Just quit while your behind Abra, gettin your ass handed to you, your mental gymnastics are starting to get rusty.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:10 pm)Cosmic Ape Wrote: Just quit while your behind Abra, gettin your ass handed to you, your mental gymnastics are starting to get rusty.

Quite while I'm behind?

Genkaus is the one who's claiming to have 'proof' of something.

Thus far he hasn't proven a thing. All he's done is make a complete ass out of himself proclaiming to be able to prove something that neither the scientific community nor the philosophical community would support.

In the meantime I haven't claimed to have proven anything. All I've done is show that anyone who has an open mind has more than enough scientific information to construct many different plausible spiritual philosophies that cannot be ruled out as Genkaus' erroneously claims.

In fact, I'm truly surprised that you would support Genkaus' closed-minded and out-dated classical position.

His arguments are totally retro, and don't even apply in the face of modern knowledge. You'd have to go back to the days of Newton and Spinoza to make the kinds of arguments that he's attempting to peddle.

I can't believe that anyone would be gullible enough to fall for his out-dated baloney, but then again, considering that radical Christian Fundamental extremist tend to get followers too, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that some people would fall for his outdated blind dogma, and his totally lame and unsupportable arguments.

I was kind of hoping to that atheists in general wouldn't be that naive to fall for such utter nonsense. But evidently some of them are.

Clearly there are intelligent atheists on these boards who do understand that Genkaus is full of himself, and that his claims are nothing more than an over-inflated personal opinion.

The more intelligent people know that we can't rule anything out. We simply don't yet have enough information about the true nature of reality to even begin to pretend to be so arrogant.

I'm sure that Genkaus will gain his fair share of followers as he preaches his dogma. That's just about guaranteed by the laws of statistics.

I can't "lose" to Genhaus, because I'm not the pompous fool who's claiming to have a proof that only my opinions smell good and all others stink.




He's in his own little world on that one.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Quite while I'm behind?

Genkaus is the one who's claiming to have 'proof' of something.

Your shitty claims need proof, so yes we can deduce what's a bad claim and what's not with the right tools, not your imagination.... And I wasn't referring to just that one poster, others have talked to you about your ridiculous positions as have I when I called you out on your retarded signature.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Thus far he hasn't proven a thing. All he's done is make a complete ass out of himself proclaiming to be able to prove something that neither the scientific community nor the philosophical community would support.

Then you suspnd judgement until that thing can be properly demonstrated, that's logic 101. The default position. You have to prove why we should change our stance on the default position.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: In the meantime I haven't claimed to have proven anything. All I've done is show that anyone who has an open mind has more than enough scientific information to construct many different plausible spiritual philosophies that cannot be ruled out as Genkaus' erroneously claims.

Then shut up if you have no proof, it's that easy. I dont need to hear your maybes and could be's as if they hold as much water as anything Science has produced with natural, tangible evidence. When claims like the spirit or soul get tested up against Science, they fail. The soul for example is a big fail that many have tried to prove, do you realize how big that would be if someone found the soul? they'd win nobel prizes. Everything we are is in our brain, the first break in the chain of "logic" from a spiritualistic person is to not recognize this and that there is no evidence for a soul/spirit. And quite the contrary, everything we know about life shows life does come from non life and life goes through a cycle just like the cosmos, it's not a matter of magic souls or creation.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: In fact, I'm truly surprised that you would support Genkaus' closed-minded and out-dated classical position.

I dont really give a damn what your surprised with, no offense. Some people actually care about whats true and dont presume upon things we wish to be true or want to be true or can ponder to be true. Dont you think I havnt pondered about being a super-being who flies through space and lives millions of years, never gets sick, is on a drug called super-heroin all day that has no side effects while eating space nachos all day? Hell yeah I wish awesome shit like that was true but that has no bearing of my understanding of the cosmos. I actually care to learn about it, to see that it is a vast ocean of chaos, like an ocean, a cosmic ocean of life... life waiting to be born in the right areas, life waiting to evolve into a creature powerful enough to harness the atoms themselves. I dont care about supernatural nonsense, I care about evolving.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: His arguments are totally retro, and don't even apply in the face of modern knowledge. You'd have to go back to the days of Newton and Spinoza to make the kinds of arguments that he's attempting to peddle.

And what century would we have to go back to, to get to yours? the 13th century?

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I can't believe that anyone would be gullible enough to fall for his out-dated baloney, but then again, considering that radical Christian Fundamental extremist tend to get followers too, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that some people would fall for his outdated blind dogma, and his totally lame and unsupportable arguments.

You make a lot of bald asssertions about a person without actually explaining it, should I be shocked? I guess not, maybe you could actually expand on that instead of being a vague moron, like most spiritual people are. They cant even define spirituality for the most part. It's a muddy word that means jack shit. You might as well call neurons your soul and spirit because thats actually reality.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I was kind of hoping to that atheists in general wouldn't be that naive to fall for such utter nonsense. But evidently some of them are.

And whats your evidence of the soul? oh... there isnt such evidence?.. no way

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Clearly there are intelligent atheists on these boards who do understand that Genkaus is full of himself, and that his claims are nothing more than an over-inflated personal opinion.

I wasnt even referring to him, have you not seen all the people who write back to you on this board? as if Genkaus is the only person who gives you shit? He happens to sound way more intelligent than you pal... and thats a better conjecture than you've made all day.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: The more intelligent people know that we can't rule anything out. We simply don't yet have enough information about the true nature of reality to even begin to pretend to be so arrogant.

What dont you understand about suspending judgement until proper evidence is in? Do you say that a person is a murderer if you dont have enough evidence to convict? its always the right thing to suspend judgement, in this case innocent=skepticism, guilty=guessing

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I'm sure that Genkaus will gain his fair share of followers as he preaches his dogma. That's just about guaranteed by the laws of statistics.

lol dogma, might want to look that word up brosef, atheism isnt a religion, it doesnt have dogma, you're an idiot.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I can't "lose" to Genhaus, because I'm not the pompous fool who's claiming to have a proof that only my opinions smell good and all others stink.

Still being a pretentious terd trying to make it 1 person vs you, its already us two against you right now but I'd be willing to bet there's a lot more who disagree with you and your insecurities about wanting your supernatural world to be true and wanting us to be agnositc about it and when some of us refuse you call us close-minded well fuck that, I am agnostic about certain things but nothing you've mentioned. You wont even consider that your possibly full of shit.

Dear Cosmic Ape,

Genkaus make a very specific claim to me. He demanded that I must accept his "proof" that no possible concept of spirituality can exist and all possible concepts of spiritual have already been "ruled-out".

I knew immediately that his claim was totally bogus and lame. It's nothing more than an overly-arrogant personal opinion on his part. I told him that I don't accept his axioms. Then he tried to ram his axioms down my throat demanding that I must accept them. I pointed out why his axioms were not applicable in an absolute sense that he thought.

He continued to RAM his opinions down my throat demanding that I must accept them. I've showed him clearly why I do not need to accept his petty limited axioms. He's claims are totally ungrounded in modern knowledge.

So now you're jumping on the Genkaus bandwagon. Are you fully aware of what you are supporting?

You are supporting the idea that there cannot be any possible spiritual essence to reality and that this can be proved in a way that no one can deny.

That's what you need to support in your jump on Genkaus' bandwagon.

So you're taking Genkaus' position that spiritual agnosticism has been RULED OUT? There can be no possible spiritual essence to reality. And therefore spiritual spiritual agnosticism is no longer a valid view because we now KNOW that spirit cannot exist in any possible imaginable form.

I mean, if you too hold that view, fine.

But the TRUTH is that neither the scientific community nor the philosophical community proclaim this to be the case, nor would they be stupid enough to even pretend to. They know that we simply do not yet have enough information about the true nature of reality to make such an absurd and outrageous claim.

So if you're supporting Genkaus' position, then you too are supporting false information being spread to the public.

---

Stop for a moment and think about how lame Genkaus' position truly is:

Here's the position:

1. The only example of consciousness that we are aware of is biological consciousness.
2. Consciousness appears to require a physical brain in this case.
3. Therefore we can rule out any and all spiritual philosophies because we don't think there could be any other kind of consciousness.

That's got to be the lamest argument ever given in all of history.

I have always liked this:

(February 18, 2012 at 11:46 pm)KichigaiNeko Wrote: Reality - a bit more complicated than "God did it".

That's an interesting poster that actually flies in the face of the views of many physicists, especially string theorists.

I just watched a documentary about a Garrett Lisi who is working on string theory and multiple dimensions. He's proposing a very 'simple' mathematical model based on lie groups of intertwined circles.

His argument for atheism is precisely the opposite of what the poster you displayed is suggesting. He claims that everything can potentially be reduced to a single geometrical object defined mathematically by a particular lie group.

His argument against a "God" is that the universe probably came into being from a very simple thing, so why proposed an extremely complex omniscient "God" when all you need is this simple elegant mathematical lie group based on nothing more than interlocking circles.



So actually, the argument that the universe is far to complex to be explained by "God did it" is precisely the opposite argument that a String Theorist like Garrett Lisi would give against the concept of a "God"

~~~~

However, in both of these cases the term "God" is most likely being used to convey an idea of a designer God like the God of Abraham or Zeus in the Mediterranean mythologies.

Actually the type of spiritual essence that I'm considering could itself be extremely simple. At least as simple as Garretts Lie Groups.

By the way, those Lie Groups may seem 'simple' because they can be expressed elegantly using mathematical formalism and notation. But in truth, his Lie Group composes of over 250 interlocking circles that give rise to very specific Calabi-Yau cavities. Hardly a 'simple object'. Elegant, perhaps, but to call it 'simple' is a matter of personal opinion. No human mind can actually visualize intuitively what such a multidimensional objects could even be like.

That very object itself could be the "mind of God". It certainly has structure and the extreme flexibility to potentially explain everything we see around us including our very own brains!

Certainly not a trivial object to be sure.

Of course, Garrett Lisi's Lie Groups are just a 'theory' thus far and he hasn't been able to successfully meld together gravity and Quantum Mechanics yet either. So his 'theory' is still in the speculation stages.

But still, I think it shows the contrast between these arguments:

Is the universe 'so complex' that it needs to be more than just 'God did it'.

Or is it 'so simple' that there's no need for a 'complex God' as Lisi suggests?

These two positions themselves seem to fly in the face of each other.

Too complicated? Or too simple?

And what would constitute a universe that's "Just right" to warrant a "Goldilocks God explanation"?

Personally I intuitively favor Lisi's view that the universe is extremely simple at it's core. And I also hold the view that spirit is most likely also equally elegant.

So I have no problem accepting Lisi's view of an elegantly simple universe, and my view of an elegantly simple spirituality simultaneously without conflict.

These two concepts do not need to be in conflict with one another as far as I'm concerned.

---

(February 19, 2012 at 3:02 am)padraic Wrote: I have always liked this:

By the way, my views on spirituality have absolutely nothing at all do to with the creationist's ideas of "intelligent design".

I'm not suggesting that the universe necessarily needed a 'designer' all. And certainly not in the sense of a pre-thought-out design.

In fact, if the universe was designed in that way, then the designer would have been a complete idiot, IMHO.

So my views on spirituality have absolutely nothing at all to do with any concept of "intelligent design", or anything like that.

These are arguments that should be made against Christian Creationists.

They have nothing at all to do with my view of spirituality.

But then again I guess it is naive of me to expect people to have a truly deep understanding of the potentiality of Eastern Mystical philosophies. Those philosophies themselves are quite varied and abstract.

So I guess it's unrealistic for me to think that I could even converse with atheists on spiritual ideas that are much different from the lame mythologies of the Middle East.

Everyone seems to be so totally focused on those philosophies that they can't move beyond them. And of course, it makes sense that they would be because of all the nasty shit that comes out of Christian proselytizing and the bigotry and hatred held up in the name of Jesus as "The Christ". Along with all the suicide bombings inspired by the same fundamental religion in Islam.

People just want to get ride of religion altogether. Toss the baby out with the bath water. Who care. The Abraham religions are so despicable they'd turned everyone off to any possible idea of spirituality.

Apparently that's the true state of affairs in the world today.

Just get rid of the hateful jealous-God religions and don't ever mention "spirituality" again!

That seems to be the mindset anymore.

Congratulations Abra, I think you are just about to out-bullshit the most fundy of Christians.

Please do present a testable hypothesis regarding spirits and that kind of shit, intead of your all over the place ramblings

PS - You do know that "The Ghostbusters" isn't a documentary, right?

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Quite while I'm behind?

Genkaus is the one who's claiming to have 'proof' of something.

Thus far he hasn't proven a thing. All he's done is make a complete ass out of himself proclaiming to be able to prove something that neither the scientific community nor the philosophical community would support.

Pull your head out if your ass and see again.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: In the meantime I haven't claimed to have proven anything. All I've done is show that anyone who has an open mind has more than enough scientific information to construct many different plausible spiritual philosophies that cannot be ruled out as Genkaus' erroneously claims.

Look again. There are and can be many different scientifically (and rationally) plausible spiritual philosophies. Yours isn't one of them . I'm not ruling out all of them - just yours.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: In fact, I'm truly surprised that you would support Genkaus' closed-minded and out-dated classical position.

I'm truly surprised that anyone would have a position that became outdated in the vedic ages.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: His arguments are totally retro, and don't even apply in the face of modern knowledge. You'd have to go back to the days of Newton and Spinoza to make the kinds of arguments that he's attempting to peddle.

You're yet to quote a single modern "scientist" who argues to that effect.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I can't believe that anyone would be gullible enough to fall for his out-dated baloney

I'm surprised that you fell for baloney that was outdated in the dark-ages. (No, not really)

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Clearly there are intelligent atheists on these boards who do understand that Genkaus is full of himself, and that his claims are nothing more than an over-inflated personal opinion.

I don't see any rushing to your rescue. But then, you think your imagination is reality.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: The more intelligent people know that we can't rule anything out. We simply don't yet have enough information about the true nature of reality to even begin to pretend to be so arrogant.

The more intelligent people know that we can rule out the self-contradictory and the non-sensical.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I'm sure that Genkaus will gain his fair share of followers as he preaches his dogma. That's just about guaranteed by the laws of statistics.

And your stance is such bullshit, that not even the law of statistics would give you any followers.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I can't "lose" to Genhaus, because I'm not the pompous fool who's claiming to have a proof that only my opinions smell good and all others stink.

You can't lose to genkaus, because you believe what you can imagine is real and you cannot imagine it.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: I've showed him clearly why I do not need to accept his petty limited axioms. He's claims are totally ungrounded in modern knowledge.

No, you haven't. All you have done is repeatedly pointed to modern physicists and argued how they say they do not know anything. You haven't addressed my argument at all.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: So you're taking Genkaus' position that spiritual agnosticism has been RULED OUT? There can be no possible spiritual essence to reality. And therefore spiritual spiritual agnosticism is no longer a valid view because we now KNOW that spirit cannot exist in any possible imaginable form.

The two positions are not equivalent. One can be a spiritual agnostic while maintaining that there still can't be any spiritual essence to reality. Spirits may still exist, they just wouldn't be essential to reality.

(February 18, 2012 at 6:45 pm)Abracadabra Wrote: Stop for a moment and think about how lame Genkaus' position truly is:

Here's the position:

1. The only example of consciousness that we are aware of is biological consciousness.
2. Consciousness appears to require a physical brain in this case.
3. Therefore we can rule out any and all spiritual philosophies because we don't think there could be any other kind of consciousness.

Complete and total misrepresentation. My actual position is as follows:

1. Consciousness, by its very definition, is a phenomenal entity.
2. Therefore, there cannot be a non-phenomenal consciousness.
3. Therefore, any spiritual philosophy that proposes a non-phenomenal consciousness (as Abra's does, when he's not hastily retreating from that very accusation), is bullshit.

(February 19, 2012 at 7:14 am)LastPoet Wrote: Congratulations Abra, I think you are just about to out-bullshit the most fundy of Christians.

Please do present a testable hypothesis regarding spirits and that kind of shit, intead of your all over the place ramblings

PS - You do know that "The Ghostbusters" isn't a documentary, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZZKw8g3UI

(I had to)