so many of us now realise that the wtbs is a false religion.
but for those who haven't left or been dad or dfd, how can you stay?
ok, if you've lost your belief in god and are staying for family/friends etc, but, if you do want to preserve a relationship with your god, how can you stay knowing how he feels about false religion?
Babylon the Great may not be the “world empire of false religion”, that is purely Watchtower indoctrination. According to Revelation, Babylon the Great is a city. I believe the city to be first century Jerusalem.
Indeed. The Watchtower ideologically fits best with the Beast out of the Earth, not the Harlot. This is because they are a false prophet which is what the Beast out of the Earth is described as. "Two horns like a lamb, but preaches like a dragon."
-Sab
these snakes are becoming a real nuisance in south florida- next month florida is having a python hunting contest with cash prizes.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6bw__uvrm0e#!.
<>.
.
Where's a tribal warrior when you need one?
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
Uh, the most obvious one: coincidence? They were both elderly, and it's not unlikely from a statistical standpoint that they'd die with the same time-frame (as contemporaries do, esp in that time period where there likely was less variability in lifespans for their common socioeconomic level).
The easiest explanation IS that it was a coincidence, such will be enough for the rational mind. However you didn't explain why Adams said, "Thomas Jefferson lives" right before he died.
Furthermore, there's a well-known phenomena of those who are close to death or fighting terminal illness being able to hang on to witness an important event (witnessing the 50th anniversary of the U.S. is not an unreasonable thing to think they'd share, and wish to see before they "let go", being that it's such a sentinel achievement of both of their lives). This is a well-known phenomena amongst hospice workers and medical professionals that people can somewhat control the time and day of their death, where they just give up emotionally and quit 'fighting'.
Just because it's well known doesn't mean it's explained. The fact that Adams and Jefferson died in the manner of which they did is extremely remarkable. I know you don't disagree with this.
Occam's razor says
So, what this means is that you lack a suitable explanation for the event and have to lean on the philosophy of William of Ockham. In the analogy the sheep are going missing, but the explanation is lacking. We know that they are disappearing so we know SOMETHING is happening we just don't know how. This is exactly the explanation you used with Adams' and Jefferson's death. You know that they died in a remarkably mysterious manner, but the how is not well understood. You know that others can die in this way too, but that's just like saying that other sheep have gone missing too. It's NOT an explanation it's just an admittance of reality which is merely the observational stage of the scientific method. You can't call it science until you get to the end of the method. You have to call it something else.
So your explanations are "coincidence" and "Occam's Razor." You didn't give any spiritual explanations and there are many that fit (the soul and reincarnation for example) even though I explicitly requested that you do. You are perfectly content with a non explanation which fits perfectly in my analogy.
Lets say you have sheep too and your friend is the one that has his going missing. You don't have the motivation to solve the mystery of the disappearing sheep because you have no personal investment. However, if the same thing started happening to YOU, would you merely call it an unsolved mystery? No, you would do everything in your power to save your livelihood. You wouldn't be content with the explanation, "sheep go missing every now and then" because if you set your watch to that you'd eventually go bankrupt.
The people on this planet are largely spiritually bankrupt. They see the evidence, but they are not interested in pursuing because they gave up their spiritual bank account number to William of Ockham.
People die.
"Sheep just go missing every now and then, it's just a part of life."
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
Even though you claimed "many times" this has happened, can you give just ONE example of that situation, where an unexplained but reliably-documented (i.e. with many observers who independently provide the same account) event is reported by ancient men, which HASN'T been resolved by modern men? Off the top of my head, I can't think of ANY, zilch.
There is a good reason why I'm not giving any specifics even though I have many on hand in my mind. Concepts and hypotheticals work better to explain what I am attempting to explain. When I put in details and specifics people like you typically hone in and use them against me. This always results in a big waste of time. There are plenty of unsolved scientific mysteries that you could find yourself. The reason I use the analogy is to package them all into a simple concept that involves a measure of peril.
That said I am not totally against giving details so I will give you ONE. Please give me a scientific explanation of this event. Then take that scientific explanation and compare it spiritual explanations and determine which framework, spiritual or scientific, is best suited for explanation.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
False equivalency is false, no matter what flavor you choose.
It's not an equivalency, it's an analogy. So if you wanted to critique it would be a false analogy.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
The sheep represent the many times in history when an explaned event is resolved as an unsolved mystery. I am speaking about mysteries that remained mysterties even until today. At each event we are left with a missing sheep, but no explanation as to where it went and how it disappeared. There are only a finite amount of sheep so the conclusion of, "Sheep go missing every now and then" isn't ideologically responsible.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
Real but not demonstrable to another person seems something of a distinction without a difference from a practical perspective to my simple eye. If you say something is real to you but you cannot show me, then it seems perfectly reasonable for me to regard it as unreal in the objective sense. Though it may be real to you or seem real.
We are constantly experiencing reality that cannot be demonstrated to others. For example everytime you are alone and without recording devices, you cannot demonstrate to others what happens to you during that period. What if when you were alone you sat down and played a game of jacks. Would simply presenting the set to someone else be enough to proove your excursion and said events? No, it's just a set of jacks and it cannot be empirically demonstrated that you took the set into solitude and used them. In this case there is little reason to disbelieve the anecdote, but it cannot be confirmed to have been real. This is similar to the riddle: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? The answer is that it's impossible to know for sure. The same goes for anecdotal evidence, it doesn't prove or disprove anything. However, to the EXPERIENCER of the anecdote it's not actually an anecdote, but empirical evidence.
The disappearing sheep analogy (who thought I'd ever need to write that?) does not, I think, fit. I may not know why my sheep are vanishing but the evidence that they are is clear. I can also show this to someone else, they can count the sheep one day and then the next and there will be a difference. The question then is what accounts for the difference. Also, I can know sheep exist from direct experience, and it is even a repeatable experience.
If you simply tell me your sheep are disappearing, even if I didn't know you had an interest in sheep, I would be inclined to believe you. I know sheep exist - I have seen them and eaten a few, I know they are valuable, I know they are countable. Your are unlikely to confuse your sheep-loss with any other similar experience that you might undergo. :)
The knowledge that the sheep are going missing is the empirical evidence, but the evidence lacks an explanation. Even if you can demonstrate to others that sheep are disappearing it doesn't mean you have an explanation. It just means you have confirmed something IS happening which means you cannot logically disbelieve in the phenomenon. The point is that it would be foolishness to act as if the sheep were not disappearing because you'd eventually lose your livelihood. You simply must put forth your best effort to save the sheep which means diving head first into the mystery. Failure isn't an option.
What happens in the secular community is that they study a mystery and then when they get no where they have to justify their time spent (because science is tied to money). Even though they have no results they can still create value by deeming the mystery currently unsolvable which is a conclusion that looks better than "I failed." This is a win win because the scientist gets to move onto a easier challenge and doesn't have to call their work for nothing. The conclusion becomes "no conclusion currently possible." This works fine when the mystery at hand is benign which is why my analogy has the element of danger. There is no harm in exhausting all possible options when in times of desperation. What happens is that when a certain science becomes too cumbersome, the money flow is cut off and truth is put on the back burner.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
If such phenomena cannot be deomstrated to others, then it is perfectly reasonably for others not to believe it isn't it?
Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to reject the idea as demonstrable, not but as real. To demonstrate unreality is the cumbersome task of proving a negative. While it can be done, the circumstances must be exact or else the test becomes invalidated. There is a monumental difference between something that isn't demonstrable and something that isn't real. That would be like calling a mystery not real simply because it's a mystery.
Lets say that you are a sheep herder and every night you lose one sheep to an unknown cause. Although you have a mystery on your hands, you still feel the negative effects of it. Eventually you will be out of sheep and lose your livelihood. Therefore, it would be unreasonable to live your life as if your sheep were not disappearing simply because you cannot explain why. This is how atheists view unexplainable phenomenon. They say that because we cannot explain how we interact with it we shouldn't be concerned with it. We should treat concepts such as the soul and the afterlife as if they didn't exist until evidence turns up that explains the mystery. This is like living in denial of your sheep disappearing one by one because you lack the ability to explain it.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
An immaterial realm solves this problem quite poorly. As it becomes untestable. Therefore it is no longer logically (or scientifically) an acceptable solution, rather it becomes actually a disproof of the proposition you stated (from a purely mathematical-logical viewpoint).
That's why I said this:
Heaven is OLD NEWS when you think about it, it's just been removed from the table due to lack of reproducible evidence. There has always been loads of evidence, but it's been locked in the confines of the personal experiences of people. Therefore it slipped through the cracks of science, logic and reason.
Using math to explain heaven is a fools errand.
If evidence was shown, you cannot disprove the idea anymore as there is evidence. Therefore your statement is logically contradictory. If there were evidence, we would've known by now and there is someone giving you a guaranteed $1M in case you do as well.
There are types of evidence and a certain type logically cannot exit outside of the mind of the experiencer. This means that we have to trust what these people have to say. It's impossible to remove the human element from science and therefore there is no such thing as unbias science (peer review doesn't work, but that's another subject altogether). The modern scientific model is limiting because it doesn't have a way of confirming personal testimony without fault. It slams up against a wall in that avenue.
With "truth" I assume you mean the concept of what is testable to be true in all circumstance then yes, there are those that favor order (as in God created everything orderly) and they are dictators and religionists. The truth is that there is no order in the universe, everything is totally random (look at the Universe) and thus favor the inconvenient truth that we're here entirely by our own with no-one to 'save' us in case we screw up. Thus I favor the truth over the 'order'.
The universe is nothing but order. Chaos is just a step towards the direction of Order therefore it's just a means to an end. To say there is no order in the universe is a desperate argument.
I won't, they aren't and attempting special pleading doesn't change the facts. Experinces near death in an altered mental state are nothing more that evidence that you can experience things in an altered mental state. They are in no way proof of anything more than that.
If I drink a cup of caffeinated coffee I have put my mind in an altered state. Someone else can drink the same cup and experience similar results which can be corroborated. Just because the mind is within an altered state doesn't automatically spoil the testing environment, it just makes it difficult to reproduce accurately. I don't take you for a man who backs down from a challenge.
You have left out all kinds of controls to make that a valid test. Perhaps a person could have an NDE and take my shirt challenge....
Absolutely, the problem is creating the environemnt. Scientists who work in the field of death can get a little out of control. The data we have is essentially random and often unreliable. However, there is enough to draw the conclusion that NDE's are worth looking into further for the purposes of explaining the Second Realm.
And you're making a great argument for the pointlessness of even trying to worry about invisible beings, because if God allows the scenario to be so fixed against mere mortals (where Jesus says that 'angels of darkness' will pose as angels of light), then there's a 50/50 chance, at best. SO even those who think they're communicating with the good guys don't stand a chance, as it may be a 'false flag'.
Yes, trust will awlays be an issue which means lies will always have extreme power (heaven doesn't have lies). That's why the science of lying is very important. The more we can neutralize the problem of lying the more we will know about the universe.
@sab - your comment regarding Paine and not enforcing ideas on others seems reasonable to me. Folks can believe whatever they like unchallenged as long as they don't try to convince others it is true. Then the arguments begin and IMHO not unreasonable demands for evidence.
There is nothing wrong with trying to convince others of your revelation. What's wrong is to IMPOSE your revelation on others. Like how the Watchtower says that they are the truth which would mean their revelations and chosenness are readily apparent to the outside world. They fail to understand the basic principle of personal revelation as told by Thomas Paine. That they simply cannot be demonstrated to others. The Watchtower has always ran with the idea that their superiority can be affirmatively demonstrated to the public, but it cannot and that's why they have to spike their punch. They want to be known as the chosen people of God, but they cannot offer proof of the assertion.
-Sab
i've been doing quite a bit of research into books recently, and i've noticed that the book "proof of heaven" is selling very strongly at the moment.
it's currently no.1 in the new york times bestseller list for nonfiction paperbacks.. the book is by a qualified neurosurgeon who converted to religious faith after going into a coma and having what he later described as an experience of heaven, which he elaborates on in great detail in the book.
he argues that the experience must have been supernatural, because his cerebral cortex was "offline" for the duration of his vision.. .
I see, so to be clear, it's the concept or idea you want people to accept - am I correct? I can't see why that would be a problem for many people to be honest, though there maybe others who simply cannot conceive of it. I dont understand why folks would react so energetically to the simple concept, perhaps there is more to it than that? Maybe they think you have a different objective than simply having the idea accepted as valid?
The reason I was so specific about the question was that you seemed to me to be also insisting people accept more than just the concept eg referring to what God has done without qualification (ie assuming he/she/it exists etc). :)
The problem is that the concept for many is not even considered anymore. It's become a non issue. Theology had it's scientific tag removed and it has been replaced with things like ontological physics. The concept of a spirit realm helps with the idea of God. Without the realm God cannot be considered all powerful and merely exists within the physical realm. This is why the secular community is so hard on the idea of a spiritual realm because it aids in the tearing down the idea of God (no God is their utopia). You can argue about a non-loving God until you are blue in the face, but if there is a spiritual realm that's where he would reside. And if he has a home he is more real than not. Because, if God created existence that would mean he was before existence. An immaterial realm solves this logical problem rather nicely.
If you want others to go further and ask people to accept the possibility in the general sense, then I suspect that wouldn't attract massive opposition. However the next step is trickier - probability. Then we are in the territory of evidence, not concept. I suspect that's where the real arguments begin. You may have sufficient personal evidence to convince you that there is a heaven and eternity but that won't necessarily have any affect on another person's assessment of the probability of it being correct, ie heaven and eternity.
Not everyone is given personal revelation. Fortunately humanity opperates on a system called love and therefore personal revelation is more easily believed. If you love someone you are more prone to accept their testimony and can often tell when they are lying. Therefore love is actually required for truth to remain strong and endure through time. That's what time is really, the constant covering and uncovering of truth. It is love that keeps the light turned on and it's the opposite of love that brings forth darkness and keeps truth at bay.
I do not like dealing in the concepts of possibility and impossibility. All is possible and all is impossible; what changes is the circumstance which is what controls probability. If humanity didn't have gods that would be one thing, but the deeper we dig the more gods we find. What many explain this with is that we are afraid of death. However, this is folly because fear of death is just losing faith in the afterlife. Like I said time has the ability to corrupt truth, so we see a linear decay throughout antiquity. Maybe there is reason to fear TYPE of death, but not death itself which is just a "passing over." Fear of death has been slowly indoctrinated into humanity over thousands of years, mainly through all the brutal death that has been dished out. History is a pool of innocent blood.
I'm not sure how calling something a lie means that makes believers liars, though it is perjorative. If the concept of heaven and eternity is not true then it is false yes? In that sense it would be perpetuating a lie or falsehood. That doesn't necessarily make believers liars, it may simply mean they have been taken in by it. If however folks are teaching such things and don't believe them, or are not being honest about the evidence, then they are being deceptive, ie lying aren't they? Maybe it would be better to say it is plain wrong rather than a lie.
If heaven were not real at all it would be no deep mystery, it would be a simple acceptance process. The secular community calls parents who tell their kids they will not be gone after death intellectually irresponsible. They insist on this ideal even though they cannot disprove the idea of a spirit realm despite evidence shown. If they choose not to inform their children of the wonderful blessing of heaven that's their choice. But to insist it's intellectually irresponsible is just putting one's nose in the air.
For me, adopting a position of certainty at either end of the debate doesn't really help. Obviously if one has direct revelation of the existence of heaven and eternity, that's nice but unless it can be shown to be anything other than some form of delusion or an invention it isn't worth much to someone who hasn't experienced it (as per the Paine comment earlier). The moment one tells others about it and insist it true, it is going to be challenged though isn't it?
Paine didn't say that personal revelation serves no value to anyone but the experiencer. He said that the experiencer has no authority to dictate the experience as real to anyone else. They have the right to insist that it was real, but not to impose the idea on others. He was in favor of allowing natural influence to take place and was against spiking the punch so to speak. Emotional manipulation is a sure sign of a lie. If someone wants to believe in the personal revelation of another that's their God-given right. That's called freedom of religion and it's a staple of modern society.
To me it does seem there are many strands of evidence suggesting survival. On their own they are often open to refutation, even if only by that old saw "fraud". Taken overall they do weave a stronger thread though.
It's important to safeguard the largest picture possible of the universe. It really all boils down to ideology. There are some who favor order over truth and others who favor truth over order. The former is the dictator and the latter is the revolutionary and they never mix.
-Sab
