BS: Matter and Spirit

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 07:52 PM

Semantically I would say there is too much overlap between the two words to make a strong statement wither way. Conceptually there are four or five different concepts being batted about.

1 -- the individual as a non-material being seperate from the body but operating or occupying it

2--the individual as Infinite spirituality

3--some sense of an infinity which comprises all souls sort of merging into a composite of souls

4--some sense of an Infinite Spirit which is outside the individual self, an external deity

5--a sense of All in which all beings become One without individuality

My personal sense it that truly differentiating between these requires a strong spiritual clarity beyond that usually encountered amongst us Terran types today; but inventing arbitrary assertions about such things is easy and well within the capabilities of the most warped of us.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: dianavan
Date: 17 Jul 06 - 07:37 PM

I understand matter but its defining Spirit that baffles me.

The worst topic I ever picked for a university essay was, Spirit and/or Soul. I was trying to find out if there was a cultural difference in the concept. The best I could come up with was that soul was individualistic while spirit was a a collective of souls. I was amazed at how prevalent the concept was in all cultures.

What do you think the difference might be? Is it strictly cultural? Do all cultures identify spirit and soul or just one or the other?

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 11:30 PM

...I guess I must've passed out after too much spirits (for that matter).

Revived, now, I must say it's nice to find all of you still here waiting for me!! Thanks for your patience!!

Love,

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 07:20 PM

Oh, I'm 'interested', in a matter of speaking..*grin*

My interest in the thinking process which allows us to debate these things will always tempt me to look at what is being said, and especially in what is offered as evidence and how that 'evidence' is presented & defended.

It's kinda like being being fascinated by politics and its weirdnesses.....you don't have to participate and study every last nuance of the phenomena to be pretty sure there's problems with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 03:56 PM

He'll sell a lot of books to people who like the subject of reincarnation, Bill. Just like selling "Popular Mechanics" (which I never buy), but a different subject, that's all. A subject which you will never know much about, because you're just not interested.

If I were you, I wouldn't let it bother me.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 03:45 PM

oh, thank you, Amos...*grin*

ummm-hmmmmm...I see. Now it's proof! Wow.

"Stevenson's research into birthmarks and congenital defects has such particular importance for the demonstration of reincarnation, since it furnishes objective and graphic proof of reincarnation,...."

someone needs to tell him he has discovered genetics!

I read the list of 'evidence', and I see data which can usually be explained with hypotheses other than postulating some mystical transference of 'soul' thru some mystical 'realm' in some yet-to-be-explained mystical 'process', resulting in all sorts of muddled metaphysics about how MANY 'souls' are available, since the number of people keeps increasing.

Geez...with notions like this:
" These problems relating to the 'sex change' can lead to homosexuality later on in their lives. Former girls who were reborn as boys may wish to dress as girls or prefer to play with girls rather than boys."
and this:

" For example, if they had drowned in a past life then they frequently developed a phobia about going out of their depth in water. If they had been shot, they were often afraid of guns and sometimes loud bangs in general. If they died in a road accident they would sometimes develop a phobia of travelling in cars, buses or lorries."

he will no doubt sell LOTS of books....

Copernicus shoulda had it so good!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: bobad
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 01:53 PM

Another evaluation of the "hard evidence" cited by the author of Amos' link by someone at the other end of the belief spectrum.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 01:34 PM

Just a brief return to Shatner, Amos. I would like to point out that he has been praised fulsomely for his acting in the new TV series "Boston Legal". He has, and there's not a darned thing you can do about it. ;-)

As for reincarnation, it seems so likely to me now, given the experiences of this life, that I pretty much take it for granted. If people don't believe in it...or don't want to...that's fine with me. What harm can their disbelief do? None that I can see. It won't make any difference anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jul 06 - 01:18 PM

On Reincarnation -- Hard Evidence is of interest -- of course when I encountered it I thought immediately of Bill D, our avid skeptic, and ran right over with it. :D


A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 07:56 PM

Well, his intimidating adequacy is a large step forward, LH - he has, essentially, received no praise at all since he escaped from the Ferengi and the Enterprise. Present company excepted, of course, but who listens to Canuck folkies these days?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 07:47 PM

Humph! No respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 07:20 PM

somehow the phrase "damning with faint praise" comes to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 06:53 PM

He did an unusually adequate job on his last audio recording too. It's really surprisingly entertaining and quite good.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 05:54 PM

SHatner is, himself, a heathen, and VASTLY overrated. However to be prerfectly fair I am told he does an unusually adequate job in his current film, the name of which escapes me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:58 PM

What? Someone is dissing Shatner??? We must find this despicable heathen and destroy him or her UTTERLY!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:54 PM

still...you only managed 501, my plump friend.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST,Shatner
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:27 PM

It was .... fun ....

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:27 PM

oh, I DO love broadband speed!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:26 PM

*grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST,Shatner
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:25 PM

500!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM

the 500th post

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:24 PM

Shatner? I'm surprised he isn't here getting

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: 282RA
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:19 PM

The shameless tearing down of Shatner on this thread will cease immediately! You don't want to get me going. Go ahead and tear down philosophy, tear down religion, tear down mythology, tear down the very fabric of society and all our cherished institutions if you are of the mind.

BUT LEAVE SHATNER OUT OF THIS!!!!!

What did he ever do to you?

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 03:02 PM

Most humans simply do not like the concept of infinity when it is applied to causation.(we like it fine when considering an afterlife) We have no idea whether the notion of a 'first cause'- God or otherwise- makes sense, but that doesn't stop many from making declarative statements.

We have the grammar/language to describe things we don't have the senses to experience or comprehend. It's also a great temptation to construct a logically consistent schema that no one can prove 'wrong', whether it has any basis in reality or not.....sometimes there is money to be made in the enterprise.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: 282RA
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 01:58 PM

>>the first cause which began the cascade is unobservable<<

Saying it's unobserved is just a veil we throw over it so as not to notice the imperfections. Is it a first cause or not? If it is, then it violates causation as we know it. If it is not, then god is not the beginning of everything since the whole point of postulating a first cause is to avoid that pitfall of an endless chain of causation--of something preceding god.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 01:24 PM

Well, RS, what part didn't you understand? It's plain enough to me.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: redsnapper
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 12:29 PM

Either postulate explains the phenomena and neither is proveable, nor is either disprovable. Good thing we are not talking science here.

Or plain English...    (;>)

RS

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 02:41 PM

Your assertion that first cause is not possible is not at all self evident. If every cause we observe has something prior to it there are two possibilities: the first cause which began the cascade is unobservable OR the first cause does not exist.

Either postulate explains the phenomena and neither is proveable, nor is either disprovable. Good thing we are not talking science here.

It is also possible that in calling Infinite Intelligence the "first" cause, Napoleon Hill was not speaking chronologically but in order of magnitudes or seniority, philosophically.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:11 PM

oh...the sacred texts site? Yep!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:05 PM

what a great site, Bill D..

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: *daylia*
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 11:19 AM

Nah. Not since I escaped the "it might be Auschwitz, but it's home!" syndrome, anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 11:01 AM

nope, can't say as I do. How 'bout you?

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: *daylia*
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 10:17 AM

Bill, do you ever feel imprisoned by obstructive logic? Or destructive logic? How bout havockive logic? Muckuptive logic? Upchuckive logic?

Maybe even Getfuctive logic?

(sorry, couldn't resist ....)

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:50 PM

You and Indiana Jones, Bill....holding off those seductive coeds together. ;-) Bravely done, sir. You did not yield to temptation.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:11 PM

we (the Philosophy dept.)once had a notice from the audio-visual center that they were showing the movie "Plato's Republic"...brows were wrinkled as we tried to imagine how it would be done. No one I knew actually went, but the graffiti on the notice got very funny....the one I remember allowed as how:

"Next week, the movie will be "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" starring Julie Newmar as 'the sensible manifold'..." ...now, Amos, you would have liked that.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:46 PM

Wait a minute -- is this moral philosophy or immoral philosophy?

I majored in the latter at thew same time Bill was majoring in the former.    I am reminded of the great saying, "There are many ways up the moutain, but the view from on top is always the same...". Steven Colbert, the great American theological theorist, gave a similar opinion when expressing his belief that America exists, and is inclusive of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Jaynes..."because I believe there are any number of ways to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior...". LOL.

Anyone who spends any time trying to untangle truth learns that assertions -- especially loud and emotional ones -- are often a dead giveaway of something other.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:42 PM

I once had a coed interview ME when I was a grad. teaching asst. I had given her onle a "C" on her paper, and she allowed as how she'd do 'anything' to get a better grade. "Oh...even re-write the paper?", I suggested. The interview ended quickly...*grin*

One day, sitting with my friend who was actually teaching a logic course, a coed spotted us and stopped by, gushing to him.."Oh, Mr. Wilson, you know how you told us about the two different kinds of logic...inductive and deductive? Well, my girlfriend & I have discovered another kind!"

"Oh?", replied my friend, always the scholar..." and what is that?"

"We call it SEductive logic" she cooed.

"Then, that makes four kinds", he began, "as I had not mentioned in class about ABductive logic, which is distinguished by...."

that interview, too, ended quickly, as she discovered she had to be somewhere...


Them coeds would bamboozle Shatner...he wouldn't stand a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:19 PM

He doesn't even have the time to interview all the coeds, God knows...though I'm sure he would like to.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:16 PM

I don't doubt that such a weeding out process could be handily accomplished, Bill, if William Shatner were in charge of interviewing all the applicants. Sadly, though, he doesn't have the necessary time for that.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:11 PM

see, that's the trouble with allowing 'average' persons to take Philosophy courses, Little Hawk... ;>) They tend to distort and water down what they hear.

There oughta be a weeding out process with a written exam before they get in the door, just to be sure they have the proper attitude.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:05 PM

One was enough, Bill. I love philosophy, but I don't love the atmosphere that simmers around a university philosophy classroom. Accordingly, after that I read philosophy books rather than taking philosophy courses.

My feeling is that the average person's natural tendency to become a pontificating, opinionated, self-obsessed prat increases exponentially with every additional philosophy course taken and passed.

I'm sure there are individual exceptions to that, though. ;-) Like you, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:04 PM

ummm-hmmmm

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:01 PM

It ain't just the gnereals that are suspectious! It's all them other ossifers too...like the sarjeants, the captains, the majors, the lottenants. All of 'em. It don't take a flippin' college degree to know that, eh?

You can't trust none of the flipheads. Cops are even worse.

- BDiBR

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:57 PM

"Going by my own philosophy course..."

all ONE of it? Did it include the wisdom that all generalizations are suspect?

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:52 PM

Going by my own philosophy course back in University, Daylia, I would say that philosophy classes are overloaded with teachers and students who like to impress each other with their immense verbal skills, but who have a hard time actually believing in anything....because it would make them too vulnerable. It's kind of like being so clever that you outsmart yourself, even if you don't outsmart anyone else.

At the end of the day it's all just a big, impressive lot of windbag verbiage with nothing inside it, like an empty eggshell that's been painted up fancy. All talk, no substance.

I was not impressed. People are what they believe. If they are too sophisticated and clever to believe anything then they are, in effect, precisely what they believe. Nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: *daylia*
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 04:51 PM

To suggest to BillD ( of all people) "Just try taking a philosphy course from a local university if you doubt this experience exists and/or existed in the mind's of many great men and women." indicstes a real disconnect between you and reality.

All it indicates to me is that Dewey's most likely unaware of Bill's background in philosophy.

Or, if that's not the case, it may indicate that Dewey really has it in for Bill. The suggestion's rather like offering someone a good stiff drink - on their way home from the AA meeting.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:17 PM

Thank you. We obviously agree on that, BB. It's something that's been clear to me ever since I could walk and talk.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: beardedbruce
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:10 PM

LH-

"Actually, the only direct path to anyone's understanding IS their own."


Absolute TRUTH!

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:54 PM

you need to do more research, Dewey...let me give you an example

start here (why, yes, I DO have a copy)

then you can go here and expand your understanding even more.

Subject: RE: BS: Matter and Spirit
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:52 PM

Actually, the only direct path to anyone's understanding IS their own. The usual error they seem to make is that everyone else must necessarily hold the same understanding...or be wrong or worse yet, even evil! ;-)

And from there stem the usual lot of misunderstandings, religious wars, cultural wars, race wars, class wars, mercantile wars, etc.

A world of many understandings is good. Always has been. Tolerance allows for a world of many understandings.