(January 18, 2017 at 1:25 am)Aroura Wrote: So if you are interacting with the spiritual realm while existing in this reality, it's part of this reality. Just like Wow is part of our reality.

But then again you have no evidence for communing with the so called spiritual realm. It's even more imaginative than wow, which at least actually exists.

You also assume I've never had a "supernatural" experience. I actually have. I've told the story before. When I was about 10, my brother was shot in the eye with a bba gun. Makes A CHRISTMAS Story a little more real for my family. Anyway, his retina was dislodged and the doctor told my folks that he would probably lose the sight in that eye. Still, on the off chance it might heal, the bandaged him up and sent him home where he had to lay in bed and not move his head hardly at all for ages.

That first night, well I had never seen my mother so distraught. I was Catholic, went to a private school and at that time honestly thought I might chose to be a nun when I grew up in loved them so much, I stayed up half the night praying and crying. I begged God not to take my brothers eye in the sincere way only a child can.
When I finally fell asleep I left my body and roamed the house. It was very, very real. There was a bright light as I rose up, and I thought God had sent an angel to take me in exchange for my brothers eye. I was so frightened, but I knew God was doing what was right. I floated through my house and saw my mom. I cried out to her, I wanted her to know how much I loved her before I was taken up to heaven. I was followed her around, both of us crying, but she couldn't hear my spirit.

The next morning I woke up, and thought God had decided my willingNess to sacrifice for my brother was enough, so let me stay. Still, I was more than a little frightened he'd change his mind. After about a week, the doc informed us my brothers retina had healed, and there was relief. I told my mom about my experience.....and she told me about sleep paralysis, she'd had more than one trauma or stress induced episode of it in her life, and knew what it was.

Aaanyway, I really did assume my experience was a real spiritual one when it happened, and if my mother had enabled that kind of thinking, I might still cling to that misunderstanding of my experience today. But I've had dozens more of these, along with other horrendous things religious folk often think are spiritual, including exploding head syndromeast.

All of these sorts of experiences can and do have rational, natural explanations. Some people just cling to their childhood myths harder than others.

(January 18, 2017 at 1:37 am)Cato Wrote:

(January 17, 2017 at 7:28 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: We perceive our world as "reality" even though 99.9 percent of it is empty space. As the saying goes, if you remove all that empty space, you would be able to compress all of humanity into the size of a sugar cube...

Huggy,
Please don't ever repeat this. It's simply bullshit. This is by no means a theist/atheist issue. In fact there are plenty of atheists mesmerized by the thought. It is however a science literacy issue.

People enamored by this apparent quandary should brush up on their knowledge of electromagnetism. Coulomb repulsion will satisfy most inquiries. Those delving deeper and wanting to know what happens as we try to squeeze two atoms together will then have to address Pauli's exclusion principle.

This of course ignores that matter is not mostly empty space to begin with. Some of this stems from the fact that many people still cling to how the Bohr model is used to teach young children the structure of the atom leaving the impression of electrons existing as tiny satellites orbiting the nucleus and all that empty space. In "reality", as you put it, that empty space is filled with electron wave functions.

I always love the sugar cube or teaspoon references when providing estimates for the total space occupied when only the actual partical dimensions are considered. Mildly amusing, no doubt, but then I'm quickly left with trying to comprehend the energy required to remove all the so called "empty space". For me, that's the real mind fuck.

(January 17, 2017 at 7:28 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: WoW is real in so much that it has value and people can interact with it.

(January 17, 2017 at 7:28 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: If the creators of wow were able to imbue the any of the characters with free moral agency and self awareness, then that character would perceive that world as it's reality even though it's nothing more than computer code.

(January 18, 2017 at 1:42 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Sleep paralysis (which I used to experience quite frequently) is the precursor to an OBE...

How is having an out of body experience not a spiritual one?

(January 18, 2017 at 5:11 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: lol, a girlfriend is an "it"?

(January 18, 2017 at 1:42 am)Huggy74 Wrote: How is having an out of body experience not a spiritual one?

(January 17, 2017 at 7:22 pm)Asmodee Wrote:

(January 17, 2017 at 6:35 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: So you're going to argue with a damn dictionary/thesaurus?

Balaco is a fucking dictionary???  I knew there was something off with him, but I had no idea he was a damned book!
Did I give any definitions?  Did I quote any dictionary or any thesaurus?  Or did I give a real-life example to show that common usage is not as you say?
But yeah, I can argue with a dictionary for you.  Mind if I borrow yours?  I'll use your dictionary.com link to look up both words.
Belief:

---

1.
something believed; an opinion or conviction:
a belief that the earth is flat.
2.
confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:
a statement unworthy of belief.
3.
confidence; faith; trust:
a child's belief in his parents.
4.
a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith:
the Christian belief.
Faith:
1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing:
faith in another's ability.
2.
belief that is not based on proof:
He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion:
the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.:
to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.
a system of religious belief:
the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6.
the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.:
Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7.
the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.:

Let's see here.  Belief....one, two, three, four...  Faith...one, two, three, four, five? Six??  SEVEN???  Four isn't seven!  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what "no difference" means.  Should I look up the words "no" and "difference" for you next?  Because I see quite a difference here.  Maybe I'm stupid.  I'm sure that's probably it.  But it just doesn't look to me like there is "no difference" between one word with 4 definitions and another with 7.

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(January 18, 2017 at 9:58 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(January 17, 2017 at 7:22 pm)Asmodee Wrote: Balaco is a fucking dictionary???  I knew there was something off with him, but I had no idea he was a damned book!
Did I give any definitions?  Did I quote any dictionary or any thesaurus?  Or did I give a real-life example to show that common usage is not as you say?
But yeah, I can argue with a dictionary for you.  Mind if I borrow yours?  I'll use your dictionary.com link to look up both words.
Belief:

---

1.
something believed; an opinion or conviction:
a belief that the earth is flat.
2.
confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:
a statement unworthy of belief.
3.
confidence; faith; trust:
a child's belief in his parents.
4.
a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith:
the Christian belief.
Faith:
1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing:
faith in another's ability.
2.
belief that is not based on proof:
He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion:
the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.:
to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.
a system of religious belief:
the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6.
the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.:
Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7.
the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.:

Let's see here.  Belief....one, two, three, four...  Faith...one, two, three, four, five? Six??  SEVEN???  Four isn't seven!  Maybe I'm misunderstanding what "no difference" means.  Should I look up the words "no" and "difference" for you next?  Because I see quite a difference here.  Maybe I'm stupid.  I'm sure that's probably it.  But it just doesn't look to me like there is "no difference" between one word with 4 definitions and another with 7.

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I stop reading when people start to bicker about the semantics.