I have found Frazzled UBM that some atheists often say that something came from nothing also, in the form of a quantum vacuum which is something. Mysterious!
Seraphim23
JoinedPosts by Seraphim23
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Seraphim23
Then Einstein comes along and tells us that the earth doesn’t really go round the sun either because motion is in fact relative. The fourth dimension of time means there is no such thing as a centre of the universe or anything else, because things are not really just three dimensions. Amazing how things have come full circle if you forgive the pun.
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Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
FlyingHighNow, I think doubt is a good thing because unless the required corroboration is there, there may well be naturalistic explanations. Often people think that the existence of the supernatural contradicts the materialistic way the universe operates and how can that be considering the successes of science! But it’s also possible that two, as opposed to one foundation exists for the universe; two types of laws that operate in fundamentally different ways that do not contradict as a result. It is very much like what is seen with the fundamental differences between quantum mechanics and classical physics. They both make up the universe yet one seems to contradict common sense and yet the other doesn’t.
As you say it is interesting how when one hears of another’s experience, even with the required evidences, and despite our own experiences for those who have them, it can be hard to except as true. I wonder if it is to do with the propaganda out there that continually tries to tell us that science and materialism is all there is to existence? I’m glad you had an experience like you did and I wonder if the very routes of religion and spirituality in the humans race itself was not simply to explain why the sun set for lack of a better explanation, but also, or rather because of phenomena that effected them that was known to not conform to the usual way things worked in the physical world?
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72
Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
When one listens to any anecdote from another, we listen in regard to what it means to us. So with a story like going to the shops and buying some items, it doesn’t mean anything to me unless I know you personally. This might be because some of the items I will eat or some other reason. Even my close friends don’t tell me things like that unless there is some relevance to something else they are telling me to me, even if it is to make me laugh because of some situation that happened, or unless I requested to know what they did during the day out of interest in them, on the grounds of friendship with would be a mutual interest in fact.
Some people lie and make things up for attention as with a tiger anecdote for example but if they are a friend of mine, I will probably know if that is the kind of person they are and not believe them particularly if there are no witnesses. But what if they are not and still tell me the tiger story in seriousness? Then I might believe them. So credibility of the person themselves plays a part also. This credibility is only established though a long a fruitful friendship and doesn’t apply to most people. Even if the story is from a stranger and mundane, about biscuit shopping I probably won’t believe them because I will be wondering what they are getting out of telling a complete stranger such a boring thing.
If a stranger or a trusted friend told me they saw a man change into werewolf, the issue with the stranger is obvious but the issue with the trusted friend is different. It’s not going to be me doubting their story but doubting their perception and interpretation of what they saw. Now multiple witnesses would help but not very much in this case because it isn’t to do with establishing credibility or honesty. An optical illusion can fool many people for example! The issue in this context is more about extraordinary claimed needing extraordinary evidence as you mentioned. The reason is because what is reported is not only unusual but contradictory to how the world works. The only way a man could be seen to change in such a way is if it was some kind of illusion. If an illusion then the integrity of how the physical world works is intact.
However this fails to take account of the form and nature of paranormal occurrences and the extent of human knowledge about how the world works. Some people think that all things that exist are physical and so science can in theory explain them, even if we don’t have all the answers right now. Others disagree with this view, and there is some evidence for both sides of this debate. The issue is the interpretation of the evidence, which is a familiar theme of course in this context. It is quite possible however that the world works in more than one way or to put it another way the world is both physical and something nonphysical in nature. When specific information from some forms of paranormal phenomena is gained by two or more witnesses and independently of each other, and this gets confirmed by whoever it is in a position to confirm it, then it provides evidence not only of the phenomena but that the universe has more than one level of operation only one being physical in nature and amenable to scientific analysis.
There are cases where verifiable information can be corroborated by more than one independent witness but as with all things, it’s the quality and credibility of the witnesses that counts more than evidence itself. This is even more the case with things that cannot be demonstrated in a lab in front of witnesses because what is seen or experienced is not operating according to physical laws. The laws are unknown. However they often have a theme which normally doesn’t include actual physical human beings turning into werewolves, because it isn’t about physics. Often it is to do with information perceived within a person than can sometimes be correlated to reality and witnesses.
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72
Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
Witness My Fury if increasing elements of your story could be corroborated from independent witnesses, then I would believe there was something to the experience.
If anecdotes mean nothing to you then why should what you say here mean anything either? It is only your subjective view point after all. People tell anecdotes about normal everyday experiences as well as unusual ones, that don’t require extraordinary evidence, yet some still lie or are mistaken about them but when witnesses to something are produced then it increases the credibility and belief level. The same is true for unusual experiences, because the question shifts as to why witnesses and independent witnesses if availed should or could collectively lie and have points of correlation, and the more points, the less likely it is lying in combination with coincidence. This has to be explained as here burden of proof shifts. The burden of proof is not with the event itself anymore until the other issue of witnesses is explained away. If it cannot be, the event is as likely true as it is unlikely the witnesses are mistaken. Then the hard questions of what the event means, or how it fits in with what we think we know about the universe can begin.
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Why Evolution Is True--something that scares me
by DS211 inso im reading "why evokution is true" by coyne and the page im on is talking about darwin and natural selection:.
"but natural selection was also the part of evolutionary theory con- sidered most revolutionary in darwins time, and it is still unsettling to many.
selection is both revolutionary and disturbing for the same reason: it explains apparent design in nature by a purely materialistic process that doesnt require creation or guidance by supernatural forces.
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Seraphim23
Hi DS211, it is disturbing on the face of it. However the Christian view of not reading Genesis literally has been around for millennia, well before the modern understanding of evolution.
On the point of natural selection not requiring guidance from supernatural forces, one has to read between the lines here. The reason is that all sorts of processes don’t require intervention in nature. Rain for instance is a process caused by many factors of nature ranging from gravity, to the melting and freezing point of H20 and so on. In turn rain itself causes erosion and other processes of nature.
Because the nature of processes themselves seems to be dependent on other processes before it, it can be tempting to think that the need for intelligence is surplus to requirements. Of course when it comes to a specific process amid the countless ones in nature, it is true than no direct intervention, meddling or help is required. An ice cube doesn’t need help in melting after all because the factors required for this process are already there but where did they come from? Is it possible to trace back all processes to a fundamental point?
A computer program can be described as a process and some sophisticated software can even simulate natural selection to solve an industrial problem for example. However the information for this program and the hardware on which to run it was the result of intelligence. Any design that comes from the program itself is really information that is either in the program, which has to have a programmer of course, or the hardware which has to have a builder or a combination of the two.
Nature is far more complex than the example above but it is by no means proven that the processes of evolution didn’t come at some point from an intelligent mind. If one however isolates a single process of nature and points at it and says that such a process produces this clever result, but didn’t require any intervention and intelligence then that someone is making a misleading statement by obscuring the issues. First of all intervention and intelligence are not really equivalent terms. Something can be designed as with a machine like a car for instance, but not require intervention after the initial manufacture. As well as this, isolating a single process in the car like fire for instance and then saying it doesn’t need intelligence is misleading, because it ignores all the surroundings context of the car itself which did.
These are simple metaphors to get some of the issues over but nature is far more complex but it has not been proven than the whole machine and processes of the universe did not at some point require intelligence. The problem with certain brands of Christianity is its leaning towards literalism and assuming they know Gods mind as well as he does. However there is hope for the theist.
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Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
The problem with these subjects in that often the subtext is often not mentioned. These subtexts are the world views, starting points and premises of how people think the world works in combination with their own critical thinking and experiences. The subjective and objective worlds are at issue also in terms of personal and publicly or scientifically demonstrable experience. Also is the issue of the connections between the subjective and objective worlds.
It is of course true that people who have seen ghosts for instance like me, could have seen an entirely subjective thing that is caused by physical structures of the brain. I.e. what I saw is not there at all in the physical world but only in the internal virtual world of mentality. If this is case then it is caused by a mental illness of some kind, or some kind of disruption to the normal way the brain processes signals, as with the God helmet and perhaps certain meditational techniques that are known to also change the way the brain functions.
If it is a case of abnormal brain function that is responsible, then certain features in reasonableness will have to also be present. These would include there being no multiple witnesses to the perceived event, as what is seen has no objective or shared reality. If the phenomena of mass hysteria really is true, which is debatable, then for real cases of the paranormal like ghosts and so on, multiple witnesses would best be physically apart in order to overcome this objection. The problem with mass hysteria is that if true, then evidence for anything including science can also be suspect because there is doubt being placed on evidence itself, even if corroborated by multiple eyes. Another feature one would expect in the case of abnormal brain function is the complete absence of any physical effect in the objective world as a result of the perceived supernatural experience. Again if there were such effects then multiple witnesses would be needed, along with the correct types of circumstances in order to rule out fakery in the reporting of such cases.
It has to be acknowledged of course that in cases of no witnesses being present and mental illness being operative in the one witnessing such things, that this doesn’t of itself mean nothing paranormal happened. Even mentally ill people who hallucinate can also see or experience real things in the objective world. How about the subjective world? Can the subjective world of personal mentality be subject to other mentalities? This is an open question. Although there is little doubt that disrupted brain function can cause literal perceptions of subjective manifestations, or hallucinations for an individual, it is less clear what perception is anyway.
If one is a materialist as many, although not all atheists are, then perception is an allusion of the brain, when really what is occurring are the simple effects of particles on other particles, and that is all. If however the famous double slit experiment is true, then this view is suspect, for perception seems to be the very thing effecting the change in behaviour rather than particles effecting particles. In order to explain this in merely physical terms, the explanation can has to be kicked further down the road, as with a jigsaw with one piece permanently missing and another being moved to fill the gap on on-going basis.
Materialism is but one view of many and is certainly true to a degree, or science would not work, but it raises as many questions as it answers, not least how it itself can come to be in the first place. There is no way to prove that it is an exclusive explanation, and because of this other views exist.
Even science and materialisms foundation is fundamentally reliant on witness testimony, or more specifically multiple witness testimony, when one thinks about it carefully. There is another feature of science that is also part of the foundation, and that is comprehensibility. Does it fit into a matrix of known and understood casual relationships, to put it more technically? Here is should be mentioned that quantum mechanics of double slit fame does not fit into this criteria interestingly enough, as many experts, although not all, in that field will attest.
So comprehensibility and multiple witness testimony are keys to science and by extension materialism, which is the view that science is all there is, in terms of knowledge. However all witness testimony, even multiple witness testimony is based on subjective perception. Only an individual can agree or not with anther in essence. This being the case, what of comprehensibility? Well as stated before, there are problems with even this in what gets called science.
So perhaps it is not wise to so easily discount subjective perceptions as having some actual reality even with a lack of real world effect or multiple witnesses. However there are cases of the paranormal or supernatural that do have multiple witnesses who are not always in the same location and cases of real physical effects. These cannot be easily dismissed as mental or abnormal brain function nor should they. Of course, if one starts off with the view that such things are impossible because they think that science indicates materialism, and materialism indicates that anything that goes against comprehensibility is wrong, then perhaps this is the result of fear and insecurity that there may be more going on than they realise. There is a certain comfort in living in a box because what they cannot see can’t hurt them. This is a daft view to have, considering that there are issues with the box as good as it is, in the objective public world we live in, even though it gets mistaken for the totality of existence.
There is evidence that one’s own inner world is not entirety cut off from other people. It’s not just the double slit experiment that provides this but the phenomena of shared dreams. These can be verified. If this is the case, then even internal perceptions may relate to something `real` i.e another person’s mentality and perceptions. Even if no one else sees the ghost and it is not physically there, it doesn’t mean the ghost isn’t `real`.
Just a few thoughts.
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72
Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
As I say cofty, it won’t convince you because you haven’t experienced it but it’s not nonsense.
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72
Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
Some experiences that come under the words supernatural or paranormal tend to discount drug inducement or mental disorders when such tally with real world events. For instance, when someone gets a `message` in a non-sensory way that a relative has died at the exact time it happened, even though they had no idea the person was even sick. The reverse of this also happens, in that sometimes the death of someone close can have real world physical effects, such as all the clocks in the house stopping and so on, even though not all the clocks had the same power source or mechanism. Such can be as good as proof for the person who experiences such a thing, although when related to others it would only be anecdotal evidence and second hand.
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72
Did you ever have a supernatural experience?
by XPeterX inok i know some of you are going to mock me but i don't give a shit and you'd better get dafaq outta this thread if you don't beleive in this stuff.. .
so,you ever seen somethin strange?shadow people?felt cold spots?touched by something you can't see?beaten by an unseen force?heard voices/whispers/growls/screams etc?are you sure about it or was it just your imagination?you ever been into the occult?c'mon share your experiences and stories!personally i've never had an encounter with the other side..
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Seraphim23
Yea I have. A ghost when I was five and when my aunt died I saw a light in my parents’ house at the exact time she died although she was not expected to die at the time she did. There have been others also down through the years.