Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
@Captain Scarlet- I was in no way saying my experiences are valid and yours weren't. I'm having problems with your concept of experiencing nothing. Feel free to explain further , I still don't see how that's possible. To experience is to intake information. Nothing is just that no thing, therefore not informative in any way. "Experiencing Nothing" I'm still maintaining is an oxymoron unless you can better clarify.
@Min- Of course it shouldn't be exculpatory. It should be evidence though, at the least to mindset of the perpetrator, which it was in this case. You of course also don't know if I'm rational, sane, poe or even a man FTM. In a trial the "right" in question would be the "right" of the whole, not the individual. You know I'm a big fan of personal accountability and while the individual may have felt justified it was apparent from public opinion that he was delusional.
I do not have the time tonight to properly engage each question so for that I apologize in advance. For brevity I'll adress the whole with certain points:
1- I believe in Evolution and believe humans developed from animals gaining different survival tools through natural selection and most animals diverged from common ancestry similarly.
2- (I've seen your post of it before Eil and it is a good video) I did not label anything as supernatural Eil did and thus is more likely to misinterpret evidence, create flawed causal connections and eliminate alternative as I will attempt again to better explain.
3- I was in fact attempting to label them natural as opposed to supernatural. If different species have developed differing coping tools (and we've identified some here that have been scientifically measured) do you deny that they have senses just because you do not posses them? No that would be fallicious. Limiting your world to the 5 materialistic senses is in just as much denial and is just as fallicious.
4- Of course some things listed are illusory and selection biased, but there are more senses than 5. We've tested some and found them to be fanciful illusions becuase they exhibit no more truthfullness than chance. The senses we use for input are very important and need to be tested and verified. Skepticism and most science typically though only deal in the material. Perhaps better tests are needed. Perhaps less brain washing is also needed. But rejecting all possibility of a potential sensory input solely on the basis of it's immaterial nature I believe is fallicious.
5- If a species of fish can sense electro-magnetic fields as testable and verifiable, isn't it at least plausable that maybe a few times, when someone says they see auras or ghost, they're actually seeing one? Since an almost entirety of our day is spent using only our 5 basest more materialistic senses it seems plauable to me that if we had the ability to sense electromagnetic fields (which would probably be emergent and very underdeveloped) that the mind would extrapolate a visual illusion to help our brains digest the information. Trying to hunt for ghosts at that point would be much more rationalization than expeditioary.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
@tackattack. Sorry to disappoint you but I don't think I can expand on my personal experience and neither do I think I owe you any clarification of what it is like to apprehend gods non existence, it just simply comes to you. But you are operating under a confirmation bias if you think that you can't experience this but can experience a visitation from an immaterial being. I don't doubt anyones experience neither do I ask them to clarify as they are personal to the individual and cannot therefore be objectively clarified. What I don't do is say any of them count as evidence. If you do say this, you are advertising a willingness to believe anyones account of anything.
August 14, 2010 at 4:35 am (This post was last modified: August 14, 2010 at 4:35 am by tackattack.)
I'm not doubting your "experience" I'm doubting it was experienced due to the fundamental definitions of nothing and experience. There is an important distinction there I hope you get. Nor do I say my personal experiences should ammount to a speck of sand to anyone else, but when asked why I believe I have a truckload of premium silica.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
(August 14, 2010 at 4:35 am)tackattack Wrote: I'm not doubting your "experience" I'm doubting it was experienced due to the fundamental definitions of nothing and experience. There is an important distinction there I hope you get. Nor do I say my personal experiences should ammount to a speck of sand to anyone else, but when asked why I believe I have a truckload of premium silica.
You cannot doubt I experienced it, it was my experience not yours. I'm not the only one. You need to read the letters Mother Theresa sent to the catholic hierarchy in 1953 and later. She was desparately searching for god and experienced nothing. She wrote quite compellingly and better than I could have expressed it myself. I wasn't a fan of hers if I'm honest, but I did feel sorry for her that she wanted a religious experience and couldn't find one. I think you are simply wrong and of you are I think we can both agree that as objective evidence it doesn't count.
(August 12, 2010 at 10:52 pm)tackattack Wrote: Starting off with the fairy tales hunh.. alright ...Firstly there are more than 5 senses, that right there proves that you're limiting your perspective to only physical manifestations.
Five senses: sight, taste, touch, sound, smell. There are other senses? What are they?
Well, I guess the Bible isn't fairy tales... I mean, there is rape and slavery and genocide and infanticide... but the magic is there.
tackattack Wrote:You're entitled to your view but mine is no less rational because I believe we have a sense of balance, sense of timing, intuition, etc. And their validity, when you can't even accept they exist as tools to perceive the world, is another question entirely.
I never said I didn't accept those things. I believe in intuition as well, though I call it instinct. None of those things have to do with a personal experience counting as evidence.
@DBP- very comical but definately illustrates my point about the senses.
@Captain Scarlet- I still believe you think I'm being dismissive of your experiences.. I would never presume to dismiss it. I think it is causing you to put up defences that aren't necssary and not listen to what's being said. If yoou have an experience you are more than welcome in my book to just ify your persoal beliefs on it all you want, even here in this court of public opinion. I'm ridiculed for my experiences and the subsequent belief stemming from them, but this is an atheist forum and expected (or even welcomed ). I wouldn't come in your house and use my personal opinion to explain my belief and then deny your experiences. What I'm apparently failing to get accross is that to experience something means some new information has to arise and to be ingested by an agent. That's analogous to a lighted room, we walk in and say wow it's bright in here, because there is a measurable value for light. To experience nothing would be analogous to walking into a room and saying, it's pitch black in here. While it's a common phrase it is wholy inaccurate because darkness is the absense of light, as nothing is the absense of any thing. It's not measrable and would be better said "man it's sure not very bright in here". If that was it, it woudn't be such an issue for me, but then you take it a step further and say this absense of experience is in fact an experience and justifiable for a proof. If we can't see eye to eye on this I'll just have to agree to disagree, but I won't rehash this point anymore unless new info is brought into it. This has nothing to do with your apeal to false authority or emotive use of characters. This has no bearing on the objectivity of anything, nor the credibility of any experience, just the actual event of an experience.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
Quote:it was apparent from public opinion that he was delusional.
What has public opinion got to do with reality, tack? Just because his delusions of god are more extreme than yours does not mean that yours are valid as evidence any more than his. You are correct when you say that his statements should be admitted as evidence. However, any defense attorney worth his salt would portray such statements as indicative of mental illness....not that 'god' said it was okay.
There are degrees of "crazy" you know. I would be willing to accept "personal experience" as evidence of mental illness.
@tack. You are not failing to convey your point. But you seem unable to accept that people can only experience something. I don't value my experiences as having any value as evidence. Strong athiesm makes a positive claim that there is no god. As such I can have am experience inwhich I can directly apprehend non existence (as indeed mother Theresa had). I can't see why you can't understand this point.
Yes, it is a stretch. In fact, it has been proven that dolphins and some fish DO have those senses, while it has not been proven that some people can see auras. Would you believe me if I said I was physic, like Godhead said he was?
Question: Why does humans not having a sense that other mammals/fish have make it hard to believe in? They are a DIFFERENT SPECIES, of course they are going to be DIFFERENT from humans.
Another thing I'd like to add is the fact that you don't think it's weird that dolphins and fish have gills and humans don't, or that bears and cats have fur and humans don't, or that birds can fly and humans can't.
Sorry it was a very long night, but rest does wonders.
I wouldn't believe you were psychic unless you could provide evidence. They're different yet we share some common senses. My point was illustrated somewhere that seeing apparitions could possibly be detecting residual electromagnetic fields or auras could be reading the electromagnetic fields of the living, etc. Of course I don't think it's weird, we have different needs and environment therefore different adaptations, that's natural selection. The question is can we select what traits we want to and affect natural selection and can would active use and trust in a non-material based sense strengthened it to the point it can be measured.
(August 14, 2010 at 10:59 am)Minimalist Wrote:
Quote:it was apparent from public opinion that he was delusional.
What has public opinion got to do with reality, tack? Just because his delusions of god are more extreme than yours does not mean that yours are valid as evidence any more than his. You are correct when you say that his statements should be admitted as evidence. However, any defense attorney worth his salt would portray such statements as indicative of mental illness....not that 'god' said it was okay.
There are degrees of "crazy" you know. I would be willing to accept "personal experience" as evidence of mental illness.
there's what's real to an individual and what's real to others and what's real to everyone else. The court of public opinion has a great influence over what the general populous accepts as reality. Delineating delusion from evidence I agree is tantamount to a valid perception of reality.
(August 14, 2010 at 12:39 pm)Captain Scarlet Wrote:
@tack. You are not failing to convey your point. But you seem unable to accept that people can only experience something. I don't value my experiences as having any value as evidence. Strong athiesm makes a positive claim that there is no god. As such I can have am experience inwhich I can directly apprehend non existence (as indeed mother Theresa had). I can't see why you can't understand this point.
I realize you're a hard atheist, and I think I understand your perspective because I illustrated it with an analogy. Rather than rehash your appeal to false authority and emotive characters and simply restating your points please progress the conversation by answering these questions:
1-You have a scale with a fish on one side. There is no thing on the other side. Could you balance the scale by adding any amount of nothing?
2-You have a container filled with water. You have a container filled with no thing. How much space does nothing take up?
3-I observe someone getting hit by a car. With zero ties to anyone involved and no knowledge of the even, how would you know that something happened?
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
). I wouldn't come in your house and use my personal opinion to explain my belief and then deny your experiences. What I'm apparently failing to get accross is that to experience something means some new information has to arise and to be ingested by an agent. That's analogous to a lighted room, we walk in and say wow it's bright in here, because there is a measurable value for light. To experience nothing would be analogous to walking into a room and saying, it's pitch black in here. While it's a common phrase it is wholy inaccurate because darkness is the absense of light, as nothing is the absense of any thing. It's not measrable and would be better said "man it's sure not very bright in here". If that was it, it woudn't be such an issue for me, but then you take it a step further and say
