BS: The God Delusion 2010

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 08:08 PM

>>josep-that for which you diamiss creationists also[and i suspect more often]applies to evolutionists.rather than accept invitations from well qualified creatiuonists they mostly dismiss them.if they are so certain they are right one would think they would welcome the chance to publicly prove it,considering how zealous dawkins etc are in trashing creationism<<

If you've been following the thread you will see that I DID attack evolutionists just as I have attacked skeptics. Creationists are the only people I haven't outright attacked. They are guilty of bad science but so are lot of skeptics. At times, both are identical and cannot be told apart.

As for evolutionists coming out and debating, many have. The problem is, whether they are right or wrong, creationism isn't going away. So what is the point of debating it? I can't see creationists saying, "Oh! I see, you're right after all. Ok then, sorry, we're disbanding and we won't make another peep." Is that ever going to happen? No. All science can do is try to keep it out of public schools where I agree that it has no place. My tax dollars should not have to pay for it. Evolution is an empirical view or at least it is supposed to be. While I don't think evolutionists have the slightest idea how humankind got here, I agree with the basic mechanism of evolution. Nor do I place much emphasis on Darwin. I think Darwin is overrated. But he wasn't wrong. Or at least he had the right idea. But to be placing that much emphasis on a 19th century man while ignoring far more recent evidence that evolution works more with cooperation than with struggle is typical of skeptics.

They're like Christians with Jesus. I don't know if they realize that it's the 21st century.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 07:49 PM

I too have had a little boy, not quite two years old, tell me something startling.

First he said that he used to be a big man once. That, in itself, is nothing at all unusual- most kids think something of the sort.

But then he said he used to have an airplane. Well, this is Alaska- kids know all about airplanes.

Then he said, matter of factly, It crashed. I crashed it. And I died.

I said, Oh, that's too bad. What happened?

He said, It had a fire. And they couldn't get to me fast enough.

Now, I agree that he could have overheard such a conversation at home. However, he was playing with some blocks at the time and his demeanor was, well, different.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 07:33 PM

I don't think human memory alone is generally reliable enough to draw any definite conclusions from. Neither is the notion of consciousness, given that most of our brains' activity is, by necessity, unconscious.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 07:05 PM

Not a conspiracy...just a natural 'direction' and interpretation for hard-to-fathom events. I understand perfectly why certain anecdotes would be 'made sense of' in that way. (I can even offer hypotheses about how young children might report such things.)

However, it's not that the skeptics "do not have any other hypothesis to offer"...some do...*I* do...and my guesses are, obviously, also "unprovable", although much research into brain function IS providing some indications that my guesses are certainly not just wild fantasy.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:44 PM

AN excerpt from the last page of the above citation:

"ON the fringes of legitimate science, some researchers persist in studying consciousness and its durability beyond the body. Though Dr. Tucker, who directs the Child and Family Psychiatry Clinic at the University of Virginia, has few kind words for regression therapy or its practitioners, he continues to be committed to the scientific study of what can only be called reincarnation.

He is carrying on the pioneering research of his mentor, Dr. Ian Stevenson, who beginning in the 1960s collected more than 2,000 accounts of children between the ages of 2 and 7 who seemed to remember previous lives vividly without the help of hypnosis.

Dr. Stevenson did most of his casework in Asia, where belief in reincarnation is common. There he found a child born with a deformed hand who remembered having his fingers chopped off in a previous life (Dr. Stevenson went to the village the child recalled and verified that such an incident had taken place), and Burmese children who said they had previously been Japanese soldiers killed in World War II and preferred sushi over their native cuisine.

Dr. Tucker studies American children and in one case found a young boy who started to say, around the age of 18 months, that he was his own (deceased) grandfather. 'He eventually told details of his grandfather's life that his parents felt certain he could not have learned through normal means,' Dr. Tucker wrote in Explore, which calls itself a journal of science and healing, 'such as the fact that his grandfather's sister had been murdered and that his grandmother had used a food processor to make milkshakes for his grandfather every day at the end of his life.'

Dr. Tucker won't say such cases add up to proof of reincarnation, but he likes to keep an open mind.

'There can be something that survives after the death of the brain and the death of the body that is somehow connected to a new child,' he said. 'I have become convinced that there is more to the world than the physical universe. There's the mind piece, which is its own entity.'"

---

It's odd that given case histories of this sort, which the mind=brain only model cannot account for, those who rebut the case as "anecdotal and therefore unreliable" do not have any other hypothesis to offer; they instinctively opt for the explanation that the data must be false, or cooked somehow.

Of course that implies a large number of people cooking up data around the same theme, if you delve into the number of case histories involved. Maybe it's a conspiracy???? :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:28 PM

The old truism that "science is not democratic" is a two-edged sword.

Anyway, doubting is certainly different from denying, thanks for making the distinction.

Smokey, you are absolutely right that no-one said that. SOmetimes the sterner characters on these threads seem to be drifting pretty close, though; and the underlying point is still amusing. I wasn't aiming it at anyone in particular.

The reference to "billions" was actually worded as follows:

"But nearly a billion Hindus and a half-billion Buddhists Ñ not to mention the ancient Greeks, certain Jews and a few Christians Ñ have for thousands of years believed something entirely different. Theirs is, as the theologians say, a cyclical view. You are born. You live. You die. And because nobodyÕs perfect, your soul is born again Ñ not in another location or sphere, and not in any metaphorical sense, but right here on earth."


Of course there's a nasty bit of embedded baggage in the expression "your soul" is "born again". It sort of implies there is a difference between the "I" and the "soul of the I". I dunno if that's a distinction with a difference or not.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:17 PM

I must add that I am basically sympathetic to josep's concerns, and agree with him on many of the details. It is only the claim to 'certainty' and 'end of discussion' that worries me.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:07 PM

Yeeee
1000

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:07 PM

"telling me my argument is tautological or illogical or unworkable is pointless without a counterargument to offer in its place."

Josep, it is not possible to produce a counter-argument to something that doesn't appear to make sense in the first place. You know that full well. The three premises of the argument do not seem to lead to the alleged conclusion, and that is the only counter-argument I can offer. It is your responsibility to prove that they do, as that is what you are claiming. I don't need to prove that they don't, and until I hear a clearly understandable explanation to the contrary I stand by my comments.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 05:41 PM

Since when was scepticism a bad thing?

If we all never questioned anything, we'd all be full of sh........ er no, wait....

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 05:07 PM

Amos... "Yes?"

Yes, of course...but please be very careful about what you suggest skeptics are saying. I try over & over to clarify the difference between 'doubting' and 'denying'.

And just because "<...there is an awful lot which the skeptic has no viable explanation for. ", it does not follow either that 'believers' DO have a viable explanation or that the ultimate viable explanation is not rooted in natural 'physical' causality.

And I echo the points made by Paul Burke and Smokey.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 04:51 PM

well qualified creatiuonists

!!!

You can't be "well qualified" to present an argument that all the evidence is against. The childish arguments of twenty years ago (what's the use of half an eye? how could feathers have evolved if you can't fly until they are perfect?) were answered immediately, elegantly and easily. The attempt to sneak creationism in via "intelligent design" has failed, simply because they've never been able to produce a structure so "irreduceably complex" that there was no option but to admit that it had to be designed. Even their favourite, the bacterial flagellum, turns out to have evolved from a simpler structure which developed to solve quite a different problem.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 04:39 PM

"Twenty-five percent of the US population is said therein to hold with the model of reincarnation."

I wonder whether this 25% derives from that third of the US population who utterly reject evolution. I have no valid reason for saying that other than sheer whimsy.

"Not to mention the billions of Hindu and Buddhist subscribers to one or another form of the same idea..."

Billions? Really?

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 04:27 PM

josep-that for which you diamiss creationists also[and i suspect more often]applies to evolutionists.rather than accept invitations from well qualified creatiuonists they mostly dismiss them.if they are so certain they are right one would think they would welcome the chance to publicly prove it,considering how zealous dawkins etc are in trashing creationism

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 04:16 PM

There is nothing droller, IMHO, than a skeptic saying "I don't think there is such a thing as thought" while carefully avoiding lookjing at what he is doing in the process.

You're right, but no-one's actually said it here.

I may be wrong, but I suspect you might be referring to my (almost) tongue-in-cheek suggestion about consciousness being an illusion, in which case it is my fault you misunderstood it. Your comment merely takes the irony seriously. I suppose if I were to make the effort to be serious about that line of thought, with hindsight I probably wouldn't use the word 'illusion' without further clarification as it obviously isn't quite adequate.

Blathero ergo sum.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 02:36 PM

Just a thought...

I wonder what the spiritual equivalent of homophobia is? You know how it goes. Often the one that shouts the most against something is the one that actually fears their own internal feelings and emotions on that subject.

I have met many believers, non-believers, agnostics and atheists who are more than comfy with their own particular stance without feeling the need to indoctrinate others of a differing mind. Where does discussion of a subject end and indoctrination begin with a subject such as religion?

As I have read and tried to catch up with thread my own conclusion is that I still cannot make any conclusion. Seems I am not alone :-)

mp

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Paul Burke
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 02:35 PM

Even if it were 99%, it doesn't mean any more than "100 Authors Against Einstein" did. Matters of fact can't be decided democratically.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 02:07 PM

An interesting --albeit shallow--article from the NYT on the rising interest in such beliefs.

Twenty-five percent of the US population is said therein to hold with the model of reincarnation. Not to mention the billions of Hindu and Buddhist subscribers to one or another form of the same idea.

In the comments received from readers of the NYT, though, the proportion of materialist skepticism was much higher.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 01:34 PM

Well, Bill, I think you will allow that even the most hard-boiled skeptic has a viewpoint and generates decisions, considerations, opinions and intentions in order to communicate his skepticism to the world.

And he sees and to some degree understands things in the material space-time continuum, as well as in his own world of ideas. And also views, to some degree, and acts on his views of the opinions and agreements that are formed by others and sent his way through various means.

Yes?

In all this give and take, viewing and opining and intending and communicating, there is an awful lot which the skeptic has no viable explanation for. There is nothing droller, IMHO, than a skeptic saying "I don't think there is such a thing as thought" while carefully avoiding lookjing at what he is doing in the process.

I submit that although that qualitative leap I have often mentioned, between the mechanisms of transmission and the understanding of the viewer, is inescapable, some folks will go to hell and back trying to escape it anyway. That doesn't make their skeptical assertions true or even workable. It makes them look like contortionists.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 12:42 PM

It is not for anyone to 'prove' that consciousness does NOT survive death, but rather for those who suggest that it DOES to offer evidence.

Skepticism is about just not being satisfied with unusual claims....if we skeptics were required to DISprove every metaphysical assertion, we'd never get anything else done.... and those who 'believe' would challenge each one. There's no end to the debate if anyone asserts that they know something to be true...or not true.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 12:38 PM

I should have said "specific" data, perhaps; a three- or five- year old describing the buildings and people in a village to which she had never been, to which her parents had never been, down to details of house colors and the occupations of her "past" family members, which when the adults finally were persuaded to take the trek over the mountains, were found to be exactly as she had described them. A boy describing WW II armaments with familiar precision to which he had not been exposed in any identifiable way in his current identity. These are two that come immediately to mind. Anecdotal, yes. But not unpersuasive except to the pre-concluding mind.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 12:24 PM

lol, Smokey.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 12:19 PM

"I don't think this is a fair assessment of the actual issue."

No, neither do I really, and I don't "swear blind loyalty" to it. It's only an opinion. It's the way I tell 'em.

"If I attach you to a pleasure-giving machine, you will have pleasurable sensations initially but you will start to develop a tolerance to it."

As a chat-up line, it leaves a lot to be desired..

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Lox
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 08:55 AM

Ha ha!

Me too!

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 06:08 AM

"If I attach you to a pleasure-giving machine, you will have pleasurable sensations initially but you will start to develop a tolerance to it."

I'll take the risk. I'll order three, please.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Lox
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 05:04 AM

Smokey,

"It seems to me that humans will convince themselves of any old tosh to avoid confronting the reality of actual death and the ultimate pointlessness of our existence. Little wonder, as it's not a pretty thought. It's time we grew out of it and started facing our responsibilities,"


I don't think this is a fair assessment of the actual issue.

Of course on any issue there are partisan people who form the majority of viewpoints and who swear blind loyalty to their opinions no matter what, and this issue is no different.


However, the matter of the mystery of "I", its place in the universe and its nature, lifespan, connection to the physical universe etc, is the fundamental first step in every line of enquiry.

Every subject you care to think of: philosophy, science, history, economics, music and maths, derive from this line of enquiry - as means of making sense of our lives and the universe we live in.

Science hasn't provided any more satisfactory answers than religion on the subject of "I" and the enquiry continues in increasingly complex and numerous ways.

To say that we should face up to the facts suggests that we know the answers.

To say that we should accept this or that conclusion is to suggest that we should discontinue our enquiries and be satisfied with what we're given.

Sorry, but this question is the petrol in my engine.

Which is interesting in itself ...

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 16 Sep 10 - 12:42 AM

It is as impossible to disprove an afterlife as it is to prove one, which I think you have failed to do. However, the burden of proof is entirely yours and you have no justification for demanding anything.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:36 PM

How did Schrödinger's cat prove there's a universal consciousness?

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:34 PM

Amos is correct. To my knowledge, no one has proven the brain creates the mind. Science still doesn't even know what consciousness is or where in the body it resides which implies that it is not a gimme that it arises in the brain even if it has a material origin.

I brought up earlier that Quantum Mechanics has experimentally proven that consciousness, not the brain, collapses the wave function and wherever it collapses that is where we locate the particle. It is illogical in the extreme that a brain made of matter creates the very thing that collapses the wave function into matter. This was summarily dismissed by someone who simply said it ain't so.

The skeptics have become the thing they hate--creationists. Both reject science when it doesn't support them but will unhesitatingly shout it from the mountaintops when they think it does.

And remember, telling me my argument is tautological or illogical or unworkable is pointless without a counterargument to offer in its place. I have asked for them several times and have not yet received one. All I get it is, "Sorry but this just isn't right." Or I'm told science has disproven this or that notion when I know damned well it hasn't and no further information is offered by the poster.

I'm afraid I must DEMAND to be disproven not just dismissed.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:12 PM

Excuse me, but we do not know that the brain makes the mind; we know that they are coupled, and many of us assume therefore the one makes the other.

The analogy that comes to mind is the notion that the cell phone makes up messages, or the television is full of little people. The connection is possibly misidentified.

I use the word alleged because the reports are, for the most part, anecdotal, recorded by non-scientists; but they seem genuine enough. Furthermore, in some of the case histories I have read it is extremely unlikely the individual would have been exposed to the data through any other identifiable means. I don't mind whether you accept this opinion or not.

There is very little in the human mind that has been subjected to the kind of rigorous evidentiary processes you have in mind. Rough correlations between dreams and sleep, and some tests about some brain areas mapping to some mental reactions, have been done, but nothing you could call definitive. as far as I know.

A.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 10:50 PM

With all due respect, Josep, I don't think you've shown that death doesn't extinguish consciousness. Your reasoning just doesn't work for me.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,josep
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 10:16 PM

Is there a heaven or hell? The answer by this argument is no. Consciousness survives death but does not get an eternal reward or punishment no matter how much it may deserve it. Heaven means different things to different people but basically it's a place of bliss. There can necessarily be no misery. Yet, undoubtedly, some who have died, while they may have been good people, lived miserable existences--an innocent child who grew up badly abused and died from the mistreatment, for example. What memories can this child have that are not painful? So he enters heaven at T1 where he can have no painful memories and yet nearly all his memories are painful and he has to remember them that way or his consciousness has been altered--contradiction.

If heaven is a place of infinite bliss, our consciousness cannot experience it. We max out at some point. A heaven of infinite, unlimited bliss would be wasted on us. If I attach you to a pleasure-giving machine, you will have pleasurable sensations initially but you will start to develop a tolerance to it. So I have to up the amount to keep you feeling the same amount of bliss but you will eventually develop a tolerance to that. So I have to keep upping the amount, at some point my machine maxes out and even if it didn't you would. You just can't keep on feeling unlimited bliss, you max out and it starts to decrease. All our sensations eventually decrease to zero after their limit has been reached.

Perhaps heaven is a place of a surplus of bliss. There must necessarily be more bliss than we experience now in order for it to be worthy of being called heaven. Even so, even our most pleasant memories during our earthly life seem less pleasant in comparison when we are in heaven because everything is more blissful there. Again, it would amount to an alteration of our consciousness.

And the same hold true for hell and eternal punishment.

But wait--the memory is still intact so it wouldn't violate the premise of this argument, we're still in heaven recalling our experiences, right?.....Except we're not. We are recalling experiences that we never had. The memory of them may be there but the sensations have changed and effectively made it a different experience.

Consciousness isn't just about recalling experiences. It is also about re-living sensations. Every experience is accompanied by a unique set of sensations. Sensations are qualia--feelings that we have that we cannot communicate to others. For instance, if I tell you the sky is blue, you have to know what blue is to know what I mean. If you don't, I can't explain it to you. Blue is just blue. If I am in pain, I can't explain the pain to you to make you feel it, you would simply have to feel it.

If you bungee jump off a bridge, it is heart-pounding the first time you do it. Later on, you don't simply recall that sensation. You remember how scared you were but you don't feel the actual sensation. In order to do so, you simply have to re-live it. When you bungee jump again, that terror will return but with minor changes because you gradually get used to it because all sensations eventually dwindle to zero. Now every time you jump, you will feel some degree of that fear (that's why those who jump do it all--for that thrill).

Ever drive down a slippery road and suddenly your car goes into a spin and there is that moment of panic when you realize the car's tires are not in contact with the road and you have become a huge hockey puck? What goes through your mind at the moment? If you think about it, what went through your mind was a memory of every other time you ever felt that panic. You remember all your previous spin-outs. Why? Because you were conscious during those experiences and the return of that sensation sparks that memory.

This is necessary because if you couldn't re-live sensations, you could not have been conscious during that initial experience. Without re-living the sensations of that experience, you have no way of know you ever felt them before. To be conscious you must re-live sensations.

Another example is when you hear a song from your childhood that you haven't thought about since you were that child. You seemed to have completely forgotten it. Now all these years later you hear it again and what happens? It's like a trip back in time, you not only remember things you realize you had nearly forgotten but the sensations are come flooding back--the way it made you feel good or the way it made you feel while riding the bus to school or the way it made you think of that girl or that boy in class that you had such a crush on--it all comes back in a huge rush. When you play that song for your kid brother or sister, you see that moment their eyes light up hearing that song again after all this time. If you could not re-live sensations, that wouldn't happen.

Just as your life seems to be one long waking episode because you can't remember blank spots of total unconsciousness, your life is also one long series of sensations. You never stop having them and will go on having them up to the moment of death.

But just as you must remember all your experiences, you must re-live all your sensations if you are a conscious being. So what happens if you die without re-living certain sensations? Since death does not extinguish consciousness, you must re-live them in a future time after your death. And how are you going to re-live them if not in a human body on a planet exactly like earth? That's how you experienced them before so that's how you must re-live them. But you've died so what must happen? Well, we know you don't go to heaven or hell and you can't re-live your sensations that way anyhow. So what then must happen? You guessed it--you have to come back. You have to reincarnate.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:34 PM

Perhaps consciousness was an evolutionary mistake and our self awareness will lead to our extinction.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:17 PM

Re: evidence for reincarnation: there are numerous instances of children, for example, coming up with hard data that seems very unlikely to come from any exposure they have had in their current existence, concerning events, languages, objects and people from earlier periods. In some of these cases, there has been an opportunity to verify the alleged memory.

1) "seems very unlikely" is hardly evidence that it wasn't
2) if said verification had actually ever verified any, you wouldn't be using the hedge "alleged"

In other words, there is no more *evidence* for reincarnation than there is proof it doesn't happen.

The trick is, a reasonable person has no reason to postulate the possibility that it does, given the lack of evidence for it.

Furthermore, a reasonable person doesn't need proof that the unreasonable *isn't* what is happening, just because we don't know what is.

There is no earthy reason to posit the possibility, let alone the likelihood, that the individual human consciousness coming from a human brain can exist either before, or after, the life of that brain and its body.

That body may even be shared, as in conjoined twins who share a body but have separate heads; each head is known to have its own consciousness.

We *do* actually know that the brain makes the mind.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 08:48 PM

"coming up with hard data"

Really? What does "hard" mean? Examples please! Incidentally, I don't want "proof." All I want is evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 08:38 PM

But I can't prove it so I keep it to myself.

I offer for consideration that this may be an important mistake in your strategy.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 06:00 PM

It's the ones who are most insecure with their 'beliefs' who are the pushiest, in my experience. That goes for groups as well as individuals.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 05:51 PM

"...to share my faith.."

Some of that 'sharing' gets pretty pushy.....

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 05:44 PM

sticking my head above the trench,i am a"fundamental"christian .i never knew i was a right wing gay basher till this thread!seriously though my conversion followed reading about fulfilled bible prophecy which may not be accepted as proof of the bible here but i found it evidence enough.i am not a scientist but there are some who are very qualified who are creationists.i recommend [creation.com].idont consider it bigoted to share my faith but the loving thing to do if i believe in a judgement which christ saved me from-while respecting others the right to question/deny/reject the gospel message

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 05:31 PM

"...it's frighteningly easy to plant false memories in people's heads ..."

And that's why it is very difficult to ascertain whether a 'memory' is of an actual experience, or assembled pictures and ideas from things they have heard about or dreamed about. We DO know of many verifiable instances of the latter, and can even work out much of the mechanism whereby it works, but how a memory can BE passed from one life to another is such a puzzle that buying into the idea is fraught with traps...

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Smokey.
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 05:15 PM

It seems to me that humans will convince themselves of any old tosh to avoid confronting the reality of actual death and the ultimate pointlessness of our existence. Little wonder, as it's not a pretty thought. It's time we grew out of it and started facing our responsibilities, i.e. future generations and the state of the planet.

By the way, if you know how, it's frighteningly easy to plant false memories in people's heads which are subjectively indistinguishable from the real thing.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Lox
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 04:59 PM

Its importanat to clarify again the difference between Scientific evidence and anecdotal evidence.

Witness testimony is anecdotal evidence.

Scientific evidence is evidence that withstands the process of scientfic testing and analysis.

Because we lack Scientific evidence, it does not follow that Anecdotal evidence is wrong, but scientific/forensic evidence is generally more reliable than witness testimony. Where it hasn't been reliable, it has generally been because mistakes were made, the methodology was flawed, signiificant variables were not factored in, or because of deliberate bias ... take the Birmingham Six ...

I have had experiences that I could never hope to replicate and which I didn't understand. I know what I experienced, and I know my testimony is true. But I can't prove it so I keep it to myself.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 02:40 PM

I doubt you have been looking hard; there are numerous instances of children, for example, coming up with hard data that seems very unlikely to come from any exposure they have had in their current existence, concerning events, languages, objects and people from earlier periods. In some of these cases, there has been an opportunity to verify the alleged memory.

You r readiness to dismiss it all as delusory is more a reflection on your mindset as an investogator than anything else.

I am not insisting that these constitute proof, merely evidence suggesting a possible explanation. For all I know they are tapping into the Akashic records using their DNA as antennae!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 01:59 PM

What "evidence" suggests reincarnation? I haven't seen or heard of any. On the other hand, I have heard a lot of stories, claims and myths about it. It's just another facet of the conceit of humanity - we're so good that we simply must carry on somehow, and if eternal life don't cut it then reincarnation might...

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Amos
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 01:06 PM

Given the volume of evidence that does suggest reincarnation, and taking it as sort of a hinge-point to this whole array of arguentums, what WOULD constitute "scientific" evidence of reincarnation? How would you establish controls over such an event?

It is amusing that social science reaches all sorts of conclusions by tallying up subjective views, and is acclaimed as at least sort of science, but somehow that doesn't work here.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Stringsinger
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 12:40 PM

Sorry Josep, but the argument will not be so conveniently ended.

"Reincarnation" is a religious concept. There is no scientific evidence for it.

"i. I exist, I am conscious, I experience."

This is because apparently mankind can interpret his existence through the
use of his brain.

ii. I remember existing and being conscious and experiencing.

Only to a certain degree. You can't remember existing thousands of years ago. You can however make it up but this would be madness if you believed it.

iii. If I (someday) recall an experience, then I was conscious of and during that experience. I was conscious at all the points I will (someday) ultimately remember.

Not necessarily. The mind or brain sometimes malfunctions. Memory is erased.
Sometimes entirely.

"There is no presupposing the conclusion that death cannot extinguish consciousness, it arises as a natural, logical fact when one takes the three statements above to their logical ends. Since they seem to be be a priori, my argument holds. It is not a matter of belief."

Your hypothesis doesn't hold. Death distinguishes consciousness for the dead.
Others may have consciousness while they are alive but there is no universal
consciousness. This has never been proven.

Philosophy is a strange subject. It is often manipulated by symbols such as in the Vienna Circle. The problem with it is that there are always counter arguments to those postulated. The "absolutes" are shibboleths that are destroyed by later philosophers.
This has been the history of a priori arguments.

With science, we see a flexibility that doesn't deal in absolutes but requires continuous verification. "Consciousness" has never been truly defined away from those who claim it.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:50 AM

Now I have to go plant 7 trees, 6 Mum flower pots, 100 bulbs and 2 rose bushes. I forsee that the trees, roses and daffodils will out live me. I will exist as a thought by someone else who will know that "someone" put those here. My children will have a more complete thought of who that someone was. Such is my idea of an afterlife.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:25 AM

The blending of past religious ideas and the future of scientific relatites is similar to the blending of the past exemplified by newspapers, and the future of blackberries and i pad/kendall readers for the desemination of information.

Some in the past will be put out of business and others will find new jobs. Still there will those who prefer to specialize in the fine arts and religions of the past that have evolved to such heights that they will continue to marvel and amaze for a long time to come.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:06 AM

The existence of parallel dimensions will continue to confound and amaze people with seemingly paranormal experiences that dwell primarily within consciousness.

More than just gravity may leak from this dimension, so close it is at the end of the Planck scale but impossibly far in terms of the infinite energy required to breach that infintesimal gap. Perhaps consciousness goes against the grain of space time in such a way that allows an ill defined glimspe into the brane of a parallel universe. Einstein said something very close to this.

This may also be at the heart of what others call the holographic universe. But for all my musings regarding a multiple dimensional reality I am just spitting into a contrary wind of opinions I normally expereince here.

Subject: RE: BS: The God Delusion 2010
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:03 AM

"And that will conclude the argument.

Gosh...how wonderful! After 400-500 years of Philosophical debate...to have it all neatly summarized and finalized.

I am in awe.