denkmal on 30/10/2022 at 13:53
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Science does not have all the answers yet, but its purpose is to push back the veil of ignorance and expose the flaws in our previous thinking; this doesn't mean it always gets it right, but the important thing about the scientific method is that it seeks a truer picture if the previous one was proven inaccurate.
I think science like many things in the world has probably been allowed to exist by our numerous warlords/chieftains both past and present precisely because of its advantages in waging war with rival warlords/chieftains.
Nicker on 30/10/2022 at 19:09
All the mystical experiences that supernaturalists insist can only be had through a personal relationship with a deity, can be achieved through perfectly natural, secular means. Some are intentional and some are accidental. These experiences can be induced through meditation (prayer), drugs, trauma, injury and even electro-neural stimulation. No gawdz needed.
To me, it's a shame that this legacy of natural, human experience has been hijacked to promote lazy, dehumanizing and harmful ideologies, extruded through tax-exempt doctrinal dispensaries.
To directly compare credible, scientific explorations of reality (nature), with wild, wishful speculations, bereft of evidence, internal consistency or precedent, is itself an affirmation of supernatural claims, whether you recognize the term or not. You don't get to cite evidence to support your claims then dismiss the value credible evidence as a general principle.
Science is not a religion and insisting that claims be supported by evidence is not a mental or ethical failure. It is the bear minimum required for intellectual and yes, SPIRITUAL honesty. Because the reality (nature) of the human spirit and experience is a million times more wonderful than any of the flailing myths our cowering egos have invented to protect it from its inevitable and necessary mortality.
Harvester on 30/10/2022 at 19:22
Never mind, carry on
Azaran on 1/11/2022 at 15:25
Another reason most scientists dismiss supernatural claims outright, is the current model of physics can't account for them; I also suspect there's a desire to keep the status quo, and fear of having to dismantle and rewrite everything we currently know about the world.
If the supernatural is ever scientifically proven, I suspect it will find some explanation via quantum physics, parallel universes and higher dimensional theory.
Sure, most quantum physicists will throw a fit, but the fact is some very strange things happen with particles within atoms. Physicists will say this is restricted to the subatomic level and don't translate to our reality.
But what if they actually do? What if higher dimensions to exist on our level? What if parallel universes 'leak' into our own?
The physicist Michio Kaku on a show once analyzed the claim of a man who claimed to have become invisible, and was bumping into people who couldn't see him at a mall. As I recall, his hypothesis (assuming the claim was actually legit and otherwise unexplainable) was that the man had slipped into a parallel universe.
A frequent anecdotal claim for ghost sightings is seeing ghosts reenacting life events, or reliving things that led to their deaths (eg. dead soldiers seen marching or fighting on old battlefields, like Gettyusburg). What if people who witness these sightings are actually seeing a parallel universe (where such events are currently taking place) that's somehow intersecting with our own?
heywood on 1/11/2022 at 19:41
Maybe someday one of these parallel universe theories will make a unique and testable prediction. Until then, they're just fodder for sci-fi and for pondering the universe while under the influence.
And to Nicker, I don't think I moved the goal posts at all. This thread is about religious beliefs, and the creation story is a fundamental myth of every major religion except buddhism. The only other religious myth of equal or greater importance is the afterlife, and science has already said all it needs to on that topic, and about all it can really.
bassoferrol on 1/11/2022 at 21:27
I´m not a religious person but I´d like to see Islam banned in as many countries as possible.
Tocky on 2/11/2022 at 01:02
Not just Islam but all religion and not banned but outgrown through intellectual growth. I don't mind so much the feeling there is a deity tying the universe together somehow but religion has never been anything but control through shame and fear. It's time we grew up as a species.
As for supernatural stuff, I'm sure there is some sort of explanation somehow that doesn't involve angels and demons. For instance, about ten years ago a CD came flying at me from off a shelf about five feet away and struck me in the chest. I was freaked out of course. But the conclusion I came to was that when I had slid it onto the shelf, some days or weeks earlier, I had bent back one of the empty CD covers beneath thus setting a sort of spring loaded catapult. The CD is a natural Frisbee and, once the steady pressure of the bent CD cover worked itself to a certain point through steady pressure, it sent the CD flying.
Out of everyone here I've likely experienced more strange things and I still think only logic can solve the riddles. Out of everyone I've ever met my whole life actually. But at least I've never seen a ghost. Yet. So far it's just talking to the dead in my dreams and I'm not starting a religion about that.
Jason Moyer on 2/11/2022 at 01:45
I believe I can fly
I believe I can touch the sky
I think about it every night and day
Spread my wings and fly away
I believe I can soar
I see me running through that open door
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly
I believe I can fly (Woo)
Tocky on 2/11/2022 at 01:53
The only problem with that, denkmal, is the phrase "without doing any work". The demon is the one opening and closing the massless door and thus doing the work. A version of that is explained through entropy of demon energy expenditure later.
I guess the devil is in the details.
