Religion, Scripture and logical thinking

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
a reply to: chr0naut

And the story it contains is nothing but a compilation of ancient summerians stories among others ...

Genesis speaks of things that pre-date the Sumerian culture.

Moses was contemporary with late Sumerian culture but arose from the Egyptian empire.

It is believed that Moses invented the process of writing on scrolls, which could hold a larger amount of text than earlier writing methods and he transcribed earlier clay tablet records containing the writings of earlier authors who were witnesses to the events described. Scrolls were also far more portable than clay tablet libraries.

The tablets that Moses used were, essentially, the property of his family and were therefore not on the public record.

The reasoning behind this theory is the Hebrew word "toledot" (which is mistranslated into English as "generations"), its placement throughout the Genesis account, and the structure of the text around the word (Repeated sentences before and after). This structure was used to attribute clay tablets to an author and to enable narrative flow across multiple tablets (which would break easily if they were made too large).

In all likelihood, the 'histories' drew from common sources but the Sumerian ones were 'flavoured' by being oral traditions rather than a compilation of actual eyewitness accounts like Genesis.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: undo


PS: I can't watch videos.

at all? of any kind?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Your sources are a bit outdated.

Mystical experiences are consistent and studied by sciences. Even from a neurological point of view.

Confirmation bias works when you expect something, mystical experiences are always unexpected in nature and paradigm shifting.

If you assume I see god as a person doing supernatural things I understand your criticisms.

That's not how mystics see god. God is the personal experience of a non dual state.

There is nothing supernatural about this.



If you only superficially read about spirituality and god, of course you get stuck at the vulgar and naive level, like people who believe electrons orbit like little planets.

You have to study more to truly understand what it's all about.

Like you truly have to spend a lot of efforts to understand quantum physics VS naive atomic models.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

True enough, but those tricks are consistent enough to quantify them. Spirituality, not so much. Here's a great article I like to post about confirmation biases and your brain lying to you.

Your brain lies to you

personally, i'm a fan of the idea that senses generate 3d reality. if nothing is present to sense 3d reality, it doesn't materialize and remains a bunch of potentialities in a super position soup - like crossing over from one zone to another in a video game, causes the gaming unit to generate the content for that zone, which otherwise, just remains as stored codes in memory storage, until called for by a sensing device. natural sensing devices range from antenna on bugs to eyes to appendages on bacteria, etc. it's nearly impossible to render an area of the planet where there are no sensing devices, and to prove the point would be like a live schroedinger's cat experiment. the minute you tried to sense it, you collapse the wave function and 3d reality is generated.

originally posted by: Cogito, Ergo Sum

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Cogito, Ergo Sum

originally posted by: chr0naut


The original text was the Torah, which was already ancient before Christ and was written in Biblical Hebrew.

and how old is the oldest copy we have?

Torah's were written on high quality treated leather with indelible high chromium ink. It was forbidden to touch the scrolls with your hands so special metal tools were used to read and follow lines of text. In use, master scrolls had an average life of 800 years. So from the time of Moses, to the time of Jesus, there were only four or five master copies required.

The oldest original scrolls we have are the Dead Sea Scrolls which are approximately 2,215 years old.

Impressive, but aren't they "partial copies" and "fragments" (the only complete extant copy is circa 1000) ? Would be interesting to see how it compares to the Vulgate in translation. Afaik the old testament was copied into Latin from Hebrew. Apparently, St. Jerome had specialists in Hebrew to help him with it.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragmentary but there were multiple copies of each original Torah scroll. Scholars are confident that we have the complete Torah from all the fragments.

About 200 years before Christ, the Torah was translated into Greek from its original Hebrew by a council of 70 scholars. This Greek version of the old testament is called the Septuagint (or "the seventy" in Greek). The Dead Sea Scrolls texts were compared to Septuagint texts by modern scholars and they have found very few differences. These documents validate each other.

Modern Hebrew Torahs are usually based on the the works of the Masorettes who, several hundred years after Christ, using Ancient Hebrew, Syraic and Septuagint texts, created a 'refreshed' version, specifically for Rabbais (i.e: an academic version). Most modern Bibles use this as their primary source for their translations of the old testament. The Masoretic Torah, as verified by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint and other sources, has impeccable credentials.

The Vulgate translation was based primarily on Codex Vaticanus, a translation from Greek into Latin. At one time,this was the most authoritative source but we now have many older texts, upon which most modern translations are based.

originally posted by: undo

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: undo


PS: I can't watch videos.

at all? of any kind?

Correct. There is an issue with streaming video on my work network and my pc isn't working at my house.

a reply to: Develo

Well the article was written in 2009, but it's not like there has been a radical paradigm shift in how we think our brain stores information in the meantime.

As far as I go, if it can't be quantified, then it isn't worth worrying about until it can be. If you want to believe these things, fine, but I don't feel like they describe things well enough. Descriptions have to be exact and spirituality invites too much vagueness.

a reply to: undo

Our senses don't perceive X-Rays or Gamma Rays, but that doesn't mean they don't exist and affect things in ways that we can sense.

originally posted by: undo

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

True enough, but those tricks are consistent enough to quantify them. Spirituality, not so much. Here's a great article I like to post about confirmation biases and your brain lying to you.

Your brain lies to you

personally, i'm a fan of the idea that senses generate 3d reality. if nothing is present to sense 3d reality, it doesn't materialize and remains a bunch of potentialities in a super position soup - like crossing over from one zone to another in a video game, causes the gaming unit to generate the content for that zone, which otherwise, just remains as stored codes in memory storage, until called for by a sensing device. natural sensing devices range from antenna on bugs to eyes to appendages on bacteria, etc. it's nearly impossible to render an area of the planet where there are no sensing devices, and to prove the point would be like a live schroedinger's cat experiment. the minute you tried to sense it, you collapse the wave function and 3d reality is generated.

originally posted by: undo

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

True enough, but those tricks are consistent enough to quantify them. Spirituality, not so much. Here's a great article I like to post about confirmation biases and your brain lying to you.

Your brain lies to you

personally, i'm a fan of the idea that senses generate 3d reality. if nothing is present to sense 3d reality, it doesn't materialize and remains a bunch of potentialities in a super position soup - like crossing over from one zone to another in a video game, causes the gaming unit to generate the content for that zone, which otherwise, just remains as stored codes in memory storage, until called for by a sensing device. natural sensing devices range from antenna on bugs to eyes to appendages on bacteria, etc. it's nearly impossible to render an area of the planet where there are no sensing devices, and to prove the point would be like a live schroedinger's cat experiment. the minute you tried to sense it, you collapse the wave function and 3d reality is generated.

so if the whole other half of the universe was devoid of life, it simply wouldnt exist?

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: undo

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

True enough, but those tricks are consistent enough to quantify them. Spirituality, not so much. Here's a great article I like to post about confirmation biases and your brain lying to you.

Your brain lies to you

personally, i'm a fan of the idea that senses generate 3d reality. if nothing is present to sense 3d reality, it doesn't materialize and remains a bunch of potentialities in a super position soup - like crossing over from one zone to another in a video game, causes the gaming unit to generate the content for that zone, which otherwise, just remains as stored codes in memory storage, until called for by a sensing device. natural sensing devices range from antenna on bugs to eyes to appendages on bacteria, etc. it's nearly impossible to render an area of the planet where there are no sensing devices, and to prove the point would be like a live schroedinger's cat experiment. the minute you tried to sense it, you collapse the wave function and 3d reality is generated.

so if the whole other half of the universe was devoid of life, it simply wouldnt exist?

If I'm understanding correctly, only what we can observe is generated in our 3D reality so if we can't observe it, it doesn't exist as we see it...

If true, it would help explain the strange behavior of particles at the quantum level.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: chr0naut
Your assumption that this is the case for Tipplers Omega Point is that you are assuming that the 'arrow of time' cannot be overcome.

The crux of the Omega Point argument is that God is atemporal. God can 'reach back' in time and ensure that the conditions necessary for His existence are all in place. He is not stuck at the end of time, or bound by it.

No, THIS god must work under the confines of the universe's physical laws since it was invented within this universe. Therefore if time travel is impossible, then no this god would be unable to do that. YOU are making the assumption that time travel is possible. I am just using Occam's Razor and saying that since we can't prove that it exists, then it doesn't.

Time in Physics is a tangible. It can be ascribed a value and manipulated (one second is equivalent to a distance of 299,792,458 meters in Special Relativity).

This means that no new universe is created at the Omega Point, instead, this universe has being/is been created.

But I was really only saying that there is sane math for proving the existence of God.

Well, you showed that a god could be created, not that the universe had a creator.

Time travel is entirely possible. I don't think you will find one physicist who would say that it isn't.

It just isn't practical with our level of technology but that will change, too.

a reply to: chr0naut

I'm sure I can find a few that would think that time travel isn't possible. We certainly haven't invented anything that can travel through time. We could potentially speed UP time (by traveling increasingly closer to the speed of light), but as far as traveling BACK in time, all real scientists believe that you can only go as far as when the time machine was first invented. This would be useless for a god existing at the point of the Big Crunch. It wouldn't ever be able to travel back in time to invent the universe like you claimed.

a reply to: TzarChasm

it exists lol this theory brought to you by conservation of energy. it just remains as waves of data, until it hits an area with a sensing device or a sensing device enters the area. but since sensing devices can be microscopic in size, there are any number of ways it can be sensed. i think that would cover hearing, smelling, touching, and out of body, visions, cameras, telescopes, recorders, radios, satellites, radar, cellphones, and so on.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: chr0naut

I'm sure I can find a few that would think that time travel isn't possible. We certainly haven't invented anything that can travel through time. We could potentially speed UP time (by traveling increasingly closer to the speed of light), but as far as traveling BACK in time, all real scientists believe that you can only go as far as when the time machine was first invented. This would be useless for a god existing at the point of the Big Crunch. It wouldn't ever be able to travel back in time to invent the universe like you claimed.

Wikipedia on Retrocausality as Physics

Understanding Retrocausality - Boundary Institute (pdf)

The Physics of Time Travel by Michio Kaku

Scientists Have Simulated Time Travel With Photons - IFL Science

Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes & Possibilities - Space.com

... you get the drift.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

Well the article was written in 2009, but it's not like there has been a radical paradigm shift in how we think our brain stores information in the meantime.

As far as I go, if it can't be quantified, then it isn't worth worrying about until it can be. If you want to believe these things, fine, but I don't feel like they describe things well enough. Descriptions have to be exact and spirituality invites too much vagueness.

You don't get it, I'm not talking about your article. I'm talking about the interest of science into the mystical and spiritual science.howstuffworks.com...

In short: it can be quantified, and it is.



Confirmation bias doesn't apply in this case and I already explained why.

I understand you refuse to interest yourself in these topics because of your stance, but many scientists are not so afraid to think outside of the box and to put their preconceptions on the examination table.

www.sciencedaily.com...

"The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual approaches maintain?" ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review. "This opens a potential Pandora's Box, but our theory accommodates both these views

a reply to: chr0naut

Travelling back in time IS possible, argues new science book

Travelling into the past is “difficult,” Stuart admits, and there is one, crucial, limitation - you cannot travel back beyond the point when the first time machine is invented.

“In fact, the inventor of the first time machine will find it impossible to use,” says Stuart, “Lots of people will think, “Oh, I’ll go back and meet the inventor!’ So he’ll probably spend most of his time shaking their hands.”

Travel far enough, and you could return thousands of years into the future. Travelling backwards, though, is much, much harder - but still, Stuart, says “possible”.

Stuart notes that we have, as yet, never seen a time-traveller - which argues that limitless travel through time is not possible.

Stuart’s method of travelling through time for a surprise Christmas gift is not easy, though - it requires travel to another star, a spacecraft that can travel at near light speed, and a gigantic amount of energy.

“What you would do is create a wormhole - you can use them to go backwards,” says Stuart. “What you would need is something really heavy - which bends space - or a huge amount of energy, to create a wormhole. There’s a rule in physics that you can borrow a huge amount of energy - as long as you pay it back quickly - it’s called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.”

“You see it in particles in the Large Hadron Collider which pop in and out of existence. If you can somehow pay off that “debt”, you end up with a permanent wormhole in space - which would take you instantly to, say, another star.”

“To travel “back in time”, you simply have to attach one end of the wormhole to a spaceship, fly around at near the speed of light for a while (so time slows down for the spaceship), then jump through the wormhole.”

If the spaceship flew for five years, only six months would have passed within the wormhole - so if you jump through it to the alien star, then fly back to Earth (on yet another spaceship), you arrive three months before you left.

Because you rely on the wormhole, you can’t go further back than when the machine is invented - hence, perhaps, the reason we have never seen any time travellers. Either that, or the sheer amount of effort involved.

Further reading (just about time travel in general; just did some research and thought I'd share)
Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes & Possibilities
The Physics of Time Travel

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: chr0naut

Travelling back in time IS possible, argues new science book

Stuart’s method of travelling through time for a surprise Christmas gift is not easy, though - it requires travel to another star, a spacecraft that can travel at near light speed, and a gigantic amount of energy.

“What you would do is create a wormhole - you can use them to go backwards,” says Stuart. “What you would need is something really heavy - which bends space - or a huge amount of energy, to create a wormhole. There’s a rule in physics that you can borrow a huge amount of energy - as long as you pay it back quickly - it’s called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.”

“You see it in particles in the Large Hadron Collider which pop in and out of existence. If you can somehow pay off that “debt”, you end up with a permanent wormhole in space - which would take you instantly to, say, another star.”

“To travel “back in time”, you simply have to attach one end of the wormhole to a spaceship, fly around at near the speed of light for a while (so time slows down for the spaceship), then jump through the wormhole.”

If the spaceship flew for five years, only six months would have passed within the wormhole - so if you jump through it to the alien star, then fly back to Earth (on yet another spaceship), you arrive three months before you left.

Because you rely on the wormhole, you can’t go further back than when the machine is invented - hence, perhaps, the reason we have never seen any time travellers. Either that, or the sheer amount of effort involved.

Further reading (just about time travel in general; just did some research and thought I'd share)
Time Travel: Theories, Paradoxes & Possibilities
The Physics of Time Travel

I was editing my previous post and included some similar links.

Cheers!

originally posted by: Develo
You don't get it, I'm not talking about your article. I'm talking about the interest of science into the mystical and spiritual science.howstuffworks.com...

In short: it can be quantified, and it is.

That was an interesting article. I read the whole thing. All three pages (it's technically four but the fourth page is all sources). Though the article DOES make a case for religion being all in your head. It even makes the case that it turned into an evolutionary advantage for early man.

Others are more concerned with the implications of the study. If religion is just an activation of certain parts of the brain, does that mean God or any higher power is just in our heads?

The whole third page is about designing a piece of equipment that creates a religious experience for anyone.

I also like the bit about Saul/Paul having epilepsy. That actually makes sense too.

Confirmation bias doesn't apply in this case and I already explained why.

I understand you refuse to interest yourself in these topics because of your stance, but many scientists are not so afraid to think outside of the box and to put their preconceptions on the examination table.

Question, are you prepared to accept that religion is all in your head if science shows that that is the case?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I already said everything we experience is all in your head. The article was to prove your assumption it's not quantifiable was incorrect (like other assumptions actually).

It's funny you said nothing on the second article though.

I don't think you really want to discuss this with an open mind, more that you want to reassure yourself you are right.

God is a subjective experience, if you can accept that we can discuss more.

Otherwise you will be stuck with the vast majority of people who have a naive image of god. Just like a vast majority of people have a naive image of particle physics or other complex theories.



Since the beginning of our exchange, you talk to me like I'm a Christian fundie, like I read the Bible literally and see god as a supernatural old man in the sky. You imagine ancient Greeks as people believing Zeus is literally a muscular dude holding thunders in his hand.

While since the beginning I've been telling you Christian fundamentalism is typically American, that it's not a part of Christian culture in general. That you have to get rid of your American preconceptions about religions because they do not apply outside your borders.

I've posted countless examples that there is no contradiction between a scientific and critical education and a belief in the absolute. That even the modern theory about the birth of the universe and its expansion was created by a Christian priest.


It's quite insulting that you keep talking to me like I'm some kind of deluded idiot who can't tell the difference between beliefs and facts, between what can be measured and what depends on blind faith. It's really condescending. And it's really insulting from you that after all we exchanged you keep wrongly assuming about who I am and what I believe in, just because I don't quote your post claiming "you are right!" and instead I present you with a less common and yet highly studied vision of spirituality.

Not everyone has the capacity and perseverance to become a particle physicist. And yet some are and today the whole world trusts them and their findings when they talk about subatomic particles. But still, most people have no clue what they talk about and what these particle physicists say will be deformed in the minds of the masses. It will become a superstition, something they blindly believe. And yet it wouldn't mean the physicists were wrong, just that most people were in the way they picture the words of physicists.

It's the same with mystics and spirituality. Not everyone has the capacity nor the chance to make the experience of the absolute, of the non dual. And yet, since the dawn of man, people witnessed such people having similar experiences, and access to a different plane of experience, having access to a timeless wisdom, being able to give hope when none was left. They wouldn't understand it but they would trust them.

And they would also deform their words, hence the religions, hence the myths, hence the cults.

And yet it doesn't mean the mystics were wrong. Just that most people were in the way they understood them.




I really wish you would talk to me like a person capable of critical judgement. And yet, just because you never had a personal (and thus subjective!) experience of the non dual yourself, you talk to me like I'm some kind of self-deluded person.

You are not much different than someone who, unable to experience love himself, would could anyone who claims to be in love "someone only blinded by an hormonal reaction occurring in his brain". In a way you would be right. But in 99 ways you would be wrong.