Science ... NOT God ...

[Wandering Monk]

But here's the fascinating spin. That thought, while it may not reflect something real at the time, can of often does as a result of being believed to be true or real, will create that very reality it images to be true. It is already real to him, and through that, it can manifest in physical reality.

Example, paranoid man believes his girlfriend is cheating on him. This belief changes how he sees and relates to his GF. GF withdraws from him and begins cheating on him before she leaves. His imagination created the reality. The same is true for positive things as well.

This extends to pretty much everything we imagine is reality. It becomes reality for us, through what we imagine it is. If we see it as true, it becomes true. To put a term to this, these are self-reinforcing, self-amplifying feedback systems. Imagination becomes reality. See that city outside? Imagination brought that into existence.

Bull****.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

No, you missed my point.

I'm arguing the bible authors did not believe the earth was flat or the center of the universe.

Wow - you have left me no choice now but to come to the conclusion that you do not comprehend what you read very well. I completely get that you are saying that the authors of The Bible didn't believe the Earth was the center of the universe. I get it. I do. And I don't know one way or the other - and I DON'T CARE.

The authors of The Bible may not have believed that the Earth was flat or the center of the universe. I understand exactly what you said, and that is EXACTLY why I responded with what I did. That even if the authors of The Bible didn't believe the Earth was the center of the universe it doesn't change the fact that they were believing in, and promoting other things without evidentiary warrant. For instance, the "god exists." It's the same sort of thinking that leads you to make that claim as leads one to state that the Earth is the center of the universe.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

GF withdraws from him and begins cheating on him before she leaves. His imagination created the reality.

No. His behaviour caused reaction in his GFs behaviour (there's no "creating" going on either). Not his beliefs. And a lot of times, there will be no cheating either - just dumping or maybe a few fights, a long resolving talk and then nothing. Or any of the countless of other potential outcomes.

The same is true for positive things as well.

Not really. I keep imagining that I win the lottery but I never do.

If we see it as true, it becomes true.

No. It will be perceived as true. But it won't become true. It will still be false at all times.

You can see the world as flat as much as you want. In reality, it will continue being a sphere.

To put a term to this, these are self-reinforcing, self-amplifying feedback systems. Imagination becomes reality. See that city outside? Imagination brought that into existence.

No. Labour did.
If I only imagine a city and then don't build it in reality, there won't be any city.
So clearly the city isn't erected by imagination.

On the flip side: it's perfectly possible for a settlement to grow into a city through construction labour, without at any point having imagined the city before construction started.

In fact, that's pretty much how most cities come to be.

 

[Windwalker]

Bull****.

I see. My dear old dad used to say to me, "We create our own environment." Took me a few years of life experience to understand his insight. I think my reaction was similar to yours in my arrogant, naive youth.

 

[Windwalker]

No. His behaviour caused reaction in his GFs behaviour (there's no "creating" going on either).

Yes. His beliefs, his imagination lead to changes in his behaviors, which lead to another's reactions and behaviors, which led to the end result he imagined. His imagination thus, in a series of cause and effect relationships. is the initial condition that created and manifest into actual physical reality. From mind, to matter.

Don't assume I'm a magical thinker who imagines you "poof" things out of thin air without any sort of cause and effect relationships. But what I say is effectively, and realistically true. Had he not imagined that, had that not been in his thoughts and beliefs about reality, that reality would not have materialized, as it did, through those means. That particular outcome became the very result of his beliefs.

Not his beliefs. And a lot of times, there will be no cheating either - just dumping or maybe a few fights, a long resolving talk and then nothing. Or any of the countless of other potential outcomes.

Of course there are potential outcomes, but the negative outcome, is a direct result of his beliefs. This is the way all reality works for us. What we believe to be true, tends to materialize for us through affecting our attitudes, which affects our actions.

Here's an example in this perfect quote from Ghandi,

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”​

Notice how belief is first? Do you find any disagreement with this?

Not really. I keep imagining that I win the lottery but I never do.

A better word here than imagining, is fantasizing. You don't really believe it is true, or that likely. I'm talking about things we really believe are true, or are going to happen. You don't really believe it. You'd like it to be true.

If for instance, you believe you are capable of getting a better job, your actions will follow your belief. If you believe you aren't, your actions will follow your belief. The end result will be affected directly from belief to actuality.

I'm not talking magical thinking stuff here, where you "imagine" you are going to be a powerful CEO of a major international corporation, while you are a clerk at a 7/11 who has only an 8th grade education and no financial resources to get ahead. That's just fantasizing, and anyone who says he has a real chance if he just believes enough, closes his eyes, and clicks his heels together three times, he'll find himself back in Kansas, is trying to sell them a bill of goods to make money for themselves. Like a Joel Eptisine, or something.

No. It will be perceived as true. But it won't become true. It will still be false at all times.

Something that is held in mind becomes that lived reality for that person believing it. Someone who lives believing everything and everyone is out to get him, lives that reality inside his own world, and it moves from inside to outside. What is held as true internally, will manifest in some form or another externally.

These are just basic truisms of life, which carry profound implications for us. There is a damned good reason the Buddha said this, "More than those who hate you, more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm.” What you tell yourself is true, what you believe is true, is either more self-destructive, or self-liberating than anything anyone can do to you from the outside. As dad used to say to me, "We create our own environment". If we have garbage thoughts, we create a garbage world for ourselves.

You can see the world as flat as much as you want. In reality, it will continue being a sphere.

Again, I'm not talking magical thinking stuff here. Why are you imagining it that way?

No. Labour did.

So belief did not precede labor? Someone just started laboring one day without any belief about building that city? It just emerged out of the whirlwind, and they started believing it after it was already built, somehow, through some unforeseen force? Labor is a thing that just happens of its own accord without a human belief behind doing it?

On the flip side: it's perfectly possible for a settlement to grow into a city through construction labour, without at any point having imagined the city before construction started.

In fact, that's pretty much how most cities come to be.

Sure. This is how evolution happens. But there are cities that are planned. That's why you have actual city-planning boards, designing where things should or should not go, for instance. I could have said a building then. A skyscraper had never existed through any natural evolution, without first having existed "only in your imagination".

So again, beliefs create realities, though a system of systemic causation. Beliefs are like the rudder which steer that great ship of interactive causations, either towards the shore, or out to sea. It's rather "magical" that way.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

Here's an example in this perfect quote from Ghandi,

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”​

...

That one is found in some aspects of western psychology and indeed it works. It has a name - cognitive therapy. There are other variants.

 

[Windwalker]

That one is found in some aspects of western psychology and indeed it works. It has a name - cognitive therapy. There are other variants.

Absolutely correct. CBT is something I'm familiar with, and in no small way informs how I understand these things. I'm not convinced that it's always thoughts that precede emotions though. It's a little less direct causation than that.

Emotional states, can be physiological in nature, which then invites thoughts to support, either negatively or positively. And sometimes thoughts have nothing behind them at all and are just random. I tend to see things more holistically that way, or at least try to break my mind from seeing them in linear, direct-causal relationships. While useful models, they don't actually express reality quite well-enough. The whole self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating thought/emotion feedback loop however is something I very much am convinced of.

It's funny how some call all of this "Bull****". I wonder why, considering the amount of information we've gained through these fields of research and clinical practices?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Absolutely correct. CBT is something I'm familiar with, and in no small way informs how I understand these things. I'm not convinced that it's always thoughts that precede emotions though. It's a little less direct causation than that.

Emotional states, can be physiological in nature, which then invites thoughts to support, either negatively or positively. And sometimes thoughts have nothing behind them at all and are just random. I tend to see things more holistically that way, or at least try to break my mind from seeing them in linear, direct-causal relationships. While useful models, they don't actually express reality quite well-enough. The whole self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating thought/emotion feedback loop however is something I very much am convinced of.

I am not good at it, but I do use some techniques because I have some psychiatric disorders

It's funny how some call all of this "Bull****". I wonder why, considering the amount of information we've gained through these fields of research and clinical practices?

Some people don't like beliefs. They use evidence, at least that is what they believe. It is a part of their belief-system, that beliefs themselves are bad. They tend to say they have opinions, but not beliefs.

 

[Windwalker]

I am not good at it, but I do use some techniques because I have some psychiatric disorders

Understanding the relationships between beliefs, thoughts, and emotions and the effects it has on the physiology of the body, the overall attitudes and outlooks, and activities is something everyone should understand towards the goal of overall emotional health and well-being. We can create life as a living hell for ourselves, living inside our dark imaginations believing whatever lie we like to tell ourselves as a form of sadistic self entertainment. That can lead to emotional and psychological disorders, such as depression, paranoia, social anxieties, and a list of other mind-related maladies.

One thing I have found is that understanding the nature of mind and its holistic relationship with everything, physically, socially, emotionally, etc., everyone who is so-called "normal", that is not in a state of an active disorder, for the most part simply find ways to "cope" with all of that internal chaos. That coping is to blot it all out, to assume all that noise inside the head is "normal". What is normal about replaying the same six narratives to yourself in your thoughts all day everyday? That's not actually living in the world. That's living in "thought-world". That's not "Reality" as you've said.

BTW, I just saw some of your posts this morning after I saw some young skeptic call your post "word salad", I thought to myself, "Dear God, that's a term I've had thrown at me more than a few times", by these emerging skeptics, usually with a background in Christian fundamentalism, carrying all that mode of thinking forward with them. As I read what you wrote, I was like, "Oh my! Someone who is like me!"

Trust me, your words are not word salad. I understand them and all that goes into and behind those thoughts. "Word salad" is a favorite response from cynics (which goes by the popularized, but misapplied term "skeptic"), when they encounter things that they cannot grasp yet. So they auto-response in a knee-jerk fashion, from an purely emotional level, to cynically assume it to be "beneath" their reasoning. "Woo!" is another favorite. God bless 'em.

Think of that response within this context. A fundamentalist Creationist does not grasp how evolution can work. Therefore, it's nonsense to him. It's, as was leveled at me today, "Bull****". Then you end up with pseudo-rational responses to evolution characterizing it with a "Crocoduck", that stupid combination of duck and crocodile. "That is what we should expect if evolution is true," reasons the Creationist.

"Word salad" as a response, is exactly, precisely on the same level as Crocoduck is from a Creationist. Word Salad is the atheist's version of the Crocoduck, assuming what they don't understand must be a jumble of gobbledigook (another favorite go to word). Whenever I hear that used as an immediate, emotional knee-jerk response to intelligent, articulate, and well-informed posts, I see it as a display of emotional fear, ignorance, and lazy intelligence. It shows no more intelligent and understanding of what was being explained, than Kirk Cameron Crocoduck is to the Theory of Evolution.

It's frustrating, but we're all at different places in our path to Reason.

Some people don't like beliefs. They use evidence, at least that is what they believe. It is a part of their belief-system, that beliefs themselves are bad. They tend to say they have opinions, but not beliefs.

What I think this is is an allergic reaction to anything that sounds like the magical beliefs they've been trying so hard to free themselves from on their path to Reason, which we all travel. It's like hating the word "faith" when applied to atheism. It's not a bad word, and in fact is very much accurate - if you understand the meaning of what a faith actually is when used to speak of one's view of Ultimate Reality, as Tillich used the term. It's a perfectly valid way to imagine what the Absolute truth of reality is. That is what faith is. Be proud of it, if that's your belief!

The thing is with words like belief, or faith, or God, is that how it is associated in their minds with past experience. There is no knowledge of it as a thing beyond that world they know. If you are familiar with the philosopher Ken Wilber (saw him referenced in this thread elsewhere), he call this the Pre/Trans Fallacy. It's a brilliant insight, and it bears out as true time and again when you see it. It is supported in any developmental framework, if you're familiar with them.

What that means is if our only exposure to religion is magical-level, pre-rational, pre-modernity religions and you are now beyond that operating at the level of Rationality, or with the domain of Modernity, seeing anything beyond Rationality and it's world of direct-causation relationships, into at Pluralistic, Postmodernist world of reality with its complexity sciences, systems theories, and holistic systemic causation relationships, that all will sound like prerational "Woo" or "Word Salad" to you.

It does this because the mind tries to find something in a common frame of reference that it can try to relate it to. Since it is literally beyond the current framework of reality's capability, it gets located down into the pre-rational pile below that current structure or framework of reality they are using. So today's "Word salad" response to you, was just simply that Pre/Trans fallacy in action.

So belief, faith, God, and things like that are all associated as in the prerational domains, of magic and mythic structures by them naturally. But all of those, mean so very, very much more than those views of they are at the magic and mythic levels. That allergy, that knee-jerk response also demonstrates that they do not have yet a Rational level's understanding of what those terms point to in the grander scheme of human development and spiritual makeup. Rather than being silly stupid things, they are profoundly significant, and a great deal of depth and understanding can be mined from them, using our reasoning, rational minds -- as well as our emotional and spiritual aspects of our being (those "woo woo" parts ).

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Understanding the relationships between beliefs, thoughts, and emotions and the effects it has on the physiology of the body, the overall attitudes and outlooks, and activities is something everyone should understand towards the goal of overall emotional health and well-being. We can create life as a living hell for ourselves, living inside our dark imaginations believing whatever lie we like to tell ourselves as a form of sadistic self entertainment. That can lead to emotional and psychological disorders, such as depression, paranoia, social anxieties, and a list of other mind-related maladies.

One thing I have found is that understanding the nature of mind and its holistic relationship with everything, physically, socially, emotionally, etc., everyone who is so-called "normal", that is not in a state of an active disorder, for the most part simply find ways to "cope" with all of that internal chaos. That coping is to blot it all out, to assume all that noise inside the head is "normal". What is normal about replaying the same six narratives to yourself in your thoughts all day everyday? That's not actually living in the world. That's living in "thought-world". That's not "Reality" as you've said.

BTW, I just saw some of your posts this morning after I saw some young skeptic call your post "word salad", I thought to myself, "Dear God, that's a term I've had thrown at me more than a few times", by these emerging skeptics, usually with a background in Christian fundamentalism, carrying all that mode of thinking forward with them. As I read what you wrote, I was like, "Oh my! Someone who is like me!"

Trust me, your words are not word salad. I understand them and all that goes into and behind those thoughts. "Word salad" is a favorite response from cynics (which goes by the popularized, but misapplied term "skeptic"), when they encounter things that they cannot grasp yet. So they auto-response in a knee-jerk fashion, from an purely emotional level, to cynically assume it to be "beneath" their reasoning. "Woo!" is another favorite. God bless 'em.

Think of that response within this context. A fundamentalist Creationist does not grasp how evolution can work. Therefore, it's nonsense to him. It's, as was leveled at me today, "Bull****". Then you end up with pseudo-rational responses to evolution characterizing it with a "Crocoduck", that stupid combination of duck and crocodile. "That is what we should expect if evolution is true," reasons the Creationist.

"Word salad" as a response, is exactly, precisely on the same level as Crocoduck is from a Creationist. Word Salad is the atheist's version of the Crocoduck, assuming what they don't understand must be a jumble of gobbledigook (another favorite go to word). Whenever I hear that used as an immediate, emotional knee-jerk response to intelligent, articulate, and well-informed posts, I see it as a display of emotional fear, ignorance, and lazy intelligence. It shows no more intelligent and understanding of what was being explained, than Kirk Cameron Crocoduck is to the Theory of Evolution.

It's frustrating, but we're all at different places in our path to Reason.


What I think this is is an allergic reaction to anything that sounds like the magical beliefs they've been trying so hard to free themselves from on their path to Reason, which we all travel. It's like hating the word "faith" when applied to atheism. It's not a bad word, and in fact is very much accurate - if you understand the meaning of what a faith actually is when used to speak of one's view of Ultimate Reality, as Tillich used the term. It's a perfectly valid way to imagine what the Absolute truth of reality is. That is what faith is. Be proud of it, if that's your belief!

The thing is with words like belief, or faith, or God, is that how it is associated in their minds with past experience. There is no knowledge of it as a thing beyond that world they know. If you are familiar with the philosopher Ken Wilber (saw him referenced in this thread elsewhere), he call this the Pre/Trans Fallacy. It's a brilliant insight, and it bears out as true time and again when you see it. It is supported in any developmental framework, if you're familiar with them.

What that means is if our only exposure to religion is magical-level, pre-rational, pre-modernity religions and you are now beyond that operating at the level of Rationality, or with the domain of Modernity, seeing anything beyond Rationality and it's world of direct-causation relationships, into at Pluralistic, Postmodernist world of reality with its complexity sciences, systems theories, and holistic systemic causation relationships, that all will sound like prerational "Woo" or "Word Salad" to you.

It does this because the mind tries to find something in a common frame of reference that it can try to relate it to. Since it is literally beyond the current framework of reality's capability, it gets located down into the pre-rational pile below that current structure or framework of reality they are using. So today's "Word salad" response to you, was just simply that Pre/Trans fallacy in action.

So belief, faith, God, and things like that are all associated as in the prerational domains, of magic and mythic structures by them naturally. But all of those, mean so very, very much more than those views of they are at the magic and mythic levels. That allergy, that knee-jerk response also demonstrates that they do not have yet a Rational level's understanding of what those terms point to in the grander scheme of human development and spiritual makeup. Rather than being silly stupid things, they are profoundly significant, and a great deal of depth and understanding can be mined from them, using our reasoning, rational minds -- as well as our emotional and spiritual aspects of our being (those "woo woo" parts ).

You warn my heart. It makes so much sense what you write.One thing you can catch some of the "skeptics" in, are that they use philosophy without really having been skeptical of their own philosophy. They take the western myth of reason. logic and evidence as all that is needed. You can skip all forms of other modes of understanding. I mean they don't realize that they can't do positive metaphysics, because that is nothing but "thinking the world" and that metaphysics effectively died with Kant.
They don't seem to understand this distinction in philosophy:
Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.
philosophy | Definition, Systems, Fields, Schools, & Biographies

The second part makes no sense to them, because it is about objective reality. All the subjective "stuff" in the fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience are a closed land to them, because it is all objective reality. They will admit subjectivity and then make it about woo, CT, religion and so on. Subjectivity is a negative to them, as sort of disorder in itself. The pre-rational is subjective and they are objective, rational and what not. They can't catch their own subjective beliefs in their world-view, because they are objective and rational. There is no way to combine the objective and subjective, because they are dichotomies and thus they can't reach trans-rational understanding.

Take care my follow human.

 

[Windwalker]

One thing you can catch some of the "skeptics" in, are that they use philosophy without really having been skeptical of their own philosophy. They take the western myth of reason. logic and evidence as all that is needed. You can skip all forms of other modes of understanding.

People normally cannot see the eyes they are looking through, let alone recognize how that filter both disallows what it cannot reason, as well as projects the thoughts of the person looking out through those lens onto the fabric of the Universe acting a screen projector for their own minds. If we gaze deeply enough in the Abyss, we will see our own face looking back at ourselves. And that terrifies us, at an existential level. So we make up God and Science to help us try to find some Ground, or "objective truth" and stay out of that whole messy affair.

That set of eyes, or lens they are looking through, as are a lot of modern Christians trying to make faith rational to compete in modernity, is the lens of Logical Positivism. That is the filter of the mind that assumes, religiously through faith, that reason and intellect will be what shines the light of objective truth upon everything. That however died a long time ago, but has been making a resurage, especially as it filters out into popular thought. Even though it may have never been known or looked into as such, its mode of thinking permeates and shapes the corneas of the eyeballs of the culture to see everything with that Orange tinge to it.

The second part makes no sense to them, because it is about objective reality. All the subjective "stuff" in the fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience are a closed land to them, because it is all objective reality.

Objective reality, assumed to truly exclude the subjective perspective of the observer, is simply a blind spot of perception, like not taking into account your eyes you're using to look through. It's like looking at the stars through the atmosphere, and seeing the distortion as part of the reality of what it is you are looking at. "Those stars have ripples. This is an objective, unbiased observation. My colleagues agree." Excuse me sir, did you take into account atmospheric distortion? "Atmosphere?? What's this "Woo" you speak of? Where's your evidence for this invisible magic fairy blanket thing you believe exists?" sniker, sniker.

Objective reality, is still a perceptual reality. It's what reality is to us, to how we see. It's not what it is in itself. A cat does not know itself as a cat. It doesn't name itself. Language is both our liberation and our prison.

Anyway, glad to meet someone who's aware of this understanding of the world. It's been lonely crying all alone out here, eating locusts and wild honey. No seriously, others understand this stuff too, but not necessarily in these terms, perhaps intuitively if nothing else. "You've always known there was something wrong with the world, Neo". Follow the White Rabbit and find out just what the Matrix really is.

 

[Prestor John]

Well, I guess nobody has proven the non-existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn either.

I find it extremely arrogant of people to judge all of space and time based on the limited conditions we enjoy today.

 

[Polymath257]

I find it extremely arrogant of people to judge all of space and time based on the limited conditions we enjoy today.

Hmmm...I don't see that as being what was happening. You said that the Deluge and a few other Biblical stories had not been disproven and I pointed out that by the same standards neither has the IPU. I never addressed all of space and time.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I find it extremely arrogant of people to judge all of space and time based on the limited conditions we enjoy today.

The problem with the flood myth is what we would see if it were true. We do not see any of those things. That is why over two hundred years ago scientists knew that there was no Flood and the evidence against it has only grown over the years.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Again, I'm not talking magical thinking stuff here. Why are you imagining it that way?

Because that was what you explicitly said:

That imagining things creates things or situations. It doesn't.
Real-world action sets things in motion. Merely thinking stuff doesn't.

So again, beliefs create realities

See? You're doing it again. No. Real-world action "creates realities".
Merely thinking stuff doesn't.

That one needs to think about the design of a thing to be constructed before actually being able to construct it, is kind of obvious.

 

[Prestor John]

Aggressive? What was aggressive about my post?

No one said anything about "flying monkeys" or "pink unicorns".

You can disagree all you want, but open mockery like that is just rude.

I did. I replied directly to the points in your post...

You brought up the above mentioned creatures that have nothing to do with what we are talking about.

Evolution disproves the idea of Adam and Eve as "first humans".

That's very easily said, but can you explain how the theory of evolution disproves the idea of Adam and Eve as our first parents?

What assumptions are you going to make about the previously immortal and then mortal bodies of Adam and Eve?

Geology, biology and physics disprove the flood (no universal genetic bottleneck, no global flood layer in the geological column).

What was the "Flood"?

What do you know about the genetics of men and women that lived to be 900+ years old?

Does the Flood event described in Genesis need to be a "global" event?

The Genesis account is not a complete record of everything that supposedly happened. Do you know that only Noah and his family survived the Flood event?

They are.

Not really.

The flood is directly refuted, as it makes testable predictions (among other things: a universal genetic bottleneck in all species and a global flood layer in the geological column and neither exists in the real world... therefor, the claim of the flood is false)

No one knows what or how it happened. Perhaps it is all allegorical as many Christians currently believe.

Well, yes... they require the suspension and/or violation of natural law to one extent or another. That makes them magical.

You believe we know and understand all natural laws?

The anatomy of snakes makes it impossible for them to be able to talk.

The Genesis account does claim that after Eve told the Lord that the serpent had beguiled her, the snake's anatomy was altered in some way.

The details of the flood (dimensions of the boat, amount of water, etc) make the flood physically impossible.

How much liquid water existed on the Earth's surface before the Flood event?

Was a "cubit" the same unit of measurement to Noah as it was to Moses?

These stories of the bible are completely and utterly incompatible with the findings of science in every sense.

It would be more correct to say that the findings of science don't agree with the "assumptions" made about these Biblical stories.

[Fortunately], reality doesn't depend on your beliefs.

Nor on yours assumptions.

The story as written in the book, is demonstrably false.

Assumptions made about what was written.

Also, if "biblical religions" can't even agree on what it was, then claiming it happened is pretty meaningless - as at that point, what is even being claimed? Something that isn't agreed upon / known / understood?

Well, I know for a fact that I have ancestors from 22 generations back.

I don't know who they were or any details about them or their lives - but they lived. They happened.

Is that a meaningless thing to know?

Might as well claim "gooblydockydoo". I don't know what it is, but it exists, trust me!

No one's faith in God is being made or broken on the details of the Flood event.

People tend to use this and other Biblical stories as justification to reject greater truth from God.

What you are calling my claim, is just a response to the claims of the bible.

But, I didn't make any claim at all.

Presenting what the Bible and other scriptures teach is not a claim to their authenticity.

You were the one with the claim about the Biblical stories.

All I said was that there was no evidence to back up your claim.

Challenge...avoided?

I am aware that plenty of them are demonstrably false, as explained above.

You mean all the other unverified claims you made above?

The larger point here however, is that such disproval isn't actually necessary.

It is if you claimed that you could disprove them.

Even if none of it could be disproven, that still doesn't make any of these stories credible by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not arrogant enough to think I know everything about all time and space throughout the universe.

Not being able to disprove a thing, does not mean the thing can be regarded as correct.

No one made this claim.

It's not the truth.

The flood has been disproven. It makes testable predictions and the predictions don't check out when tested. That makes the story false.

As for the other magical claims... the findings of science are incompatible with them. That makes them false as well.

Testing assumptions.

Especially if they don't care about being rationally justified in their beliefs....

Faith is the belief in things that cannot be proven.

Some people live by faith. Others don't.

Deal with it.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Because that was what you explicitly said:

That imagining things creates things or situations. It doesn't.
Real-world action sets things in motion. Merely thinking stuff doesn't.



See? You're doing it again. No. Real-world action "creates realities".
Merely thinking stuff doesn't.

That one needs to think about the design of a thing to be constructed before actually being able to construct it, is kind of obvious.

Now, here is some science about thoughts, feelings and survival:
Coping – Cancer Support Groups

...
Some research shows that joining a support group improves both quality of life and survival.

Support groups can:

• Help you feel better, more hopeful, and not so alone
• Give you a chance to talk about your feelings and work through them
• Help you deal with practical problems, such as problems at work or school
• Help you cope with side effects of treatment

...

Here is what the problem is: "Merely thinking stuff doesn't." That is not true for the subjective reality and then the joke is. where does subjective reality end and objective reality begin? If subjective thinking give better quality of life(forget better survival for a moment) and that can be measured by science, then where does subjective reality end and objective reality begin?
BTW I can find other studies about thinking, feelings, emotions and quality of life.
So back to survival and not just for cancer. I have a book by a scientist about studies of long life, survivability and quality of life. One longitude study showed that people with a positive outlook and coping skills survived longer and had a better quality of life.
So how do they do it? They think and feel differently than people with a negative outlook and who use defensive coping skills.
So you tell me, where subjective reality ends and objective reality begins?

PS Your thinking and feelings resulted in you writing your post and thus prompted me to act.
Is that true? What realities do that involved and what could it change?

Well, it has nothing to do with this post as such, but those of us, who pay attention to such matters sometimes learn to change our thinking and feelings and get a better life and then the scientists report that. So again, where does subjective reality end and objective reality begin?

So back to the bold. A human is a thing and you can construct a human differently by thinking and feeling differently. Things are not just other things. I am a thing and I have reconstructed myself by learning to think and feeling differently.
So it is not as simple as you want it to be. Not even in a natural and physical world.

 

[Prestor John]

Hmmm...I don't see that as being what was happening. You said that the Deluge and a few other Biblical stories had not been disproven and I pointed out that by the same standards neither has the IPU. I never addressed all of space and time.

I am not trying to mock other people and their beliefs.

The OP stated that these stories had been disproved, but they have not been.

That is not a claim that they must be true.

 

[ratiocinator]

That's very easily said, but can you explain how the theory of evolution disproves the idea of Adam and Eve as our first parents?

Here is some reading for you:

Genesis and the Genome (pdf)

"The relatively new and rapidly expanding field of comparative genomics provides a wealth of data useful for testing the hypothesis that humans and other forms of life share common ancestry. Numerous independent lines of genomics evidence strongly support the hypothesis that our species shares a common ancestor with other primates. Additional lines of evidence also indicate that our species has maintained a population size of at least several thousand individuals since our speciation from the ancestors of other great apes. This article will provide an overview of genomics evidence for common ancestry and hominid population sizes, and briefly discuss the implications of these lines of evidence for scientific concordist approaches to the Genesis narratives." [my emphasis]

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

People normally cannot see the eyes they are looking through, let alone recognize how that filter both disallows what it cannot reason, as well as projects the thoughts of the person looking out through those lens onto the fabric of the Universe acting a screen projector for their own minds. If we gaze deeply enough in the Abyss, we will see our own face looking back at ourselves. And that terrifies us, at an existential level. So we make up God and Science to help us try to find some Ground, or "objective truth" and stay out of that whole messy affair.

That set of eyes, or lens they are looking through, as are a lot of modern Christians trying to make faith rational to compete in modernity, is the lens of Logical Positivism. That is the filter of the mind that assumes, religiously through faith, that reason and intellect will be what shines the light of objective truth upon everything. That however died a long time ago, but has been making a resurage, especially as it filters out into popular thought. Even though it may have never been known or looked into as such, its mode of thinking permeates and shapes the corneas of the eyeballs of the culture to see everything with that Orange tinge to it.


Objective reality, assumed to truly exclude the subjective perspective of the observer, is simply a blind spot of perception, like not taking into account your eyes you're using to look through. It's like looking at the stars through the atmosphere, and seeing the distortion as part of the reality of what it is you are looking at. "Those stars have ripples. This is an objective, unbiased observation. My colleagues agree." Excuse me sir, did you take into account atmospheric distortion? "Atmosphere?? What's this "Woo" you speak of? Where's your evidence for this invisible magic fairy blanket thing you believe exists?" sniker, sniker.

Objective reality, is still a perceptual reality. It's what reality is to us, to how we see. It's not what it is in itself. A cat does not know itself as a cat. It doesn't name itself. Language is both our liberation and our prison.

Anyway, glad to meet someone who's aware of this understanding of the world. It's been lonely crying all alone out here, eating locusts and wild honey. No seriously, others understand this stuff too, but not necessarily in these terms, perhaps intuitively if nothing else. "You've always known there was something wrong with the world, Neo". Follow the White Rabbit and find out just what the Matrix really is.

See my response to TagliatelliMonster.
You can see what we talk about in action as how subjective beliefs changes objective reality.