Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote (to salyavin808): 1. Remember Gould's phrase, nonoverlapping magisteria? 2. What do you mean by real? Define it, please. Perhaps you should also define 'real' and see if the definitions match up first. In science, real is defined primarily by 'show me', that is provide a demonstration of what one thinks as real, something someone else can replicate. This is the empirical path. This is done by proxy (scientific papers) where the record of the experience is detailed and those instructions can be followed to replicate it. Then there is private experience, which is like the path of enlightenment where certain things are postulated and there are various instructions for attempting to replicate the experience privately, but of course, no one else can see the result. Therefore you have either a public demonstration which all can see, or a private confirmation which no one can see. Arguments by themselves are groundless: sophistry and illusion as David Hume would say (with a Scottish twang). Things concerning gods (1 or more) as theism progressed seem to have become a more private experience matter and therefore resolution would seem to depend on the path of enlightenment. But the path of enlightenment eventually undoes the reality of verbal truth, and in addition the experience of unification undoes the concept of 'nonoverlapping magisteria' when everything is experienced as connected. So it can't be demonstrated, arguments lead nowhere except trading opinion, and what might perhaps be called the mystical resolution of the problem (enlightenment) completely undoes the premises upon which the argument is founded.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Perhaps Xeno doesn't recall, but real was Salyavin's term, not mine, so obviously he has to go first. But of course his definition will just be a restatement of his metaphysical assertion that only what's measurable is real (the fundamental premise of scientism). IOW, he can't object if my definition is also metaphysical. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote (to salyavin808): 1. Remember Gould's phrase, nonoverlapping magisteria? 2. What do you mean by real? Define it, please. Perhaps you should also define 'real' and see if the definitions match up first. In science, real is defined primarily by 'show me', that is provide a demonstration of what one thinks as real, something someone else can replicate. This is the empirical path. This is done by proxy (scientific papers) where the record of the experience is detailed and those instructions can be followed to replicate it. Then there is private experience, which is like the path of enlightenment where certain things are postulated and there are various instructions for attempting to replicate the experience privately, but of course, no one else can see the result. Therefore you have either a public demonstration which all can see, or a private confirmation which no one can see. Arguments by themselves are groundless: sophistry and illusion as David Hume would say (with a Scottish twang). Things concerning gods (1 or more) as theism progressed seem to have become a more private experience matter and therefore resolution would seem to depend on the path of enlightenment. But the path of enlightenment eventually undoes the reality of verbal truth, and in addition the experience of unification undoes the concept of 'nonoverlapping magisteria' when everything is experienced as connected. So it can't be demonstrated, arguments lead nowhere except trading opinion, and what might perhaps be called the mystical resolution of the problem (enlightenment) completely undoes the premises upon which the argument is founded.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/17/2014 9:49 AM, authfri...@yahoo.com wrote: *Perhaps Xeno doesn't recall, but real was Salyavin's term, not mine, so obviously he has to go first. But of course his definition will just be a restatement of his metaphysical assertion that only what's measurable is real (the fundamental premise of scientism). IOW, he can't object if my definition is also metaphysical. * Perhaps Judy doesn't recall, but real was Barry's term to define his guru's feats of levitation, as opposed to her yogic flying practice and just plain stage magic. This was not a metaphysical assertion, but was based on eye-witness accounts from hundreds of observers - and the science of the levitation event must have been measurable. According to what I've read, Rama was able to levitate at least an inch or two for a second or two, but others say he suspended himself in mid-air for an indefinite period of time and then filled the whole lecture hall with golden light. Barry claims it was REAL levitation. Go figure. The levitation I and thousands of other people witnessed *was* real. We saw it. We felt it. - TurquoiseB http://www.mail-archive.com/fairfieldlife%40yahoogroups.com/msg19778.html --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/16/2014 9:56 AM, Share Long wrote: Richard, Wilbur's book was published 21 years ago. I think neuroscience has added greatly to our understanding of consciousness since then. Maybe so, Share I mentioned Wilber because in his books there is an affinity with the POV of some TMers, which is much more interesting than the authors cited in this thread. Wilber ascribes to the 'two truths doctrine' of Nagarjuna. For Wilber no metaphysical doctrine or apparent reality is true in an absolute sense: only formless awareness, the simple feeling of being, exists absolutely. Work cited: 'A Brief History of Everything' By Ken Wilber Shambhala, 2007 Page 42-3 --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Richard, maybe the eye can't see itself but only consciousness can know consciousness (-: On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 10:06 AM, pundits...@gmail.com pundits...@gmail.com wrote: In Eye to Eye, Ken Wilber applies his spectrum of consciousness model to epistemology. Epistemology is the science of what can be known - knowledge, and how we get it. Attempting to investigate the realm of spirit, for example, with the eye of flesh, that is, the eye that perceives only sensory phenomena, will not yield real knowledge of the realm of spirit, which is not disclosed to sensory perception. There is an old Zen saying: 'The eye cannot see itself.' There is no place in this new kind of physics both for field and matter, for the field is the only reality. - Albert Einstein Read more: 'Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm' by Ken Wilber Shambhala, 1990 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, Wilbur's book was published 21 years ago. I think neuroscience has added greatly to our understanding of consciousness since then.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Try to imagine someone so desperate for attention that they settle for trumped-up arguments instead of conversation. Now imagine someone so intellectually challenged that they try to do this without ever coming up with an argument of their own. Finally, imagine someone who, when called on this, has nothing to fall back on but trying to correct the person they're trying to get attention from about a nitpick. It's pretty difficult to imagine anyone more pitiable than Judy Stein, isn't it? Old, ugly, bitter, and she can't even ARGUE worth a damn any more. :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 7:52 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous I see you are reduced to your usual nitpicking in order to mask the fact you have no argument. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : BTW, it's Feser, not Fess. I corrected you once on this already. It's not really such a difficult name to spell. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? Were they unreal when they weren't measurable? Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of the religious traditions. Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the best scientific instrument of all! On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt to make me look stupid, Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also our oft repeated jyotish discussion. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If I was to say you have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear. or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where classical theism is concerned. Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to provide any actual evidence beyond the I want it to be like this variety. I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it sure is succinct. There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including the laws of physics You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god that has these qualities. 1. Transcendence 2. Omnipotence 3. Omniscience 4. Omnipresence 5. Absolute Benevolence but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick. The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that. But please don't write back with another but you don't understand, my god is different... it's the concept. I'm sure Ed Fess can wriggle his way round it with some other version but I really don't care. I convert for evidence. And necessity would count as a form of evidence. And there is no necessity, as well as the other major evidential problems. And like that we have a much better explanation. So really, why bother? Unless you want to. and if you want to, fine. Here's how science works. Someone has a model of how they think the world works - an old one is that the earth is the centre of the universe and everything else revolves round it. Looks good from a position standing on the Earth's surface but if you measure the way planets move you find you have a really complex set of mathematical calculations to make so you can make predictions about where they will be in the future. Sometime later someone thought that maybe the Earth isn't the centre of the universe and that everything went round the sun. Voila! all of a sudden things made more sense, and the universe had become simpler to explain. Simplicity in explanations is good. That's been going on for centuries, new measurements reveal that an old model of the universe is inadequate so a new one has to be drawn up. That process will continue until someone puts down their electron microscope and says that's it. Finished. Until that glorious day (if it ever happens) anyone with an idea that improves upon an old one has to provide a superior explanation to the one they are replacing. This will get accepted as the new paradigm. Simples. I ask myself what contribution the many versions of classical theism (or any sort - they are much of a muchness to me) is actually making that improves on what we have. Seems like not much, but as it concerns a prime mover it would have to be fundamental wouldn't it? It also seems to me that classical theism would be one of the early models that got superceded. If it was real it would be kind of hard for an accurate model to function without it I would have thought. But it determinedly refuses to be measurable except as something people want to be true. So the only way it isn't in conflict with science is because it isn't measurable. And if it isn't measurable it isn't real. It's the concept, it's wrong.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? Were they unreal when they weren't measurable? No, they were always measurable, we just didn't have the technology to do it. Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of the religious traditions. You never know your luck, so far it looks like the opposite is true. But people will always claim they have been vindicated if they can. Look at all the quantum mystics there are. How serious to take them? Basically, if you see the word quantum outside of a physics textbook, ignore it. Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the best scientific instrument of all! It's great at some things. In the occasions in my life that I've ignored my inner voice things have gone always wrong. It's like our conscious ways of working out what to do are woefully inadequate compared to our instinctive selves. I don't think it works at all beyond our own personal experiences. I would say that the only people who ever came up with a good cosmological theory without the ability to test it (like the Greek speculation about atoms - it's Greek for indivisible) got there more by luck and never knew if they were right or not. Which is why there are so many different revealed versions of the truth... On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt to make me look stupid, Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also our oft repeated jyotish discussion. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If I was to say you have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear. or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where classical theism is concerned. Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to provide any actual evidence beyond the I want it to be like this variety. I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it sure is succinct. There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including the laws of physics You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god that has these qualities. Transcendence Omnipotence Omniscience Omnipresence Absolute Benevolence but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick. The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that. But please don't write back with another but you don't understand, my god is different... it's the concept. I'm sure Ed Fess can wriggle his way round it with some other version but I really don't care. I convert for evidence. And necessity would count as a form of evidence. And there is no necessity, as well as the other major evidential problems. And like that we have a much better explanation. So really, why bother? Unless you want to. and if you want to, fine. Here's how science works. Someone has a model of how they think the world works - an old one is that the earth is the centre of the universe and everything else revolves round it. Looks good from a position standing on the Earth's surface but if you measure the way planets move you find you have a really complex set of mathematical calculations to make so you can make predictions about where they will be in the future. Sometime later someone thought that maybe the Earth isn't the centre of the universe and that everything went round the sun. Voila! all of a sudden things made more sense, and the universe had become simpler to explain. Simplicity in explanations is good. That's been going on for centuries, new measurements reveal that an old model of the universe is inadequate so a new one has to be drawn up. That process will continue until someone
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? There are to my knowledge no scientists on this discussion group, so what you are reading Share is about metaphysics, not about science. In Indian metaphysics, if some proposition or statement is found to be self-contradictory, it doesn't exist. For example, if you see a thief at night, and then you realize in the light, that it was just a fence post, then the thief didn't exist - except in your mind. The presentation of the mistaken theif is real because it was presented to you, but it was not real in the absolute sense - it was an illusion, not real, yet not unreal either. Almost the whole of Indian metaphysics is based on the notion of the illusion aspect of the world of the senses. So the only way it isn't in conflict with science is because it isn't measurable. And if it isn't measurable it isn't real. It's the concept, it's wrong.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Try to imagine someone so desperate for attention that they settle for made-up claims about witnessing their guru levitate hundreds of times. And, instead of conversation, making even bolder claims about their guru being able to generate golden light to fill a lecture hall filled with thousands of trance-induction inductees. Go figure. And, then try to imagine a stage-magic conversation with The Amazing Randi. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : Try to imagine someone so desperate for attention that they settle for trumped-up arguments instead of conversation.ore. :-) I see you are reduced to your usual nitpicking in order to mask the fact you have no argument.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Actually Richard, I think you are speaking about 2 kinds of mistakes. The phrase son of a barren woman represents a logical impossibility, a self contradiction. But mistaking the fence post for a thief is a mistake of perception. About this you are correct in that the person truly perceived a thief. But the perception itself was later discovered to have been mistaken. On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 9:10 AM, pundits...@gmail.com pundits...@gmail.com wrote: ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? There are to my knowledge no scientists on this discussion group, so what you are reading Share is about metaphysics, not about science. In Indian metaphysics, if some proposition or statement is found to be self-contradictory, it doesn't exist. For example, if you see a thief at night, and then you realize in the light, that it was just a fence post, then the thief didn't exist - except in your mind. The presentation of the mistaken theif is real because it was presented to you, but it was not real in the absolute sense - it was an illusion, not real, yet not unreal either. Almost the whole of Indian metaphysics is based on the notion of the illusion aspect of the world of the senses. So the only way it isn't in conflict with science is because it isn't measurable. And if it isn't measurable it isn't real. It's the concept, it's wrong.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
So salyavin, thinking of the atom which has always been real and measurable except that we didn't have the instruments to do so, is it possible that there exists right now, something else which is real and measurable but for which we don't yet have the instruments for measuring? On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 7:12 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? Were they unreal when they weren't measurable? No, they were always measurable, we just didn't have the technology to do it. Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of the religious traditions. You never know your luck, so far it looks like the opposite is true. But people will always claim they have been vindicated if they can. Look at all the quantum mystics there are. How serious to take them? Basically, if you see the word quantum outside of a physics textbook, ignore it. Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the best scientific instrument of all! It's great at some things. In the occasions in my life that I've ignored my inner voice things have gone always wrong. It's like our conscious ways of working out what to do are woefully inadequate compared to our instinctive selves. I don't think it works at all beyond our own personal experiences. I would say that the only people who ever came up with a good cosmological theory without the ability to test it (like the Greek speculation about atoms - it's Greek for indivisible) got there more by luck and never knew if they were right or not. Which is why there are so many different revealed versions of the truth... On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt to make me look stupid, Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also our oft repeated jyotish discussion. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If I was to say you have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear. or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where classical theism is concerned. Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to provide any actual evidence beyond the I want it to be like this variety. I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it sure is succinct. There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including the laws of physics You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god that has these qualities. 1. Transcendence 2. Omnipotence 3. Omniscience 4. Omnipresence 5. Absolute Benevolence but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick. The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that. But please don't write back with another but you don't understand, my god is different... it's the concept. I'm sure Ed Fess can wriggle his way round it with some other version but I really don't care. I convert for evidence. And necessity would count as a form of evidence. And there is no necessity, as well as the other major evidential problems. And like that we have a much better explanation. So really, why bother? Unless you want to. and if you want to, fine. Here's how science works. Someone has a model of how they think the world works - an old one is that the earth is the centre of the universe and everything else revolves round it. Looks good from a position standing on the Earth's surface but if you measure the way planets move you find you have a really complex set of mathematical calculations to make so you can make predictions about where they will be in the future. Sometime later someone thought that maybe the Earth isn't the centre of the universe and
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
I was with some children last night. I have no children myself, so it was rather intriguing watching what interests them. One was about one year old, and the other about three. The one year old seemed totally fascinated with an empty aseptic package (Rice milk or something like that). Its whole world was wrapped up in this empty package. It made me wonder how its mind was beginning to fashion the world it experiences. The other child was much more interactive with me because she could speak, but I could rarely understand what she was talking about. The ego was forming in this one, but mostly she was interacting with me with a beach ball and some other small spherical toys. I have vague memories of my childhood playing and making up stuff, trying to figure out how things works. Somewhere along the line all this make believe solidifies into something more sinister - what I think is real. The pretend becomes fossilised. The spiritual path reverses this fossilisation, but only at the end, almost as a corollary. When one realises that the world of the senses is all there is, what is happening now, this has a huge fallout in regard to what one thought was real. The 'transcendent' that far away, mystical idea about where things come from turns out to be just the entire expanse of what one has always experienced from day one. But this means, in terms of the mind, that all those ideas about reality were a dream, they were just an attempt by the mind to make sense of experience correlated with what others informed me about experience. Most of the the thoughts I have about things largely result from input from outside, from other humans. Most of the words and concepts I use do not come from me, they are reprocessed input from others, refashioned by the peculiar twists of my nervous system. Those words and concepts are then projected onto sensory experience as an attempt to explain it all. But those words are just symbolic tokens. Now there is an experience, based on what some have reported, that I could call God, but I choose not to do so because that experience would hardly resemble what I perceive others have as their take on that word, because it is not intelligent in the way most seem to me to understand what intelligence is. The experience is really a mental ghost, the remains of a long search for what the mind imagined was real but was not. Transcendence is a token, a label for an experience that for part of the journey seemed to exist but does not now. It is very difficult to explain this in any way that would not create a picture in the mind that is patently false. All ideas about this are false. The whole apparatus of spiritual development is really a mechanism for manipulating the mind's ability to phantasise and dream, and to manipulate it into a corner where it ceases to be the dominant quality of living. Because one still has thoughts, can think about things etc., the potential to dream nonsense onto one's experience of life is still there, so there is always the chance the mind will trap experience again, but at some point it seems less and less likely this will happen. This is what freedom is like, the mind's idea of reality does not dominate experience. The corollary is the mind thinks thoughts that are always in some way false, but unlike the mind of a child where an empty box becomes the whole world, spiritual awaking shows one that in some way, all of one's ideas are in reality an individual mind's opinion, not a fact, not true. There are practical applications of thought. Science takes great pains to try to align thought with perception, to make the concepts and ideas that come from the mind correlate with the world of observation, and it is quite clear that this is not a perfect process, it is always an approximation. A scientist is always on the edge of a precipice where his or her ideas will be show up as being wrong. Thoughts approximate reality by proxy, they are an imperfect stand-in for the other aspects of human experience. I think this is the basic mistake on a spiritual path, that one has found the truth in the descriptive words of spirituality. Scientists seem actually much better at formulating thoughts one might call 'true' in some way. Religions are terrible at this because the thoughts, the concepts get fossilised. Science provides a chisel to crack the rock away, but it cannot free the mind from the identification with thought. Scientists argue just as much as spiritual people, but they have a method for settling differences. Because spiritual experience is private and seemingly numinous at times there is no public forum for communication and correlation of thoughts, no way to investigate. When a child makes a whole world out of an empty box, the mind is creating a metaphysical dream. When grown-ups do this I would call it theology or politics. I have a certain fondness for the sage Nisargadatta. A
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Richard, Wilbur's book was published 21 years ago. I think neuroscience has added greatly to our understanding of consciousness since then. On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 9:50 AM, pundits...@gmail.com pundits...@gmail.com wrote: Ajax: To find out if this is real or not, there is no evidence except the experience. One of the most thorough account of the spiritual approach may be Ken Wilber's book The Spectrum of Consciousness, a comparison of western and eastern ways of thinking about the mind, Ken Wilber described consciousness as a spectrum with ordinary awareness at one end, and more profound types of awareness at higher levels. Duality is only an appearance; non-duality is the real truth. The object exists as an object for the knowing subject; but it does not exist outside of consciousness because the distinction of subject and object is within consciousness. (IV 25-27) Sharma, p. 245-246. Work cited: 'The Spectrum of Consciousness' By Ken Wilber Quest Books, 1993 pp. 3-16; 52
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Knowledge is power, Share. It's like the analogy of the snake in the garden. At night we see what appears to be a snake in the garden; in the daylight we see that it was only a coiled up rope. The snake was real because it was presented to our consciousness, but in reality it wasn't a real snake at all. The snake was not real, yet not unreal - it was just an illusion due to our ignorance and the perception of the senses. Pure consciousness is the only Reality. By its nature, it is Self-luminous. (XIII, 13). Thus shaking off duality, he directly perceives the Absolute which is the unity underlying phenomena (dharmadatu). (VI, 7) Sharma, p. 112-113 Share: So salyavin, thinking of the atom which has always been real and measurable except that we didn't have the instruments to do so, is it possible that there exists right now, something else which is real and measurable but for which we don't yet have the instruments for measuring?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
In Eye to Eye, Ken Wilber applies his spectrum of consciousness model to epistemology. Epistemology is the science of what can be known - knowledge, and how we get it. Attempting to investigate the realm of spirit, for example, with the eye of flesh, that is, the eye that perceives only sensory phenomena, will not yield real knowledge of the realm of spirit, which is not disclosed to sensory perception. There is an old Zen saying: 'The eye cannot see itself.' There is no place in this new kind of physics both for field and matter, for the field is the only reality. - Albert Einstein Read more: 'Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New Paradigm' by Ken Wilber Shambhala, 1990 ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : Richard, Wilbur's book was published 21 years ago. I think neuroscience has added greatly to our understanding of consciousness since then.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
From: anartax...@yahoo.com anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous I was with some children last night. I have no children myself, so it was rather intriguing watching what interests them. One was about one year old, and the other about three. The one year old seemed totally fascinated with an empty aseptic package (Rice milk or something like that). Its whole world was wrapped up in this empty package. It made me wonder how its mind was beginning to fashion the world it experiences. The other child was much more interactive with me because she could speak, but I could rarely understand what she was talking about. The ego was forming in this one, but mostly she was interacting with me with a beach ball and some other small spherical toys. I have vague memories of my childhood playing and making up stuff, trying to figure out how things works. Somewhere along the line all this make believe solidifies into something more sinister - what I think is real. The pretend becomes fossilised. I won't comment on the deeper aspects of your post, just pass along a wonderful moment having to do with children. Or one child, at least. Here's Maya yesterday, revealing her aspect as the Buddha of Compassion, meditating on the infinite wonder of bunnies. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
But, can she levitate like Rama? I won't comment on the deeper aspects of your post, just pass along a wonderful moment having to do with children.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! On Wed, 4/16/14, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com wrote: Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Wednesday, April 16, 2014, 3:09 PM From: anartax...@yahoo.com anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous I was with some children last night. I have no children myself, so it was rather intriguing watching what interests them. One was about one year old, and the other about three. The one year old seemed totally fascinated with an empty aseptic package (Rice milk or something like that). Its whole world was wrapped up in this empty package. It made me wonder how its mind was beginning to fashion the world it experiences. The other child was much more interactive with me because she could speak, but I could rarely understand what she was talking about. The ego was forming in this one, but mostly she was interacting with me with a beach ball and some other small spherical toys. I have vague memories of my childhood playing and making up stuff, trying to figure out how things works. Somewhere along the line all this make believe solidifies into something more sinister - what I think is real. The pretend becomes fossilised. I won't comment on the deeper aspects of your post, just pass along a wonderful moment having to do with children. Or one child, at least. Here's Maya yesterday, revealing her aspect as the Buddha of Compassion, meditating on the infinite wonder of bunnies. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
totally sweet and peaceful too. thanks turq, I realize I've missed seeing photos of Maya... On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 10:12 AM, TurquoiseBee turquoi...@yahoo.com wrote: From: anartax...@yahoo.com anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2014 4:53 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous I was with some children last night. I have no children myself, so it was rather intriguing watching what interests them. One was about one year old, and the other about three. The one year old seemed totally fascinated with an empty aseptic package (Rice milk or something like that). Its whole world was wrapped up in this empty package. It made me wonder how its mind was beginning to fashion the world it experiences. The other child was much more interactive with me because she could speak, but I could rarely understand what she was talking about. The ego was forming in this one, but mostly she was interacting with me with a beach ball and some other small spherical toys. I have vague memories of my childhood playing and making up stuff, trying to figure out how things works. Somewhere along the line all this make believe solidifies into something more sinister - what I think is real. The pretend becomes fossilised. I won't comment on the deeper aspects of your post, just pass along a wonderful moment having to do with children. Or one child, at least. Here's Maya yesterday, revealing her aspect as the Buddha of Compassion, meditating on the infinite wonder of bunnies. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : So salyavin, thinking of the atom which has always been real and measurable except that we didn't have the instruments to do so, is it possible that there exists right now, something else which is real and measurable but for which we don't yet have the instruments for measuring? Aha, good question! By else I assume you means something interesting rather than just another subatomic particle that's virtually identical to all the others? Trouble is, if it's bigger than a wavelength of light which is 0.1mm then we'll be able to see it. Unless it's made of something really interesting which means it won't be able to see us either. But it's hard to imagine how something could exist without mass. Mass means gravity which is also measurable. So it's a puzzling thing indeed. But we don't know what we don't know, I imagine if it's undetectable and not interfering with our universe in any way it'll probably stay that way so we'll never know! On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 7:12 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? Were they unreal when they weren't measurable? No, they were always measurable, we just didn't have the technology to do it. Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of the religious traditions. You never know your luck, so far it looks like the opposite is true. But people will always claim they have been vindicated if they can. Look at all the quantum mystics there are. How serious to take them? Basically, if you see the word quantum outside of a physics textbook, ignore it. Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the best scientific instrument of all! It's great at some things. In the occasions in my life that I've ignored my inner voice things have gone always wrong. It's like our conscious ways of working out what to do are woefully inadequate compared to our instinctive selves. I don't think it works at all beyond our own personal experiences. I would say that the only people who ever came up with a good cosmological theory without the ability to test it (like the Greek speculation about atoms - it's Greek for indivisible) got there more by luck and never knew if they were right or not. Which is why there are so many different revealed versions of the truth... On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt to make me look stupid, Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also our oft repeated jyotish discussion. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If I was to say you have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear. or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where classical theism is concerned. Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to provide any actual evidence beyond the I want it to be like this variety. I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it sure is succinct. There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including the laws of physics You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god that has these qualities. Transcendence Omnipotence Omniscience Omnipresence Absolute Benevolence but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick. The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that. But please don't write back with another but you don't understand, my god is different... it's the concept. I'm sure Ed Fess can wriggle his way round it with some other version but I really don't care. I convert for evidence.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
salyavin, you read my mind! That's exactly what I was thinking of! Go figure (-: On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12:26 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : So salyavin, thinking of the atom which has always been real and measurable except that we didn't have the instruments to do so, is it possible that there exists right now, something else which is real and measurable but for which we don't yet have the instruments for measuring? Aha, good question! By else I assume you means something interesting rather than just another subatomic particle that's virtually identical to all the others? Trouble is, if it's bigger than a wavelength of light which is 0.1mm then we'll be able to see it. Unless it's made of something really interesting which means it won't be able to see us either. But it's hard to imagine how something could exist without mass. Mass means gravity which is also measurable. So it's a puzzling thing indeed. But we don't know what we don't know, I imagine if it's undetectable and not interfering with our universe in any way it'll probably stay that way so we'll never know! On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 7:12 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, it stopped me in my tracks here at the end when you say ...if it isn't measurable it isn't real. How about atoms? Were they unreal when they weren't measurable? No, they were always measurable, we just didn't have the technology to do it. Did they only become real when we became able to measure them? Of course these are rhetorical questions meant to make the point that I think one of the functions of science is to make measurable that which has been real all along but existing beyond the usual range of our senses. For this reason, I think some day science will *prove* the truth of many of the spiritual and some of the religious traditions. You never know your luck, so far it looks like the opposite is true. But people will always claim they have been vindicated if they can. Look at all the quantum mystics there are. How serious to take them? Basically, if you see the word quantum outside of a physics textbook, ignore it. Meanwhile, people take it on faith. Why? Because maybe human intuition is the best scientific instrument of all! It's great at some things. In the occasions in my life that I've ignored my inner voice things have gone always wrong. It's like our conscious ways of working out what to do are woefully inadequate compared to our instinctive selves. I don't think it works at all beyond our own personal experiences. I would say that the only people who ever came up with a good cosmological theory without the ability to test it (like the Greek speculation about atoms - it's Greek for indivisible) got there more by luck and never knew if they were right or not. Which is why there are so many different revealed versions of the truth... On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 4:24 PM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : P.S.: Either you just made up what you attributed to me in a malicious attempt to make me look stupid, Yup, malicious that's me. You made yourself look stupid - not to mention exceptionally irritating - with your refusal to explain what you mean. See also our oft repeated jyotish discussion. And I notice from the Ed Fess blog that he uses the same lame argument about having to have read all types to know that you can discount them. Nonsense. If I was to say you have to have ridden every type of bicycle before you can say you don't like cycling what would you say? It's the concept dear. or your thinking has been going off in the wrong direction, at least where classical theism is concerned. Depends which version of classical theism you are talking about, there appear to be hundreds but I've no doubt they can all be adapted to avoid having to provide any actual evidence beyond the I want it to be like this variety. I repeat my usual position that applies to all theism. It's unnecessary so why bother? That's a fab encapsulation by the way, not as elegant as Xeno but it sure is succinct. There is no conflict whatsoever between classical theism and science, including the laws of physics You may have found a version that doesn't but I can assure you that any god that has these qualities. 1. Transcendence 2. Omnipotence 3. Omniscience 4. Omnipresence 5. Absolute Benevolence but doesn't, or never has, interfered with his creation is missing a trick. The funny thing about the universe is that it looks exactly as one would if it wasn't made by a god with these classical theistic qualities. Odd that. But please don't write back with another but you don't understand, my god is
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/16/2014 12:37 PM, salyavin808 wrote: But I'd leave the junkyard dog act here, they seem like a civilised bunch and I didn't notice any sneering, badmouthing or withering insults. It looks like this is about the time for this thread to turn to crap. It looks like somebody is having trouble understanding that consciousness is the being - it's not a object of knowledge. Go figure. P.S. Has anybody thought about snipping these messages before they reply? It's not complicated. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
You mean, the post where I pointed out to Salyavin that he was hanging his hat on metaphysics rather than science? BTW, I haven't noticed that Salyavin has any hesitation about paying attention to me. He did start this discussion, after all, and he sure doesn't seem as though he's ready to quit. But he does seem to be more interested in blathering than engaging, so I'd be perfectly happy if he just gave it up. Finally, imagine someone who, when called on this, has nothing to fall back on but trying to correct the person they're trying to get attention from about a nitpick.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You mean, the post where I pointed out to Salyavin that he was hanging his hat on metaphysics rather than science? I was impressed, it was a damn good way of getting out of answering the question. Again. And laden with your usual insults to cover your embarrassment too perhaps. BTW, I haven't noticed that Salyavin has any hesitation about paying attention to me. He did start this discussion, after all, and he sure doesn't seem as though he's ready to quit. But he does seem to be more interested in blathering than engaging, so I'd be perfectly happy if he just gave it up. I bet, it's a tricky question to answer because it requires invoking things that can't be observed and that don't fit in with what can be observed. Be as metaphysical as you like! But if you want to drop it fine. I couldn't answer it. Finally, imagine someone who, when called on this, has nothing to fall back on but trying to correct the person they're trying to get attention from about a nitpick.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/16/2014 1:37 PM, authfri...@yahoo.com wrote: But boy, you freak out when you're challenged. He was speechless when I reminded him that TM was based on thinking, and he couldn't provide an example of a thought causing a physical change. Maybe he believes Barry saw Rama levitate hundreds of times. Maybe he is suggestible like Barry. Maybe you wore him down. Maybe next time he will not engage you in a debate. Maybe. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/16/2014 1:24 PM, authfri...@yahoo.com wrote: Wow, finding out that you've been espousing a metaphysical theory has really discombobulated you, has it not? It won't be the first time somebody on this list used metaphysics when they were trying to talk about science. Barry writes science articles but he believes in Buddhas. Go figure. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Which question? You asked a bunch of them. All of them were irrelevant, though. You seem to believe that classical theism and science are in competition--but they aren't, couldn't be. Classical theism doesn't pretend to improve on science. That would be silly. Remember Gould's phrase, nonoverlapping magisteria? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria Remember how this started? My point has always been that if you want to defeat theism, you have to address its strongest arguments. But you need to realize that the consequences of not defeating theism are not that science will be defeated. You don't have to defeat theism to protect science, unless you're talking about, say, Creationism, which does challenge science (or aims to do so, unsuccessfully). Classical theism doesn't claim it can be observed or measured or any of what we require of science. But that doesn't mean the God of classical theism isn't real--depending on what you mean by real. What do you mean by real? Define it, please. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You mean, the post where I pointed out to Salyavin that he was hanging his hat on metaphysics rather than science? I was impressed, it was a damn good way of getting out of answering the question. Again. And laden with your usual insults to cover your embarrassment too perhaps. BTW, I haven't noticed that Salyavin has any hesitation about paying attention to me. He did start this discussion, after all, and he sure doesn't seem as though he's ready to quit. But he does seem to be more interested in blathering than engaging, so I'd be perfectly happy if he just gave it up. I bet, it's a tricky question to answer because it requires invoking things that can't be observed and that don't fit in with what can be observed. Be as metaphysical as you like! But if you want to drop it fine. I couldn't answer it. Finally, imagine someone who, when called on this, has nothing to fall back on but trying to correct the person they're trying to get attention from about a nitpick.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/16/2014 11:05 AM, Michael Jackson wrote: Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful! Thank you. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
This is the same number she's tried to run any number of times before: I won't discuss this weighty matter with you unless you do your homework and read all the ideas I (supposedly) have read about this (idiotic) concept first. It's intellectual McCarthyism. Sorta like I have in my hand a list of all of the Communists in the State Department, she claims I have in my mind a list of all of the arguments of classical theism that prove you're an idiot and I'm smarter than you. The trick of this tactic, of course, is to never reveal the list. :-) She's done it with astrology/Jyotish and with other dumbfuck ideas, always trying to put the onus on the person she's trying to convince of the validity of the dumbfuck idea. NEWS FLASH TO JUDY: We don't believe in the dumbfuck idea. We're pretty convinced that the dumbfuck idea is SO dumb that we don't care to invest any time in reading treatises about the dumbfuck idea written by so-called experts or philosophers. If you want to argue for the dumbfuck idea you're championing, you've got to EXPLAIN IT YOURSELF. Which, of course, is the reason she doesn't ever explain. She can't. She's never been a teacher, and doesn't have either the thinking or the writing skills to adequately explain her position to someone who doesn't already share it. She has that lazy TM mindset in which one can only explain dumbfuck ideas to people who have already been conditioned to believe them. So she runs this number over and over and over again, to try to make those who don't buy the dumbfuck idea in the first place look STOOOPID for not having read volumes of purple prose defending the dumbfuck idea. Salyavin nails it. Until Judy can make her *own* case for the dumbfuck idea she wishes to promote, no one needs to pay any attention to it whatsoever. But she'll never do that, because then she'd have to reveal that she actually *believes* in the dumbfuck idea, and thus she'd lose her Get Out Of Jail Free card, the one that allows her to pretend she's only arguing on principle, not because she's a fanatical believer in the dumbfuck idea. :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 7:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Yet another atheist wannabe who simply cannot lower himself to reading enough philosophy to realize the incoherence of one of his fundamental premises, or that the purported evidentiary problems of theism as confronted by science that he blabs on about so pompously are in fact nonexistent. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : Hell if I know what a divinity is. I just copied the definition of 'numinous' from the Google search results for 'define:numinous'. I was discussing the nature of informed belief, that is belief based on evidence rather than simply an idea one has in the mind. I was not discussing anything about atheism. Without evidence, there is no case to be made, so arguments for and against are empty. One can argue that Sherlock Holmes smoked a Meerschaum pipe, but the evidence in the illustrations of the stories as originally published indicate he did not, but Sherlock Holmes never existed in reality as a real person, so what one is really arguing about here is not about Sherlock Holmes and his pipe, but the content of the text and illustrations in the stories about a fictional character called 'Sherlock Holmes'. So the argument concerning Mr Holmes is not about a reality but an illusion purporting to be a reality, the actual reality in this case being printed text and illustrations in The Strand Magazine (1891–1950, United Kingdom). The definition of 'divinity' (noun) from the same Google source is 'the state or quality of being divine', and 'a divinity' would then be 'something that has the state or quality of being divine', which seems to imply there could be more than one something that has those characteristics. A saint might be considered divine. Zeus could be considered divine and therefore a divinity. So could Apollo, or Jehovah. Maybe I could be divine. Maybe you could be divine, though there seems to be a preponderance of opinion here that would not likely be the case. It is not incoherent to say 'I just believe in one less divinity than you do'. That is just a statement, a proposition. Some people believe in many divinities, some in just one, some in none. A proposition by itself is not an argument, just a statement that may or may not have truth value, which cannot be affirmed or denied on the basis of the proposition itself. Coherence depends on how a particular proposition aligns logically with other propositions, and aligns with what the proposition(s
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Yep, we've seen it all before. Come on Judy, the ball is in your court. We want an explanation and not more of this you're stupid for not having read what I don't understand either but someone else told me is good argument which does you no credit whatsoever and actually makes you look rather ridiculous. But I'm guessing you don't care about that as your prime motivation is being able to sneer down your high and mighty nose at people. Given your unwillingness to even try and articulate what you claim to understand, it must be a rather hollow victory. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : This is the same number she's tried to run any number of times before: I won't discuss this weighty matter with you unless you do your homework and read all the ideas I (supposedly) have read about this (idiotic) concept first. It's intellectual McCarthyism. Sorta like I have in my hand a list of all of the Communists in the State Department, she claims I have in my mind a list of all of the arguments of classical theism that prove you're an idiot and I'm smarter than you. The trick of this tactic, of course, is to never reveal the list. :-) She's done it with astrology/Jyotish and with other dumbfuck ideas, always trying to put the onus on the person she's trying to convince of the validity of the dumbfuck idea. NEWS FLASH TO JUDY: We don't believe in the dumbfuck idea. We're pretty convinced that the dumbfuck idea is SO dumb that we don't care to invest any time in reading treatises about the dumbfuck idea written by so-called experts or philosophers. If you want to argue for the dumbfuck idea you're championing, you've got to EXPLAIN IT YOURSELF. Which, of course, is the reason she doesn't ever explain. She can't. She's never been a teacher, and doesn't have either the thinking or the writing skills to adequately explain her position to someone who doesn't already share it. She has that lazy TM mindset in which one can only explain dumbfuck ideas to people who have already been conditioned to believe them. So she runs this number over and over and over again, to try to make those who don't buy the dumbfuck idea in the first place look STOOOPID for not having read volumes of purple prose defending the dumbfuck idea. Salyavin nails it. Until Judy can make her *own* case for the dumbfuck idea she wishes to promote, no one needs to pay any attention to it whatsoever. But she'll never do that, because then she'd have to reveal that she actually *believes* in the dumbfuck idea, and thus she'd lose her Get Out Of Jail Free card, the one that allows her to pretend she's only arguing on principle, not because she's a fanatical believer in the dumbfuck idea. :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 7:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Yet another atheist wannabe who simply cannot lower himself to reading enough philosophy to realize the incoherence of one of his fundamental premises, or that the purported evidentiary problems of theism as confronted by science that he blabs on about so pompously are in fact nonexistent. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : Hell if I know what a divinity is. I just copied the definition of 'numinous' from the Google search results for 'define:numinous'. I was discussing the nature of informed belief, that is belief based on evidence rather than simply an idea one has in the mind. I was not discussing anything about atheism. Without evidence, there is no case to be made, so arguments for and against are empty. One can argue that Sherlock Holmes smoked a Meerschaum pipe, but the evidence in the illustrations of the stories as originally published indicate he did not, but Sherlock Holmes never existed in reality as a real person, so what one is really arguing about here is not about Sherlock Holmes and his pipe, but the content of the text and illustrations in the stories about a fictional character called 'Sherlock Holmes'. So the argument concerning Mr Holmes is not about a reality but an illusion purporting to be a reality, the actual reality in this case being printed text and illustrations in The Strand Magazine (1891–1950, United Kingdom). The definition of 'divinity' (noun) from the same Google source is 'the state or quality of being divine', and 'a divinity' would then be 'something that has the state or quality of being divine', which seems to imply there could be more than one something that has those characteristics. A saint might be considered divine. Zeus could be considered divine and therefore a divinity. So could Apollo, or Jehovah. Maybe I could be divine
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Yo, Oopsie Boy, starting out on the blooper trail pretty early this morning, ain'cha? Remember, the lurking reporters are watching. You dimwit, you can't disbelieve in an idea, dumbfuck or otherwise, when you don't know what the idea is. You aren't going to get it from Salyavin, that's for sure. Laws of physics inadequate compared to theism?? He made that up. It has nothing to do with anything I've ever said or suggested. It makes no sense whatsoever. Furthermore, I don't give a shit whether you or Salyavin or Xeno believe the actual idea or not. That's never been what this discussion has been about (and you, Barry, aren't intellectually capable of following it anyway, even if you tried). As for explaining it, it's kinda like demanding that Salyavin explain quantum mechanics in an FFL post. It's simply too complex. But I've already stated the core of the argument any number of times. It's that what classical theists call God is not a being but Being Itself. That shouldn't be difficult for anyone who ever listened to Maharishi's teaching to grasp as a starting point. All I want is for the atheists here to stop embarrassing themselves by beating straw men to death. As I told Salyavin, you haven't got a prayer of defeating theism unless you address its strongest argument. And if you don't know what the strongest argument is, you've lost before you start. By the way, everything you've said in your post, as usual, is false. Anyone who wants specifics, just ask. Oh, and Barry, any time you want to know what I believe, I'm happy to tell you. No need for you to guess and make yourself look even stpider. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : This is the same number she's tried to run any number of times before: I won't discuss this weighty matter with you unless you do your homework and read all the ideas I (supposedly) have read about this (idiotic) concept first. It's intellectual McCarthyism. Sorta like I have in my hand a list of all of the Communists in the State Department, she claims I have in my mind a list of all of the arguments of classical theism that prove you're an idiot and I'm smarter than you. The trick of this tactic, of course, is to never reveal the list. :-) She's done it with astrology/Jyotish and with other dumbfuck ideas, always trying to put the onus on the person she's trying to convince of the validity of the dumbfuck idea. NEWS FLASH TO JUDY: We don't believe in the dumbfuck idea. We're pretty convinced that the dumbfuck idea is SO dumb that we don't care to invest any time in reading treatises about the dumbfuck idea written by so-called experts or philosophers. If you want to argue for the dumbfuck idea you're championing, you've got to EXPLAIN IT YOURSELF. Which, of course, is the reason she doesn't ever explain. She can't. She's never been a teacher, and doesn't have either the thinking or the writing skills to adequately explain her position to someone who doesn't already share it. She has that lazy TM mindset in which one can only explain dumbfuck ideas to people who have already been conditioned to believe them. So she runs this number over and over and over again, to try to make those who don't buy the dumbfuck idea in the first place look STOOOPID for not having read volumes of purple prose defending the dumbfuck idea. Salyavin nails it. Until Judy can make her *own* case for the dumbfuck idea she wishes to promote, no one needs to pay any attention to it whatsoever. But she'll never do that, because then she'd have to reveal that she actually *believes* in the dumbfuck idea, and thus she'd lose her Get Out Of Jail Free card, the one that allows her to pretend she's only arguing on principle, not because she's a fanatical believer in the dumbfuck idea. :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 7:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Tell you what, I'll take a stab at it after you've made a post here giving a complete explanation of quantum mechanics. As I pointed out to Barry just now, I've already given you the core principle of the argument--many times, in fact: Classical theists hold that what they call God is not a being but Being Itself. What's too complicated to explain in an FFL post is why, and what the ramifications are. (I can tell you, though, that none of it has anything whatsoever to do with the laws of physics being inadequate compared to theism. I'd love to know how you came up with that howler. Certainly not from anything I've ever said.) And BTW, I don't believe I've ever called you stupid. Just ignorant, and happy to stay that way. And, I might add, incurious. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Yep, we've seen it all before. Come on Judy, the ball is in your court. We want an explanation and not more of this you're stupid for not having read what I don't understand either but someone else told me is good argument which does you no credit whatsoever and actually makes you look rather ridiculous. But I'm guessing you don't care about that as your prime motivation is being able to sneer down your high and mighty nose at people. Given your unwillingness to even try and articulate what you claim to understand, it must be a rather hollow victory.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Judy, go take an enema. You seriously need one. I would suggest that neither Salyavin nor myself have any interest whatsoever in defeating theism. We just like to laugh at those dumb enough to believe in it. It REALLY DOESN'T MATTER whether you call it a being or Being Itself, it's still a dumbfuck idea. And those who believe in it aren't worth wasting one's time on. But thanks for admitting that you can't even make an argument for Being Itself, much less any other form of the dumbfuck God idea. :-) From: authfri...@yahoo.com authfri...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 2:17 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Yo, Oopsie Boy, starting out on the blooper trail pretty early this morning, ain'cha? Remember, the lurking reporters are watching. You dimwit, you can't disbelieve in an idea, dumbfuck or otherwise, when you don't know what the idea is. You aren't going to get it from Salyavin, that's for sure. Laws of physics inadequate compared to theism?? He made that up. It has nothing to do with anything I've ever said or suggested. It makes no sense whatsoever. Furthermore, I don't give a shit whether you or Salyavin or Xeno believe the actual idea or not. That's never been what this discussion has been about (and you, Barry, aren't intellectually capable of following it anyway, even if you tried). As for explaining it, it's kinda like demanding that Salyavin explain quantum mechanics in an FFL post. It's simply too complex. But I've already stated the core of the argument any number of times. It's that what classical theists call God is not a being but Being Itself. That shouldn't be difficult for anyone who ever listened to Maharishi's teaching to grasp as a starting point. All I want is for the atheists here to stop embarrassing themselves by beating straw men to death. As I told Salyavin, you haven't got a prayer of defeating theism unless you address its strongest argument. And if you don't know what the strongest argument is, you've lost before you start. By the way, everything you've said in your post, as usual, is false. Anyone who wants specifics, just ask. Oh, and Barry, any time you want to know what I believe, I'm happy to tell you. No need for you to guess and make yourself look even stpider. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : This is the same number she's tried to run any number of times before: I won't discuss this weighty matter with you unless you do your homework and read all the ideas I (supposedly) have read about this (idiotic) concept first. It's intellectual McCarthyism. Sorta like I have in my hand a list of all of the Communists in the State Department, she claims I have in my mind a list of all of the arguments of classical theism that prove you're an idiot and I'm smarter than you. The trick of this tactic, of course, is to never reveal the list. :-) She's done it with astrology/Jyotish and with other dumbfuck ideas, always trying to put the onus on the person she's trying to convince of the validity of the dumbfuck idea. NEWS FLASH TO JUDY: We don't believe in the dumbfuck idea. We're pretty convinced that the dumbfuck idea is SO dumb that we don't care to invest any time in reading treatises about the dumbfuck idea written by so-called experts or philosophers. If you want to argue for the dumbfuck idea you're championing, you've got to EXPLAIN IT YOURSELF. Which, of course, is the reason she doesn't ever explain. She can't. She's never been a teacher, and doesn't have either the thinking or the writing skills to adequately explain her position to someone who doesn't already share it. She has that lazy TM mindset in which one can only explain dumbfuck ideas to people who have already been conditioned to believe them. So she runs this number over and over and over again, to try to make those who don't buy the dumbfuck idea in the first place look STOOOPID for not having read volumes of purple prose defending the dumbfuck idea. Salyavin nails it. Until Judy can make her *own* case for the dumbfuck idea she wishes to promote, no one needs to pay any attention to it whatsoever. But she'll never do that, because then she'd have to reveal that she actually *believes* in the dumbfuck idea, and thus she'd lose her Get Out Of Jail Free card, the one that allows her to pretend she's only arguing on principle, not because she's a fanatical believer in the dumbfuck idea. :-) From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 7:45 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
And Ann can't tell the difference between a post in which Judy is replying to Salyavin and Anartaxius and one in which she's addressing me. It seems that *someone* in this scenario might be drunk after all. :-) From: awoelfleba...@yahoo.com awoelfleba...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 3:40 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Are you drunk?? What the fuck makes you imagine I think the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism? I don't know what that could even mean. Sober up and stop talking gibberish. Bawwy brings out the big and devastating club which he thinks passes for his intellect. When all else fails drop the f bomb and stomp off, maiming small children on the way out. Judy, this is all Bawwy's got. He's a simpleton and a bully and his sole interest in life is to do whatever he can to make himself feel better and smarter and more worldly than anyone else. In reality he is a common thug. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/15/2014 8:42 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com wrote: What is happening? Is Bawwy catching? Sal, you need to take your temperature and get into bed. I think you've caught something vicious - you sound just like Bawwy. You are not the first person on this discussion group to point out that most of the religious debates with Barry turn out this way in the end - Barry stomping off when he runs out of ammunition. It took a long time for this thread to turn to crap. These informants need to understand a few things around here - we don't take kindly to bullies trying to take over. Go figure. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : And Ann can't tell the difference between a post in which Judy is replying to Salyavin and Anartaxius and one in which she's addressing me. It seems that *someone* in this scenario might be drunk after all. :-) It all changes nothing, you're still an ignorant bully who can't tell an enema from a slurpee or the truth from a bag of nuts. The scary part is your lack of sophistication seems to be catching. I wonder why there are so few contributors left here? Got any ideas in that coconut shell that passes for a head of yours?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : And Ann can't tell the difference between a post in which Judy is replying to Salyavin and Anartaxius and one in which she's addressing me. It seems that *someone* in this scenario might be drunk after all. :-) From: awoelflebater@... awoelflebater@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 3:40 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Are you drunk?? What the fuck makes you imagine I think the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism? I don't know what that could even mean. Sober up and stop talking gibberish. Bawwy brings out the big and devastating club which he thinks passes for his intellect. When all else fails drop the f bomb and stomp off, maiming small children on the way out. Judy, this is all Bawwy's got. He's a simpleton and a bully and his sole interest in life is to do whatever he can to make himself feel better and smarter and more worldly than anyone else. In reality he is a common thug. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Either tell us where the laws of physics are inadequate compared to theism or shut the fuck up. We're waiting.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/15/2014 10:38 AM, awoelfleba...@yahoo.com wrote: And Ann can't tell the difference between a post in which Judy is replying to Salyavin and Anartaxius and one in which she's addressing me. It seems that *someone* in this scenario might be drunk after all. :-) Drunk, or just nerdy, to try to use Yahoo Neo to carry on a religious debate. Go figure. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/15/2014 7:31 AM, TurquoiseBee wrote: But thanks for admitting that you can't even make an argument for Being Itself, much less any other form of the dumbfuck God idea. :-) Just speaking for myself, I'd be more inclined to believe a dumbfuck God idea than to believe Fredy Lenz could levitate. I will concede that it is possible that you saw The Zen Master Rama levitate hundreds of times, but that wouldn't pass as evidence for The Amazing Randi. You're going to have to do more than BS in order to win a religious debate on FFL, Barry. Go figure. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
beautiful, deep clarity, thank you, Xeno On Tuesday, April 15, 2014 2:33 PM, anartax...@yahoo.com anartax...@yahoo.com wrote: This reply is specifically for Judy, not Turq or Salyavin. Alas she cannot honestly reply, as it would break her word. That is not saying she is dishonest, please note. We all have honesty glitches, part of the human condition. Generally I am not interested in Theism. I'm a post-Theist, the theist part being early childhood conditioning, which fortunately was neither intense nor carried out with any verve, thus my mind escaped. I do not care for the word God, primarily because it has so many variable and cultural connotations, which make it 'slippery' as vehicle for explanation. If one thinks dualistically about reality, then there is always more than one being, for example, me and the world, or me and God. As long as there is any sense of separation, then being is divided. Those whose consciousness is embodied cannot think any other way. The theistic argument that God is not a being but just being I do not have an argument with. I think currently that being = consciousness = God, the latter in that most abstract sense. But most people do not use the word that way. When God is being in this way, you are the same, as Jesus said 'not made out of flesh and blood but out of God'. But most people are not going to get that idea of being if you use the word God because it will pull in all sorts of cultural and individualised conditioning which in the mind creates 'a being', not abstract non-thing being. The so-called spiritual path is basically just the process of retraining the mind and larger experience to de-localise and de-centralise the appreciation of consciousness. Consciousness makes experience possible, you never experience consciousness, it is what makes experience possible, it is what experiences. In older language it is 'the light of life' which is saying the same thing isomorphically transformed. Consciousness unlocalised and decentred is equally everywhere, the very things of experience. It is equally at every point along the data path of perception, it makes the data points 'visible'. You do not look for it in the human head. What you find there are sensors and an interpretive processor, the mind. Consciousness makes the sensors and the interpretive processing experience-able. All you will find in the head is machinery. You do not have consciousness, it has 'you', what you think you are. Being is eternal but not in the sense of time. Everything has being like this, the most obvious thing in the world, everything is this being. It is trivial and so in one's face it is never seen or understood. As Vashitha said, all this talk about creation and who created the world is for the purpose of writing and expounding scriptures, but it is not true. But the human mind, thinking, works sequentially, and so it sees things as a process with beginnings, middles, and endings. The Big Bang Theory is an example of this, and that is a great practical way to look at the universe, but if you want fulfilment there has to be the experience of everything, mind, body, environment, as all the same being, everything collectively together, the 'uncarved block' as the Taoists say. Unity. Not you in unity, just unity. No 'you' is required. Delocalisatin and decentralisation of consciousness transforms the appreciation of the concept of 'self', and it does not matter if you capitalise 'self' or not. It is just a story, a narrative with the tag 'self' attached to it. You do not have a relationship with being, for it is just what you are, once the 'you' gets dropped off the map as a convenient fiction. To find out if this is real or not, there is no evidence except the experience. There is no proof, no argument can show this. When people talk about it in one way or another, if what they say has a resonance with you, then it sets up a spark inside, and then the search to find out if that particular manner of expression is somehow real begins. No guarantee of success. If it does not resonate, it will appear as total nonsense, because it is not like something, not like anything, so an argument will never convince. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Yet another atheist wannabe who simply cannot lower himself to reading enough philosophy to realize the incoherence of one of his fundamental premises, or that the purported evidentiary problems of theism as confronted by science that he blabs on about so pompously are in fact nonexistent. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, anartaxius@... wrote : Hell if I know what a divinity is. I just copied the definition of 'numinous' from the Google search results for 'define:numinous'. I was discussing the nature of informed belief, that is belief based on evidence rather than simply an idea one has in the mind. I was not discussing anything about atheism. Without
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
From: anartax...@yahoo.com anartax...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2014 9:32 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous This reply is specifically for Judy, not Turq or Salyavin. Alas she cannot honestly reply, as it would break her word. That is not saying she is dishonest, please note. We all have honesty glitches, part of the human condition. This reply is also specifically for Anartaxius, and is *not* to be used as a springboard for Judy Stein to use it as an opportunity to reply to him while still pretending to keep her word about never replying to Anartaxius until he apologizes for some imagined past affront. :-) That said -- and directed solely to Anartaxius -- well said. It's nice to see that *someone* here can actually express their thoughts about theism and post-theism, and in their own words. without relying on the Cliff Notes version of thinkers they probably have never even read. I agree with many of his words, and don't have much to say about the few I disagree with, for the simple reason that Anartaxius merely states what he believes, as opposed to trying to make other people believe it. That's the crux of the issue IMO. I have many close friends who are believers in God. My favorite singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn is a strong believer in God. I love him because we share a love of Wonder, even though we express it in different ways. Me, I don't believe in any real concept of God. If I did, I would have to consider Him/Her/It a psychopathic thug. But I get along with my believer friends, and we have wonderful times and conversations together because no one is trying to *sell* anything to anyone else. It isn't what one believes. *Whatever* one believes is OK in my book, as long as they don't try to sell it to me or try to force me into arguing about it when I don't feel in the least like arguing, especially about something as meaningless as beliefs. The minute someone *does* attempt to force that, they have IMO crossed a line, and have become nothing more than a potential subject of laughter and ridicule. My friends never cross that line; that is why they remain my friends, and admirable. Those who cross that line will never earn anything but my derision and my laughter, in this lifetime or any other. Generally I am not interested in Theism. I'm a post-Theist, the theist part being early childhood conditioning, which fortunately was neither intense nor carried out with any verve, thus my mind escaped. I do not care for the word God, primarily because it has so many variable and cultural connotations, which make it 'slippery' as vehicle for explanation. If one thinks dualistically about reality, then there is always more than one being, for example, me and the world, or me and God. As long as there is any sense of separation, then being is divided. Those whose consciousness is embodied cannot think any other way. The theistic argument that God is not a being but just being I do not have an argument with. I think currently that being = consciousness = God, the latter in that most abstract sense. But most people do not use the word that way. When God is being in this way, you are the same, as Jesus said 'not made out of flesh and blood but out of God'. But most people are not going to get that idea of being if you use the word God because it will pull in all sorts of cultural and individualised conditioning which in the mind creates 'a being', not abstract non-thing being. The so-called spiritual path is basically just the process of retraining the mind and larger experience to de-localise and de-centralise the appreciation of consciousness. Consciousness makes experience possible, you never experience consciousness, it is what makes experience possible, it is what experiences. In older language it is 'the light of life' which is saying the same thing isomorphically transformed. Consciousness unlocalised and decentred is equally everywhere, the very things of experience. It is equally at every point along the data path of perception, it makes the data points 'visible'. You do not look for it in the human head. What you find there are sensors and an interpretive processor, the mind. Consciousness makes the sensors and the interpretive processing experience-able. All you will find in the head is machinery. You do not have consciousness, it has 'you', what you think you are. Being is eternal but not in the sense of time. Everything has being like this, the most obvious thing in the world, everything is this being. It is trivial and so in one's face it is never seen or understood. As Vashitha said, all this talk about creation and who created the world is for the purpose of writing and expounding scriptures, but it is not true. But the human mind, thinking, works sequentially, and so it sees things as a process with beginnings, middles, and endings. The Big Bang Theory
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Xeno's fine in this post. I'll just respond to Barry, because what he says requires correction. (What else is new?) This reply is also specifically for Anartaxius, and is *not* to be used as a springboard for Judy Stein to use it as an opportunity to reply to him while still pretending to keep her word about never replying to Anartaxius until he apologizes for some imagined past affront. :-) It wasn't imagined. He accused me of being dishonest. I told him he'd need to withdraw that charge (I don't believe I said he had to apologize) if we were to continue the discussions we'd been having. I never said I would never reply to him again. That said -- and directed solely to Anartaxius -- well said. It's nice to see that *someone* here can actually express their thoughts about theism and post-theism, and in their own words. without relying on the Cliff Notes version of thinkers they probably have never even read. Wrong again, toots. No Cliff notes versions, and I most certainly have read the thinkers. I agree with many of his words, and don't have much to say about the few I disagree with, for the simple reason that Anartaxius merely states what he believes, as opposed to trying to make other people believe it. That's the crux of the issue IMO. Then why do you attack me, when I've never tried to make anyone believe anything? Liar. Nor have I tried to get you to argue about your beliefs. That would be foolish, because you don't have the intellect to do so.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite. ~ Bertrand Russell I do believe you've quoted this from the FFL home page approvingly a number of times here. Doesn't really seem to describe your attitude toward theism, I'm afraid. I would suggest that neither Salyavin nor myself have any interest whatsoever in defeating theism. We just like to laugh at those dumb enough to believe in it. It REALLY DOESN'T MATTER whether you call it a being or Being Itself, it's still a dumbfuck idea. And those who believe in it aren't worth wasting one's time on.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 8:32 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous The experience she [Barbara Ehrenreich] had is quite interesting though, and proof that we have an inner world that can go a bit screwy occasionally. Sounds to me like an ordinary brain fart. Farts happen. It's the ego that tries to turn them into meaningful farts. I still like my dream metaphor. You have a dream. To YOU, it seems fraught with importance and deep, deep meaning. Then you try to tell someone about it, blubbering blissfully, and trying your best to convey the cosmic importancenessitude of it all, and they just look at you politely and change the subject. And with reason. YOUR experience means nothing to them. It only means something to YOU. But the importance YOU give it also means nothing. Believing that it does is just self-absorption, and self-imporance. But the dream (or experience) is just another brain fart experienced by just another human being, one of billions, *none* of them more important than any other.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
salyavin, your mystical experience sounds quite wonderful and you say it stayed with you. In light of your scientific leanings, how do you access it now? Hormonal changes as you say? Also I find it interesting that the continuum you suggest has mental illness at one end and mystical experience at the other. Are you saying that mystical experience is an indication of excellent mental health? As for the quote, some day we may find that mental and spiritual discipline is required to know God because without them, such an experience would blow our circuits! On Monday, April 14, 2014 1:33 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: This bit made me laugh: In my experience, those who make the most theatrical display of demanding “proof” of God are also those least willing to undertake the specific kinds of mental and spiritual discipline that all the great religious traditions say are required to find God. The experience she had is quite interesting though, and proof that we have an inner world that can go a bit screwy occasionally. But where does the feeling of wisdom that we designate god come from? We know that consciousness is a group experience of many parts of the brain pitching in, perhaps there's a bit confirms to us when we are on the right track about something and reward us with some chemical that feels profoundly wise (mescalin?) when other bits that help self-regulation step offline for a minute we can be overwhelmed by unified wisdom. An unbalancing of what we think of as ordinary experience. Let's not forget these experiences are part of the continuum reported by schizophrenics, who are understood to have a fracturing of their normal day-to-day reality. My best guess is that our inner picture takes so much energy and complicated processing to keep going that it's bound to get in a muddle every now and again. Mostly it will be bad (mental illness) but sometimes good (mystical experience). I'm sure everyone gets things like this, especially when they are younger and in the grip of hormonal changes, I certainly did. My first mystical experience was while walking through a meadow aged 10 (ish) . Suddenly the world revealed a hidden depth, a silent vastness behind reality that was also part of it. Very profound vision and stayed with me also. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : A fascinating exchange of views... Opinion piece in the NYTimes by Barbara Ehrenreich, rationalist author and political activist (and atheist), about the change in her perspective on life wrought gradually over many years by a mystical experience she had as an adolescent (note: at age 73, she's still an atheist): http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/opinion/sunday/a-rationalists-mystical-moment.html Response by NYTimes columnist Ross Douthat (not an atheist) pointing out that her call for science to investigate mystical experiences in depth is premature because science doesn't yet understand ordinary experience well enough: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/how-to-study-the-numinous/
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, your mystical experience sounds quite wonderful and you say it stayed with you. In light of your scientific leanings, how do you access it now? Hormonal changes as you say? I don't access it now, it happened when I was young but the memory stayed with me. It was a cool trip. I think we remember stuff like this with clarity because they are so outside the normal run of mental activity. Also I find it interesting that the continuum you suggest has mental illness at one end and mystical experience at the other. Are you saying that mystical experience is an indication of excellent mental health? I wouldn't say they were at opposite ends as they share a lot of common motifs like expansiveness and intense bliss or feeling in the presence of deep wisdom of holy beings. This veers into feelings of deep evil and paranoia in schizophrenia. But it's all in the mind and therefore brain wiring and communication. I think spiritual techniques can slowly introduce normal awareness to altered states that are the same as seen in my early trip out and mental illness. And drug experiences come to think of it. Maybe a sudden experience like mine is just a temporary bolt but serious mental illness can linger, and often has deep roots in the mind and childhood experiences As for the quote, some day we may find that mental and spiritual discipline is required to know God because without them, such an experience would blow our circuits! I would say that god is the experience, we just like giving flashy conceptual names to profound seeming things. remember, everything we perceive is a construct including emotions, thoughts, insights and all the feelings we get about life, god and nature are part of an ancient reward circuit of pleasure or satisfaction. Our multi-shaded feelings are made up of loads of chemicals governed by different parts of the brain. Suppose in a sudden mystical state, the bit that controls our sense of internal depth recognition gets cross-wired with the reward centre for pleasure. Instant religious experience? Probably a bit more complex than that but that is the gist of it. It's all in the mind.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
I'm guessing she meant assess, not access. salyavin, your mystical experience sounds quite wonderful and you say it stayed with you. In light of your scientific leanings, how do you access it now? Hormonal changes as you say? I don't access it now, it happened when I was young but the memory stayed with me. It was a cool trip. I think we remember stuff like this with clarity because they are so outside the normal run of mental activity.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Judy, I think Salyavin is trying to state the obvious, that there ARE no strongest arguments for Theism. There aren't even any strong ones. How can one inform oneself about that which does not exist? :-) From: authfri...@yahoo.com authfri...@yahoo.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 5:53 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous It really is astounding, Salyavin, how willing--almost eager--you are to flaunt your ignorance. See, here's the thing: If you want to make a credible argument against an idea (any idea), you need to address the strongest argument for that idea. That's just common sense. Now, if you don't even know what the strongest argument for the idea is, you are, to say the least, at a significant disadvantage in arguing against it. That's why philosophers of religion (many if not most of whom are a whole lot smarter and better educated than either you or I, or Curtis, for that matter) just laugh at Dawkins and the other ignorant New Atheists. If they can't be bothered even to inform themselves about the strongest arguments for theism, let alone address those arguments, there's really no reason to take them seriously. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You may want to massage this thesis a bit, Salyavin, because it doesn't make a lot of sense as you've written it. Although Curtis was a philosophy major at MIU (as I recall), he seemed to be missing a whole chunk of philosophical theology, as Dawkins is. Anybody who would use the I just believe in one god less gambit thinking it was a coherent defense of atheism did not have a complete philosophical education. Thanks for the tip. I'll file it under belief in fairies. Some people get intensely philosophical about those too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Ooopsie. You forgot to add that we (Salyavin and I) know of. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : Judy, I think Salyavin is trying to state the obvious, that there ARE no strongest arguments for Theism. There aren't even any strong ones. How can one inform oneself about that which does not exist? :-) From: authfriend@... authfriend@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 5:53 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous It really is astounding, Salyavin, how willing--almost eager--you are to flaunt your ignorance. See, here's the thing: If you want to make a credible argument against an idea (any idea), you need to address the strongest argument for that idea. That's just common sense. Now, if you don't even know what the strongest argument for the idea is, you are, to say the least, at a significant disadvantage in arguing against it. That's why philosophers of religion (many if not most of whom are a whole lot smarter and better educated than either you or I, or Curtis, for that matter) just laugh at Dawkins and the other ignorant New Atheists. If they can't be bothered even to inform themselves about the strongest arguments for theism, let alone address those arguments, there's really no reason to take them seriously. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You may want to massage this thesis a bit, Salyavin, because it doesn't make a lot of sense as you've written it. Although Curtis was a philosophy major at MIU (as I recall), he seemed to be missing a whole chunk of philosophical theology, as Dawkins is. Anybody who would use the I just believe in one god less gambit thinking it was a coherent defense of atheism did not have a complete philosophical education. Thanks for the tip. I'll file it under belief in fairies. Some people get intensely philosophical about those too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
salyavin, yes, I like your last paragraph about depth recognition getting crossed with reward center for pleasure. Now here's the next important step I think: does that have lasting value for life? Because if it does, then for me it doesn't matter how it came about, as long as it didn't involve hurting other life. Nor does it matter if we call it God or silly putty or brain upper right quadrant firing. If it has lasting value for life (and yes, how would we operationally define that?) let's go for it! Judy was right, I meant to ask you: how do you now assess your early mystical experience. On Monday, April 14, 2014 10:02 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, your mystical experience sounds quite wonderful and you say it stayed with you. In light of your scientific leanings, how do you access it now? Hormonal changes as you say? I don't access it now, it happened when I was young but the memory stayed with me. It was a cool trip. I think we remember stuff like this with clarity because they are so outside the normal run of mental activity. Also I find it interesting that the continuum you suggest has mental illness at one end and mystical experience at the other. Are you saying that mystical experience is an indication of excellent mental health? I wouldn't say they were at opposite ends as they share a lot of common motifs like expansiveness and intense bliss or feeling in the presence of deep wisdom of holy beings. This veers into feelings of deep evil and paranoia in schizophrenia. But it's all in the mind and therefore brain wiring and communication. I think spiritual techniques can slowly introduce normal awareness to altered states that are the same as seen in my early trip out and mental illness. And drug experiences come to think of it. Maybe a sudden experience like mine is just a temporary bolt but serious mental illness can linger, and often has deep roots in the mind and childhood experiences As for the quote, some day we may find that mental and spiritual discipline is required to know God because without them, such an experience would blow our circuits! I would say that god is the experience, we just like giving flashy conceptual names to profound seeming things. remember, everything we perceive is a construct including emotions, thoughts, insights and all the feelings we get about life, god and nature are part of an ancient reward circuit of pleasure or satisfaction. Our multi-shaded feelings are made up of loads of chemicals governed by different parts of the brain. Suppose in a sudden mystical state, the bit that controls our sense of internal depth recognition gets cross-wired with the reward centre for pleasure. Instant religious experience? Probably a bit more complex than that but that is the gist of it. It's all in the mind.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Oh, and Curtis too, apparently. Not to mention the Dawkins crowd. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Ooopsie. You forgot to add that we (Salyavin and I) know of. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : Judy, I think Salyavin is trying to state the obvious, that there ARE no strongest arguments for Theism. There aren't even any strong ones. How can one inform oneself about that which does not exist? :-) From: authfriend@... authfriend@... To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 5:53 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous It really is astounding, Salyavin, how willing--almost eager--you are to flaunt your ignorance. See, here's the thing: If you want to make a credible argument against an idea (any idea), you need to address the strongest argument for that idea. That's just common sense. Now, if you don't even know what the strongest argument for the idea is, you are, to say the least, at a significant disadvantage in arguing against it. That's why philosophers of religion (many if not most of whom are a whole lot smarter and better educated than either you or I, or Curtis, for that matter) just laugh at Dawkins and the other ignorant New Atheists. If they can't be bothered even to inform themselves about the strongest arguments for theism, let alone address those arguments, there's really no reason to take them seriously. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You may want to massage this thesis a bit, Salyavin, because it doesn't make a lot of sense as you've written it. Although Curtis was a philosophy major at MIU (as I recall), he seemed to be missing a whole chunk of philosophical theology, as Dawkins is. Anybody who would use the I just believe in one god less gambit thinking it was a coherent defense of atheism did not have a complete philosophical education. Thanks for the tip. I'll file it under belief in fairies. Some people get intensely philosophical about those too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, yes, I like your last paragraph about depth recognition getting crossed with reward center for pleasure. Now here's the next important step I think: does that have lasting value for life? Because if it does, then for me it doesn't matter how it came about, as long as it didn't involve hurting other life. Nor does it matter if we call it God or silly putty or brain upper right quadrant firing. If it has lasting value for life (and yes, how would we operationally define that?) let's go for it! I thought that's what we were doing with whatever we do. No it doesn't matter what you call it, pleasure is pleasure. I mentioned before about a TM inspired flash of enlightenment that I'm not sure if it's a good long term proposition. Does it ever get boring? I know that taking hallucinogens does, maybe enlightenment is a drag after a while. But the hunger for it is addictive, we have all sorts of addictive chemicals in our brains you know, they usually get regulated but in mystical states maybe we get a higher dose. Judy was right, I meant to ask you: how do you now assess your early mystical experience. Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one, and what I always get with mystical stuff - meditation or drug inspired - why is it so profound. Why the god feeling or sense of impending ultimate wisdom? I think I've already explained it, kind of, the general idea anyway. But it's still cool to be in possession of a head that does stuff like that even though I'd bet money on it being a mental synapse dysfunction of some sort. Either that or I'm the new messiah. On Monday, April 14, 2014 10:02 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote:
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Maybe there's only one world and you usually see only part of it? Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one...?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
In a way that's what everyone does, the world we see is in our heads but our senses are only capable of revealing a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum and our ears only a small part of the auditory. In order to perform the clever trick of us thinking there is a theatre in our heads where all this stuff is united as a convincing picture is a bit of a clever trick. But we never see X-rays or hear ultrasonic so in what way could it be another world? There's no extra meaningful knowledge to be gained from our senses at all. I think what we have is a breakdown in explaining mystical states, they don't mean anything really, they don't teach you anything you don't already know, you just get a feeling that they might if they become fully realised. For all his bluster Marshy never told us what the cosmological constant was or how the alleged unified field fits in with the standard model of particle physics. There was nothing new other than the promise that we could have these riches too. In fact, he only ever impressed me a few times with his day-to-day wisdom. His supreme wisdom is just rehashed Hindooism, hardly cognised as claimed, if it ever was. But his description of enlightenment is inspiring as that's how it feels to experience it, but there is no layered structure to consciousness like you see on TM posters or inside the brain. It's all a metaphor, a clever way of explaining how a breakdown (or up) of our usual deceptive model of how the world looks when you jigger about with it. Why you get the duality of the silent and the active at the same time seems rather likely to be due to Lawson's hypothalamus feedback idea, that gives us the fourth state of consciousness - characterised by stillness, becoming temporarily crosswired to the normal waking state apparatus of manufacturing consciousness. If that is indeed how transcendence is explained, and it will be something like that. There isn't anywhere else for another world to be as far as anyone knows, or anyway we could get information about it, as far as anyone knows. Wouldn't it be funny if TM researchers undermined the whole philosophical fabric of their own beliefs. That's be true science! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Maybe there's only one world and you usually see only part of it? Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one...?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/14/2014 10:58 AM, TurquoiseBee wrote: How can one inform oneself about that which does not exist? :-) There are several ways a person can inform oneself about that which does not exist. First, you need to understand the basic laws of gravity. Then, you need to understand the effects of gravity on the human body. And, third you need to understand that a human body cannot float in mid air with no visible means of physical support. When you put these all together you get the impression that ALL THINGS FALL DOWN. When this happens, you become informed. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
You're explaining why there can't be two worlds when what I suggested is that there is only one world, but we see only part of it. ??? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : In a way that's what everyone does, the world we see is in our heads but our senses are only capable of revealing a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum and our ears only a small part of the auditory. In order to perform the clever trick of us thinking there is a theatre in our heads where all this stuff is united as a convincing picture is a bit of a clever trick. But we never see X-rays or hear ultrasonic so in what way could it be another world? There's no extra meaningful knowledge to be gained from our senses at all. I think what we have is a breakdown in explaining mystical states, they don't mean anything really, they don't teach you anything you don't already know, you just get a feeling that they might if they become fully realised. For all his bluster Marshy never told us what the cosmological constant was or how the alleged unified field fits in with the standard model of particle physics. There was nothing new other than the promise that we could have these riches too. In fact, he only ever impressed me a few times with his day-to-day wisdom. His supreme wisdom is just rehashed Hindooism, hardly cognised as claimed, if it ever was. But his description of enlightenment is inspiring as that's how it feels to experience it, but there is no layered structure to consciousness like you see on TM posters or inside the brain. It's all a metaphor, a clever way of explaining how a breakdown (or up) of our usual deceptive model of how the world looks when you jigger about with it. Why you get the duality of the silent and the active at the same time seems rather likely to be due to Lawson's hypothalamus feedback idea, that gives us the fourth state of consciousness - characterised by stillness, becoming temporarily crosswired to the normal waking state apparatus of manufacturing consciousness. If that is indeed how transcendence is explained, and it will be something like that. There isn't anywhere else for another world to be as far as anyone knows, or anyway we could get information about it, as far as anyone knows. Wouldn't it be funny if TM researchers undermined the whole philosophical fabric of their own beliefs. That's be true science! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Maybe there's only one world and you usually see only part of it? Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one...?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/14/2014 12:47 PM, salyavin808 wrote: In a way that's what everyone does, the world we see is in our heads but our senses are only capable of revealing a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum and our ears only a small part of the auditory. Translation: Everyone thinks, therefore since TM is based on thinking, hence everyone meditates. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
I explained that as well. Pay attention at the back! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You're explaining why there can't be two worlds when what I suggested is that there is only one world, but we see only part of it. ??? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : In a way that's what everyone does, the world we see is in our heads but our senses are only capable of revealing a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum and our ears only a small part of the auditory. In order to perform the clever trick of us thinking there is a theatre in our heads where all this stuff is united as a convincing picture is a bit of a clever trick. But we never see X-rays or hear ultrasonic so in what way could it be another world? There's no extra meaningful knowledge to be gained from our senses at all. I think what we have is a breakdown in explaining mystical states, they don't mean anything really, they don't teach you anything you don't already know, you just get a feeling that they might if they become fully realised. For all his bluster Marshy never told us what the cosmological constant was or how the alleged unified field fits in with the standard model of particle physics. There was nothing new other than the promise that we could have these riches too. In fact, he only ever impressed me a few times with his day-to-day wisdom. His supreme wisdom is just rehashed Hindooism, hardly cognised as claimed, if it ever was. But his description of enlightenment is inspiring as that's how it feels to experience it, but there is no layered structure to consciousness like you see on TM posters or inside the brain. It's all a metaphor, a clever way of explaining how a breakdown (or up) of our usual deceptive model of how the world looks when you jigger about with it. Why you get the duality of the silent and the active at the same time seems rather likely to be due to Lawson's hypothalamus feedback idea, that gives us the fourth state of consciousness - characterised by stillness, becoming temporarily crosswired to the normal waking state apparatus of manufacturing consciousness. If that is indeed how transcendence is explained, and it will be something like that. There isn't anywhere else for another world to be as far as anyone knows, or anyway we could get information about it, as far as anyone knows. Wouldn't it be funny if TM researchers undermined the whole philosophical fabric of their own beliefs. That's be true science! ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : Maybe there's only one world and you usually see only part of it? Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one...?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 8:06 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous Oh god, not Ed Fess again. No, that isn't a good place to start. I read his blog once and had a laugh at a few errors about physics and Steven Hawking but most of it seems based on other things you have to read, like there's some vast esoteric store of knowledge that you have to adopt. Why bother when we have easier ways, unless he thinks them inadequate? Most of what he has to say about Thomas Aquinas (I think it was) is interesting but hopelessly out of date, I'm sure TA would have been the first to admit it and would love the new developments in cosmology, I imagine any philosopher would be happy to have the most advanced knowledge. They didn't have any data gathering methods in those days, so they had to rely on what they thought about things, without scientific method they had no way of testing what they thought - if you even can. And if you can't what use is it? Maybe if you can provide a link to a critique by Ed Fess of physics or evolutionary theory showing why they are inadequate, instead of him merely complaining that atheists don't know as much about Greek philosophy as he does? You don't get it, Salyavin. The whole POINT is that people like Fess and Judy can complain that other people don't know as much about fill in the blanks as they do. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 8:31 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous LOL. So lets get this straight, I've got to have an argument against every ancient Greek or philosopher you can think of or you'll claim I've wimped out. But you aren't ever going to explain what you mean! That's funny! Sounds like you've got a perfect I win every argument clause, just what you always wanted! Exactly. The last refuge of the feeble-minded. Claim to know more than other people, and refuse to ever explain what you know. The fascinating thing is that some people actually fall for this turd in the punchbowl. :-) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : I believe I've already explained why one god less is incoherent, in the process exposing all kinds of ideas you had about what God is said to be that are refuted by classical theism (the strongest argument for theism). As I recall, you wimped out of that discussion when it got tough, as you often do (see our exchange about Susan Blackmore for another instance). Classical theism is a complex and demanding argument, both to explain and to understand. I wouldn't attempt it on a forum like this. But I can (already have, I think) pointed you to online sources and at least one book where you could begin to educate yourself as to what you're really up against. I predict you won't bother, though. You prefer to remain ignorant because that allows you to believe you've done the job by refuting the weaker arguments. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : Yawn. Wake me up when you've actually posted a strong argument for that idea. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : It really is astounding, Salyavin, how willing--almost eager--you are to flaunt your ignorance. See, here's the thing: If you want to make a credible argument against an idea (any idea), you need to address the strongest argument for that idea. That's just common sense. Now, if you don't even know what the strongest argument for the idea is, you are, to say the least, at a significant disadvantage in arguing against it. That's why philosophers of religion (many if not most of whom are a whole lot smarter and better educated than either you or I, or Curtis, for that matter) just laugh at Dawkins and the other ignorant New Atheists. If they can't be bothered even to inform themselves about the strongest arguments for theism, let alone address those arguments, there's really no reason to take them seriously. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, authfriend@... wrote : You may want to massage this thesis a bit, Salyavin, because it doesn't make a lot of sense as you've written it. Although Curtis was a philosophy major at MIU (as I recall), he seemed to be missing a whole chunk of philosophical theology, as Dawkins is. Anybody who would use the I just believe in one god less gambit thinking it was a coherent defense of atheism did not have a complete philosophical education. Thanks for the tip. I'll file it under belief in fairies. Some people get intensely philosophical about those too.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/14/2014 12:47 PM, salyavin808 wrote: Wouldn't it be funny if TM researchers undermined the whole philosophical fabric of their own beliefs. That's be true science! That's sort of what has become of the internet. The goal was to have everything connected, networked, so we could all share information on the highway. Now, we've got a network where they know everything and every connection you make. We are so connected that we will soon be just another data point on the network - the connectivity becomes a highway straight into their data bank. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Third Opsie! for Barry today. He seems to have missed the fact that I've referred Salyavin to sources that do explain what I mean, but that Salyavin has refused to read. Which one of us is feeble-minded, again? Pretty funny charge coming from a person who lacks the intellect to understand those sources even if he were to read them. The last refuge of the feeble-minded. Claim to know more than other people, and refuse to ever explain what you know. The fascinating thing is that some people actually fall for this turd in the punchbowl. :-)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb@... wrote : From: salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 8:31 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous LOL. So lets get this straight, I've got to have an argument against every ancient Greek or philosopher you can think of or you'll claim I've wimped out. But you aren't ever going to explain what you mean! That's funny! Sounds like you've got a perfect I win every argument clause, just what you always wanted! Exactly. The last refuge of the feeble-minded. Claim to know more than other people, and refuse to ever explain what you know. The fascinating thing is that some people actually fall for this turd in the punchbowl. :-) I'm going to stay optimistic and wait for a treatise on how modern scientific methods are inadequate compared to classical theism. We might have a long wait but I'm sure she can do something other than scoff. Maybe.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
salyavin, ok, here's a comment and question for you: you mention that there's all these addictive chemicals in our brain. Fascinating! Do they have survival value? And if they increase with certain experiences, why? More survival value? Previously you mentioned something about several brain areas coming on line to produce an experience. And in your case, it felt profound and wise, etc. You remembered it. So again I ask why and theorize that the reason is simple: it has survival value. Yikes! I hope it's not just the bacteria and or DNA for which it has survival value! On Monday, April 14, 2014 11:55 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote: ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, sharelong60@... wrote : salyavin, yes, I like your last paragraph about depth recognition getting crossed with reward center for pleasure. Now here's the next important step I think: does that have lasting value for life? Because if it does, then for me it doesn't matter how it came about, as long as it didn't involve hurting other life. Nor does it matter if we call it God or silly putty or brain upper right quadrant firing. If it has lasting value for life (and yes, how would we operationally define that?) let's go for it! I thought that's what we were doing with whatever we do. No it doesn't matter what you call it, pleasure is pleasure. I mentioned before about a TM inspired flash of enlightenment that I'm not sure if it's a good long term proposition. Does it ever get boring? I know that taking hallucinogens does, maybe enlightenment is a drag after a while. But the hunger for it is addictive, we have all sorts of addictive chemicals in our brains you know, they usually get regulated but in mystical states maybe we get a higher dose. Judy was right, I meant to ask you: how do you now assess your early mystical experience. Ah, I still get that stunned feeling that hits you in your gut and that sense of wonder about just...how? How there can be two worlds when I only usually see one, and what I always get with mystical stuff - meditation or drug inspired - why is it so profound. Why the god feeling or sense of impending ultimate wisdom? I think I've already explained it, kind of, the general idea anyway. But it's still cool to be in possession of a head that does stuff like that even though I'd bet money on it being a mental synapse dysfunction of some sort. Either that or I'm the new messiah. On Monday, April 14, 2014 10:02 AM, salyavin808 no_re...@yahoogroups.com wrote:
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
Uh, what?? You're waiting on a treatise from me on why scientific methods are inadequate compared to classical theism? That's sort of like waiting for a treatise on why a pregnancy test is inadequate compared to the Pythagorean Theorem. I'm going to stay optimistic and wait for a treatise on how modern scientific methods are inadequate compared to classical theism. We might have a long wait but I'm sure she can do something other than scoff. Maybe.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Studying the numinous
On 4/14/2014 1:46 PM, TurquoiseBee wrote: You don't get it, Salyavin. The whole POINT is that people like Fess and Judy can complain that other people don't know as much about _LEVITATION_ fill in the blanks as they do. :-) god gave this job to the birds, let them fly around while you use your legs! work on peace in your own heart and you will do a much better contribution to world peace than by jumping in the Lotus seat, waiting to actually levitate someday. - Swami Balendu --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com
