contradictory evidence!?

[lightgigantic]

What have I said that is sarcastic? I spent seven years in an ashram learning that there is nothing to transcend. It is known as the doctrine of " Transcending the Void" . Most of my friends are also non-transcenders.

My teacher, guru Bagwash Banergee has a motto over the entrance to his innerr sancum. It says:

" He who would transcend does not do so. He who has abandoned all attempts at transcendance has already transcended."

then your revered guru has an opinion that does not fall in line with either the vedas or persons who represent the vedas

BG 4.23 The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge merges entirely into transcendence.

Such misrepresentation is quite common in India

 

[iceaura]

then your revered guru has an opinion that does not fall in line with either the vedas or persons who represent the vedas

BG 4.23 The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge merges entirely into transcendence.

Such misrepresentation is quite common in India

So was that quote intended to be an example of the misrepresentation ? It seems to agree with Myles's guru - - -

 

[Myles]

then your revered guru has an opinion that does not fall in line with either the vedas or persons who represent the vedas

BG 4.23 The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge merges entirely into transcendence.

Such misrepresentation is quite common in India

It's not my fault that you have not been initiated.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

if you had zero knowledge of biology your ruminations of presence and difference would have nothing to do with biology

Correct. I could base them on fundamental sensory information.

 

[lightgigantic]

It's not my fault that you have not been initiated.

Its not my fault that you seek knowledge from a person who at the outset proclaims he doesn't know anything about it
:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

Correct. I could base them on fundamental sensory information.

granted - but perhaps now you can appreciate what a dynamic element primary knowledge of biology adds to such sensory sojourns

(at the very least, there are very good reasons why you have biologists working in the said field of biology and toddlers doing finger painting, even though the physical mechanics of their eyeballs are practically identical)

 

[Crunchy Cat]

granted - but perhaps now you can appreciate what a dynamic element primary knowledge of biology adds to such sensory sojourns

(at the very least, there are very good reasons why you have biologists working in the said field of biology and toddlers doing finger painting, even though the physical mechanics of their eyeballs are practically identical)

Let's hear it for education!

 

[lightgigantic]

So was that quote intended to be an example of the misrepresentation ? It seems to agree with Myles's guru - - -

ok lets break it down then


BG 4.23 The work of a man who is unattached to the modes of material nature
a topic (working without attachment) explained earlier, beginning with

BG 2.39 Thus far I have described this knowledge to you through analytical study. Now listen as I explain it in terms of working without fruitive results. O son of Prtha , when you act in such knowledge you can free yourself from the bondage of works.


and who is fully situated in transcendental knowledge
the entire fourth chapter (the chapter this quote comes from) is dedicated to the issue of being situated in transcendental knowledge - basically to say that there is no scope for gaining transcendental knowledge is to say that there is no scope to understand one's relationship with god and this world. While this may seem like a perfectly ok thing for an atheist to say, a scripture that says such thing would certainly appear bizarre .... more so, a so-called guru who is claiming to represent such scripture.

Needless to say, scripture is quite clear on this

You can find out how transcendental knowledge arises in human society

BG 4.7: Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion — at that time I descend Myself.

The results of being properly situated in transcendental knowledge

BG 4.9: One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.

Positive affirmations of persons who are likely to attain transcendental knowledge

BG 4.10: Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me — and thus they all attained transcendental love for Me.


merges entirely into transcendence.
how to tell if you have successfully merged into such transcendence ... well just apply this simple test

BG 4.35: Having obtained real knowledge from a self-realized soul, you will never fall again into such illusion, for by this knowledge you will see that all living beings are but part of the Supreme, or, in other words, that they are Mine.

so from all angles, the notion of attaining a "transcendent" state does seem to be communicated as "do-able"

 

[lightgigantic]

Let's hear it for education!

yes, all fields of knowledge rest upon it .... except religious knowledge for some strange reason .....

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Crunchy cat

then I guess such recording devices are not "shown" anything

Not in a human sense. The word "shown" is used in this case to easily convey an understandable message of the recorder translating light and sound into some kind of replayable format intended for viewing and hearing devices.

but you can neither demonstrate it nor receive the demonstration without (according to you) anthropomorphizing, so what gives?

People have brains and when they use them they can see (for example) that the picture anthropomorphized into a womans face / man playing a horn is just a black and white pixelated image.

soft science is 100% hope

Then its not being used here.

so what exactly are you "observing" when you talk of god?

Reality of course... and comparing it with claimed 'God' interactions.

not really because you cannot even use the phrase 'actual reality' without calling upon issues of consciousness

There's no consciousness issues that matter when comparing reality and a claimed interaction with reality.

therefore the saving grace (of empiricism) is direct perception - if something is beyond the purview of the senses (like say the age of the universe) there is nothing to use as yard stick for one's consistent, persistent and non-contradictory results

You mean like consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory decay rates?

really?
modern sciences speculative approximations are remarkably close to that presented in the vedas - but I think you missed the point - falsifying issues that are beyond direct perception is impossible for empiricism, so talking of a "pretty good estimation" is just airing confidence

Issues like claimed interactions with reality? The effects of those interactions should be observable.

meh
more soft science ...

Apparently you have never seen the statistical correlation between science / education and reduction in theistical belief. Search this forum, they are posted frequently.

ok - so has any empirical ground work for any "pretty good estimations" of cyclic time?

No better than any hypothesis of time. Nobody quite knows what it is.

 

[GrowBot]

Who Knows?

I understand both sides of the argument. The problem is that nobody can prove anything.
I understand that they have a method of dating fossils that supports evolution, but what if we we are so similar to all other life on earth because we were all engineered by the same people. Genetic mapping shows us that at one point in our history there were only 40 breeding female humans on earth. We all came from those 40, Is it possible that God terraformed the earth for the first humans? And that we were brought here by some type of an "ark"? Was Moses Hundreds of years old, or was time measured differently on the way here? The Bible says so. When the "Ark" is unloaded there is mention of great beasts with tails like cedar trunks. If God wanted to get rid of alot of animals at once to make room for new ones he could make it flood, covering many animals in layers of mud in a very short time, fossilizing them for us to find thousands, not millions of years later. I happen to Know that bone can fossilize more quickly than that. I had a crystal growing kit as a kid, I grew crystals in days why not 5,000+ years?

I'm not saying that I believe any of that, I'm just saying that I don't know that it's not true.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

yes, all fields of knowledge rest upon it .... except religious knowledge for some strange reason .....

Religious knowledge has many factually claimed components that don't correspond to reality. Other fields don't share this phenomenon.

 

[lightgigantic]

Crunchy cat

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
but you can neither demonstrate it nor receive the demonstration without (according to you) anthropomorphizing, so what gives?
”
People have brains and when they use them they can see (for example) that the picture anthropomorphized into a womans face / man playing a horn is just a black and white pixelated image.

but does that somehow invalidate their seeing their father as a person?
rather it would indicate that because there are "real" persons actually existing, the tendency to see things as "persons' (when they aren't really) exists.
Simply to say that because a person is seeing god as person because they have the tendency to anthropomorphize says as much about god not being a person as it does for their father not being a person

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
soft science is 100% hope
”
Then its not being used here.

at some point you seem to have diverged from the standard of hard science (atoms and molecules in the language of mathematics) so its not clear how it isn't

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
so what exactly are you "observing" when you talk of god?
”
Reality of course... and comparing it with claimed 'God' interactions.

and reality is ....?

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
not really because you cannot even use the phrase 'actual reality' without calling upon issues of consciousness
”
There's no consciousness issues that matter when comparing reality and a claimed interaction with reality.

well what are you seeing "reality" through if not your consciousness?

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
therefore the saving grace (of empiricism) is direct perception - if something is beyond the purview of the senses (like say the age of the universe) there is nothing to use as yard stick for one's consistent, persistent and non-contradictory results
”
You mean like consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory decay rates?

if you have consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory results brought to measure against something that cannot be tested as consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory, what do you have? (or do you want to argue that there is complete knowledge about how said elements behave consistently in all times and environments, and all questions are answered on the subject?)

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
really?
modern sciences speculative approximations are remarkably close to that presented in the vedas - but I think you missed the point - falsifying issues that are beyond direct perception is impossible for empiricism, so talking of a "pretty good estimation" is just airing confidence
”
Issues like claimed interactions with reality? The effects of those interactions should be observable.

so if it is advocated that the universe is 14 billion years old, what interactions are you observing that make a 7 billion or a 400 billion year old universe somewhat left of third base... , what interactions of reality are you observing .... and as a side note, if those interactions are consistent, persistent, and non-contradictory, why has the standard age of the universe undergone such radical revisions in the past 70 years (revisions amongst persons who don't accept any of that religious namby pampy, too, I might add)?

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
meh
more soft science ...
”
Apparently you have never seen the statistical correlation between science / education and reduction in theistical belief. Search this forum, they are posted frequently.

apparently you have never considered the impossibility of including a control group for any socially defined phenomena - much less the impossibility of measuring it in an accurate and uniform way

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
ok - so has any empirical ground work for any "pretty good estimations" of cyclic time?

”
No better than any hypothesis of time. Nobody quite knows what it is.

its quite a simple concept
time travels in circuits as opposed to linear lengths
We have heaps of experience with it - days/nights, seasons, solar/lunar calenders etc etc

 

[lightgigantic]

Religious knowledge has many factually claimed components that don't correspond to reality. Other fields don't share this phenomenon.

oh but they do
thats why part of a budget for a facility of education is the purchasing of new and revised text books

 

[iceaura]

so from all angles, the notion of attaining a "transcendent" state does seem to be communicated as "do-able"

But the matter at issue was whether it worked to have it as a goal, to try to do it.

 

[lightgigantic]

But the matter at issue was whether it worked to have it as a goal, to try to do it.

and lo and behold, their is a whole practical element to religion just dying to be applied ....

 

[Myles]

Its not my fault that you seek knowledge from a person who at the outset proclaims he doesn't know anything about it
:shrug:

As Bagwash Banergee so rightly says: " He who speaks knows not; he who is silent truly knows."

Your mistake is in believing I received the knowledge orally. That is for beginners. My last two years were spent in meditation and telepathic communication with my guru.You must try and understand that esoteric knowledge at this level, the level of infinite awareness, is for the select few.

 

[greenberg]

But the matter at issue was whether it worked to have it as a goal, to try to do it.

and lo and behold, their is a whole practical element to religion just dying to be applied ....

Do say more about this, please.

 

[Myles]

Darwin and Hume have lots to say. Darwin ( Origiin) , Hume ( Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ).

 

[lightgigantic]

Darwin and Hume have lots to say. Darwin ( Origiin) , Hume ( Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion ).

and lo and behold, there are responses to their response .....