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Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:10 am
by Azrael
DWill wrote:
Dawn wrote: I have heard this same sort of explanation of things lining up to meet ones needs in a book for artists: The Artist's Way. It's intriguing how that works. My own wariness would be in how to test whether the ideas coming to my mind are true or whether I'm being led into error. This doesn't come to mind if one doesn't believe in supernatural beings but if there are evil beings in the world bent on our deception and destruction, how do you test what is coming your way?
I'd say you test, to the best of your ability, by being aware of our brains' predisposition to serving our own interests, of rationalizing to gain an advantage for ourselves. This is the human quality that made people in the past conceive of demons in the first place.
What the hell! Everyone here a philosopher? If this is what you get from reading to much I am glad I don't do it!

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:36 pm
by tat tvam asi
Yes Dawn, Dwill offers good advice. I know what it's like to believe that evil angels and a literal devil exist in real time and serve the role of trying to deceive as many as possible before the second coming. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour because he knows his time is short, as it all goes...

But you're right Dawn, I don't believe anything remotely close to that any more. Deception is real, but it's an aspect of nature itself just as truth is. I don't have to consider things like deception and truth in a personified mythological concept frame of mind. But some need that very much. There has to be some external, spooky, and invisible boogie man to blame for everything...

But you know what, matter is itself deceptive when you really narrow this issue down to something valid. Is it a wave or is it a particle? It seems to be both. Things are not necessarily as they appear to be. And so the universe has to weed through a long series of deceptive perceptions that must be tried and tested in order to discover what exactly the truth really is. That's what turned me onto the wave structured electron physics. It stands to answer the problem of the particle / wave duality in all light and matter. It comes back as the proposal that in and out waves form a spherical standing wave center in space which gives off the appearence of a point particle. This is basically about struggling to over come natures deceptive qualities by way of theory and empirical observation to verify it. The properties of this planet are trying to figure out the earth's location in the universe and what matter actually is etc. etc. And a lot of headway has been made in this war against deception as it were...

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:30 pm
by Robert Tulip
tat tvam asi wrote:matter is itself deceptive when you really narrow this issue down to something valid. Is it a wave or is it a particle? It seems to be both. Things are not necessarily as they appear to be. And so the universe has to weed through a long series of deceptive perceptions that must be tried and tested in order to discover what exactly the truth really is. That's what turned me onto the wave structured electron physics. It stands to answer the problem of the particle / wave duality in all light and matter. It comes back as the proposal that in and out waves form a spherical standing wave center in space which gives off the appearence of a point particle. This is basically about struggling to over come natures deceptive qualities by way of theory and empirical observation to verify it. The properties of this planet are trying to figure out the earth's location in the universe and what matter actually is etc. etc. And a lot of headway has been made in this war against deception as it were...
The Greek philosopher Heraklitus said nature loves to hide. He also said He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one. The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. Logos is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

The contrast between appearance and reality was taken by Dostoyevsky as his main theme in The Brothers Karamazov. Appearance casts a compelling spell, letting people imagine they understand reality, when in fact the truth is quite different from common opinion.

Tat said 'the war against deception' is based on scientific understanding of the properties of the planet and the earth's location in the universe and what matter is. We have discussed at some length how religious texts can be reconstructed to explain a mythic orientation towards planetary reality. So the question of deception in religion boils down to the problem that supernatural faith imagines it understands reality, when in fact it is caught up in delusory appearance and fantasy. Going back to first principles requires analysis of human thought against the properties of the planet. This is where the enframing reality of natural cycles of time becomes a decisive foundational logical basis for interpreting the meaning of religious ideas.

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2011 11:29 am
by tat tvam asi
This is mostly true Robert. The religion establishes a sense of humanity struggling against a deceptive quality at play in the world. And there really is, it just isn't what they've thought it was. But there's still plenty of reason to continue on thinking that we're in conflict with deceptive forces everday of our lives. And in this case science and discovery is the messiah here in this scenario. A model spiritual life is one lived in accord with nature.

A good example along the lines of a re-interpretation of scripture comes from the Moses and Jesus myths. Moses goes to the courts of the Pharoh and tosses down his solid material staff. It turns into a serpent. A lesson here is that there is a wave structure underlying the foundations of all matter. The staff a metaphor for matter and the serpent a metaphor for the sub atomic quantum waves within the matter. The Pharoh laughs and his court mystics through down their staffs which also turn into serpents. But then Moses' serpent begans to consume the other serpents.

This can parallel what we find today between the old school point particle physics with it's particle / wave duality paradox and the newer strain of wave structured electron thinking which removes the paradox. The particle is a wave center and so suddenly the former paradox vanishes and science moves forward, much like a knew form of serpent (wave) knowledge consuming the rest found in the court.

Then we find Jesus telling his disciples that they must be as wise as serpents but harmless as doves. The serpent symbolism was associated with knowledge and the hero here is the one who knows the mysteries of the serpent symbolism and stands as master over it. The deceiving powers of the serpent symbolism have no hold on the mythic hero in this instance as he over comes them. And this is the case also with Jesus overcoming the devils temptation and standing dominant over the forces of deception in this world. This can all be applied to the actual problem of natures deceptive appearences which can be debunked and mastered if you will. Once the illusion is discovered the deceptive forces are transformed into submission and can no longer deceive you. The mythic hero commands the forces of nature after establishing this knowledge. I don't remember if it was from the Egyptians or Dogon in Mali, but there is a belief that when you know the true name of a God you gain power over that God, more specifically the principle of nature which that God is used to represent in the mythology.

I tend to think that in the case of mastering a knowledge of the fabric and structure of existence itself, it's absolutely necessary to face off with the particle / wave duality paradox and proceed into deeper levels of awareness concerning that subject. It's a large part of the truth seeking path and gaining a true sense of human self awareness as I see it. When we fully understand what matter actually is then we understand what we truly are. Deception is then conquered and light (knowledge) triumphs over darkness (ignornace)...

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 3:52 pm
by johnson1010
Made in God’s Image.

I posted about this before, but I thought it should have a place in this thread. And also, I was not able to locate it off the top of my head.

It is said that we are made in god’s image. Very well. That means, if you were to put the two of us side by side, you should see that basically we look the same, physically. It could be argued that we are made in god’s image mentally, and I can address that as well later. If not one of these two possibilities then exactly how else are we made in god’s image?

Let’s take the physical first, which will lead to the mental possibility. Knowing nothing about how the human body works, we could take the assertion that we are made in god’s image without stumbling over it at all. But with just a bit of knowledge this assertion falls all over itself. There is not a single part of our body which is not the direct result of living on this planet and being the end result of the evolutionary process. In short, if god looks just like us, then he is a primate.

Not only that, we didn’t look like us until about 200,000 years ago. So, any god who looks like us couldn’t have created the universe. Unless he looked like our ancestors, and has been evolving right along with us the whole time… I wonder if the god who created the universe actually looked like pre-atomic energy?

But, assuming he does look like us, or rather, we look like him, then there are some things we should clear up.

For instance. We have belly buttons. Why? Because that is the connection point of the umbilical chord in the uterus. If we are made in God’s image, then he has an umbilical chord as well. But, since we are made in HIS image, and not the other way around, then god must have an umbilical chord because he too was born of a placental birth. Meaning that there are more than one god. God’s mother must surely count as a god… But no, god was self created. So, he had no mother, was not born of anything, or anybody else, so god has no belly button. He’s flat there. Well…

If god is the only god, and there are no others, then he would also not have a penis, or vagina. There would be no need of them, since they are explicitly there for sexual reproduction. So he would be flat there as well. Interesting that god would make us sexual reproducers when sexual reproduction itself is such a recent evolutionary invention. For the longest time everything reproduced through budding and cloning.

So it would seem that in at least those instances, we aren’t shaped in god’s image, but in the image of the basal primates from which we descended. Moving on…

I wonder why God has an anus. I know why WE have anuses. They are a part of our internal digestive system. We must consume other animals to stay alive and we process their bodies through our digestive systems to break down the organic material into useable energy. Then we expel the excess and waste products through our anuses. So, why does god have an anus? We are designed to look like him, so our anuses must look just like his. Unless he doesn’t have one?

No. God would not have an anus, because he doesn’t need to eat anything to live. He is self-sustaining, I’m sure somebody would argue that. Ok. So god doesn’t need to eat, therefore he is excused the unsanitary nature of having an anus. Well, if he has no need of an internal digestive system, then he has no intestines, or stomach, or esophagus, or mouth. So then that means god would be smooth from nose to chin. Oh wait, god would not have a chin either. Chins are where your jaw pokes out, but jaws are an evolutionary adaptation which allows for the disassembly of food items. It helps break those food items down into more digestible chunks.

So god would not have a chin either, it would be a smooth slab of meat from under the nose to the collar bones. He’s looking like a hot air balloon now.

But then, I don’t think he would have a nose either. A nose is primarily for the ingestion of oxygen. He have a nose as part of our repertory system. A system that is only good for breathing air, by the way, so if god fell in the water he might drown… well, if he could actually sink below the water when he stood on it. But we know god doesn’t need air to breathe, so he doesn’t have a nose either. Or a trachea, or lungs, I guess…

Well, without any need to ingest either air or food, then the circulatory system seems like a huge waste of space. What is god pushing around through his body if not the nutrients brought in through the reparatory and digestive systems? So, he’s got no heart, no veins, no arteries, no capillaries. You could toss out the endocrine system as well. His chest and abdomen are pretty much just empty now, and with no internal organs to protect, surely he would have no use of a rib cage. So that’s gone too.

And, since there are no organs in his body, and no rib cage, there’s nothing indicating a need for there to be any space between the arms and the legs. Those would probably just be right next to eachother, right? Imagine just chopping the whole thorax off a person, and putting their shoulders on their hips. That’s pretty much what god is looking like right now, but without a nose, and a smooth slope of flesh from under the eyes down to the collar bone.

But would god have eyes? Why would he? We have eyes because we depend on the naturally occurring radiation of the sun and the way photons interact with matter to determine the distances, dimensions, and proximity of earthly objects. Our eyes aren’t very good either, and we can’t see in the dark. If god has eyes, and he uses them the way we do, then he is blind to the very vast majority of radiation there is in the universe. And actually, he would still stub his toes in the dark, just like us.

I bet god doesn’t have eyes. He wouldn’t depend on them to see like we do. He has other ways of detecting photons. Non-physical ways I bet. So, now god is a faceless hair bulb on a set of arms and legs.

But hair… why would god have hair? We have hair because it is a vestigial trace of our ancestors who used it for bodily insulation. It kepts us warm in the cold. Does god get cold? He’s not descended from monkeys, like we are is he? Probably not. So god is bald.

I know that we have hands so that we can manipulate the environment. It helps us acquire food items and to survive on the planet earth. I doubt very much that god has to rely on something as limited and feeble as human hands to interact with the world, so I am betting that hands and fingers are not an integral part of what it is to be a god. So no hands. Well, if you think about it, probably no arms or legs either. What would he do… run around all day? Is he pulling himself up to reach stuff?

Pffffft. NO.

So no arms or legs. Those are also remnants of evolution. The things that allowed our long ago ancestors to pull themselves form one dehydrating pond to another more watery one. They were later adapted to be of more use, but that’s how they started out. I don’t think god needs them.

So what do we have now…. we would have lost the neck with the remnants of the torso, which was only there to keep the arms and legs attached, but with those gone, we are down to the a floating, faceless-hairless skin-covered skull and brain.

But when you think about it, why does god need skin, or a skull? Those are protective layers to keep out moisture, and to balance an internal environment in the case of skin, and as a protective hard covering in the case of the skull. But is god worrying about getting any part of his internal workings too wet? Or too dry? Would that be a hindrance to god? No. God has no skin. Also, I don’t think he would be worried about bumping his brain on things, so no skull either.

That’s just the brain now. Do you think god has a brain?

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:10 pm
by johnson1010
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

James the Amazing Randi has offered a million dollar prize to anybody who can demonstrate psychic or supernatural abilities in a laboratory setting.


Unsurprisingly, that prize has remained unclaimed now for more than a decade. This is clear evidence that there is no such thing as a supernatural, or psychic power.

If any such thing did exist, there is no reason for somebody to not claim it. Imagine any scenario you want where someone has some kind of supernatural or psychic power. Lets say telekinesis. They can move a pencil without touching it with their hands. Using only the power of their mind, they can levitate pencils.

Why would they claim the prize? First, imagine they are greedy in some way. They want the money for themselves, or they need the money to pay bills, or they want the fame that would surely come from demonstrating such a power. Any such person would claim that prize money.

OK, they don’t want the money for themselves. They are good and giving people. They go demonstrate their power to Randi’s satisfaction and claim the prize for cancer research, then donate the whole lot, or for a children’s hospital, or to get clean water to impoverished nations. Name a charity, and donate.

They aren’t interested in money for themselves, but they are tired of people pretending that psychic powers aren’t real. They go and demonstrate that it’s real, tell Randi to keep his damned money, and just set the record strait.

If the same prize was offered for something else that was just naturally in the talent pool of humanity, like singing that note which makes a glass break, or painting ultra-realistic paintings, or jumping over some height, or just remembering pi to the ‘nth’ degree… whatever it is… that prize would have been claimed within the first year.

A million dollars is more than enough motivation to get somebody to demonstrate some kind of ability. Especially if it’s claimed that this ability COULD be had by anybody if they worked at it, or if they prayed to the right magical NID.

The fact that the prize remains unclaimed is the fact of the absence of such abilities.

Re: Unraveling the supernatural.

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:03 am
by johnson1010
Let me introduce you to this invention i made. I call it "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs". I made this box because i have a new beautiful puppy who love me oh so very much. But i want to test him to see just HOW much does he love me, and does he fear me enough to do exactly what i say no matter what.

So, i put the most irresistable treat in "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" knowing full well that as a new born puppy with hardly any control over itself that it would find the irresistable treat... irresistable. Knowing full well that the puppy would gallop right into "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" i placed that invention right in front of the puppy. But before i turned him loose i told him in no uncertain terms that he was NOT to go in there.

Next thing you know, the puppy dives right in. Well, what am i to do? i made "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs" specifically to torture and punish dogs. Now i have a dog in there, even though i told him not to go. What am i to do? Just turn him loose? after i warned him? Does he not realize that i am a man of my word?

Well, i guess, even though this entire situation is entirely in my control, and of my own design, i have no choice but to activate "The box of unending torture and punishment, for dogs".

But that also means i will have to get all the other dogs i can find and put them in there. Because the sin of one is enough to punish the lot.

Makes sense right?

Re: Unraveling the supernatural

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:55 pm
by johnson1010
Take a peak into the magical box of mystery known as the human mind...

and find out how chemistry works.

http://www.dump.com/2011/09/28/reconstr ... -measured/

Re: Unraveling the supernatural

Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2011 10:58 am
by johnson1010
What is the meaning of life?

That question rather misses the point, doesn’t it?

What do we mean by “meaning”? Meaning implies intent, and there is no intent beyond that generated by living organisms. There is no secret message meant to convey some hidden meaning to us all just waiting to be discovered.

For instance, the ancients used to think they knew the meaning of mountains. The earth was thought to be flat. They built their cosmology on what they knew, and when you put down something flat on the earth, like a blanket, or a skin, you have to hold it in place with stones or pegs. Something to place on the flat surface to keep it from blowing away.

Mountains were the earth’s pegs, as far as they could tell. That was the “meaning” of mountains. The hidden purpose that a designer had for them. We know now for certain that everything about this “purpose” for mountains is wrong. They were not placed down, but erupted up out of a round shape, not a flat shape. They are not for holding a surface down, but are the consequence of that surface pressing against itself as it slides over the earth’s mantel.

Plate tectonics is the objective explanation, or reason for mountains. There is no subjective meaning, or plan for mountains.

At least none put in place by the forces which made those mountains. Humans can have plans for a mountain. They can plan to dig a tunnel through it, carve a sculpture out of it’s faces, loot it for the minerals inside, preserve it for it’s natural beauty. Plans created BY life.

Meanings and intent are delivered by the consciousness of living organisms. Despite all our longing, there is no indication at all that any subjective meaning can be generated in any other way.

When you see a bird shape in the clouds, that is your living brain superimposing meaning on the natural processes of nature. God didn’t show you a bird in that cloud, your pattern-seeking brain showed itself that bird.

God doesn’t tell you the meaning of your life. It is up to you to put meaning into your life.

Re: Unraveling the supernatural

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 4:22 pm
by johnson1010
People of faith often claim that we cannot know for certain whether they are having true religious experiences or whether they are making things up.

For instance, did they really hear the voice of an angel commanding them to become a priest? Did they really see a divine message in the clouds? And the excuse of this is that there is no way for us to measure or double check their subjective experiences.

Skeptics are also accused of dismissing the alternative perceptions of others out of hand without giving them due scrutiny. But that isn’t the case. There are other phenomena which fit the mold of spiritual visions, or revelation.

Color blindness is an example. People who are color blind have difficulty perceiving certain colors.

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

This is also a case where people claim to see things differently than the rest of us. So what happens? Dismissal? No, we checked into it and discovered that it was true. We can know for sure if people are really seeing the things they say. If the condition is really present, then it will be revealed through an empirical investigation.

Then there is synesthesia.

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

Synesthetes associate certain stimuli with sensations that are normally from separate sensory systems. In other words, some synesthetes can see sound. Some synesthetes can taste words.

If someone came up to you and told you that your name was orange, what would you say? Sounds like the ravings of a mad man, but these claims were investigated and lo and behold, synesthesia is a real phenomenon with real empirical ramifications.

Our bodies are chemistry. There really is nothing else going on there. We are a very specific, complex, self-sustaining chemical reaction. There is no magical intangible component to us, and that includes our perceptions.

http://technabob.com/blog/2011/09/24/re ... ate-video/

In the above link we have a computer system which senses the electric activity of the brain and re-creates what the subject see’s based on that activity.

So, even if you are the only one who can see angels, or there is a whole group of “chosen” people who can see angels, but not us doubters… well, we can check to see if you really ARE seeing those things, or if it's a result of some mental illness, or if you are just spinning tales out of your imagination.