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Are You a God

dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
I believe the Psalm that Jesus quotes (82) says it means sons of the most high. In this case it means we are God's creation.
respectful question: going a few verses back in psalm 82, the "supernal children" are the poor and orphans?
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Events like these by their nature are not things that can be reproduced and studied.
Actually NDEs have been studied scientifically, so that's not true. However, if an event is truly not able to be thoroughly investigated, verified, and/or replicated, then there is essentially nothing we can say about it's truthfulness, particularly when the claims defy all other evidence we have as to how the world works. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

This is where human reason becomes the sharpest tool in the shed. I have heard by now thousands of experiences of intelligent competent people that clearly suggests events occurred that are not reasonably explainable through the materialist understanding of consciousness. And I am sure a determined materialist can wiggle out a possible way to explain away each and every event but their efforts have become so unreasonable to me as to appear as desperate clinging to an old worldview.
Again, I keep asking for specific examples and what I get are unverified, vague stories and Ouija boards. Sorry, no rational person would accept such as convincing evidence unless they were already predisposed to buy this kind of stuff.

You calling them well-known frauds does not make that so.
Oh give me a break, it's not just me saying so. The examples of so-called "mediums" who have been exposed as frauds are legion. Whenever they are asked to put their alleged abilities to the test under controlled conditions, they either fail or weasel out with a variety of excuses. Again, if I'm incorrect, show me a verified psychic whose abilities have been professionally verified in experiments by scientists.

I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that some have abilities not explainable through the materialist paradigm.
And you are convinced unreasonably, unless you can actually demonstrate such abilities.

In fact Dr. Gary Schwartz and his associates have shown in dramatic odds against chance that certain gifted individuals can perform in even double-blind conditions.

Gary Schwartz's Subjective Evaluation of Mediums - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

Of course the determined materialists must attack those researchers
No no, not attack the researcher, attack their shoddy methodology and obvious oversights in how to interpret results.

but I, as an observer, must judge for myself the reasonableness of all the evidence and argumentation. If I waited for all to get on board with anything I'd still be on a flat earth.
I'm sorry, but believing the Earth is flat is about on par with believing Ouija boards are legit. There is just enough subjective evidence to convince a completely uncritical person of either proposition.

As far as the paranormal is concerned (as it is not perceivable by our physical senses and instruments) the closest we can get to the scientific method is controlled experiments that defy chance by fantastic amounts.
You are confused. If phenomena are not perceivable by our senses or any instruments, there is no way to perform a controlled experiment or have any sense of how probable such phenomena are. There's no way of knowing whether the phenomena are even occurring at all.

I am convinced by the data that the paranormal is real beyond reasonable doubt (and I am aware of the objections of the determined materialists).
Then again, you are convinced by very shoddy, vague, unscientific data.

A peer reviewed article does not prove or disprove anything. It just means it was reviewed by peers.
Peer experts in the field of study in question, who understand research methodology and the prior research in the field to date. Your dismissiveness suggests you don't understand the importance of peer review to weed out shoddy research.

But anyway, here is a list of selected peer reviewed papers on psi phenomena. Peer Reviewed Papers on Psi Phenomena
From the abstract of the first study on the list: "The methodologic limitations of several studies make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of distant healing." When you actually read the paper, the studies examined are a bit of all over the place and controlling for placebo effect is extremely difficult.

The second study examines the effect if retroactive prayer on patients with a blood infection. Meaning, the outcomes of the patients are already known and someone prays for them after the fact - an odd study, to say the least. They did find people who were prayed for had statistically significantly shorter hospital stays, although looking closely at the evidence provided this may have been due to extremely high outlier data in the control group. This is further complicated by the fact there was no statistical difference between the groups in mortality rate.

Now, I continue on down the list this way, if you like, just like I could for the first laundry list website you gave me. But based on what I've seen I have little reason to expect much difference. Prayer and other similar interventions have been repeatedly tested for efficacy in healing and when you look at meta-analyses of the data, you see overall that these interventions are ineffective, or only effective in the same way a placebo would be.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Actually NDEs have been studied scientifically, so that's not true. However, if an event is truly not able to be thoroughly investigated, verified, and/or replicated, then there is essentially nothing we can say about it's truthfulness, particularly when the claims defy all other evidence we have as to how the world works. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.


Again, I keep asking for specific examples and what I get are unverified, vague stories and Ouija boards. Sorry, no rational person would accept such as convincing evidence unless they were already predisposed to buy this kind of stuff.


Oh give me a break, it's not just me saying so. The examples of so-called "mediums" who have been exposed as frauds are legion. Whenever they are asked to put their alleged abilities to the test under controlled conditions, they either fail or weasel out with a variety of excuses. Again, if I'm incorrect, show me a verified psychic whose abilities have been professionally verified in experiments by scientists.


And you are convinced unreasonably, unless you can actually demonstrate such abilities.



Gary Schwartz's Subjective Evaluation of Mediums - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com


No no, not attack the researcher, attack their shoddy methodology and obvious oversights in how to interpret results.


I'm sorry, but believing the Earth is flat is about on par with believing Ouija boards are legit. There is just enough subjective evidence to convince a completely uncritical person of either proposition.


You are confused. If phenomena are not perceivable by our senses or any instruments, there is no way to perform a controlled experiment or have any sense of how probable such phenomena are. There's no way of knowing whether the phenomena are even occurring at all.


Then again, you are convinced by very shoddy, vague, unscientific data.


Peer experts in the field of study in question, who understand research methodology and the prior research in the field to date. Your dismissiveness suggests you don't understand the importance of peer review to weed out shoddy research.


From the abstract of the first study on the list: "The methodologic limitations of several studies make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of distant healing." When you actually read the paper, the studies examined are a bit of all over the place and controlling for placebo effect is extremely difficult.

The second study examines the effect if retroactive prayer on patients with a blood infection. Meaning, the outcomes of the patients are already known and someone prays for them after the fact - an odd study, to say the least. They did find people who were prayed for had statistically significantly shorter hospital stays, although looking closely at the evidence provided this may have been due to extremely high outlier data in the control group. This is further complicated by the fact there was no statistical difference between the groups in mortality rate.

Now, I continue on down the list this way, if you like, just like I could for the first laundry list website you gave me. But based on what I've seen I have little reason to expect much difference. Prayer and other similar interventions have been repeatedly tested for efficacy in healing and when you look at meta-analyses of the data, you see overall that these interventions are ineffective, or only effective in the same way a placebo would be.
Well, I’m going to jump ahead to the bottom line here. After an honest consideration of all the evidence and argumentation from all sides I believe the paranormal exists beyond all reasonable doubt.

I might call you a ‘determined materialist’ and you might call me a ‘gullible fool’, but after years of the same debates I know our different stances won’t be solved by further discussion. The arguments have all been done before on this forum. And this discussion has gotten so broad that there is no clear issue to continue with.

So, back to the topic of this thread: I believe my core is God/Brahman, that mysterious fundamental reality.

So the answer to ‘Are you a God?’ I give is: Yes, but not ‘a God’ but ‘God/Brahman’ as we all are.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Well, I’m going to jump ahead to the bottom line here. After an honest consideration of all the evidence and argumentation from all sides I believe the paranormal exists beyond all reasonable doubt.

I might call you a ‘determined materialist’ and you might call me a ‘gullible fool’, but after years of the same debates I know our different stances won’t be solved by further discussion. The arguments have all been done before on this forum. And this discussion has gotten so broad that there is no clear issue to continue with.

So, back to the topic of this thread: I believe my core is God/Brahman, that mysterious fundamental reality.

So the answer to ‘Are you a God?’ I give is: Yes, but not ‘a God’ but ‘God/Brahman’ as we all are.
I agree, we've gone down quite some rabbit holes. To reiterate my original position on the question: if God/Brahman is a synonym for "everything," then it is pointless and confusing. If God/Brahman means some kind of "universal consciousness/observer," the existence of such a consciousness or observer would need to be demonstrated, which it never has been.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
I agree, we've gone down quite some rabbit holes.
OK, we’re both at least seeing endless rabbit holes discussing the paranormal.
To reiterate my original position on the question: if God/Brahman is a synonym for "everything," then it is pointless and confusing.
I agree that it is pointless to just say ‘God is everything’. However in non-dual (Advaita) thinking something profoundly important is being said. This school of thought is saying that Consciousness is something fundamental and not derived.

Materialism: Matter is fundamental and consciousness is a derivative of matter.

Non-dualism: Consciousness is fundamental and matter is a derivative of Consciousness
If God/Brahman means some kind of "universal consciousness/observer," the existence of such a consciousness or observer would need to be demonstrated, which it never has been.
I contend that materialism has never demonstrated the creation of consciousness but only the physical correlates of consciousness when expressed through a physical brain.

The experience of Brahman-Realization claimed by the spiritual masters can not be demonstrated to the physical senses of another. They say to not take their word for it but to experience it ourselves and then we will KNOW. But stilling the mind to that level is no mean feat so until that time we can only take what they say as a theory.

Why do I think their theory is on the right track will probably be your next challenge.

Well, first of all paranormal phenomena has convinced me of the inadequacies of the materialist paradigm . Next, there are those that through psychic sensing can tell us of the nature and construction of the subtle/higher planes of nature and provide a model of the super-physical realms. These models have explanatory power to explain the types of phenomena so many normal intelligent people have experienced. The materialist model I believe overuses explain-aways, denials and dismissals as explanations.

Lastly, the models of higher reality and higher philosophies built on these models all seem to generally dovetail to a non-dualist philosophy in its ultimate form. And this non-dualism is actually the claimed direct experience of those I have come to most respect.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
I agree that it is pointless to just say ‘God is everything’. However in non-dual (Advaita) thinking something profoundly important is being said. This school of thought is saying that Consciousness is something fundamental and not derived.

Materialism: Matter is fundamental and consciousness is a derivative of matter.

Non-dualism: Consciousness is fundamental and matter is a derivative of Consciousness
I might quibble with this, because I think we need to add "and energy" after matter. We also need to be clear about what "fundamental" and "derivative" mean. If the idea is that consciousness is produced by matter and energy (namely, the brain) vs. matter and energy being produced by some (presumably immaterial) consciousness, sure that's a distinction we can work with.

What evidence do you have that an immaterial consciousness produced matter and energy?

I contend that materialism has never demonstrated the creation of consciousness but only the physical correlates of consciousness when expressed through a physical brain.
Untrue. Scientific experimentation has demonstrated not only correlation between brain states and consciousness, but causation. We can literally manipulate or stimulate (or, unfortunately, damage) a part of the brain and cause a change in a person's conscious experience. We can also do so not just randomly and unpredictably, but methodically, having mapped specific regions of the brain which we now know are responsible for particular conscious states. This is more than correlation, this demonstrates causation. To reiterate the point I made earlier, we have zero confirmed examples of consciousness apart from a living brain. As a recap, NDEs do not get you there as they are experiences of nearly dead people, not actually dead people.

Imagine the argument you're making as applied to anything else we recognize as real. "I don't think we've ever demonstrated the creation of coffee, only the physical correlates of coffee as expressed through ground coffee beans and hot water." The line of reasoning is clearly a non-starter. If it walks like a duck...

The experience of Brahman-Realization claimed by the spiritual masters can not be demonstrated to the physical senses of another. They say to not take their word for it but to experience it ourselves and then we will KNOW. But stilling the mind to that level is no mean feat so until that time we can only take what they say as a theory.
I realize that is what they claim. The point I continue driving at is how they can conclude that their perceptions are correct. If their perceptions are not verifiable by anyone else, they have no way to confirm for themselves that what they are experiencing actually maps onto reality.

I also want to point out that this is a claim for which there are many parallels in other religious traditions. Want to know if Mormonism is true? Pray sincerely to God to reveal it to you and he'll give you a "burning in the bosom." And so on. In terms of concluding what's true, it's a painfully bad way to come to accurate conclusions because it is prone to confirmation bias.

Well, first of all paranormal phenomena has convinced me of the inadequacies of the materialist paradigm . Next, there are those that through psychic sensing can tell us of the nature and construction of the subtle/higher planes of nature and provide a model of the super-physical realms. These models have explanatory power to explain the types of phenomena so many normal intelligent people have experienced. The materialist model I believe overuses explain-aways, denials and dismissals as explanations.
We've gone over the evidence you presented for the paranormal so I won't beat that dead horse. Suffice it to say I find the evidence extremely lacking.
 
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George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
We've gone over the evidence you presented for the paranormal so I won't beat that dead horse. Suffice it to say I find the evidence extremely lacking.

And I have found the cumulative weight of the evidence overwhelming. More is going on than the materialist scenario can explain-away.

Well then I guess it's time to let the dead horse lie in peace.
 
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PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
We've gone over the evidence you presented for the paranormal so I won't beat that dead horse. Suffice it to say I find the evidence extremely lacking.

The evidence is an abductive reasoning argument via personal stories. If there was one personal story, it would be dismissible. But given there are thousands or millions, it makes a strong case for at the very least, the existence of ghosts being plausible.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
The evidence is an abductive reasoning argument via personal stories. If there was one personal story, it would be dismissible. But given there are thousands or millions, it makes a strong case for at the very least, the existence of ghosts being plausible.
I disagree. We also have thousands, if not millions, of stories of people who genuinely believe in supernatural events that you and I can agree didn't happen, meaning people misperceive things they believe are ghosts or spirits all the time. And we have to grapple with the reality that we have never confirmed the existence of such entities in any controlled experiment, nor have we ever confirmed the existence a disembodied consciousness in controlled studies either. So using abductive reasoning, the best explanation for all the above, it seems to me, is that lots of people mistakenly believe in woo that isnt real/true due to subjectively biased personal experiences that can't be independently verified.
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
I disagree. We also have thousands, if not millions, of stories of people who genuinely believe in supernatural events that you and I can agree didn't happen, meaning people misperceive things they believe are ghosts or spirits all the time. And we have to grapple with the reality that we have never confirmed the existence of such entities in any controlled experiment, nor have we ever confirmed the existence a disembodied consciousness in controlled studies either. So using abductive reasoning, the best explanation for all the above, it seems to me, is that lots of people mistakenly believe in woo that isnt real/true due to subjectively biased personal experiences that can't be independently verified.

Interesting. I do value your opinion on the subject. You explained it better than most people would have taking the side you just did.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
respectful question: going a few verses back in psalm 82, the "supernal children" are the poor and orphans?

I believe the phrase used in the Psalm was "all of you." The reference is back to a divine council of gods. Jesus said it was the people to whom the Word of God came. However it appears to me to be a warning to all those who think they are powerful that hey will die also.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Thanks. I’ll have my meds upped then. We were trying a lower dose age.

I see no need for that. I wouldn't call it endemic or caused by natural phenomena. Rather I believe you would prefer to be less rational as long as you can hold on to your belief. As an iconoclast I encounter this often.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
I believe you are delusional. There is no sound basis for that belief.

*sigh*
  • Aitareya Upanishad 3.3 of the Rig Veda
  • Mandukya Upanishad 1.2 of the Atharva Veda
  • Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7 of the Sama Veda
  • Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10 of the Yajur Veda
  • Chāndogya Upaniṣad
  • Isha Upanishad
  • Chāndogya Upaniṣad 3.14.1
Mahāvākyas - Wikipedia

Whether you accept that as sound or not, I can't help there. I have no reason not to accept them as sound, and making an eminent amount of sense.
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You can study sages like Shankara, Ramana Maharshi, Eckhart Tolle, Gary Weber who had experienced upon enlightenment, consciousness being all pervasive and not just limited to oneself.

'Existence or consciousness is the only reality.' – Sri Ramana Maharshi

In reality there is only consciousness. All life is conscious, all consciousness alive." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

There is sorrow in finitude. The Self (pure consciousness) is beyond time, space and objects. It is infinite and hence of the nature of absolute happiness. - Shankara

'When you look at a tree or a human being in stillness, who is looking? Something deeper than the person. Consciousness is looking at its creation.' - Eckhart Tolle

An account of enlightenment by Gary Weber...

Happiness Beyond Thought

Somehow, I happened upon the teachings of Ramana Maharshi. I began looking in the other direction, back inside at what it was that was doing all of these practices and causing all of this confusion. One day, realizing that enlightenment was impossible as long as there was an “I” insisting on being present for the exciting conclusion as well as keeping all of its attachments, I surrendered completely. Everything was surrendered, everything; my “self”, possessions, job, corner office, parking space, options, house, attachments, everything. I said deeply and sincerely from the bottom of my being, that I had to know the Truth, even if it cost my life. With that surrender, I could feel something shift.

Shortly afterwards, doing an asana that I had done thousands of times before, the “I” blew out like a candle in the wind, and a page turned. I went into the asana one way and came out transformed. Consciousness shifted completely and irrevocably. Thought stopped as a continuous activity and stillness and presence were there at a level I could never have imagined. I realized that I was not this body, nor these thoughts, but the undying consciousness behind them. I saw that everything was perfect just as it was and that everything was somehow inside me and was in fact, all One. Surprisingly, I also realized that everything was God. - Gary Weber


Quantum physicists like Erwin Schrodinger and Max Planck had also stated that they believe matter to be derivative of consciousness and not the other way around, which is the materialistic position.
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
hey believe matter to be derivative of consciousness

Certainly plausible if we think that consciousness is energy, which I believe Stuart Hamerof and Roger Penrose propose. E=MC2 isn't only matter to energy. The universe we see came about because the energy that was the Big Bang became matter.

So... yeah. ;)
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
Certainly plausible if we think that consciousness is energy, which I believe Stuart Hamerof and Roger Penrose propose. E=MC2 isn't only matter to energy. The universe we see came about because the energy that was the Big Bang became matter.

So... yeah. ;)

Energy, matter. space, time are actually considered in Advaita to be manifestations of Brahman or pure consciousness.

Can electrical energy or energy emanated from bomb explosions be conscious or consciousness !

I am afraid that you have been misled here by some posing as advaitans. My sympathies...
 
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