Assuming I'm one of "you three"...

No, I don't believe in demons of the hell variety.

I question the Bible.

In particular why can't we think that that was metaphorical?

No, that would be the eternity we have earned in accordance with the covenant with Abraham. We deserve better so the Jesus dieing for our sins thing was a reforging of the pact so that we could drop the physical laws and work on their spiritual counterparts that people had been too blind to recognize.

If not for having described it as "nailed to a pole" I would think you were a copy&paste jerk throwing a wall of text at me without the courtesy of typing it up yourself.

If you didn't grab this from someone else I can tell that you at least derive your fatih from a Catholic view though.


Dear Heavenly Father,
I reject the holy spirit. I rejected it roughly a decade ago.

Well shoot, according to Matthew 12:31-32 it's too late for me.


Now, if you don't accept that Jesus could have been speaking literally (asked above) I'm curious as to why you're alright with thinking "God's dirt" could organize itself into life. Genesis speaks of quite a different origin and Jesus never revised that. Are you alright revising the Bible so long as it isn't recounting the words of Jesus?

Oh wow, you were being sarcastic. I sort of saw it in that but didn't think you were the type.

So is that a "definitely not" about demons then?

Just pop into a Scientology church prepared to take the place over n_n

*they train to not lose their cool against people's usual arguments but I suspect they'd be vulnerable to someone playing along with the belief.

Different in what ways?

The only demons I ever met were just as human as me but not nearly as nice.

I just met one the other day on these forums. He threatened to beat my arse to validate his overblown ego I guess.

I'm in far more agreement with Sky's philosophy that you might think. Pantheism is a difficult concept to grasp, it's also difficult to understand the fine lines between pantheism and solipsism. The whole idea of "many-in-one" is difficult for us to grasp from our singular vantage points.

I understand your idea of us being an "emergent property". I personally find extreme difficulties with that concept as well.

Even so, it seems to me that even if we are "emergent properties" that suggests some underlying structure that can emerge into such things.

It certainly doesn't suffice as an 'explantion' that satisfies my curiousity. They idea of such intricate complex patterns emerging by "pure chance" does not seem to be to be anything that should be expected from pure chaos.

You accept the concept of natural processes, but everything that would be required for all of those things to fall into place would themselves need to be random happenstance.

So no amount of reference to "Natural Processes" can negate the initial requirement that everything that led up to that necessarily had to be "pure chance" in the first place.

This is why I say that we are either the produce of happenstance, or we aren't. There can be no middle of the road, because even "Natural Processes" would have had to ultimately have been the result of random chance events.

We are either the result of random chance events, or there's something deeper going on.

Since our understanding of the true nature of reality is quite sketchy I see no reason to favor pure random chance over something deeper. And that "something deeper" could indeed be some form of non-physical consciousness that brings everything that is seemingly physical into being.

So it's just as intelligent to consider either possibility.

They both hold equally valid merit. And thus there is no reason to hold one out as a "default conclusion" over the other.

That's all I'm really saying.

Actually I even found that to be funny - then I though, how would it sound put another way.

"This universe follows absolute precise and perfect laws of impeccible logic that cannot be denied and are never wrong!" That can only mean it was designed by some entity to be perfect.

Now Abra, what do you see in this universe that is flawless and has been perfectly replicated (by design)?

Demons? Hell? oh 'hell' no, I'm an atheist and about as spiritual as I get is trying to understand the psychological value of any mystic belief on the individual or in a society.

I know myself to be a single, independent, indivisible unit, separate from "the body" or "the mind". Takeit from there.

Actually they get upset, but not to your face. I know I tried it. Their concepts were so unusual that I could not tell when they were testing me or not. Apparently I failed but was unaware until my 'friend', who got me in to start with, said he had to take some guff for it and I was no longer welcome. Not sure what that meant but he said he was considering leaving the organization anyway. hahaha.. We lost contact many years ago, I do hope he found an alternatvie that gave him some peace. He was a good guy.

hey abra, everyone tells me the same thing. and you and i rarely agree. guess we'd only introduce more confused christians to a highly confused flock huh? i do agree that it's a racket though.

I don't hold that it needs to be logical by our way of thinking, this is why I'm open to ideas that may seem to be illogical by conventional thinking.

Just the same, I think it seems ironic to claim that an explanation of a purely happenstance universe would need to be logical. The very fact that it would hold to logic automatically implies that it's not happenstance.

So once we allow the possiblity that it goes beyond logic then we enter the possibility of spiritual or non-physical explanations.

Yet, if we disallow the possiblitiy that it goes beyond logic then we are also disallowing happenstance.

So I guess what I'm actually trying to say is that logic can't be used to pull itself up by its own bootstraps.

In other words, to demand that the universe must adhere to strict logic whilst simultaneously demanding that it's happenstance is an oxymoronic claim to begin with doncha think?

I do understand about maintaining an open mind, and I even understand that for some that means accepting the possibility of a designer - in whatever capacity that serves.

What I find the most difficult to understand is how maintaining an open mind becomes a need to find scientific validity for creating a hypothesis defending a designer idea?

So I have tried a couple times to find out by asking some question and they are not responded to. For example.

In any scientific research, if a hypothesis is not proven, is there EVER the option to say "it will never work because the designer does not want us to know that." ?

OR how about this question

What importance do you place on scientific research searching or proof of a designer?

and of course what follows:

How would you even begin an research endeavor looking for proof of a designer?

The reason I ask these questions is to find out if there are any suggestions as to why we should procede in that manner and if so how would it be proposed?


The end point being - what difference would it make to science if everyone said they kept an open mind - what do you expect they would change or they would find that is different than current standards?

I don't think it would make any difference at all to science. If you think that I'm attempting to suggest that science should change its ways based on whether or not we suspect there might be a designer then you are totally misunderstanding my position.

The only thing that I object to are these people who try to make out like as if science favors a non-spiritual of reality. In some sense it does. In the sense that it is the very nature of science to presume the world to be physical and move forward from there. This is why all of science is based on physics.

I have no problem with that.

What I have a problem with are the people who then attempt to hold science up as somehow supporting atheistic (or non-spiritual) views. How can it do that when it's actually standing on the foundational premise that all is physical? Of course this is going to be its view. This is its starting premise. This is the very nature of what science is all about.

The end point being - Why hold science up as a reason to favor non-spirituality when the only reason that science appears to favor that conclusion is because it's based on that very idea that the world arises entirely from physical processes as its foundational premise in the first place?

I'm not suggesting that we should change the way we do science. I'm just suggesting that when we consider philosophical notions of the true nature of reality we should not limit our ideas to only the realm of science.

Moreover - and this is of great importance, even science cannot say with any degree of certainty what the true nature of physical existence actual is!

This is often why I refer to science. I try to show where its limitations are. Not in an attempt to belittle science, but simply to show where its limitations are. How can science be held up as the 'gospel truth' of physical reality when in truth it can't even explain what physical reality even means.

Science isn't even in a position to be claiming to know anything in terms of the true essence of reality. That's just the fact of the situation. Scientists themselves don't accept QM as being complete. They are speculating the existence of strings, and hidden dimensions, and "God Particles" and who knows what else.

They simply aren't in a position to make any determinations on the true nature of reality. They're still groping around trying to find Newton's balls, or little tiny strings of spaghetti.

They haven't yet shown that a physical universe even exists.

Yeh, they keep looking for a way to measure quanta.

Abracadabra wrote:



Why do you care so much about another's beliefs?



Why would there be a problem with someone stating the obvious? You express your dislike for someone else who claims science only supports the physical, but then admit that that is true, concluding...

"Of course this is going to be it's view"



What is the problem again?



A 'better' question would be...

Why does science base it's knowledge upon that which is physical, or has an observable effect upon the physical?



I agree. As long as we also realize that without establishing factual premises, there can be no sound argument.



Absolute certainty is indeed elusive, especially when that is being hindered by a limit in measurement.



I see many who realize and confirm the fact that it(science) is the best explanation we have - in terms of reliability. I do not see anyone holding science up as the 'gospel truth', so I fail to see where the claim about that makes any sense. This is the only time I have seen a picture being painted like that. The curious thing to me is that the picture you painted belongs to you. What I see you doing is making claims about what you think another believes. It most certainly cannot be what another claims, because those words belong to you, and no other that I have seen here.



This is rhetoric and misleading in a few ways.

Are scientists are looking for 'God Particles', or are scientists looking for the hypothetical Higgs boson particle, which others call the 'God' particle? The latter is a much more accurate assessment of the situation in and of itself.

Here the focus also switched from the fact that science observes, recognizes, and therefore only addresses the physical(for very good reason) to the implication that what science does know is not the "true nature of reality". That implication goes unsupported. The same reason that science does not - cannot - make any claims about the true nature of reality applies to everyone else as well. If you disagree, then please answer the follwing questions...

Who is in a position to be claiming to know anything about the "true nature of reality".

What makes that person(s) position more qualified than science's to do such a thing?



Ummm....

Neither are you.



Really? What would that take to be shown, assuming that your claim is true. Common sense tells me otherwise, yet I would like to know exactly what someone who is skeptical of the idea that a physical universe exists would think must be shown in order to prove that a physical universe exists.

That really seems nonsensical, yet I am quite curious to hear the answer.

Replies to Abra


Give me an example of how science is biased toward a non-spiritual reality? Because I'm not understanding this concept.



Again, I'm at a bit of a loss with your statement. Science discredits creation science because of it's lack of method and logic, not based on an atheistic bias. So what other example can you give to support your claim that people attempt to use science to support atheism.



First you don't want to change anything in science but now you want scientists to consider things outside the realm of science??? I have to ask, why couldn't they? What's stopping an individual from doing just as you do, consider a spiritual philosophy?



You do know that the two terms science and philosophy are no long synonomous right? (sorry I'm just be silly).

But you are asking for science to prove a philosophy consistent with spiritualism - unless you can explain to me what the physical properties are that you expect an essence to have. Can you tell me that?



I'm hung up on the phrase "true nature of reality". Do you expect some finding to indicate that we are not physical beings at all? Or are you referring to how we come to have the physical properties we have? You need to clarify that for me as well.



Do you doubt it?

There's a certain kind of absudity that exists in thinking about a bunch of non-physical beings running around in a physical form trying to find out the nature a physical univers that's not really physical either. I'm not sure that's even philosophy. But maybe your answers to my questions will give me a better understanding.

Di, I don't think you could ever fake your way into Scientology. The minute you would open your mouth you would give your self away. No offense...

Di, I don't know that I could ever explain the irony, but suffice it to say that that is a profoundly concise statement of truth from my philosophical viewpoint as well.

I'm not trying to make any point here. It's just that rang so poignantly true to me that I had to "let it out".

Thanks for what is probably the most profound doubly-ironic double entendre I've ever seen in my entire life.

You're wonderful!

Unlike most of the people you seem to meet I've not just taken a peak at Hinduism and those others but actually tried to grasp the meanings of those religions. I've had some guidance and guided myself.

So basically I'm saying it's not as distant a concept for me as you're making it sound.

Now, as I've told JB my understanding how to solve the puzzle myself doesn't have anything to do with your solving the puzzle. I'm not asking you to help me figure it out, I'm just asking you to show that you've put enough thought into these things that you might have something to show me.

Well that and calling you on bad science but you know that drill by now.

You shouldn't after I explained that emergent properties were really properties of the smallest levels and that we just assign them higher because we can't keep track of a google particles just to talk about something like pottery.

I'd say suggest was too subtle a word for something I directly said -_-;

**** you. Your belief is the one that's random nonsense chance and I'm going to start saying that every time you insist I've ever been talking about us coming from random chance. It's not a good argument technique but I'm through validating you by spending any effort thinking of new ways to tell you I'm sick of you replacing my argument with that fake one so you can knock it over easily.

Ya, that randomly "just nonsensically there" designer sure doesn't seem like anything we should have expected.

You accept the concept of designers, but everything that would be required for all of them to fall into place would themselves need to be random happenstance.


So no amount of reference to "A Designer" can negate the initial requirement that everything that led up to it/them necessarily had to be "pure chance" in the first place.

So now "anything deeper than random chance" is the same thing as "an intelligent designer"?

I've already shown that there are other options. I haven't given a particularly long list but should I have to give ten or fifty options to show there are more than two or does just a third show that two wasn't enough?

Since our understanding of the true nature of reality is quite sketchy I see no reason to favor pure random designer over something deeper. And that "something deeper" could indeed be some form of non-physical process that brings everything that is seemingly physical into being.

This has always been my annoyance with agnostic views. "The Earth was created in a week or has been around for billions of years. These options seem completely equal to me so I can't choose."

It feels like that's just "I haven't really looked into the issue."