Elaborate

But quite a bit of that warmth is in th form of infrared radiation; just another part of of the electro-magnetic spectrum,

Seraphim

"I have studied a certain amount of Eastern philosophy and yoga. I have practiced a little meditation. I know people who have pursued meditation extensively who are staunch atheists.

So what is your point? "

My reply : Hmph ... "certain amount" of Eastern Philosphy and Yoga? ... "a little" meditation? ... "know" people who pursue meditation?

THAT's your source? You are trying to make me laugh?
You think your "knowledge" is enough to have a clear picture of why Eastern societies flourished while your forefathers still lived like midieval people? You are welcome to try to pit your knowledge against me to see how much you don't know.

By Synaesthesia

"Sensory modalities are not the point. The key is the intepretive framework in which they can be understood.

I do have the proper tools with which to conclude that people who have invisible friends are probably deluded. Christianity was merely a test case."

My reply : Don't look so high upon yourself. You came from a society where "to look is to use the eyes alone". In Eastern society, one that looks with the eyes alone is blind, he have to observe with his heart for that is where the true defination of a meaning comes from.

Example - Comparison of your Art and those of the Eastern ones. In the East, they have arts that uses nothing but black paint on white canvas to draw and figures and write words (calligraphy), fulling it with hidden meanings where a person who can "see" it properly could understand it.

In your society (Western), it fills with nude bodies and stupid looking paints which supposed to mimic what the painters sees.

Great tools are useless if the person who is using it don't know how to use it properly. You use Christianity as case study because it has the biggest holes in its path than any other religion have. Using that as an excuse, you conclude that ALL religions are useless. You still consider yourself as Skeptic?

"Although I'm sure there's a lot of personal gain to be had from these religions, their views on the fundamental nature of the universe are simply too ambiguous to take seriously. "

My reply : In that case, such things as Gita, Yin Yang etc had nothing to offer to you. I'm sure you will find better personal gain from looking at what you wish to see.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Seraphim ]</p>

Toto

You don't know who my forefathers were.

I don't claim to know a lot about anything, but I know what I don't know, and I know when people are trying to bluff.

Eastern societies flourished, and then they declined. Do you think their religion had anything to do with either event?

Are we even talking about the same topic? Do you think eastern societies have some proof of god or experience of god that is denied to westerners?

Seraphim

"You don't know who my forefathers were."

My reply : Read your history ...

"I don't claim to know a lot about anything, but I know what I don't know, and I know when people are trying to bluff."

My reply : If it is personal opinion, you are welcome to it and I will not bother. But if it comes to dealing with other people's beliefs, then I have to interfere.

"Eastern societies flourished, and then they declined. Do you think their religion had anything to do with either event?"

My reply : Yes in flourishing part where religions and principle gave the people something higher to think about, question and rethink about themselves and the world around them. With that in mind, they reinvented themselves to suits the world around them and nature as ONE of many creature inhabited this world.

No in decline part. Most of a society's fall is because introduction of foreign elements into the balanced society which distrub the order.

Indian society declined after 1000 AD because of Muslim and European Invaders, Chinese society decline in 17th century because of its forced opening of its door to foreign influences such as from Britain, US, etc.

Japanese and Korean societies where the least effected by all this since they have little to offer to the Invaders in form of wealthy, which is why both of their people still in touch of their culture ... but even that is slowly declining with introduction of things like Rock musics, carefree style of living etc which starts since 1960s.

Most of the South East Asian countries already been invaded as early as 15th Century by foreigners and that is the reason of their decline as well. Now you could understand why I don't look highly toward those from the West.

"Are we even talking about the same topic? Do you think eastern societies have some proof of god or experience of god that is denied to westerners? "

My reply : Even if they have no proof, they have better understanding of how the world revolves. In the East, God is not someone that demands worship, He is someone who watches over us silently since we are the players who plays on His stage. Like a director of a play, He enters when need arises and the rest of us will continue to play out part.
It is my opinion that most Eastern philosophies will come to that conclusion.

echidna

Roller, not quite clear as to the conditions of your question, but to place it in another context, visible light represents only a tiny part of electromagnetic radiation. As such, we are all blind to anything outside infrared or ultraviolet. And yet we know that these wavelengths exist, although without the use of sight. As such, the existence of visible light can easily be demonstrated to a sceptical blind man. Another example might be neutrinos. We are all extremely blind to neutrinos, in fact they interact very weakly with matter, and yet we can still detect them (although with difficulty). Blind, sceptical but we still know they exist.

However what is tricker, might be the qualia of vision, the characteristics of blueness for instance. A person born with damage in the visual cortex (as distinct from someone who loses their sight at age 20), may never know what the experience of blueness is. But this is more a philosophical and neurological question.

Likely the concept of blueness can still be understood to exist, by analysing empirical evidence of claims of blueness from sighted people, and then extrapolating other sensory organs such as hearing & touch, and then analysing the biological function of the eye. Thus even from first principles we could derive the existence of such a thing as the visible spectrum.

For instance this is the same process by which we understand that dolphins “see” with sonar. We have no concept of what some vision might “look” like, however we can still objectively identify its existence in another creature.

(edited after Galiel's post reminded me)

Of course the difference with God, is that no such evidence has been detected. Hence the sceptic must remain sceptical, just as they are to Invisible Pink Unicorns.

In the analogy with the blind man, the claim of knowing is purely limited to personal assertion rather than any real proof.

And the difficulty with relying on personal assertion is that that must then include the countless fraudsters, deceived, neurologically disturbed, culturally conditioned or many other actual sources of false god-claims.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>

echidna

Seraphim, if you have additional scientific data which we are not privileged to (broadly and openly acknowledging the many great scientists from eastern countries), then please enlighten us.

Indeed for an eastern philosophy, Maoism certainly asserted godlessness through logic.

But if you don’t have this data (and I recall you previously saying your own scientific understanding is not strong), then enough with the fortune cookies. Don’t hide behind an artificial cultural curtain to protect your superstitions.

galiel

I know the OP is an agnostic, but there is something deeply insulting and misleading about the question. Took me a while to realize what it was.

All of us approach this from the POV of knowing that there is, in fact, something to see, that there is a visual experience to be had, and that the blind man is simply physically blocked from seeing it.

Implying that there is some analogy with a skeptic, assumes that there is, in fact, a commonly agreed upon "god" that we all know exists but that skeptics are somehow mentally blocked from seeing.

A better analogy, IMO, would be to compare a believer with someone who suffers from hysterical blindness, refusing to see what everyone else can, even though there is nothing physical to prevent them from seeing it.

Believers believe despite the evidence, or lack thereof, skeptics do not believe because of the evidence, or lack thereof.

Answerer

Skeptic doubt in the evidence showing the existence of God, but theists doubt the evidence showing the non-existence of God.

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Answerer ]</p>

emphryio

Ahhh, I envy you Seraphim. It must feel good to know everything.

(Except how to use the quotes button.)

Roller

Hello!

The way I came up to this is following: I have read "Dragon in My Garage" from the Carl Sagan book "The Demon Hounted World" (you can find text of the story here <a href="http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm)" target="_blank">http://www.users.qwest.net/~jcosta3/article_dragon.htm)</a> and discussed it with an theist which tried to tell how this is the same as when you would try to explain sunlight to a blind person. If you mention heat - blind person can say that it is a trick by somekind of heater and so on.
What I tried to tell him is that blind could experience sunlight indirectly, maybe we could explain how sunlight affects photosinthesis (sp?) which than gives us oxygen and, finally, food from vegetables. Also I tried suggesting that we could describe what is happening inside a star that produces such amount of energy which is enough to sustain life on Earth. I told him that even though we don't see protons, we still believe in there existence because there's SO much evidence... Anyway, the guy is a jerk. He said that atheists are little more than animals and how they are incomplete since they cannot see Gods presence.