To Theists: Why do you value hope more than truth?

[VitalOne]

Can you show me any truth that atheists can't handle? Also can you show me where atheists say that nothing is true without evidence? What are the big important questions to you and what answers do you have (if any)?

Yeah lots look around this forum, its filled with foolish atheists who say "see there's no evidence God exists, so obviously that indicates that God doesn't exist" meaning they believe that evidence causes something to become true, the truth only exists with evidence, and nothing is true without evidence...

Why do you ask me what truths I've discovered, you're just going to do what every other atheist does, which is ridicule someone for their beliefs, then say "everyone else besides atheists are just delusional fools living in an imaginary fantasy"

 

[S.A.M.]

apples, water, radiation, plasma.

Those are all translated perception, Helen Keller, e.g. was "taught" what "water" was by dipping her hand and letting her feel its wetness. To her, water was "wet"; in other words, your definition of objectivity is constrained by the individual senses and presumes that our definition and delineation of sensation is absolute.

On that note, does charisma exist?

 

[(Q)]

Those are all translated perception, Helen Keller, e.g. was "taught" what "water" was by dipping her hand and letting her feel its wetness. To her, water was "wet"; in other words, your definition of objectivity is constrained by the individual senses and presumes that our definition and delineation of sensation is absolute.

On that note, does charisma exist?

Ah yes, the last bastion of a theist coward. Compare the invisible and non-existent to observed human behavior.

What utter BS.

 

[S.A.M.]

Ah yes, the last bastion of a theist coward. Compare the invisible and non-existent to observed human behavior.

What utter BS.

So charisma does not exist? And when you say "observed human behaviour" if I give a hundred people a notepad and have them all "observe"an ink blot, will they all "observe" the same thing? And if I have another hundred observing the hundred who observe the ink blot, will they all observe the same thing? Does the word observe look a little bit different when you observe it closely?

 

[(Q)]

So charisma does not exist? And when you say "observed human behaviour" if I give a hundred people a notepad and have them all "observe", will they all "observe" the same thing?

Blah,blah,blah...

Give a hundred people a notepad and ask them to observe Allah.

Complete BS, sam. You're reeeeeeaaaaally stretching it today.

 

[S.A.M.]

Blah,blah,blah...

Give a hundred people a notepad and ask them to observe Allah.

Complete BS, sam. You're reeeeeeaaaaally stretching it today.

Its the religion forum (Q)utie, what did you expect?

Btw, you didn't answer the questions; I'm curious as to your sterile observations.

 

[grover]

I very much doubt that. The term 'psychic center' is meaningless. You can't find something that doesn't exist.

First, I didn't say it is a kundalini is a psychic center. What I am saying is that Kudalini as a distinct mental/physsical phenomenon exists. Western science is only yet beginning to recognize this. We don't know yet science will say about it because the scientific method has not been employed to investigate it yet. BUt, you're whole attitude is most definitley not scientific. YOu just heard of this phenomenon and are already saying how it doesn't exist. YOu have an ignorant, arrogant attitude.

If I meditated, as a strong atheist I'm not going to find anything. I may find it enjoyable for many reasons, but it's not going to get me anywhere towards thinking that there is something supernatural behind it.

You've never meditated so why are you talking about what will or won't happen. Like I said, there have been many people that start meditating for relaxation purposes and find that it does much more. Meditation wasn't developed as a method of relaxation. It was developed as a mean of becoming enlightened. And you being an atheist doesn't matter much since Buddhism strictly speaking is atheistic. I would have expected you would have known that since you have complete and perfect knowledge of all things.

I don't recall. A few high profile people in Eastern religion anyway... and when they are actually interviewed by someone who won't just accept their word that the body has psychic centers and question them on proof... their eyes just glaze over. That is my whole point behind spiritualist mumbo jumbo - they just make it up as they go along and there's no real rationale behind it.

Hmm, there are flakes in every field aren't there?

I bet you I could meditate and there would be no mystics involved. And if you claimed I was experiencing the spiritual, then that would just be semantics (which a lot of spirituality is).

Okay.

I highly doubt they experiences anything of the sort. Bit like when the Pope suggested Mary's body ascended to heaven despite it not being in the scriptures, and today it's an established belief. He claimed he heard it from god... I say he pulled it out of his asshole... just like eastern mystics and their psychic centers.

When one meditates do you think one is more aware or less aware of what is going on in their mind and body then when one is working, watching TV, talking to someone, playing football?

I've heard many stuff like this before, but there needs to be good proof. I heard a story of a boy who described in detail a house he used to live and the names of people who died 1 or 2 generations ago. But his brain is 6 years old, memories don't just appear in someones head from before they were born. His parents probably did a bit of research on an old family and fed the boy the details and so the people looking into this case will be subsequently amazed at the boys accuracy. It's not hard to fake something like that.

But you haven't looked at the actual research thats been done have you? Once again you are just pulling shit out of your ass based upon your own biases, ignorance, and narrow preconceived notions about hte way things are. Point is you want to just dismiss reincarnation depsite the fact there is some actual scientific research that indicates that it isn't as easily dismissed as one might at first think. The whole point of science is to figure out what's really going and the history of science has shown again and again that common sense notions about reality are more often than not wrong.

Ghosts are quite clearly made up. People want to hoax them, people want to believe in them, people fear them... therefor the bogus study of ghosts is rampant. Any citings of ghosts are easily dismissed out of hand. Why no ghosts in public places were hundreds of people see the same ghost? Always people half asleep in a spooky bedroom.

I don't particularly care about ghosts so you can stop talking to me about them.

I guarantee you, on the subject of the paranormal and religion, I will be right virtually 100% of the time.

Only because you take your opinion to be fact and are overly certain of it. Typical fundamentalist and you don't even know it. Pretty comical actually.

 

[S.A.M.]

There is a system of yoga based on kundalini

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_yoga

It utilises several exercises to strengthen the mind and body connection.

Kundalini yoga is a physical and meditative discipline, comprising a set of simple techniques that uses the mind, senses and body to create a communication between "mind" and "body". Kundalini yoga focuses on psycho-spiritual growth and the body's potential for maturation, giving special consideration to the role of the spine and the endocrine system in the understanding of yogic awakening (Sovatsky, 1998).

 

[grover]

Why would you attribute it to some type of energy, chi, prana, etc. rather than considering much more simple and practical solutions?

It could be simple. What I'm saying is that we basically have two knowledge traditions in the world: East and West. The west has primarily concerned itself with the physical, objective, quantifiable world. The East has concenrned itself primarily with the qualitative inner, subjective. The east apparentlyy is aware of this phenomenon whereas the west is not, so why would we completely dismiss their claims since their tradition on the surface appear to know more about it than us?

That the feeling exists is most certain. That it might be some magical chakra or <insert fantsy here> is just silly, BUT, and its a big but, if that sillyness gives someone hope then it seems to become very valuable.

But Crunchy, I swear in another post where you were describing this feeling you said that is is "very important to you." Regardless of what is causing it people appear to attach importance to it.

It does and I don't think its really that important.

Okay, so you clearly think it exists as some type of phenomenon that isn't just purely imagined right? Why do they know about this in the East and not the West.

 

[Adstar]

Humor me, pretend that it happend and the container you placed hope into collapsed like a house of cards. You have a great mind for putting yourself in hypothetical situations and making predictions. Tell me what happens.

I suppose i would adapt to the loss of faith and live my life until i died.. It really is a silly question. What do you think would happen? You make it sound like something earth shattering would happen.

Thousands of people give up their faith each day. What happens to them? Anything spectacular? They make adjustments to their new beliefs and continue eating sleeping and working until they die.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[grover]

it's true, lots of people realize that what they believed is not true. it goes both ways too. Religious people realize that their beliefs are unrealistic and give them up. Or people with no religous beliefs find that this or that religous belief starts to sound less absurd than they once thought. Most people don't succeed in banishing all uncertainty from their minds. This is a good thing.

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Yeah lots look around this forum, its filled with foolish atheists who say "see there's no evidence God exists, so obviously that indicates that God doesn't exist" meaning they believe that evidence causes something to become true, the truth only exists with evidence, and nothing is true without evidence...

Is it that evidence "causes" something to be true or is it that evidence is necessary to support a claim of truth?

Why do you ask me what truths I've discovered, you're just going to do what every other atheist does, which is ridicule someone for their beliefs, then say "everyone else besides atheists are just delusional fools living in an imaginary fantasy"

What if you told me all those 'truths' and I showed you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were all false? What happens to the hope you placed in religion?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Those are all translated perception, Helen Keller, e.g. was "taught" what "water" was by dipping her hand and letting her feel its wetness. To her, water was "wet"; in other words, your definition of objectivity is constrained by the individual senses and presumes that our definition and delineation of sensation is absolute.

And through all that challenge you are somehow able to distinguish the difference between the sun and latte without error.

On that note, does charisma exist?

Which definition of charisma is being used?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

It could be simple. What I'm saying is that we basically have two knowledge traditions in the world: East and West. The west has primarily concerned itself with the physical, objective, quantifiable world. The East has concenrned itself primarily with the qualitative inner, subjective. The east apparentlyy is aware of this phenomenon whereas the west is not, so why would we completely dismiss their claims since their tradition on the surface appear to know more about it than us?

I am in the west and I appear to be aware of the phenomena. I would bet the farm that others are too. The point I am trying to make is that although some 'feeling' exists, its not valuable to science. Any fantastic claims derived from the feeling (ex. knocking people down from a distance) are probably seen as not being worth the effort given the knowns of human behavior.

But... what if science came along one day and said here is exactly why you feel this and provde that it has no objective effect beyond what is experienced? What happens to all those people whom placed their hopes into that feeling as being divine, or telekentic, or <insert your hope here>?

But Crunchy, I swear in another post where you were describing this feeling you said that is is "very important to you." Regardless of what is causing it people appear to attach importance to it.

Of course its important to me as an experiencer of it because it is rather enjoyable for the most part and I don't place any hope in it. In other words, the value I place in the feeling is quite different than an entire Eastern population.

Okay, so you clearly think it exists as some type of phenomenon that isn't just purely imagined right? Why do they know about this in the East and not the West.

That the feeling exists is fact and here I am in the West and I know all about it. What do you think would happen if science became interested in the feeling for some reason and utterly objectified it. It seems as if the east would loose a big source of hope. Then what?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

I suppose i would adapt to the loss of faith and live my life until i died.. It really is a silly question. What do you think would happen? You make it sound like something earth shattering would happen.

I suspect that loosing all that hope would be devastating. Would you seek alternative sources?

Thousands of people give up their faith each day. What happens to them? Anything spectacular? They make adjustments to their new beliefs and continue eating sleeping and working until they die.

Something significant does happen and I am really interested to hear how you, as a Theist, can model your behaviors in such a scenario.

 

[VitalOne]

Is it that evidence "causes" something to be true or is it that evidence is necessary to support a claim of truth?

Right, so you're saying something is true with or without evidence, yet atheists insist that something is false without evidence and true only with evidence, even though atheists can't tell anyone what evidence would indicate that God exists (ROFL)....so you ended up proving my point, congratulations

What if you told me all those 'truths' and I showed you beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were all false? What happens to the hope you placed in religion?

I don't think you can do that, in fact I'm sure that you can't do that, simply because these truths are really true....in fact I don't really understand why anyone would think religion is false

 

[Crunchy Cat]

it's true, lots of people realize that what they believed is not true. it goes both ways too. Religious people realize that their beliefs are unrealistic and give them up. Or people with no religous beliefs find that this or that religous belief starts to sound less absurd than they once thought. Most people don't succeed in banishing all uncertainty from their minds. This is a good thing.

What if science managed to banish all uncertainty from people's minds?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

Right, so you're saying something is true with or without evidence...

It certainly can be.

...yet atheists insist that something is false without evidence and true only with evidence,...

Are they saying that something is false without evidence or are they saying that absence of evidence over long periods of time contradicts a claim? Could they also be saying that there is no reason to believe a claim without evidence.

even though atheists can't tell anyone what evidence would indicate that God exists (ROFL)....so you ended up proving my point, congratulations

I've seen at least two threads where atheists laid out many examples of what would consititute evidence for a 'God's existence.

I don't think you can do that, in fact I'm sure that you can't do that, simply because these truths are really true....in fact I don't really understand why anyone would think religion is false

Then lets go away from the hypothetical and jump into reality. What are these truths?

 

[S.A.M.]

And through all that challenge you are somehow able to distinguish the difference between the sun and latte without error.

Thats because I have to believe in the evidence of my eyes; of course, I could be under hypnosis, or under the influence, in which case, my objective reality would be compromised.

Which definition of charisma is being used?

You may use the objective one.

 

[S.A.M.]

What if science managed to banish all uncertainty from people's minds?

Then it could not be science, since the possibility of falsification : H[sub]0[/sub] vs H[sub]a[/sub], i.e. hypothesis testing, is what defines science.

Now, if you were defining faith, on the other hand...