You believe in "an invisible man living in a magic sky kingdom"

Science is based on reproducible results. If you cannot reproduce results, it ain't science.

Which is why science is so useless when studying states of consciousness. The internal world is not reproducible within my own experience, at least not under my control; much less is any explorer to reproduce their own internal experience of consciousness for someone else's experience.

Religion, spirituality, et al is non-scientific BECAUSE it deals in states of consciousness.

The only "science of mind" is to be a behaviorist, and treat the self as a "black box." Then ignore the box, and only attend to its output. That's not really science at all--substituting the outputs for the object of study.

Which is why mocking believers as "believing in invisible people who live in magical kingdoms" is so thin. Basically, castigating anyone who takes the individual's emotional and consciousness development seriously. It would make sense if science had explained all of reality. But it hasn't, and doesn't even try with some of the most fascinating bits: the paranormal. synchronicity. the unexplained.

Yes, people who believe in mystery, who want to learn about mystery, who believe that mystery has life-giving power, and makes life and love worth sharing, those people are deluded idiots who believe in fairy tales.

Science is beautiful. It is an incredible tool. So is a pipe wrench. But not every problem in life can be solved with a pipe wrench. You cannot build a house using only a pipe wrench. No, but you should live your life using only science. Because if it isn't science its dangerous and scary and you should try to get rid of it.

Yeah, that's the Enlightenment Ideal, alright.

I think most people that use terms like that are purposefully baiting/antagonizing anyone who does believe In a higher power and I stay away from those threads all together.

Even if a real discussion was what they wanted, coming out with that sentence all but guarantees that nothing you say will be met with anything other than ridicule. It's instantly demeaning one's intelligence before the conversation can even be had.

I like your OP and how you look at it. I wish more could look at it that way instead of instantly just shutting anything and everything down once the topic comes up.

Hopefully you brought waders and water.

Where do we draw the line between someone who "talks to god" and someone who is schizophrenic?
How do we distinguish between Enlightenment and a superiority complex?

This is the issue I have with this train of thought. People through out history have claimed all sorts of miraculous things in order to gain control over others. The human imagination is a powerful and wonderful thing, but crossing the line and claiming things created by the imagination to be real is very dangerous.

Without the ability to distinguish between reality and persons imagination or delusions, they are little more than useless.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on tangible facts and disregarding that which can not be distinguished from fantasy. That is the sign of a healthy rational mind.

I don't know anyone that seriously thinks science is the only way to live your life. Science is a tool to help assess things outside the scope of our biases. Because we're human, we all have biases. Ironically, we all consider ourselves less biased than everyone else -- which is itself a bias. The process of science, although limited, is a mechanism for making informed decisions based on available data. The reason God is not assessed in science is because it cannot be, -- at least, not until there is something there to assess empirically.

I agree. Many who do that are just trying to rile you up so you can look like "that crazy religious person". It's baiting, exactly.

But I notice many who say that talk about tolerance and accepting people's way of life, except if you're religious because then you're an extremist who needs to be set straight. Sure people have had bad experiences with religions, heard bad things, been preached false doctrine but it isn't open minded to base opinions off of a completely false modern church that corrupted scripture to divide and profit.

Believe what you want though, we're all entitled to opinions and beliefs but extremism on both sides won't help anybody.

originally posted by: tovenar


Religion, spirituality, et al is non-scientific BECAUSE it deals in states of consciousness.

Consciousness can be proven scientifically. Religion and spiritually deals in faith, hope and wishful thinking!

I can prove I'm conscious because I'm responding to your thread. Can a supreme being do the same?

btw....I don't have much faith in science either.

originally posted by: xDeadcowx
Where do we draw the line between someone who "talks to god" and someone who is schizophrenic?
How do we distinguish between Enlightenment and a superiority complex?

This is the issue I have with this train of thought. People through out history have claimed all sorts of miraculous things in order to gain control over others. The human imagination is a powerful and wonderful thing, but crossing the line and claiming things created by the imagination to be real is very dangerous.

Without the ability to distinguish between reality and persons imagination or delusions, they are little more than useless.

There is nothing wrong with focusing on tangible facts and disregarding that which can not be distinguished from fantasy. That is the sign of a healthy rational mind.

That's the key. "to gain control over others."

Many people who have seen things, miraculous or spiritual, etc have only spread their message and have not profited or gained authority in any way. If it's used to control then it most likely isn't genuine or it was and it was distorted intentionally/unintentionally to gain said powers.

The key is how they are interpreted and used. If they're exploited by those who only see profit/power then it will be perpetuated as a "good thing". If it's something that's just shared it usually isn't for control.

Personally I think the Vatican is completely fake and it's the seat of what many would call evil. No truly godly organization would live in luxury while millions suffer. Or help commit genocide, murder, indoctrination. Things were never right with the Vatican and it's only natural people would see through their falsehoods. But many think it's just because of greed, they can't see how it's evil masquerading as good.

All the best Deadcow

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: tovenar


Religion, spirituality, et al is non-scientific BECAUSE it deals in states of consciousness.

Consciousness can be proven scientifically. Religion and spiritually deals in faith, hope and wishful thinking!

I can prove I'm conscious because I'm responding to your thread. Can a supreme being do the same?

btw....I don't have much faith in science either.

Are we conscious? We believe we are, by the definitions and boundaries of what we feel is physical existence yet our minds can bring us to interesting places. So is consciousness real? Shared? How exactly do we know we share it? Maybe what we perceive as the world, conversations is like a program or something. We believe others are sharing it because we can discuss it, share feelings, reactions to stimuli but how do we truly know?

Maybe in the end it's just our minds and everything and everyone else is a thought or a simulation, etc. I might think it and I know others think it but is their existence separate from ours and we just think we share this? It's super selfish of me to say "I think everything's fake including my physical body and in the end it's all a simulation." But someone else could say it too. So is this world truly shared or is everything, including interactions, stimuli, reactions, thoughts, etc exclusive to everybody and we only believe we share it?

Sorry, I know that's long but I had a lot of trouble conveying that theory. I hope I didn't confuse anyone too much...

a reply to: tovenar

Very well put OP - IMO ... S&F.

Could I , ahem , play devil 's advocate for a moment ? Eventually , it will be called ' science ' : that awareness that faeries do not cause circular ' toadstool ' colonies to form ... it's the ' design ' ( credit whom you will ) of the spore -sac , the terrain , and atmospherics . Now , it seems useful ( perhaps lacking perceived options ? ) to go with the faeries .

' Science ' can be underestimated in it's own sort of ' spirituality ' , I think .

I was using ' mineral spirits ' this morning ... I wonder why it 's called that ... ether ? Ether used to be capitalized , sorry .

I always thought that specific phrase was a nod to George Carlin.

Excellent stuff...

The OP also wrote one of my all time favorite posts ever on ATS.

I think it might bring the OP into a better perspective for some:

originally posted by: tovenar
Studying the Bible is good for you, too. But doing so doesn't make you a Christian; it merely makes you a historian of Christianity. For a Christian, to act justly means living out the Gospel by increasing justice in the world, enhancing the good and minimizing the evil. To Love mercy means you are on the side of peace. Walking humbly with your God means you spend time "getting somewhere with God," meaning addressing God in prayer and praise. Proper worship of God is acting with humility, by admitting that the Lord is the center of the universe, not you. Doing good works, and a closer walk with God is the mechanism of spiritual growth. A good church will lead you in both of those.

originally posted by: xDeadcowx
There is nothing wrong with focusing on tangible facts and disregarding that which can not be distinguished from fantasy. That is the sign of a healthy rational mind.

Focusing on tangible facts is great. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's what we should all expect one another to do.

But to disregard things that are not understood as universal facts is foolish. It makes no sense. We have always striven to understand the mysterious forces in the universe and we did so until we understood them. It is why we are as advanced as we are now. However, we have reached a point somewhere along the line that we believe that there shouldn't be anything left that is not understood. Now it seems common for people who consider themselves scientifically-minded to simply disregard whatever's left to be understood as "fantasy".

Why? When did we draw that line? What if we drew that line 200 years ago?

i dont know but the sky is pretty big. he's out there somewhere.

religion is based on ancient perception of science...

a reply to: aightism2

It's natural for humans to seek explanations for natural events. But I can't deny there are people out there who feel a connection or a presence. Could we some day explain the feelings of faith and other events that we currently can't explain? Maybe, but whatever the conclusion is many will be proven wrong eventually. So the question is will science authenticate religion through more sophisticated methods or will it disprove faith though said methods?

I love the OP.

Personally - I believe God is us. We are god. Corny I know - but I truly believe in a consciousness outside of the physical form (from personal experience) and I believe the combined consciousness of everybody humans and even other entities out there which do exist culminate to form the closest thing to 'God' that there really is.

Some know what I speak of. It is truly a profound thing to experience and witness firsthand.

In time I believe consciousness and reincarnation to some extent will be proven the only true 'law of the land' so to speak and the origin of creation.


As far as how this all came about - is anybody's guess. From what I have seen and been told, it simply is. No ifs ands or buts about it. It simply is and always will be.

a reply to: Cuervo

I did not state anywhere in my post that we should disregard things that are not understood. I am sorry if you infered that, but i do see where you may have got that idea.

Where was the point where we believe there should't be anything left that is not understood? I really have no idea what you are talking about here. We are in no way at a point where anyone can honestly claim everything is understood. There is a huge list of things we don't fully understand, an even longer list of things we can't even begin to understand, and an infinitely long list of things we don't even know we don't understand.

Asking questions leads to answers. These answers lead to more questions. so on and so forth until the end of time.

The issue i see with the OP is, where do we draw the line between reality and fantasy? If i were to claim that there are invisible pink elephants living in my shoes, would it rational to expect a new branch of science dedicated to the study of the invisible pink elephants in my shoes?

What if i caught a fish that didn't look like any other fish on the plant. Would it be rational for scientists to study that fish to find out what it is, and how it came to be?

The key difference is that one of those items was imaginary, and the other one existed in reality.

With religion, there are over 2000 different gods that have been imagined up and passed for real gods over the course of humanity. Each of these gods was individually, or as a group, the "One true God" right up until the point that they weren't. Another god eventually took its place as the "One true God"

Currently there are no less than 5 or 6 "One true God"s that are worshiped currently in direct opposition to the other's "One true God" status. None of these gods have anything tangible to separate them from the 2000+ ex-gods from history, and are no more "real" than the invisible pink elephants living in my shoes.

a reply to: tovenar

I've got a couple of blunt minded friends who try and bang on about God being as likely to exist as unicorns and think this is an intelligent way to back up their uneducated guess at our purpose for this existence.

My argument to this is that 'we' exist, the universe were all in right now definitely also exists. If you think degenerating the discussion of how we and the universe got here is in the same ball park as unicorns or magical fairies, then you're a fool!

The truth is, none of us know for sure and we choose to believe whatever we choose to believe. There is no scientific data and we understand the universe about as well as a goldfish understands quantum mechanics!

Which leaves us all with faith. Faith that there definitely isn't a God is called atheism, faith that there is a god is called religion.

Anyone who fools them self into pretending to have answers or know for sure isn't worthy arguing about it with. They've probably just heard the 'magical fairy defence' used on someone stupid and figures using it as a mantra will make them look smart. It doesn't wash with me.

originally posted by: Cuervo

originally posted by: xDeadcowx
There is nothing wrong with focusing on tangible facts and disregarding that which can not be distinguished from fantasy. That is the sign of a healthy rational mind.

Focusing on tangible facts is great. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's what we should all expect one another to do.

But to disregard things that are not understood as universal facts is foolish. It makes no sense. We have always striven to understand the mysterious forces in the universe and we did so until we understood them. It is why we are as advanced as we are now. However, we have reached a point somewhere along the line that we believe that there shouldn't be anything left that is not understood. Now it seems common for people who consider themselves scientifically-minded to simply disregard whatever's left to be understood as "fantasy".

Why? When did we draw that line? What if we drew that line 200 years ago?

That line has been drawn thousands of times. It was always science that stepped over it to bring us to more understanding of the world, never religion, never magic, never divine revelation, never a god.

originally posted by: Kangaruex4Ewe
I think most people that use terms like that are purposefully baiting/antagonizing anyone who does believe In a higher power and I stay away from those threads all together.

Even if a real discussion was what they wanted, coming out with that sentence all but guarantees that nothing you say will be met with anything other than ridicule. It's instantly demeaning one's intelligence before the conversation can even be had.

I like your OP and how you look at it.

I wish more could look at it that way instead of instantly just shutting anything and everything down once the topic comes up.

Hopefully you brought waders and water.

In your first paragraph you say that you stay away from those threads all together. I must be imagining that you posted a response?