Musings about different types of atheist!

by Seraphim23 304 Replies latest jw friends

  • latinthunder
    latinthunder
    Latin - Reality is what still exists even when we stop believing in it.

    How do you know reality doesn't change when you stop believing in it a certain way? Or when you start believing in it in another way? My experience tells me that reality is relative to personal experience (ie MY reality is specifically NOT YOUR reality and vice versa). Which is why I have no possible chance of relaying my own revelations to any other human being. Einstein's claim comes to mind, "Time is personal."

  • xchange
    xchange

    Latinthunder said:

    How do you know reality doesn't change when you stop believing in it a certain way? Or when you start believing in it in another way? My experience tells me that reality is relative to personal experience (ie MY reality is specifically NOT YOUR reality and vice versa). Which is why I have no possible chance of relaying my own revelations to any other human being. Einstein's claim comes to mind, "Time is personal."

    Xchange:

    With a variety of mind altering drugs, all of the above is possible.

  • adamah
    adamah

    How do you know reality doesn't change when you stop believing in it a certain way? Or when you start believing in it in another way? My experience tells me that reality is relative to personal experience (ie MY reality is specifically NOT YOUR reality and vice versa). Which is why I have no possible chance of relaying my own revelations to any other human being. Einstein's claim comes to mind, "Time is personal."

    What you call your 'revelations', scientists call your 'perceptions'.

    And it's exactly the pointlessness of wasting time quibbling and being riddled with self-doubts of the impossibility of ever acheiving harmony and concensus that explains why scientists have long ago given up trying to do it, and have simply side-stepped the issue in order to actually start DOING things (rather than talking about how pointless it would be to even try).

    Adam

  • AndDontCallMeShirley
    AndDontCallMeShirley

    "...scientists have long ago given up trying to do it, and have simply side-stepped the issue in order to actually start DOING things (rather than talking about how pointless it would be to even try)."

    “Those that say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it” -Chinese Proverb

  • cofty
    cofty
    MY reality is specifically NOT YOUR reality and vice versa - Latin

    There is no such thing as "my reality". Reality is objective. The point of the scientific method is to overcome the effects of our subjective perception of reality.

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    Interesting that people feel their reality is different to that of others. Of course that is why scientific instrumentation has been developed, measurement and recording by calibrated instruments is far more accurate the often subjective interpretations of our own unaided observations.

  • latinthunder
    latinthunder
    There is no such thing as "my reality". Reality is objective. The point of the scientific method is to overcome the effects of our subjective perception of reality.

    I don't deny that each other's realities interact which creates a composite reality. But that "reality" is merely an illusion which can be altered, similar to how the dreamstate works. Life is one BIG dream in the Mind of God. When the ancients wrote down what they saw as "reality" they included things like elves, faeries, dragons, giants, spirits and the like. This was not mental delusion, but observed in the same way that we observe our "reality" today. The kicker is that we, as a collective species, can choose to change our reality. We can remove the elves and giants and it WILL appear as if they were never real to begin with. Life, by design, comes with an eraser.

    What the old world is being replaced by is not a "better" reality, but one more preferential to a select group, namely the materialists. They want a world where everything can be empirically demonstrable, which will essentially greatly hinder, or possibly destroy, our ability to create our own reality. It could be no going back to where we could heal sick people with our thoughts and even raise the dead. All of that goes away with the materialist reality. What's happening is that the materialists are saying that they want a SINGLE reality that ends in the cold void of space. They want to wash their hands of their own creative responsibility and blame everything on the "laws of the universe." This actually comforts the materialists, which is why they press forward with such passion. They don't LIKE uncertainty, they don't LIKE the idea that one day they might see a dragon flying in the sky. They'd rather us all go extinct in a cold void of space. They don't want life to be uncertain, they want it to be finite. That was the purpose of the scientific method, to COMBAT uncertainty. Which essentially is a good thing, but there's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. A true compromise is ideal between those who wish for adventure and those who wish for security.

    Our current reality is full of harshness that causes widespread suffering that pervades through generations. It can all go away if we just wish it away, but that takes faith, the type that comes with action.

  • cofty
    cofty
    It could be no going back to where we could heal sick people with our thoughts and even raise the dead

    Nobody is stopping you raising the dead with your thoughts Latinthunder. Let me know when you manage it.

    Meanwhile back in reality science is healing the sick.

  • latinthunder
    latinthunder
    Interesting that people feel their reality is different to that of others. Of course that is why scientific instrumentation has been developed, measurement and recording by calibrated instruments is far more accurate the often subjective interpretations of our own unaided observations.

    Yet, particles react differently when being observed by human intelligence. This means that the particle is something ELSE BEFORE we "measure" it. It could be said that before we "look" reality is merely a blank canvas and our mind is the paintbrush. We are not "discovering" reality, we are creating reality, there is a very big difference. If you choose to create ONLY ONE reality, you WILL get it and you might not be able to go back to limitless possibility.

    "I do not accept what I cannot change, I change what I cannot accept."

  • cofty
    cofty
    It could be said that before we "look" reality is merely a blank canvas and our mind is the paintbrush

    What is true at a sub-atomic level is not true at the scale of objects with which we live.

    The moon really is there when you don't look at it.

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