Thoughts on Buddhism

[Abracadabra]

That is exactly my point. They cannot be done at the same time. Either you do one or the other at any given moment, and doing one distracts from the other. Rationality and irrationality co-mingling is never productive. As can be simply demonstrated by any discussion whatsoever where the two try to coexist; including the threads where you start to inject your superstition (mild as it is) into the discussion.

With all due respect RW, this particularity thread is in the "religion" section of the forums and the topic is "Thoughts on Buddhism".

If you're not interested in discussing anything but science why not look into the science forums?

I mean seriously. We were trying to address Buddhism in this thread. By your own criteria we shouldn't be trying to do two things at once so why even bring science into the conversation at all?

I personally have no problem considering both scientific aspects of things and spiritual aspects of things simultaneously and still recognize the difference between them.

Things are only science if you can devise an experiment to verify them or rule them out.

If they can't be verified or ruled out, then they are clearly open to spiritual consideration.

And that's my approach to the topic of spirituality.

And you still haven't answered why you insist on clinging to the spiritual terms even when you admit yourself that they are entirely different from science. Unless it is purely because you wish for them to be true. In which case, you are actively and knowingly pursuing meaningless wish-thinking.

Considering possibilities doesn't necessarily mean that I wish for them to be true. It just means that I'm considering that they might be true.

Besides, don't scientists do a very similar thing?

Aren't String Theorists hopefully wishing that strings are real?

Aren't scientists currently hopefully wishing that the Higgs field is real?

What about supersymmetry , etc, etc, etc.

Science is always "wish-thinking" before things are confirmed.

And sometimes they don't get their wish.

At one time many scientists were wishing that the universe was finite and static. Too bad for them that Hubble discovered otherwise.

Many scientists wished that Newtonian absolute space and time could be maintained forever. Einstein pulled the rug out from under those wishes.

Science is really nothing more than a list of wishes that actually came true for certain scientists. We don't even bother keeping track of all the wishes that went down the proverbial toilet.