Most historically respected cases of fasting until death, or a change in equality for society were for equality not against it! It’s a fascination, but he has taken some vitamins though, which is also rather odd if he was being serious.
Seraphim23
JoinedPosts by Seraphim23
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38
Utah man goes on hunger strike to the death to protest same-sex marriages
by adamah inyou can't make up this kind of religious nut-job fanaticism:.
http://www.4utah.com/story/utah-man-fasting-to-stop-same-sex-marriages/d/story/k9sjvlgmmeuberqg9aeobq.
although in retrospect, it's no more extreme than those jws who die refusing blood.... adam.
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Why would a supremely powerful and wise being regard faith as a virtue?
by Island Man inif i were the all-powerful creator of all the universe it would be a very easy thing to prove my existence, requirements and will in an indisputable and unambiguous way.
everyone would know of my existence and requirements without them having to put forth effort to believe based on limited, ambiguous evidence that is highly subject to interpretation.
i would regard faith as a harmful trait that makes one vulnerable to being deceived.
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Seraphim23
Island Man I think you’re well written post makes a few assumptions between the lines. The very idea that God can, if he exists, prove his existence to anyone let alone everyone is based on the idea that knowledge of any kind can be proven. Even in science, there is no such thing as unambiguous evidence which means there are simply different levels of ambiguous evidence. This is why the word theory is used to describe the most established of scientific ideas, rather than proof. Even at the strong end of the scientific evidence spectrum, there are big issues that cut to core of what science and even evidence and understanding are to begin with. The very laws of classical physics break down in black holes, in that cause and effect become very subjective rather than objective to the point of ridiculousness where logic even has problems. Cause and effect are the corner stone of what most people think of as science, as it speaks to the relationship between one thing and another thing. It is the core of what is thought to be understanding itself.
Understanding is limited by nature of what understanding is. For example there are things I know without any evidence needed at all. These things have no need of understanding to back them up in order to know it is true. I am talking about my own consciousness or perception. What I perceive could all be an illusion but that doesn’t mean I do not perceive it. Perception and what is perceived is not the same thing. I don’t understand how it works but I don’t need to in order to `know` I am real. A cat doesn’t need to know how the brain works but is still known to itself by virtue of its own consciousness. In fact the more people think they understand about how consciousness works, (which presumes it’s subject to cause and effect in the first place), the more likely some tend to question its reality. Hence some think that consciousness is an illusion, which is a ridicules statement as its one of the few things that needs no evidence. While there is sense to the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, no one says this in relation to the mega extraordinary claim that the perception of claims is real. Why? Because no one needs to which is very telling.
On the other hand `understanding` is always limited by what is not known. Because of this, it means that what is known is also incomplete as a description of truth. So, is what is known really known? The fact that science works should not be mistaken for proof that it is correct or true because there are places in the universe where such things would not work. Understanding is built on evidence and if God is real, no amount of understanding would be enough to prove God as real because understanding itself is by nature limited. It would be like trying to understand infinity. It’s going to take forever! An infinite amount of evidence would also take a while but this also applies to the idea that truth is real which underpins scientific progress.
Faith in the concept of truth is why scientists do science because they believe in the intelligibility of the universe, despite areas where this seems to not be true. Faith is not just for those who think God is real. For those that do, a different kind of evidence is used. People claim to have seen or experienced events that do not appear to operate according to cause and effect and this is the source of their faith in many cases. One is quite right to question this of course but for those that do so, they should also question what they except as evidence and what that evidence really indicates about the nature of reality.
The fact that charlatans, con-merchants and the plain old hoodwinked exist is not the fault necessarily of God if he exists because the same is also true for science which most except as true. Religion both good and bad are from man trying to makes sense of existence, not God. The same is true for science, in that although science may well be true, at least pragmatically on earth, it is man who abuses science just as man abuses religion. There are people abusing and not abusing both religion and science. Both science and religion use different types of evidence that are different from one another. Both are seeking truth in different ways. The powerful of both religion and science are abusing these things. The threat of nuclear annihilation due to a religious war would be the worst of both worlds. Then there is global warming which could never have happened were it not for science but it’s not science itself which is at fault but people. Same for religion also.
It is easy to point a finger at man’s understanding of God and label faith as something only silly believers have, even if in a more intellectual approach to God, but it’s not a very in depth analysis of faith, knowledge and evidence. I guess it does sell newspapers though, hence the propaganda wars are here. Ironic given the information age is also here but perhaps the two go hand in hand.
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Seraphim23
Thats it, just a Merry Christmas to you all!
Brian xx
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Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
Apognophos, perceptions whatever its limits, which beg the question of the supernatural anyway, can all go into memory. The limits of perception and what exactly perception is is not as yet known. I agree with you regarding memory being fallible but I know what I saw. For me that’s not in question. Something was perceived, whether through a misfiring of brain cells of something else more exotic. However I don’t have false memory syndrome as far as I know. Obviously though you would agree that memories from a week or so ago would be more reliable, depending on circumstances, than memory from years ago. However this has to be considered in light of the fact that some memories from years ago can be better than memories from last month. The reason for this is often to do with the unusualness of the event being remembered. Also the facts of an event can be remembered much better even if the details of the event fade. People often forget the clear mental images of loved ones after they die, but not the fact they were loved ones and who they were in relation to them.
You also seem to make the mistake of assuming that as far as supernatural events are concerned, that I only experienced one many years ago. This is not the case. Also as far as world views are concerned, I have more than one of those also. One of these is that science works and should be pursued as far as it can go in attempting to explain things. However I am not limited by a science only way of thinking. The reasons for this are many. Memory may be fallible, but it’s not so fallible generally speaking as you suggest because if it was, one would have to seriously doubt everything in reality, including science.
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142
Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
KateWild, ghosts would be one. Another would be dreams of future events that come true. There are still others.
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142
Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
Not really because there is more than one type of paranormal phenomena than ghosts.
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142
Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
I agree snare&racket about being stuck in old WT beliefs that probably need revision and rejection. In my case as a young JW I encountered certain paranormal phenomena that challenged what the JWs had taught me. Being in the cult mentality at the time, I rejected the conclusion that was the most logical because of them for a really bad and unhealthy one. The conclusion I should have kept did not include the rejection of paranormal occurrences. Fortunately when I left the JWs I managed to re-examine and reject what they told me for what I should have listened to at the time years before.
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142
Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
I acknowledge your logic there. However with `more than one independent witness` scenarios, the idea of illness can be dismissed with far more confidence, leaving as you say the possibility of optical illusions. Here also with a point you will appreciate, psychological illusions of different types, for want of a better word, also has to be taken into account as a possibility. With the optical illusions, factors such as any movement of the perceived ghost and other details would potential mitigate this form of illusion as being the explanation.
All perceptions that humans have are electrical signals being interpreted by the brain, which raises valid question about reality. Apparently different cultures actually perceive the same colours a bit differently and some optical illusions work for some cultures and not others because of the way the brain has been trained to perceive but why does a specific wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum create a perception of colour at all? Without knowing the answers to this question it’s perhaps not wise to be dogmatic about perceptual concerns and the nature of what is real.
When one does science one has to trust that perception is common to all for pragmatic purposes and the fact science works vindicates this approach to a degree, but it also presupposes that truth is real and not a concept of the human mind. This fact raises other questions about the difference between a concept and reality. What is the relationship between the two where one doesn’t seem to be real and the other an ideal deemed to be real? I.e the concept of truth which no one has attained and truth the reality, whatever that is!
What if science, its results and perceived successes are only really electrical impulses subject to interpretation by a brain? What if electrical impulses themselves are perceived interpretations along with the brain itself? It is hard to argue that it’s not the case! This is why I don’t understand why the concept of the supernatural is deemed to threaten scientific truth if we agree truth is real? Can there be more than one truth is a very interesting question?
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Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
Which is precisely why I acknowledge that my experience is in no way good for proof. I even acknowledged the possibility that illusion or illness could be an explanation for what I saw. I didn’t post my experience for the purpose of proof though. However triangulating the experiences or two or more witnesses independently of each other as it pertains to a common event is better evidence of these matters, which is why I point to those for the purposes of evidence of ghosts. This however gets lost in all the rhetoric.
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142
Do you beleive in ghosts??
by quellycatface ini was always told it was satan and his demons making people think they exist.
not sure.
i always thought the guy that excavated king tutenkahmun had a curse on him though.. .
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Seraphim23
You entitled to your views of course Jeffro.