emotional

I'm not a creationist and I don't see it fair at all that you equate me with creationists. Science has disproven creationism, but it has not disproven animism (souls) or God. I know myself, how I used to argue that evolution means there is no God and no life after death, and now, looking back, I see that this is an entirely subjective interpretation dependent on a preconceived worldview.



Of course! Everything must be natural and materialistic, because naturalism and materialism is necessarily true! Dogmatism at its finest...



So? Does it follow that the entire universe is [natural]? Non sequitur.



Agreed. And I do have scientific evidence needed for my case, but again, this evidence gets pummelled by materialists all the time. Hardly a second passed since my mentioning NDEs that everyone started touting "dying brain", "ketamine", "Susan Blackmore" and all that. (for an alternative view on Blackmore and NDEs, see here).

Amen! Lord (of materialistic science) be praised! Burn the non-naturalistic heretics! Hail Dawkins! In Materialism We Trust!

Amaranth

I realize you are not a creationist. However, my retort was more towards the general nature of why such conflict exists between science and belief, not why any conflict exists because of your (or our) beliefs. I apologize if that was not clear.

I have no belief that evolution and god are mutually exclusive. Far from it - I think evolution (and randomness in general) is interesting circumstantial evidence for a god who is extremely powerful, but not omniscient. I do not believe in such things, but I have no problem seeing that the two are not mutually exclusive.

su·per·nat·u·ral ( P ) Pronunciation Key (spr-nchr-l)
adj.
1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world.
2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

nat·u·ral ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nchr-l, nchrl)
adj.
1. Present in or produced by nature: a natural pearl.
2. Of, relating to, or concerning nature: a natural environment.
3. Conforming to the usual or ordinary course of nature: a natural death.

na·ture ( P ) Pronunciation Key (nchr)
n.
1. The material world and its phenomena.
2. The forces and processes that produce and control all the phenomena of the material world: the laws of nature.

You say dogma, I say English. If it is part of the world, it is natural.

Yes, it does. Supernatural is either outside the natural world (and thus, not in this universe), or seeming to violate natural forces. The first case is irrelivent to us. The second just denotes a lack of understanding.

*chuckle* You're a bloody Virgo, ain't ye

Goliath

emotional,


Incorrect. Proof does not come through evidence. For example, when Euclid proved that there were infinitely many prime integers, he did not use evidence. He used a logical proof.

It's unbelievably simple: I do not believe that souls exist, and I do not believe that all that exists is the observable universe. However, I don't believe that souls do not exist, and I do not believe that anything outside of the observable universe exists. Regarding the existence of souls and the claim of materialism, I hold absolutely no beliefs whatsoever.

Incorrect. I am a living counterexample to your above assertion.


Sincerely,

Goliath

Amaranth

I've spent the last couple days working over this, discussing it, wasting valuable sleep time over it...And I've come to the conclusion I have no idea. It would seem that a "car", as an identity, is subjective. I fear I'm beat.

So, while the "loss" disheartens me, I have to thank you for giving me a great conversation for Coffee Night with the guys

Amaranth

Starboy

Inconnu, this is a trick question. If your definition of a car is subjective then to you what is a car will be subjective, but if you can get several people to agree on a definition of a car, then to the extent that one can objectively test against the definition the concept of a car becomes objective. So if for example, in order to be a car, by definition you required a way to direct the vehicle and you remove the steering wheel from the car, then at that moment it is not a car. You may refer to it as a broken car, almost a car or a car without a steering wheel but if you wish to use the definition to test the carness of the collection of parts, if there is no way to steer it then it is not a car.

Starboy

emotional

So your argument is that the natural universe is all there is. Here is where I disagree: the natural universe is not all there is; side by side with it there is a supernatural universe, on a different dimension (or plane) than this one. The complete cosmos is a building of more than one tier.

Again, evidence for this is what I've already offered and has been "refuted" countless times by materialists.

Starboy

Sorry emotional. I haven't been following this thread. What evidence do you mean?

emotional

NDEs, OBEs, xenoglossy, mediumship, cross correspondences, hypnotic regression etc. See here for a complete exposition of the evidence. And yes, I know you can refute each and every one of those articles, so that's why I've written this disclaimer.

Susan Blackmore herself is quite a handful. Still, there's a refutation of her book, Dying to Live, here.

Starboy

Emotional, I think there is more to this discussion than refuting the evidence. I think this all hinges around what you consider to be evidence and what method you use to prefer one explanation for that evidence over another. If you wish to believe in NDEs, OBEs and the like as explanations for observed phenomenon, then alternate natural explanations of the phenomena do not rule out the possibility that such things exist, they simply show that there are no reported claims of such phenomena that could not be explained using natural phenomenon. It just so happens that in this day and age natural explanations are preferred because of the great success we have had in using them to manipulate our environment. I am a pragmatist, so I prefer what works. You on the other hand appear to be under great emotional distress, so you prefer explanations that alleviate your fears. Since there is no evidence of supernatural phenomenon that cannot be explained by natural means and since natural explanations appear to work so very very well, in this day and age to cling to supernatural explanations can only be justified for emotional (spiritual) reasons. From what little I know about you, you could use a note from your mommy that says "Little emotional is not feeling well, please give him a dose of religion daily." I guess your problem is that the medication will only work if you aren't aware of all this.

Starboy

emotional

You're arguing the motives for my belief, that's very condescending of you. You argue that my belief is a mental remedy, that it is the result of wishful thinking. I will agree with you only to a slight point.

It is true that, after I heard the news of the SARS outbreak, I rushed to read books and articles giving evidence of life after death; but I do not think this motive in any way discounts the validity of this evidence. It is true that I have a problem of fear of death, but it is not true that this invalidates any claim of life after death, God and the supernatural. Fear of death was only an initial motive; but now that I've read the books and the articles, I really do believe in the Great Soul (God), the existence of souls, and life after death.

You're saying that, were I to be cured of fear of final death, I would be back to naturalism/materialism/atheism. And that's just not true. You're saying my belief is a placebo, that it's not real. And that's just not true. I could believe in life after death even when staying a total materialist. Back then, in the Non-Abrahamic religions forum, I came across a Buddhist snippet expounding the view of naturalistic reincarnation:

So here you have a capable theory of life after death within the atheistic, naturalistic framework: naturalistic reincarnation. So I would not need theistic religion in order to believe in life after death. So there is clearly a motive other than fear of death that led me to my current belief. This motive is not emotional, but evidential. I say, just as Christians say there is evidence for their faith, that there is evidence for my faith. I'm not a blind believer or a wishful thinker. I believe in a complete, rational and consistent framework of cosmology, which is in no way contradictory to science, unless you equate, as many people here do, science with materialism/naturalism. I refuse to equate science with naturalism. I also believe that the existence of the laws of nature imply a setter of those laws of nature; and if you claim the laws of nature came by themselves, then you are making an extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

In this year of grace 2003 naturalism is still going strong, by virtue of the consistent laws of nature which God has set; but let us see, circa 200 years from now, what will be of science; let us just see if science will be total-naturalistic as it is now. Frankly, I can hardly wait till science is set free of its manacles shackling it to the philosophy of naturalism.

I was brought upon the catechism that nature is all there is, and I no longer believe so. Call me a heretic if you dare!