(February 2, 2012 at 7:03 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Your "personal reasons" can be summed up with two words. Magical thinking. Whatever magical ideas you have, I can garauntee you sight unseen they have been handled, (and not even recently, but some time ago) by science, and empirical inquiry. That you cannot find this information has more to do with your desire to find it, than it's existence.
I can guarantee you that no one has "handled" my magical ideas yet. And if anyone could I would be more than thrilled to hear how they believe they have "handled" them.
You just don't understand where I'm coming from is all.
Think about this for moment,...
What is the foundational essence of Eastern Mysticism?
Well, in case you haven't already guess from its name I'll tell you. It's the realization that life is indeed a mystery and that we can never truly understand it intellectually at its most fundamental level.
So to become a mystic all that is required of you is that you have faith that life is a mystery that cannot be intellectually understood.
That should be easy. In fact, it shouldn't even require faith to believe that life is a mystery that can never be fully understood at its deepest level. That actually should be fairly obvious, (at least within the confines of mankind's current knowledge).
So how about a purely secular atheistic existence? Is it any less of a mystery that an entire universe could spring into existence and just accidentally happen to be made of stuff that evolves into beings that can actually become conscious and begin to try to describe what's going on around them.
Perhaps that's not a mystery to you. Perhaps in your way of thinking that seems perfectly "rational". Well, for me, a purely secular atheistic universe is every bit as big of a mystery as anything else. None of our current scientific knowledge has even remotely come close to suggesting why such a thing should exist.
Therefore secular atheism is itself a belief and acceptance of mysticism. It is no less weird than anything else. It's every bit as much of a mystery as mystical philosophies.
So neither has a leg-up on the other.
Yet you seem to be convinced that science has a leg-up on mysticism. That's where I disagree. Science hasn't actually explained anything other than what we observe going on around us. But that doesn't even begin to explain the mystery of existence or how anything ever came to be in the first place.
The idea that science could someday actually achieve that goal, is itself a faith-based belief that truly has not merit.
Like I've already pointed out, if you truly want to get scientific about it then just ask what the most successful theory in science has to say?
The most successful theory of science (i.e. Quantum Mechanics) says that we have reached a dead end that is impossible to penetrate.
That is what science actually has to say about this. Contrary to what you seem to be trying to claim.
Christian - A moron who believes that an all-benevolent God can simultaneously be a hateful jealous male-chauvinistic pig.
Wiccan - The epitome of cerebral evolution having mastered the magical powers of the universe and is in eternal harmony with the mind of God.
Atheist - An ill-defined term that means something different to everyone who uses it.
~~~~~
Luke 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Clearly Jesus (a fictitious character or otherwise) will forgive people if they merely know not what they do
For the Bible Tells us so!
Wiccan - The epitome of cerebral evolution having mastered the magical powers of the universe and is in eternal harmony with the mind of God.
Atheist - An ill-defined term that means something different to everyone who uses it.
~~~~~
Luke 23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
Clearly Jesus (a fictitious character or otherwise) will forgive people if they merely know not what they do
For the Bible Tells us so!
