Religion, Scripture and logical thinking

originally posted by: Develo
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I already said everything we experience is all in your head. The article was to prove your assumption it's not quantifiable was incorrect (like other assumptions actually).

ACTUALLY I never said it wasn't quantifiable I just said we haven't quantified it yet. I've said from the beginning that if it exists, it can be quantified.

It's funny you said nothing on the second article though.

That consciousness may come from quantum interactions in your brain? I'm not sure what you were trying to prove with that study so I ignored it.

I don't think you really want to discuss this with an open mind, more that you want to reassure yourself you are right.

I've been talking to you frankly and with an open mind this whole time. Now you are going to write off my participation?

God is a subjective experience, if you can accept that we can discuss more.

Otherwise you will be stuck with the vast majority of people who have a naive image of god. Just like a vast majority of people have a naive image of particle physics or other complex theories.

You would make more sense if you just said that God is the universe.

Since the beginning of our exchange, you talk to me like I'm a Christian fundie, like I read the Bible literally and see god as a supernatural old man in the sky. You imagine ancient Greeks as people believing Zeus is literally a muscular dude holding thunders in his hand.

While since the beginning I've been telling you Christian fundamentalism is typically American, that it's not a part of Christian culture in general. That you have to get rid of your American preconceptions about religions because they do not apply outside your borders.

Fundamentalism is everywhere in the world. Yes, Christian fundamentalism is predominately in America, but they exist elsewhere too. Trust me I've talked to one who lived in Europe on these very boards. But the fundamentalism of the ancients is a different animal than the fundamentalism of today. Back then they didn't have the science to say that their myths were wrong, so it reasons that they likely believed that the myths were real. Your assurances to the contrary aren't really swaying me. Perhaps you can post a source that says that the ancients didn't take their myths literally?

I've posted countless examples that there is no contradiction between a scientific and critical education and a belief in the absolute. That even the modern theory about the birth of the universe and its expansion was created by a Christian priest.

That means little. Scientists can hold incorrect beliefs and I know that many Christians believe in the majority of science. However, the majority of their belief is the god of the gaps since they use god to fill in the gaps in science.

It's quite insulting that you keep talking to me like I'm some kind of deluded idiot who can't tell the difference between beliefs and facts, between what can be measured and what depends on blind faith. It's really condescending. And it's really insulting from you that after all we exchanged you keep wrongly assuming about who I am and what I believe in, just because I don't quote your post claiming "you are right!" and instead I present you with a less common and yet highly studied vision of spirituality.

Did it occur to you that maybe you aren't explaining yourself well enough then? I'm not trying to show you disrespect here, but if I keep making the wrong assumptions about you then maybe you should alter the way you explain yourself.

Not everyone has the capacity and perseverance to become a particle physicist. And yet some are and today the whole world trusts them and their findings when they talk about subatomic particles. But still, most people have no clue what they talk about and what these particle physicists say will be deformed in the minds of the masses. It will become a superstition, something they blindly believe. And yet it wouldn't mean the physicists were wrong, just that most people were in the way they picture the words of physicists.

It's the same with mystics and spirituality. Not everyone has the capacity nor the chance to make the experience of the absolute, of the non dual. And yet, since the dawn of man, people witnessed such people having similar experiences, and access to a different plane of experience, having access to a timeless wisdom, being able to give hope when none was left. They wouldn't understand it but they would trust them.

The article you posted disagrees. The third page talked about someone trying to create a helmet that gives anyone a religious experience.

And they would also deform their words, hence the religions, hence the myths, hence the cults.

And yet it doesn't mean the mystics were wrong. Just that most people were in the way they understood them.

You need to back this up sources. You keep claiming it is so, but you haven't made any attempt to prove it.

I really wish you would talk to me like a person capable of critical judgement. And yet, just because you never had a personal (and thus subjective!) experience of the non dual yourself, you talk to me like I'm some kind of self-deluded person.

Hmmm... I don't recall being insulting to you. Trust me, if I wanted to be condescending, you'd know. I've been talking to you on the level the whole time. You are reading too far into what I am saying and possibly getting offended because I may not be getting what you are laying down right.

You are not much different than someone who, unable to experience love himself, would could anyone who claims to be in love "someone only blinded by an hormonal reaction occurring in his brain". In a way you would be right. But in 99 ways you would be wrong.

Funny you should say that because I don't believe in love either.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
ACTUALLY I never said it wasn't quantifiable I just said we haven't quantified it yet. I've said from the beginning that if it exists, it can be quantified.this whole time.

This is what you actually posted.

True enough, but those tricks are consistent enough to quantify them. Spirituality, not so much.

I'm the one who showed you it was quantifiable.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
That consciousness may come from quantum interactions in your brain? I'm not sure what you were trying to prove with that study so I ignored it.

That's your problem. You ignore what doesn't fit your preconceptions.

Here's a hint, I even quoted the interesting part but your own confirmation prevented you from reading it:

"The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual approaches maintain?" ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review. "This opens a potential Pandora's Box, but our theory accommodates both these views

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
You would make more sense if you just said that God is the universe.

That's actually Spinoza's god so there is no reason to brush it off.


Thanks, you actually showed me with this last post that you are anything but an agnostic. I wish I learned something new with you but unfortunately there was nothing but a mainstream article about confirmation bias and another occurrence of an American atheist so sure about his intellectual superiority he sees me as just another Christian fundie, while I'm actually not even religious.

originally posted by: Develo
This is what you actually posted.


I'm the one who showed you it was quantifiable.

Maybe I should have added the word "currently" to the end of that statement. I usually do those things since I like keeping my observations open ended.

That's your problem. You ignore what doesn't fit your preconceptions.

Try explaining your position there.

Here's a hint, I even quoted the interesting part but your own confirmation prevented you from reading it:

So now you are going to get condescending towards me? I certainly read it, including the part you quoted but I still don't know what you are trying to prove with it.

That's actually Spinoza's god so there is no reason to brush it off.

Thanks, you actually showed me with this last post that you are anything but an agnostic.

I think you just need to take a time out and restart the conversation later because you are getting too emotionally attached to my answers.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

Funny you should say that because I don't believe in love either.

Why am I not surprised ?

You probably don't believe in free will either?

I mean, everything is just the result of an electrical or chemical reaction in our brain right? Pure determinism.

So there is no free will.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
So now you are going to get condescending towards me? I certainly read it, including the part you quoted but I still don't know what you are trying to prove with it.

Well then, you should have noticed the bolded part saying their theory could be confirming what spiritualities have been claiming all along?

You know what god is according to mystics and spirituality, right? Universal consciousness?

a reply to: Develo

Hey if you want to be hostile now, we don't have to continue talking. I get enough hostility when I jump into politics. I was actually enjoying our conversation. Unfortunately we've had a breakdown in communication and you have become hostile. Oh well, c'est la vie.

I'll be back tomorrow, maybe you'll have cooled off by then.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

Hey if you want to be hostile now, we don't have to continue talking. I get enough hostility when I jump into politics. I was actually enjoying our conversation. Unfortunately we've had a breakdown in communication and you have become hostile. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Says the guy who has been assuming about me for pages despite all my calls to ask him to stop thinking everyone who believes in spirituality is a fundie.

originally posted by: Develo

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: Develo

Hey if you want to be hostile now, we don't have to continue talking. I get enough hostility when I jump into politics. I was actually enjoying our conversation. Unfortunately we've had a breakdown in communication and you have become hostile. Oh well, c'est la vie.

Says the guy who has been assuming about me for pages despite all my calls to ask him to stop thinking everyone who believes in spirituality is a fundie.

welcome to the party, where people have confirmation biases, claim that only other people do, while proving that they do as well. i'd say it was lonely here but unfortunately, all this is part of human nature and as a result, its actually crowded, perhaps even overpopulated.

at least you're not alone.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

i'd suggest to you that the frequent usage of the word "fundie" as a derogatory, is actually a political discussion, disguised as a spiritual topic.

who injected it that way into our social arena, as it appears to be the formation of a filtration system for the purpose of only allowing some group think into polite discussion? i coulda predicted that you would view develo the same way he views everyone else who doesn't fit exactly into his pocket of reality. perhaps your twins.

mwahaha.

originally posted by: chr0naut
The Dead Sea Scrolls are fragmentary but there were multiple copies of each original Torah scroll. Scholars are confident that we have the complete Torah from all the fragments.

About 200 years before Christ, the Torah was translated into Greek from its original Hebrew by a council of 70 scholars. This Greek version of the old testament is called the Septuagint (or "the seventy" in Greek). The Dead Sea Scrolls texts were compared to Septuagint texts by modern scholars and they have found very few differences. These documents validate each other.

Modern Hebrew Torahs are usually based on the the works of the Masorettes who, several hundred years after Christ, using Ancient Hebrew, Syraic and Septuagint texts, created a 'refreshed' version, specifically for Rabbais (i.e: an academic version). Most modern Bibles use this as their primary source for their translations of the old testament. The Masoretic Torah, as verified by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint and other sources, has impeccable credentials.

The Vulgate translation was based primarily on Codex Vaticanus, a translation from Greek into Latin. At one time,this was the most authoritative source but we now have many older texts, upon which most modern translations are based.

Thanks Chronaut.

I don't doubt there was a great similarity between the Greek and dead sea scroll versions of the scripture. Or with the oldest extant versions. Though terms like "very few differences" and "remarkably similar" can mean a lot of things. I have heard claims such as "95% accurate" and so on and while I don't know how anyone could quantify such a thing, when I read claims like this I can see room for some rather large discrepancies. Not that it matters.

I really only had in mind the claim about the (mis)translation of a certain a word (hayah) re the Versio Vulgata. Once again I find ambiguity.

What I can find seems to indicate that where the old testament is concerned, it was (or at least much of it was) translated directly from the Hebrew. Unless it didn't find it's way into the Vulgate (the sources I can find seem to indicate the opposite)? As I have also found sources that say he was helped with this translation by people from the region who knew Hebrew quite well, it seems less likely (but still possible) that the word was mistranslated (I doubt it infers "became" for the word "hayah" and seems more consistent with the English translation "was"). The modern translations that I can find of the word "haya=he/it was" seem to support this also.

At first Jerome worked from the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. But then he established a precedent for all good translators: the Old Testament would have to be translated from the original Hebrew. In his quest for accuracy, Jerome consulted Jewish rabbis.

www.christianitytoday.com...

About the year 390 Jerome began at Bethlehem a much larger project. It was the Latin translation of the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew (Hebraica veritas). His chief reason for doing so was the calumny of the Jews, hostile to the Christian religion, who continually declared that Christians lacked the genuine Scriptural text and that their theological arguments, based either upon the Latin or Greek texts, were not authentic or valid (Præfatio in librum Isaiæ).

www.catholicculture.org...

The Vulgate is usually credited as being the first translation of the Old Testament into Latin directly from the Hebrew

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: 3NL1GHT3N3D1
a reply to: ketsuko

Faith is belief in something according to the popular definition. Someone who has belief in nothing is by definition faithless. I don't see how atheism can be a position of faith personally.

They have faith that there is no God. They believe we live out our lives and that is all... lights out.

It sounds like faith to me. Faith that this life is all there is.

originally posted by: chr0naut
Time travel is entirely possible. I don't think you will find one physicist who would say that it isn't.

It just isn't practical with our level of technology but that will change, too.

It might be possible one day, but I doubt you will find any physicists who claim it is possible at the moment.

This is because they will generally see it from the pov of the theories of relativity, which actually say that such a thing is impossible. Apart from the effects of "time dilation" (which happen all the time anyway but at such small scales that they are insignificant) the science fiction notion of time travel usually involves mass travelling faster than light (which is not possible according to relativity). So it will require completely different science than we have at the moment. Not saying that won't happen either, we know relativity theories won't be the last word on things and like Newton's ideas, can always be expanded upon.

originally posted by: Cogito, Ergo Sum

originally posted by: chr0naut
Time travel is entirely possible. I don't think you will find one physicist who would say that it isn't.

It just isn't practical with our level of technology but that will change, too.

It might be possible one day, but I doubt you will find any physicists who claim it is possible at the moment.

This is because they will generally see it from the pov of the theories of relativity, which actually say that such a thing is impossible. So it will require completely different science than we have at the moment. Not saying that won't happen either, we know relativity theories won't be the last word on things and like Newton's ideas, can always be expanded upon.

Godel used SR field equations 66 years ago to suggest one type of time travel, others have followed with different solutions.

originally posted by: chr0nautGodel used SR field equations 66 years ago to suggest one type of time travel, others have followed with different solutions.

That'll be more convincing when a young Godel pops up and shows us how it was done.

Not saying it can't be done. But it can't involve mass being accelerated to superluminal velocities, as the usual science fiction type of claims go. That would falsify relativity theories and requires a completely different model.

a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

anti-gravity.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

anti-gravity.

Well Undo...you've won me with that one. Very convincing.

a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

the assumption is that if it can be translated "to be" or "become", etc, that it could've been either one, and it was just the translator's confirmation bias (LOL!!!! deep breath LOL!!!) that resulted in "to be" instead of "become". yet when choosing "become" instead of "to be", and applying the proper tense of the word (became), it suddenly agrees with science (which the translators didn't have access to at the time they translated the text).

originally posted by: Cogito, Ergo Sum

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

anti-gravity.

Well Undo...you've won me with that one. Very convincing.

omygosh, i made sense to someone! /marks this day on her calendar

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

the assumption is that if it can be translated "to be" or "become", etc, that it could've been either one, and it was just the translator's confirmation bias (LOL!!!! deep breath LOL!!!) that resulted in "to be" instead of "become". yet when choosing "become" instead of "to be", and applying the proper tense of the word (became), it suddenly agrees with science (which the translators didn't have access to at the time they translated the text).

No problems, though I have doubts the Hebrew Rabbis at the time of St. Jerome would have made such a mistake. Either way, not such a big deal.

As to the underlined part......................???

a reply to: Cogito, Ergo Sum

same applies to the rabbis. look at the story in enoch about the super massive black hole. when he asked what it meant, neither enoch nor the translators were able to properly understand uriel's description of what was happening, but they still did a pretty good job translating it. but if you change the tense of even 1 word, it can change the meaning of the entire passage.