The Big Religion/God Debate

[HHC]

If someone is wrong then I will try and argue that point.  Same as I hope others do to me.

Do you think there is something offensive about being shown the truth?  Even if it goes against cherished beliefs then it's still more important to uphold the truth.

You are free to challenge someone's opinion, but this whole debate seems a little obsessive to me.

It is as if you try to force your worldview on Free & Co.. As if by butchering anything that challenges your opinion you somehow confirm the righteousness and truth of your worldview.

Seems more fruitful to me to share knowledge and examine things together, rather than slamming the door right in the other guy's face.. and repeating that process 'til he's too scared to knock anymore.

[Abnaxus]

The men are entitled to their opinion. And I'm fairly sure they are gonna stick to it, no matter what you say.

I wouldn't if they had bring me proofs (such as they ask).

Do you think there is something offensive about being shown the truth?  Even if it goes against cherished beliefs then it's still more important to uphold the truth.

It is your truth. I'm sure there are many subjects where your truth won't be other people's truth.

[DarkOne]

I thought my posts were directed more towards critical thinking rather than putting down their ideas. Perhaps I overdid it, but I'm not going to bother reading back my posts If Abnaxus feels I've somehow gone too far in any way, I apologise.
I could be very wrong with my perception of the world. I don't think I am based on the evidence available to me, but I realise I could very well be wrong. Only way to find out though is to look for answers consistently and look for them well.
I try to encourage that in people - it's why I linked Abnaxus a couple of times and gave a few corrections in the things he said (admittedly, I had to look up some details, but that's how we learn, isn't it? . I don't think I made any judgement calls on Abnaxus' experience of seeing the room from above and being able to see the aneasthesiology equipment from above. I did, however, ask him to be critical
In all honesty, I'm not even that interested how much of his experience is real and how much is his imagination. I'm more interested in people thinking critically - and it's a hard thing to do, especially when considering your own abilities and experiences.

IMO, if more people would do this, we could get rid of homeopathy, faith healers and psychics - there's simply no evidence that they do anything other than make you feel better about the situation. But for some reason, things are going the other way around - people are doubting their doctors and blindly following the faith healers and homeopaths etcetera.
And in return, people are way more likely to die from their illness with all the ensuing pains etcetera.
So I guess it is personal in that I would like it if some people were more curious - REALLY curious. Looking things up. Learning about things that matter.

Teach a man to reason, and he'll think for a life time - Phil Plait.

Sorry, Free, I'm naturally distrustful of "big theories of everything", because they usually don't hold with mathematics for example to prove their hypotheses They like oversimplifying things too much. If there's something I've learned, it's that things are rarely simple. Even something as simple as measuring someone's blood pressure has all sorts of nuances, false positives, false negatives, fluctuations based on when you measure, how you measure etcetera.

[Free]

Hence, let's agree to disagree. My Big TOE is the best example of scientific testing towards "supernatural" things I can think of. If that's not good enough, I got nothing more to offer considering that topic.

This thread was going the wrong way so I didn't wanna continue. Looked like another flame thread in the making even though the active writers are all smart guys (don't know about our troll though)

[Anubis]

I am into Ancient Aliens theories. Many "holy" writings are wrongly translated to fit into religion and when you look at them now, they actually rather describe people that saw things, just like we do nowadays, that we would call UFOs. Be it Meteors, unusual lightning or some unknown energy/light.

I am not saying the ancestors were visited by Aliens, I just like the theories. But they sure did see things up in the sky just like we do nowadays and religion just ripped it apart and fooled people to believe that it was god.

What I do believe is, that we really underestimate our ancestors and they were more advanced than we thought, there are many sightings of stone work that, even with 21st Century technology, would be rather hard, in some cases impossible to do.

Another thing, that I recently sunk my head into, are the Hessdalen Lights in Norway. They are actually scientific researched UFOs, pointing to potential point-zero energy or a natural event that still remains unexplained to us. I highly recommend to watch the video:

[Free]

I am into Ancient Aliens theories. Many "holy" writings are wrongly translated to fit into religion and when you look at them now, they actually rather describe people that saw things, just like we do nowadays, that we would call UFOs. Be it Meteors, unusual lightning or some unknown energy/light.

I am not saying the ancestors were visited by Aliens, I just like the theories. But they sure did see things up in the sky just like we do nowadays and religion just ripped it apart and fooled people to believe that it was god.

What I do believe is, that we really underestimate our ancestors and they were more advanced than we thought, there are many sightings of stone work that, even with 21st Century technology, would be rather hard, in some cases impossible to do.

Another thing, that I recently sunk my head into, are the Hessdalen Lights in Norway. They are actually scientific researched UFOs, pointing to potential point-zero energy or a natural event that still remains unexplained to us. I highly recommend to watch the video:

I also like to think that our ancestors had more knowledge at least on certain things than us.

Another thing that really fascinates me is Sacred Geometry. What you guys have to say about that?

[Aerox]

(don't know about our troll though)

Yeah the fact that our troll and these smart people you speak of are saying the same thing is but a mere coincidence regardless of the fact it was the troll who first questioned the way of fool proofing your dogma and the smart people only echoed and elaborated.

Anubis, of course people of old saw UFOS, ignorant village people existed since the ancient times. That's not to say I don't consider alien life a possibility, I'd very much bet my own money on that possibility against the alternative of us being alone in the universe.

edit: oh, HHC checking in the thread to do what exactly? Oh right, to tell people to carpe diem. How very HHC.

[Cueshark]

I think truth is absolute.  There either are supernatural forces at work in the universe or there are not.  

If we can all agree in the above then that's good.

It is also useful to add that if a supernatural force can be measured and observed through scientific testing it would automatically not be supernatural anymore.  It would be a great start in actually defining what telepathy actually is.  Unfortunately there is no proper working definition for telepathy.  :<

There isn't a working definition for any of these supernatural abilities or powers.

I passionately believe that it is enjoyable and fun to pursue truth in this way.  Truth isn't a worldview.  

[Anubis]

Anubis, of course people of old saw UFOS, ignorant village people existed since the ancient times. That's not to say I don't consider alien life a possibility, I'd very much bet my own money on that possibility against the alternative of us being alone in the universe.

The sad part though is, that our generation is not very likely to encounter any intelligent life outside of earth. Technology is still so far away from actually scanning other star system, I know they started to catch planets outside of our star system, but they are for the most part big gas giants. I think they plan to build a new telescope with more possibilities in space that will be ready in 2020? Haven't checked that project and the progress for a while. And if you consider the huge galaxy (not even talking about the universe as a whole) we live in we can only scientifically reach to our nearest neighbors.

Oh and, before we actually find other intelligent life in my opinion they already would know that we are close to find them and would probably contact us anyway. That is assuming we are very far behind any other intelligent life-form, which, by the age of the galaxy is very likely.

[Aerox]

the universe is infinite, thus by definition, everything you can imagine lives in it.
























ask free about it

[Free]

I think truth is absolute.  There either are supernatural forces at work in the universe or there are not.

N1 ropa, you knew exactly who I ment. x)

So you're implying that you know the truth, Cue? You have absolutely no idea how much information you might be missing to even come closing making decisions like that. I'm not force feeding my theories to you guys, I hope you're not force feeding them to me. We can discuss.

In my worldview nothing is supernatural, because I like to think everything that happens is natural (non-dualistic point of view), but since we're talking about "mystical" things, the term needs to be used.

[Free]

the universe is infinite, thus by definition, everything you can imagine lives in it.

Yes this is the way I think.

Think about it, how can it NOT exist, if you can imagine it.

Edit: I wouldn't use the words "lives in it" necessarily though.

[Anubis]

the universe is infinite, thus by definition, everything you can imagine lives in it.

Yes this is the way I think.

Think about it, how can it NOT exist, if you can imagine it.

So basically what you are saying is, that if I imagine I can breath under water, I can do it?
Or better yet, when I imagine a human being under water breathing, it is possible?

[Free]

the universe is infinite, thus by definition, everything you can imagine lives in it.

Yes this is the way I think.

Think about it, how can it NOT exist, if you can imagine it.

So basically what you are saying is, that if I imagine I can breath under water, I can do it?
Or better yet, when I imagine a human being under water breathing, it is possible?

No that's not what I'm saying.

If you can let's say visualise that you can breath underwater, then it does exists in this universe. It currently exists as a mental image in your mind.

[Cueshark]

What I said in that quote was true though.  Are you actually disagreeing with it?

Either there is telepathy or there isn't.  Can we agree on that?