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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Diploid]
    #14340906 -

I think you misunderstand me a lot. I'm not into the anthropomorphic rendering of 'God' and Your last two sentences are the very reason I search for any form of intelligence underlying our existence and the universe.
    I was raised as a protestant christian and around the age of eighteen I started looking at other religions, buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, paganism, and even some new age stuff. I have not found proof, but I have found perspective. My personal perspective means I cannot be 100% that there is no super intelligence (if you will) that governs the universe (if you will).

  Like I said earlier I agree with your argument, it is however insubstantial to me personally. It doesn't disprove such an intelligence, only the paradoxical nature of existence.

  The benevolence of 'God' is another argument that is sometimes put forward, this I also find insubstantial, as it relies on the premise of good and evil which can be argued are completely subjective and irrelevant when considered in the context of existence as a system.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem] * 1
    #14340945 -

If you are using your faith so that you can focus your attention on good work, then it is justified.
to question faith takes time.
but
if you are ready to devote time to re-architecting your life then engage in discovery and design.
this may take you out of your habits.

if someone calls you retarded they are being manipulative.
however if you are retarded that is a whole nother ball of wax.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem]
    #14340961 -

My personal perspective means I cannot be 100% that there is no super intelligence

But that's true of everything. You can't be 100% sure that there's no Tooth Fairy. So you believe she lives in a nice condo on Venus?

Probably not. So why believe that there is a magical creator when the evidence for his existence is exactly the same evidence for the Tooth Fairy's existence? Namely, none at all.

Besides, there is NOTHING in the observable universe that requires a god for its existence. EVERYTHING humans have ever observed can be explained by purely natural phenomenon.

So why introduce a superfluous god into the equation when he is not necessary for the universe to exist and function?

It's like explaining the condensation of water on a cold glass of lemonade by invoking magic pixies. Sure, condensation may be the result of magic pixies, but why introduce superfluous pixies when it's been shown that simple condensation theory explains it perfectly well and with less complexity?


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Diploid]
    #14341420 -

Cuz pixies make the lemonade taste better. :yesnod:


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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #14341491 -

:fairy:


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Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem]
    #14341818 -

Brainstem said:
I think you misunderstand me a lot. I'm not into the anthropomorphic rendering of 'God' and Your last two sentences are the very reason I search for any form of intelligence underlying our existence and the universe.
    I was raised as a protestant christian and around the age of eighteen I started looking at other religions, buddhism, Judaism, Taoism, paganism, and even some new age stuff. I have not found proof, but I have found perspective. My personal perspective means I cannot be 100% that there is no super intelligence (if you will) that governs the universe (if you will).

  Like I said earlier I agree with your argument, it is however insubstantial to me personally. It doesn't disprove such an intelligence, only the paradoxical nature of existence.

  The benevolence of 'God' is another argument that is sometimes put forward, this I also find insubstantial, as it relies on the premise of good and evil which can be argued are completely subjective and irrelevant when considered in the context of existence as a system.


I think the concept of God relates to our self image, our fears, our survival and procreation desires, much more so than the concept of the Tooth Fairy. And God is a given for a large segment of society, so we grow up in a world where we, to some degree, find ourselves emulating what we see. But once you begin to separate out the fears and organic desire, there's not much reason left to seek God. I think if you will look at the motivations for the searching and wanting to know, you will come to a point where the question of God isn't important. It's a study of natural patterns, and cause and effect that people wish to learn about IMO. Some people don't want to stand at the edge, have a raw experience and attempt to see things the way they really are, so they believe in God, or are lukewarm towards it.

I think having some respect for the emotional side that seems to invoke God is a good idea, but entertaining it is another matter.


--------------------
rahz

comfort pleasure power love     truth awareness peace I am      I feel      I do     I love  I speak    I see    I know

why there is reality and patterned, law-like consistency at all, rather than noise or non-reality is not a question physics answers. It's a question physics presupposes an answer to in order to provide other answers.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Diploid]
    #14342512 -


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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem] * 1
    #14342545 -

There is no reason to blindly accept anything.
There is no reason to blindly reject anything.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem]
    #14348732 -

just as retarded as believing in santa or the easter bunny :shrug:



--------------------


"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: pouihi]
    #14357352 -

"Faith- The Will to avoid knowing what is true"

Beliefs aren't knowledge. If you KNEW something, you would no longer believe it. You wouldn't have to, because you know it.


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Life without drugs lacks substance(s).

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Brainstem] * 1
    #14357467 -

Quote:
If not, could someone please 'enlighten' me as to the correct coherent and logical stance to take when approaching and defending faith ?


An example of a logical reason to believe in God is if you have seen God or experienced God in some way, such as those who have NDE's and claim to meet God or other "higher" powers.

Here is an example. As long as this man is not lying he has a legitimate rational convinction that God exists. He still needs to have some faith that his experience was not a hullicination and that the presence he experienced was indeed the God mankind has talked about since the beginning of time.

http://www.youtube.com/user/soldatheero?feature=mhum#p/f


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..and may the zelda theme song be with you at all times, amen.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: soldatheero]
    #14357530 -

The NDE is an artifact of neuron hypoxia. This has been demonstrated by modern neural imaging technique and studies of epileptics.

The NDE can even be reproduced on demand in a surgical suite on brain surgery patients.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Diploid]
    #14357700 -

All that has been demonsrated is that a certain component of the NDE can be correlated to physical processes, neuron hypocia doesn't even come close to explaining the entire range of NDE experiences.

How does neuron hypocia explain how a person vividely remembers floating about their body and how they can recal conversations and describe instruments used during the operation.


http://www.spiritualtravel.org/OBE/nde_arguments.html
"One of the most recent media reports on out-of-body experience came from a CNN story where the headline read: "Scientists recreate out-of-body experience". What is actually being done in the experiment if you read further is "creat[ing] the illusion of an out-of-body experience" . This was done with an experiment using two different sets of scenes from different video cameras in association with stereoscopic virtual reality goggles which made the subjects feel like their body was mysteriously shifted to a different location than the one it was in at the beginning of the experiment.

It was quite a vivid experience for most people," Dr Ehrsson told CNN. "Many of them giggled and said 'Wow, this is so weird!'. One of the people I tested had experienced an OBE before, and explained that the experiment had produced a very similar sensation."
The scientist concluded,

"It reveals the basic mechanism that produces the feeling of being inside the physical body. This represents a significant advance because the experience of one's own body as the center of awareness is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness,"-
My response is first that reproducing the illusion of an OBE is not necessarily reproducing an OBE. Second, the "feeling" of being outside the body is only one component of an OBE. The perceptions that occur while outside the body which vary greatly are another important component that is not dealt with by this experiment. The idea that there is one kind of feeling associated with being out of the body is naive. This feeling could be described as a simple case of vertigo based on the disorientation of the subjects brought on by the cameras providing them with confusing visual information.
There are also a wide spectrum of internal feelings associated with OBEs. Any researcher who accepts the vague notion of a subject having a single feeling which describes or defines an OBE needs to first sharpen his or her analytic skills before even beginning such an experiment.

Third, only one person in the group of test subjects had ever had an OBE before. So claiming that the feeling is the same is a bit premature on the part of the researchers. We see this tendency to jump to conclusions frequently. Fourth, the interactive side of the OBE where the person moves his or her body and interacts with physical (or nonphysical) objects is completely missing from subjects sitting passively in a chair. This "feeling" of having an OBE seems to differ greatly from many actual OBEs."


Quote:
The NDE is an artifact of neuron hypocia. This has been demonstrated by modern neural imaging technique and studies of epileptics.




You are so positive so show me your data and present your argument that explains away the NDE so easily.


--------------------
..and may the zelda theme song be with you at all times, amen.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: soldatheero]
    #14357770 -

show me your data and present your argument that explains away the NDE so easily

There is a structure in the brain that is attributed with this sensation. This area of the brain is credited with giving a person the sensation of existing inside their head and is one explanation for why people who recover from anoxia often report OBEs.

The area in question is called the Angular Gyrus. It's located in the parietal lobe (top-back) of the brain near where the sense of balance is processed. The AG is larger in hominids than in other primates. It's involved in language processing and particularly with the comprehension of metaphors. People with injury to the AG are unable to interpret metaphors and can only comprehend the literal meaning of the words while all other language skills remain unaffected.

The relationship to OBEs was first found while treating a woman for intractable epilepsy. To localize the source of the patient's seizures, doctors at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland implanted electrodes in the patient's brain. With the patient awake, they probed her brain to map the pathology.

Stimulation of the AG caused various sensations including "sinking into the bed", "falling from a height", "seeing myself lying in bed from above", "floating", and all the other sensations people who claim OBEs report.

Electrical stimulation of the AG causes these sensations because it disrupts the ability of the brain to make sense of touch and balance input. It has been suggested (though not confirmed yet) that sleep may disturb the neurological activity near the AG which may be involved in the phenomenon of lucid dreaming.

how they can recal conversations and describe instruments used during the operation

They were there, weren't they? If anesthesia induction is incomplete, the patient will remember things. This is one of the hazards of general anesthesia that doctors work hard to prevent, but sometimes it happens. Occasionally, a patient will have complete recall of the entire procedure, including pain, but will be unable to move during the procedure. It leads to lawsuits.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #14358287 -

Quote:
if someone calls you retarded they are being manipulative. however if you are retarded that is a whole nother ball of wax.


I like to think of you as a whole 'nother ball of wax.

:ban:


--------------------

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Re: Is it ever, not retarded to believe ? [Re: Diploid]
    #14358355 -

Quote:
They were there, weren't they? If anesthesia induction is incomplete, the patient will remember things. This is one of the hazards of general anesthesia that doctors work hard to prevent, but sometimes it happens


They describe floating over their bodies. Even they are hearinh normally through the body then why arent they feeling any of the other effects of their body such as pain and disorientation.

Quote:
he relationship to OBEs was first found while treating a woman for intractable epilepsy. To localize the source of the patient's seizures, doctors at the University Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne in Switzerland implanted electrodes in the patient's brain. With the patient awake, they probed her brain to map the pathology.

Stimulation of the AG caused various sensations including "sinking into the bed", "falling from a height", "seeing myself lying in bed from above", "floating", and all the other sensations people who claim OBEs report


We are talking about NDE's which OBE's are merely an isolated part of. Even then like I quoted, "My response is first that reproducing the illusion of an OBE is not necessarily reproducing an OBE. Second, the "feeling" of being outside the body is only one component of an OBE".

They may have the sensation of "seeing oneself from above" but that is different from actually viewing yourself from above.

Even then you are a farcry from explaining the NDE. Why is there consciousness in the first place, in some cases many hours after the brain is inactive. The conscious experience described is also vivid and crystal clear which is contrary to dreaming.

To say neuron hypocia is the cause of the entire cause of the NDE phenomenon and case closed is IMO a very premature conclusion and illogical.


--------------------
..and may the zelda theme song be with you at all times, amen.

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