Spenser

Hence the name; Emotional...

fokket

I do respect science but science keep discoveringn new stuff.

following is an extract from NDE who appa. 'talked' to God

The people who have been practiced meditation enough

has been able to do mind over body stuff.

Some enlightened people have been able to do that too,

http://www.nderf.org/annie_p's_nde.htm

orac

I still want to know why you think that certainty is better than accuracy.

(If you don't read another sentence I've written, that's fine - I seriously want an actual answer to this question. You've insisted over and over again that you want nothing but certainty, and I just don't understand why.)

If you were dying of some illness would you prefer accurate information that a particular treatment may help, or would you prefer a certain but wrong belief that a different cure would help?

Oh, and if you don't want people knowing how the universe works, why don't you stop using electronic equipment? If noone found out how things worked, noone would be able to build new things.

I somehow doubt that your answers (if you should answer at all) will indicate that you prefer certain death to possible life, or that you'll refuse to use computers just because they're the product of scientific curiosity, but I'ld love to know how that actually works for you.


You remind me of a couple of old men from a story (and I wish I could remember the details). They're going on about how reckless young people are trying to travel to the stars. They're sure it's horribly dangerous, they'll even be killing their own children because this rocketry is so dangerous, everything is fine the way it is now, noone needs to build anything new, and too much scientific curiosity is dangerous. Besides, the lunar gravity is just fine for their elderly bodies.

Hopefully you see the point of that little story. Your argument about accepting terrible theories such as "hey, the earth actually orbits the sun after all" but not wanting anyone to tell you about anything more recent made me think of that.

emotional

The trouble with recent science is that it's beginning to sound like Eastern Mysticism ("Tao of Physics"), and I can't stand Eastern Mysticism.

EGGO

Well hey, what's science is science.

Not trying to be insulting, but that's what I noticed about most people with faith. They just don't want to take time understanding, or if they do, they ignore facts.

I mean, I just got done laughing at a guy who said, "It's silly of evolutionists to say we evolved from single-celled organisms. They're basically saying we evolved from rocks. LOL and you think religion is a bunch of nonsense?"

LittleGuy

The problem is that it's not the job of the scientist to improve our lives.

People shouldn't give these things disparaging tags like "New Age" or "Mysticism". It's fascinating and is great for popularising science.

Jobar

I think that the only thing that science and religion have in common, is that both are attempts to understand ultimates- one looks inward, the other outward. If two such radically different ways of looking at reality come to the same conclusions, I think that is an incredible affirmation of the worth of each.

Those who try to embrace one but reject the other totally are in for some rude shocks, in that case... as we see here, in fact.

Milton

I began reading the article the other day, but was not able to finish it.

As far as what I read, I agree a lot with what it said. Of course, I have explained the same view from a religious stand point, but they turn out to be pretty much the same.

I don't know why emotional would get all upset about this. What is wrong with us being an illusion?

emotional

It's wrong because it's solipsistic, it removes any sound basis for morality there may ever have been. If Tom is just an illusion and Dick is just an illusion, then Tom killing Dick is an illusion also, and nothing of real consequence that should be judged.

And it's also untrue. When I pinch myself, it's not an illusion. The universe is real. You might as well convince me I'm not really alive. This Hindu doctrine of maya is a denial of what stares one in the face and an affront against common sense.

"There was a man who dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke up he didn't know if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man". You see where solipsism, illusionism and maya lead? A total loss of one's bearing on reality. It's like taking LSD. New Age, pantheistic scatterbraining.

Here is an article about those things exactly. I disagree with many of its points, because it's written from a Christian point of view, complete with the satanic teaching of eternal hell for non-Christians; nevertheless, I concur with its complaints about New Age solipsism:

http://www.diakrisis.org/Hallmarks.htm

Milton

No, it does not. I believe we are an illusion, but whose illusion are we? I don't believe we are some other being that is dreaming that he/she is something else. I believe we are the creation of another being, we are in the mind of this ultimate being, which happens to be the only reality--God. I don't think anyone of us exists outside of God. So, in that sense, we are an illusion. But since we are part of the illusion, and do not exist outside the illusion, we live (and feel) everything that the illusion is composed of. Hunger is an illusion, but since the illusion of the world is that if we don't eat, then we will die of hunger, we are ultimately bound by that rule. The same with pain. So, when you pinch yourself, you feel some kind of pain. This does not deny the fact that you are still part of an illusion. In fact, just think about dreams. I sure have felt pain in my dream. Though I wake up and feel it no more, it sure was real in my dream.

The Hindus might be one of the better known proponents of this belief, but they are not the only ones. I sure did not get my belief from them.