I seriously struggle to comprehend your thought process and as im sure you will quickly point out, i guess that must make me seriously bogus......DUDE ! Really, what the heck are you talking about. Did you even try and understand my point ? I doubt it very much. To make myself clear , if your interested in my view that is....... I do not seek enlightenment form religion or a god. I dont need to have the benefit of faith to feel complete or as part of the universe / cosmos. My fullfilment comes from what is around me, that which i can see, touch, feel, hear and smell. I am not troubled and i most certainly feel complete. I dont have the need to live life bound by the constraints of religion and its various Gods / Deity's. This whole thread was supposed to be about the question of free will, ive pointed out my belief, as others have. Once again however you have poured scorn upon others views accusing them of ignorance and bias. Yet it is you Timesurfer, you who is biased and ignorant. Once again posting irational rambling almost like those of a madman. Totally unwiulling to consider or comprehend any opinion that does not fall in line with your own. There are no scientists here bashing your views , simply expressing their own. Discussing. You make little to no sense at all in your arguments. In fact it is clear to see you are onviously very spiritual and religous. That is your human right to be so and i commend you for it. However, be careful not to let your passionate belief turn into extremism. Personally i feel the way you are ramming your opinion at people over and over, you are treading a fine line with extremism. As for the science thread you speak of, well if it was started in an honest way and not in a way by which to mock others then i would say yes let it run. However you have started it in a sarcastic almost spiteful way and im not surpirised Timesurfer. In the four years you have been at MDL , it is you who has lost neutrality not the forum. Always controversial. Always antagonistic in your views. Always scournful of others that dont agree with you. You are everything you accuse everybody else of being and you have the audasity to speak of peace, karma and the cosmos. Really....... You seriously lack the intellectual comprehension to even partake in this discussion and i'll tell you why. Your opinion / mind was made up from minute you posted in this thread. Your mind was closed from the beginning and it seems very clear that from what you portray , there has never been anything to discuss. It is only your opinion that ever counted.
As always the Bible, Quran and Vedas or any other holy/spiritual books have scientific truths but we need science to discover them first. Creationism or renamed (Intelligent Design) theorists all have one thing in common, they look at things backwards. Let me give you an example of what I mean by focusing on a simple thing that every believer in creationism are aware of... Thunder. Now there are two competing theories concerning thunder. The first theory is that thunder is the sound caused by gods bowling (actually, the myth says "playing ninepins", but bowling is close enough) in the clouds. The second theory is that thunder is caused by air slamming into the vacuum left by lightening. Now lets examine the second theory utilizing Intelligent Design logic. In order to verify what lightening is, in fact, air returning to a vacuum left by an electric spark, we would have to be able to reproduce the effect. Now lightening can travel upwards of 10 miles, and as of yet we have not been able to produce a spark artificially that can come anywhere close to that distance through air even with the entire electrical output of a country at our disposal. This shows conclusively that the first supposition, that lightening is an electrical spark is unproven and for all we know the lightening actually is a spear tossed to Earth by Zeus. Also, the noise caused by artificial sparks is nowhere near as loud as thunder. In fact, the noise created by a spark is not only drastically less loud, but is instantaneous resulting in a "snap" or "pop" rather than the rolling noise usually associated with thunder. This shows that the sound of thunder simply cannot be the result of an electrical spark, but rather something much more durable... Such as a weighted ball traveling down a bowling lane. Now scientists will say that the rolling sound is the result of lightening being of a much longer duration than an ordinary spark, but even that explanation falls short. When lightening is observed, it lasts less than a second, but the thunder that is heard following the lightening can last several seconds... much longer than the flash of lightening that supposedly caused it. Also, it should be pointed out that you simply do not hear thunder every time you see lightening. This inconsistency shows that while thunder and lightening may be related, the relationship can't be considered a causal one. It simply makes more sense that the thunder is actually gods bowling in the clouds rather than the ludicrous idea that a simple electrical spark can sometimes cause the noise. In fact, not only are the gods bowling, but that flash of light you saw just before the thunder is easily explained by a reporter god taking a picture of the bowling god just before he rolls the ball down the lane. It is a championship game, after all.
Yes, I agreed. Any good thing any religion has ever done? Would every moment of everyone's life been better if there had never been any God belief? Has religion ever helped anyone? Is there any good thing that religion provides?
Pity my posts were deleted, when replying to Timey, as this post by Alex is a strong echo/bears a very close similarity to what I have written! Even more so, since Timey's attacking posts were left to stand. Were both of them deleted I would have understood but as things are... Hmmm... Perhaps it is time to revisit those deleted posts of mine or at least delete Timey's aggressive posts full of lies about my stance and me, thank you very much...
I will not attack you, Sir - just try to correct something I know to be false in your statement... Which in no way means that either of us is a Hitler and a dick-tator... The early Christian communities were the most democratic ever, while they were still in catacombs. Even women and children could partake in debates and vote on issues. Until they decided to "take over the world", came out of catacombs, instituted hierarchy and started forcing themselves onto their surroundings... If you take Hegel, for instance (and he is an excellent example), the one historical novum he points out is that Christianity is the first to see Humans as equal. All the previous efforts were somehow partial in that regard, sadly... Only in the eyes of God, of course but... That in itself has not been seen on the face of Earth hitherto. Give credit where credit is due. But this is where they stop and fall well short of emancipatory potential Humanity has.
@Sid On Rolling Thunder (a shaman) he saw global warming long before any scientist and was said to be able to call at will rolling thunder from the sky .. I did not witness this personally but have spoken with those who I would call credible who did .. The following account is from eyewitnesses .. How can Science begin to explain it? Free will?
Nice thoughts. Models can only be 'sound'. It is the mind who constantly confuses the model with the reality, with the phenomenon itself as it is. It are not only models who are 'sound'. Each object is sound. When one points to 'water'. And says : This is 'water'. And the vibrations of the vocal cords give the sound of 'water' are they really 'describing' what 'water' really IS? The 'truth' resides in 'the silence' which is basis for any sound. This cannot be understood by an personifying = objectifying mind. That 'something' that is seeking the spiritual can be named as consciousness that is 'here' to recognize itself. Today it is mostly stuck at forms (appearances) and at a major form, the thought identity 'ego' and with the illusion of ego the illusion of power 'one' seemingly can have. 'Spiritual force' is the driving force that exists to 'complete the mission'. It is 'unwanted' because it is made to overcome the 'ego'. Kepler and Galileo had been 'too spiritual' to the Holy Office. Because with their discovery they undermined the powers of Church. Actually by overcoming the Church's 'ego'. Today 'spiritualists' are 'too spiritual' to established science. The mechanism hasn't changed, though. So the spiritualists are asked to stay conform to science, otherwise it is 'not true'. The 'transition' from spirituality to science ever had been an active mechanism in history. When I blame science I blame it for the statement to be 'the owner of reality'. This question is very meaningful and is a condition of Self-awarenes which already had overcome the 'ego'. Consciousness that expresses 'itself'. (I allowed myself to quote it form another thread since it fits here very well.) I ask the 'scientists': How could that be ever determined as an object (of science / objectifying mind)? The connection of all is: being. And when the objectifying mind stands still deep affinity to all beings is felt. The 'love of god', the affinity to all beings, the omniscience and omnipotence of the presence, the 'not-thought reality'. 'This' spiritual force 'will' affect science, it ever had. ATM they rather 'protect' Einstein than to accept that reality from which any-thing is abstracted ever now, in no time, is now, and hence faster than light speed, lol. It is communication without time, felt as being. The experiment I had posted confronts science with an observable phenomenon at which cause and effect cannot be differentiated...the 'first' time. Exciting times to science have just begun, IF their egos are allowing them.
A correction "The early Christian communities were the most democratic ever" the longest standing peace amongst a democratic nation is the Haudenosaunee (My nation) which still stands to this day .. Why historically speaking other nations have not studied this in order to shape their own democracies is a question for the ages .. Have a look http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/EoL/chp2.html
I would start by requiring the exact same phenomenon to be reproduced somewhere else than around a camp fire in the dark. I was not there to see it and neither was one of us in this thread. Eye witnesses are just humans, too, with their own wishes, beliefs and needs to be acknowledged. A single report from a single eye witness doesn't tell you anything. If it were so, we'd have thousands of proofs for the existence of aliens who always visit the lone farmer on his ranch. Unless you know how a magicians trick works, you are baffled, too. That doesn't make it magic, though. Think about it, if the boy was healed, why is there only a single report about it? Why doesn't this "Shaman" heal more people? He heals one boy in a spectacle to be witnessed by objective people and then goes on about his business and is never heard from again? Just apply Occam's Razor: Think about people and their motives first before you believe in magic and super healing.
If you are speaking to me gorski and my post @ #312 it simply corrects your stament "The early Christian communities were the most democratic ever" and links to proof why that statement is uninformed ..
Maybe if I smoked mind-altering substances, I'd feel such a thing, I don't know. Try to communicate something to a test partner halfway across the globe. Heck, even forget about the faster-than-light thing, take as much time as you want. Do this in a repeatable manner over a series of tests and then come back to us. Until then, all I read is the essence of a good dose out of the bong.
I can understand your reluctance to even consider such matters .. I have lived with it my whole life .. I am at the moment only asking you to open your mind that such things have and will continue to occur regardless of sciences direct witness or documentation of it .. As to Rolling Thunder he did in fact most of his life devote his life to healing .. For many scientifically minded people it is a big jump into this realm but it none the less exists .. It is not for me to "prove it" that would be a waste of resources IMHO ..
What does smoking drugs have to do with believing in god? You people are so conditioned that taking drugs are important to do anything.
A small problem: anybody can claim anything like that, redroad... No offence but Croats and Serbs invented everything around you - you just don't know it... But now you do! Why? Well, I told you!
Are you speaking to me gorski? Let me see .. you say "The early Christian communities were the most democratic ever" with no proof .. And now the burden of proof is on me