which suits your secular humanistic belief. Supernatural events are rare. True psychic ability is rare. And there is a huge amount of noise (fraud, mistake, delusion) of the sort that skeptics correctly identify.

Perhaps one day science will say, there appears to be a non-materialistic influence on living things, rather than discard results that appear to be in error because they do not fit the expected repeatability model. When it comes to science I agree with your model because it works. Your model cannot explain some strange happenings.

Physical evidence or repeatable proof is the mantra of the religion of secular humanists. You believe that you know the answers to what the Ultimate Reality is – and therefore you know what rules to apply to test other theories of the Ultimate Reality. Your absolute belief leaves no room for doubt.



So sure! I may watch your referenced video on the Higgs Boson some time, but I can predict it will not answer the questions of the Ultimate Reality. Why are we here? What does it all mean?



That is the materialistic assumption. Show me the proof.



And you know this how? Just how much information can DNA store? And how does such information get translated into growing a brain, and making the brain grow with a bunch of pre-wired patterns. Proof please? Or are you making an argument by extension?



Could be those genes affect the patterns you are talking about? Hard to test is it not?



And science of DNA has ended the mind-body debate? It can tell us all which genes give a deer the “pattern” (which some scientists call a referential memory)? You sound like Alan Greenspan when he said the boom-bust cycle is a thing of the past because the economists have it all figured.



You are 100% certain? How can a subjective person be certain of anything? Humans can only assume that some things are more likely than others on the basis of agreement – and even then they might not know the detail.
Remember the days when science only had a few small unknowns to tie up?


That "simple" word again. Do you use that to infer that I must be dumb not to understand that I am wrong? And are you the authority on what is possible and what is not possible? And you can confidently predict (by extrapolation, I presume) that the situation will not change in the future?

No.

 

[tsig]

I believe you have narrow view of the world that is false, and debating with all you atheists has only made me realize I am right, and it brings back all the spiritual experiences I have had over the years and forgotten about.

How special.

 

[tsig]

Define reality.

It's what's there when I go to sleep and still there when I wake up. Do you wake up in a different world every morning?

 

[Innocuous]

Physical evidence or repeatable proof is the mantra of the religion of secular humanists.

And of rational and reasoned argument. Without some evidence, without some kind of testability, we don't have anything useful left, even if it happens to be true, because we have no way of knowing it is true. We can guess. We can make up hundreds of ideas to explain things with no reason to accept one over the other - none of them have evidence, none of them can be tested, and they could all be wrong. If we have no evidence for it, and we can’t test it, we’ll never know. All conjectures become equally unprovable and equally useless.

If an event is rare, such as being a psychic, it might take us a long time to gather the evidence we need to verify it and then, possibly, explain it. Eventually it will happen though. Let’s just wait for the evidence and not jump to conclusions. There's no rush. If you can do something extraordinary, have it tested. So far ... nothing. And so we wait.

So sure! I may watch your referenced video on the Higgs Boson some time, but I can predict it will not answer the questions of the Ultimate Reality. Why are we here? What does it all mean?

You are correct, that video won't answer those questions. Neither will washing your car. How could they?
Where else would we be? Why would it mean anything?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Define reality.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Philip K. Dick

 

[Innocuous]

There is no way that such information is programmed into the DNA. If I am told scientists will find it, then I say do the math. Memory of a tree to avoid, memory of running zigzag, and so on - these require a huge amount of programmed memory brain cells.

Some random web search results give estimates at around 1.0 to 1.5 GB of data in the DNA of each cell. That is certainly a lot.

Interesting result I found: the DNA from one cell would unravel to about 2-3 meters in length.

 

[PixyMisa]

Logical fallacies are a set of rules for debating or arguing.

Not at all. They go much, much deeper than that. Any statement that contains a formal logical fallacy is worthless. Statements that contain informal logical fallacies may not be immediately worthless, but they are highly suspect.

If your argument consists entirely of logical fallacies, of course, then it is worse than worthless.

When you debate on the basis that only the material world exists, then it could be said that your subsequent logic might rely on a false premise.

And yet, here you are, talking to me.

When a person wants information on a subject, one goes to those who are qualified in that discipline. I am giving you the opinion of people who are qualified in that area. You can choose to believe, or not believe.

You are giving me logical fallacies. This proves that the people producing the logical fallacies are not qualified in this area. There is no choice in the matter; the only rational response is disbelief.

If I tell you that I had histoplasmosis, and my immune system was fully functional, the medical experts will tell you that that is not possible.

Evidence of this?

Simply wrong – why is it so simple?

Because all you have to do is produce evidence.

If these things happen as you claim they do, then of necessity they produce an observable change in the material world, and of necessity this can be distinguished from the normal pattern of events.

Supernatural events are rare. True psychic ability is rare.

Non-existent, even.

And there is a huge amount of noise (fraud, mistake, delusion) of the sort that skeptics correctly identify.

So?

I'll tell you what is rare: Neutrino interactions. A neutrino can pass unhindered through a light-year of solid lead. And yet, we have absolutely no doubt about the existence of neutrinos, the number of different types (three) and their properties.

Because we are very very good at finding things that are real.

Perhaps one day science will say, there appears to be a non-materialistic influence on living things, rather than discard results that appear to be in error because they do not fit the expected repeatability model. When it comes to science I agree with your model because it works. Your model cannot explain some strange happenings.

We have zero evidence of any such happenings. That's the point.

Well, one point. They're also impossible.

When you have solid evidence that something impossible actually happened, that's a scientific breakthrough.

When you have no evidence of something impossible, it's just impossible.

Physical evidence or repeatable proof is the mantra of the religion of secular humanists.

This is a combination of a straw man argument and an ad hominem attack, two more logical fallacies.

You believe that you know the answers to what the Ultimate Reality is – and therefore you know what rules to apply to test other theories of the Ultimate Reality. Your absolute belief leaves no room for doubt.

None of that bears the slightest resemblance to the truth. It's just an extension of your ad hominem argument.

Science has no belief in any such "Ultimate Reality". There's just the world around us, as it is.

That is the materialistic assumption. Show me the proof.

Proof of what part, exactly? There is a huge amount of information available online on evolution and developmental biology. Enough for you to spend the rest of your life just reading new journal articles.

Where would you like to start?

And you know this how? Just how much information can DNA store?

About six gigabits in humans.

And how does such information get translated into growing a brain, and making the brain grow with a bunch of pre-wired patterns. Proof please? Or are you making an argument by extension?

Start reading here and follow the links for the rest of your life.

Could be those genes affect the patterns you are talking about? Hard to test is it not?

Obviously, sometimes mutations do affect those instinctive behavioural patterns. Otherwise it would be impossible for those patterns to have evolved in the first place.

Mostly, as I said, they don't. Most mutations are neutral.

And science of DNA has ended the mind-body debate?

DNA is part of it, but mostly it's neurobiology and physics. The mind is what the brain does.

It can tell us all which genes give a deer the “pattern” (which some scientists call a referential memory)?

Absolutely.

You are 100% certain? How can a subjective person be certain of anything?

This is precisely what the video I linked covers. Basically, what we have learned - and this was completed with the discovery of the Higgs boson - is that the physics that exact same theory of physics that allows us to build computers, fibre-optic networks, and GPS receivers precludes any sort of soul.

As I said earlier, if you have an iPhone, you literally have no soul.

Humans can only assume that some things are more likely than others on the basis of agreement – and even then they might not know the detail.
Remember the days when science only had a few small unknowns to tie up?

Do please watch the video. It explains exactly how we know that we have tied up all the unknowns in the physics of everyday life. We don't yet know what dark matter is, or have a solid theory of quantum gravity. We do know that souls don't exist, because there is nowhere for a soul to hide. If souls existed, we'd see evidence everywhere. And there is none.

That "simple" word again. Do you use that to infer that I must be dumb not to understand that I am wrong?

Simply misinformed.

And are you the authority on what is possible and what is not possible? And you can confidently predict (by extrapolation, I presume) that the situation will not change in the future?

I'm not the authority. I'm merely reporting the findings of millions of scientists working tirelessly to explain the world we live in. (I am an authority on a few very specific subjects - like the cost-effective scaling of high-volume, high-fanout soft real-time information distribution networks - but you should never trust anyone just because they are an authority. Like your authorities on the supernatural, they could be shovelling you a load of bovine fecal matter.)