I’ve been in a discussion with someone that thinks that this material is factual. Setting this aside, she’s willing to reconsider if I can offer some factual proof regarding the various SCIENCE based comments in the material.
So, can anyone who’s read the thing offer commentary regarding any scientific subject in this documents? What has been debunked? What is plausible?
Again, strictly restricting the comments to the parts that mention science.
Thanks
Allow me, everyone.
Ahem
What the hell are you talking about?
I will clarify. I think it is bunk. She thinks that there may be some truth to at least part of it. She argues that there are a bunch of science based (physics. chemistry, astronomy, etc) concepts and theories that the writers of this material wouldn’t have a way of knowing about (thereby proving that they are channeling an intelligence).
I have not had the patience to read through this stuff, so I was hoping that someone here had not only read it, but would be able to offer some sort of mainstream scientific commentary to any “science” from the texts.
Czarcasm, yah I saw that article when I tried to find stuff, but I was hoping that someone who had read this text and had knowledge of at least one of the hard sciences “covered” would be able to comment as to where the science is bogus.
(I’ve already tried to demonstrate the logical inconsistencies, but now I’d like to show how the relevant science IS spoken of in mainstream circles and how.
I had this whole thing typed out, and my “token expired.” Now I must hurry away. The gist:
Most people have no idea what it would take to cover interstellar distances. Try to get it across to her the immense size of even this corner of the galaxy.
Also, Google is your friend. In 2 minutes I found http://www.mysteries-of-the-world.com/ancient-astronauts.html, which has this: "Ronald Story published The Space Gods Revealed in 1976, providing an almost page-by-page refutation of the hypotheses and evidence in von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods?. " So, find that book, for a start.
A lot of von Däniken’s theories revolve around the idea that Ancient People, especially the non-white kind, were too stupid to invent such advanced concepts as the straight line. Luckily for them, pale faced astronauts turned up and told darky how to do stuff.
Very scientific :rolleyes:
I was going to mention that, but apparently he did throw in Stonehenge.
thanks for the replies, but von Daniken isn’t in question (already was able to show how many errors that nutter had).
Ra materials is supposedly a woman “channeling” an advanced being. Now, I only had the patience to read a bit of the beginning and I found a bunch of questionable stuff (like being warned against ‘electromagnetic equipment’ interfering with the channeling, yet they strapped a bunch of mikes and a tape recorder to her chest.
Stuff like that. HOWEVER, apparently further in the material she "channels’ a bunch of scientific based information. Stuff dealing with physics and astronomy that my friend has said she’s been told is plausible.
Her argument being that the woman doing the channeling and the others involved have no way of knowing about this stuff.
From what she’s said (and my limited knowledge of physics) I’m doubtful. SO I’m hoping someone who’s read this stuff and knows their science could weigh in on it. I just want some factual counter arguments to what she’s read.
Again, I’d like to mention that von daniken and all other similar works aren’t being brought into this discussion.
Thanks
I checked out a couple of pages including the page on Cosmology. I cannot comment on the science there because there was nothing that in any way resembled science. Not one single sentence. It is all woowoo.
Nothing rational that anyone can possibly say would have an impact on anybody who could read that page and declare it to be science. I wouldn’t waste even a moment on it.
I agree, it seems to be at least 95% stuff that isn’t relevant to the physical universe, so it’s not strictly right or wrong per se, it’s just unverifiable and unfalsifiable.
They do mention Dewey Bernard Larson’s Reciprocal System, which stands at odds with the “standard particle model” of conventional theoretical physics and also with “string theory”. The Wikipedia article doesn’t list what the modern criticisms of his theories are.
But for the most part, I only see explanations of the structure and mechanics of the ‘spiritual base of existence’, which we can’t observe directly and so are beyond our ability to comment on, beyond Occam’s Razor.
I think if you want to debunk it, you’re going to have to give us some things she believes that have something to do with the physical universe.
You can find Larson’s work on this site.
If you check, you’ll quickly see that his explanations of how the universe works contain no math. That removes them from formal science. (They aren’t popular science either. Popular science is simplified explanations of primary math-based science. This purports to be primary science, but can’t be.)
well, this is not the only “channeled” text that makes cosmological claims. Urantia book, if it does happen to be channeled, would be another. Writings of Daniil Andreev yet another. Then there is Blavatsky although she seems to have focused on outlandish claims about history rather than cosmology.
The real purpose of all such texts is not to teach you science (most of us mere mortals cannot fully understand even the basic models discovered by human science, let alone hypothetical insights that could be obtained from a superhuman intelligence). They are written, by humans or by the entities that get channeled, in order to impart their religious ideas. Quasi-scientific chitchat is the delivery vehicle to attract attention and support propagation of the payload. And the target audience, of course, is too dumb to evaluate the quality of these ramblings or even to care about doing that.
A much more common, and probably more effective, delivery vehicle is political and ideological claims geared for the expected politics of the audience (socialism, environmentalism, America bad - UN good, and similar). E.g. witness the Benjamin Creme stuff.