It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Why would you "believe" in anything? Just consider the facts.
Many people here are atheists, or agnostics - but that doesn't matter - that's what they believe.
Belief is fundamental to our human experience.
In my belief, those things that I stated that I believe, do exist. But my beliefs are not written in stone. They have not been handed down to me from god. They are subject to change, like a kite in the wind. Maybe one day I won't believe in those things, but in something else. In any case, I believe what I believe, and I believe that the facts cannot tell us everything there is to know about ourselves and the universe.
Originally posted by Yarium
Oh yes, solarstone, there are a good amount of evidence to back up those theories - which is why we believe them. I believe them, as do you, that is not in question. My point there was that we still place belief in them because it's as far as we know they still hold to be correct. They could be totally different!
Originally posted by Yarium
For example, take Quantum Tunnelling. For AS FOR AS I KNOW when I slam my hand down on a table, it will stop when I hit the table. But, because of quantum mechanics, there's a minute possibility that my hand will pass straight through solid matter! This could happen because, by an amazingly improbable event, all the electrons in the table and my hand were aligned JUST RIGHT, and the electromagnetic force for a time didn't matter because of this. It's how the Tunnelling Microscope works (photons pass through solid matter, and some return, eventually giving us a picture).
Originally posted by Yarium
So what we believe, and what is, may sometimes be mildly different - perhaps only cosmetically different, but different it is.
Originally posted by Yarium
As for my beliefs, I did not say they were the truth, that they were ultimate. To believe oneself to be perfect and correct, that is a great folly, and yes, it is one that the US government has fallen into. They went into Iraq for completely unjust reasons, they've allowed torture simply because it wasn't on their soil, they set up trade agreements which don't benefit both countries equally (canadian softwood lumber trade, and Alberta beef), and the list goes on and on. Back in the Cold War, they had the essential equivilant of Communist Witch Trials - horrible things.
Originally posted by Yarium
No, I do not believe that what I say is truth. I believe in the search for truth. If to you that means math and science and 1+1=2, then so be it. To me, it is in part that, but it is also something else. It is the questions of the soul. That is quite ultimate. And if the soul EXISTS, shouldn't there be some proof of it? I search for that as well. And I find things solarstone, I find things. Theories mostly, but also experiences and effects. Science tells us that the universe is 4-dimensional, curving in a way we can't even see. What if our soul is 4th dimensional? What if it is a very REAL thing - not a flismy piece of energy - but a living thing in its own right connected to us through a dimensional barrier. It tries to guide us, but we are still human, still bound by needs and wants and 3-dimensional physical sciences, and so it fails.
Originally posted by Yarium
Now here's a brain tickler. What if there isn't god? If the soul were 4-dimensional, and the 4th dimension is time, could it not travel through time? It's the only way I can explain things that happen to me (have a dream of the future, then the dream happens, and then I change what happens - this occured to me just yesterday at a Secret Santa meeting of mine). And if our soul is 4-d, when we die, reincarnation is not only possible, but you could reincarnate as anybody, from any part of existance. In a way, you could be my soul either in the future, or in the past. And if that is true - then this universe exists for our soul alone - for all soul is all souls. And if our souls is all souls, would that not mean that we ourselves are god? Maybe we are. Maybe we aren't. Won't know until I die - and even then I'm pretty sure the afterlife will be very much like life - full of questions, and very few answers.
Originally posted by Yarium
That's my philosophy solarstone - not to answer, but to QUESTION. The answers change, but the questions - they stick. We laugh at things like "If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound" and the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy's quote "The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42 - but what's the question?". Perhaps it's the question that's important, the question that drives us. Once you understand this, you see that all answers are just different paths - and all paths merge and diverge and lead you back to where you started.
Take the next step from deny ignorace...
Question Everything
Originally posted by sexymon
KIMMII- I don't believe, I know. I am tired of disinformation and being called a kook and being told that part of my career doesn't exist. It's real, so deal with it!
Originally posted by Spreadthetruth
I don't understand why people come on hear and say stuff like,
"All that alien stuff is rubbish, its really the US government abducting you and doing painfull experiments, theres nothing to worry about and its not even worth talking about because if you believe in aliens you are crazy. The government have also owned those UFOs since the 1930s and have covered it up for 70 years......"