I don't know why you would say that.

Didn't I say that I don't take either the scientific conclusion or the religious conclusion.

All I say is that I can make a determination on of my own.

I don't have enough 'evidence' to prove that my OBE was anything more than delusion. I don't have enough 'evidence' to confirm that it was a spiritual experience either.

All I'm saying is that I make no conclusions about it at all.

It might have been a delusion, it might have been a spiritual phenomenon.

I neither accept or reject either hypothesis. I accept that there isn't even data to make a conclusion.

How is that having a need for an outside agent to tell me what is truth?

Quantum Express: When you absolutely, positively, don't know where it's going or when it needs to be there.

Two of swords.....

If you feel better not making a decision one way or another, then you remain in stalemate... waiting.. waiting for more evidence.

How long Abra, have you been waiting? What are you waiting for? This is your life. Will you spend the rest of your life waiting? When will you decide what is real and what you desire and what you will do?

I'm not waiting. I don't feel that I need to make a decision on this. I'm with Richard Feyman on this one.

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong." - Richard Feynman

I don't feel that I need to take a stance on every issue. Sometimes the true answer is that we just don't know. I can accept that.



I've already decided all that. I've decided to just wait until I die, and that's what I'm doing.

I was hoping to die before this. My father died when he was 40. I'm almost 60 now and when I look in the mirror I see a much younger man. Maybe I need to buy a new mirror? This one seems to still have images of me when I was much younger.

When I look in the mirror I see a body that could easily live for another 20 or 30 years, maybe even longer!

I have been trying to commit suicide as much as possible. I eat at Wendy's at least twice a week. I've been thinking about taking up jogging, that killed my uncle.

Just today I was chopping firewood and I got a real bad pain in my chest and I thought to myself, "YES! BRING IT ON!". But it turned out to just be a cramp in my chest muscles.

Why do I need to do anything? I play the guitar and the banjo. In fact, I just ordered two new guitars and a xylophone. What exactly do you want me to do? I bought a whole bunch of art supplies and I'm drawing up the borders for a new tarot card deck. Some people just sit around watching TV and drinking beer. What's the difference?

I'd love to teach again, but I'm afraid that just isn't possible. I've also been studying counterpoint, mathematics, and I've been getting back into mediation. But I do all of these things just to pass the time away. That's all I do anymore. Just pass the time away. The more of it I can pass away the closer I'll be to the day when I pass away. That's my only goal now.

You are partially correct here.

The difference between the two lies not in what can be proven as an absolute - but on the stated Premises.

It has nothing to do with the ability to prove either one, but on the capacity to accept the Premises established. When two or more agree on the premise - the truth of "proof" can be established. However - it is only true in light of the established premise.

This goes for Science - religion - philosophy....

In this way - all truth's are essentially subjective.

I would have to passionately disagree with you on this one Eljay. It has much more to do than with just agreeing on the premises.

In the case of religion based on doctrine (in particular the Bible), Even if I agree with the premises I still see it as being logically inconsistent and in self-contradiction.

Just accepting the premises aren't enough.

If I accept the premise that God is all-wise, and all-merciful, and then I read in the same doctrine that this God is asking people to stone sinners to death I have to say that this religious doctine is tramping all over it's very own premises.

Just because I agree with your premisese doesn't mean that I'm going to agree with everything you say after that.

On the contrary if you say something that flies in the face of one of your premises I'm going to object and point out the inconsistency.

From my point of view agreeing on premises isn't going to help with the Bible unless you start with the premise that what's about to follow does not need to make any sense whatsoever.

But starting with a premise like that isn't even rational.

Boy do I miss these discussions!!!

Science my friends......................is still searching for the truth......as am I and you and .....well.....most of us.

It's all relative............my truth....yours.....theirs......E=Mc2......wonder what God was thinking???


Love ya! Kat

A child in the sixth grade in a Sunday School in New York City, with the encouragement of her teacher, wrote to Einstein in Princeton on 19 January I936 asking him whether scientists pray, and if so what they pray for. Einstein replied as follows on 24 January 1936:

I have tried to respond to your question as simply as I could. Here is my answer. Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the actions of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a supernatural Being.

However, it must be admitted that our actual knowledge of these laws is only imperfect and fragmentary, so that, actually, the belief in the existence of basic all-embracing laws in Nature also rests on a sort of faith. All the same this faith has been largely justified so far by the success of scientific research. But, on the other hand, every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe — spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

Albert Einstein

What a man that Einstein.....but of course....Faraday....the brilliance ....the women..oh my God.....what would we do without uranium....barium......the Atom bomb!!! Awwww science...gotta love it.


Kat

Thou shalt not misspell thine neurotransmitters.

People who emit Cherenkov radiation make me nervous.

lets not forget heavy water....which we all know is short for?? For?? Oh well I already said it.........

Mirror!! Hi ya

Kat

To me, discounting one’s own eyewitness account as evidence is about as clear an example as I could ever come up with of depending on some outside agent to make the determination as to what conclusion to reach.

But I guess I see what you’re saying. (I’m glad I said “seems”.) Personally, I can’t even imagine having an experience like that without coming to any conclusion whatsoever as to its nature. So I naturally assumed that you had some opinion one way or the other. My mistake for making that assumption.

Hello Kat

Out of body experiences:
Before my personal experiences, I did not think much of other people talking about near death experiences or being out of the body. I just figured they were dreaming and just didn't know it, or else just lying about it.

Hearing voices:
I cannot relate at all to people who hear voices in their heads telling them to do things they know are wrong but I have known about three people who had this problem. It sort of really freaks me out. Two of them are now dead and one of them is in and out of mental institutions.

Miracles:
I have had about four miracles (of awareness) that literally saved me from a violent death four times, so I do have extreme faith in my own awareness in the area of "second sight" or the "sixth sense." I don't credit "God" for saving me, I believe it was my own awareness or my "higher self" which (I believe) has a vested interest in my physical survival in this lifetime until my scheduled death is called for.

These are some of my personal experiences that I take as my personal truth. I don't question them or wonder if they were real or delusions. (If they were delusions, these "delusions" saved my life.)

This is why I have faith in myself and my perceptions much more than science and other people's opinions.

JB

Ah but the beauty of Quantum things is that on the quantum express you don't have to take it to get there.

You are there, and here, and although it might take some time to get there, you are there in no time.

Thanks for this quote Krimsa. If I understand the bolded statement correctly, it would have to mean that all non-physical things are also determined by laws of nature. If so, then it must be admitted that science has not the foggiest notion as to what the laws are that govern non-physical matters.

The other option is that non-physical things are not "natural" and thus are determined by other laws, which to me seems infinitely more reasonable.

(Of course there is the third option that all is physical and non-physical things do not, in fact, exist at all. But allowing that option requires there to be the fourth option that all things are non-physical and the physical does not, in fact, exist at all. But those two are hardly even worth discussing.)

Here's an interesting angle: If the non-physical is not determined by The Laws of Nature, then there's no reason why The Laws of Nature can't be a "subset" of some other "higher" set of laws?

But why would the acceptance of delusion as an explanation be considered to be 'discounting' one's own experience?

Are you suggesting that it's impossible to 'experience' delusion?

When I read the comment and acknowledge the audience for which it was originally intended, an 11 year old child, then I would tend to believe that what he is referring to in your highlighted sentence is the natural world which is governed by the physical laws of nature. He goes on to further elaborate that for a scientist conducting his research, prayer to a supernatural being would not be beneficial nor would it be an effective approach to take because something that is outside of the realm of nature can not have a determinate impact on the physical world.

That is how I interpreted the comment but I could be wrong. I apologize for posting it as it probably is not really addressing the topic but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.