I read at least one of his books, he spent a lot of time in mental hospitals and said: “I get through many a bad night with the thought of suicide.”
Not exactly my choice of great men.
I never could see the appeal of an unknown afterlife when the life we have here and now has such potential. People get the most improbable gift of all, and bitch when they can’t have the whole damn universe for all eternity.
Totally ungrateful.
Science sort of makes sense if you want other people to define your reality, but if reality is subjective science stands against you discovering what is real for you, and really living. Science falls way short in people defining what is really happening, removes the wonder of life and replaces it with someone elses reason why you are wrong.
It also diminishes the very mind that created the scientific process, making up stories of how people can’t remember events correctly, if people can’t remember events correctly how can science accurately measure then record anything.
In a group think mentality yes science seems to make sense, but for people who observe their world around them and dare to think for themselves instead of just going along with the masses science is a barrier to truth.
Substitute the word “science” with “religion” in this quote and we would be in complete harmony. If your previous posts weren’t always so deadly serious, I would suspect you were trying to poke fun at the rationalistic worldview by aping it in reverse.
But maybe the phrase “if reality is subjective…” reveals our differences. Without that caveat, the whole statement crumbles; and most atheists feel strongly that reality is not subjective. Science is literally the practice of using objective means to overcome subjective bias and discover objective truths.
Subjective truth is inherently ephemeral and brittle, because it fractures every time someone disagrees with you. That is why the various “One True Faiths” have each fractured into thousands of orders, sects, and cults over time.
To me science is just another religion, so yes you can replace the terms. It’s just some man made rules that sort of prove themselves over time that binds society into order.
This is a very big difference, yes I believe that reality is subjective, I have personally seen it - ‘flaws in the matrix’ if you will. But because it is subjective it’s not something another person can prove to you, but you have to explore it yourself, which means breaking free of the objective reality mindset, or at least be open minded to the possibility that reality may not be objective.
There is a ultimate truth, using the matrix analogy it would be that the people are in pods experiencing subjective realities that interrelate, but are not the same. The fractions in religion, are just part of the matrix, illusions. Within all faiths, including what I would call science, there is the true church, running through all aspects and gatherings on earth. This unified church is not visible normally, but there and unified beyond anything else, is it is God Himself. The entry to this church comes from seeking and God will provide a door in, a person from this church will come to you and let you in, it could be at work, at service, wherever God chooses.
So has been my subjective experience.
Will someone who doesn’t think The Matrix was a documentary please translate post #225 for me?
Ok, so you think religion’s “rules” prove themselves over time, fair enough. It’s wrong, but I can wrap my head around it.
But in what sense can science’s “rules” bind society into order? What on earth could this possibly be referring to?
Science is a form of mind control, it tells people what the experts say is correct is the truth, and ostracizes you if you disagree. It rules peoples actions and lives. One place it is pretty clear is the environmental movement, experts say that man is causing global warming and we have to cut down carbon emissions, which is causing changes in lives some people are being displaced by this (IMHO displacing and ostracizing people diminishes us all, and should be avoided).
Think what you want about AGW, but it is a cross discipline conclusion taking so much man power that is it logically impossible for any single person to verify if it is true or not. Any there is political pressure and stories that how scientists who say that AGW is not happening are ostracized. Wanting to be ‘included’ is a very strong motivator to conform, and that pressure is used in the scientific community, as it is in religion. In objective reality you have to accept it and the rules that come with it, but in subjective reality you have to find out what that means to you.
My own faith has show me that we were never suppose to worry or react to any form of AGW, as we are the children of mother earth, which is a living spirit, and in many respects we are her fetal child. She is the one to remove our waste gas and supply what we need to breath. What we need to do us understand this relationship, where we are, and stop trying to do what we were never intended to do and let those who are suppose to do those things do them. This frees me from carbon guilt, and lets me enjoy the world as our mother wants us to, to see the world, what she has for us.
We can also look at the speed of light, which through it’s various equations basically condemn us to die on this planet, which is a spirit of hopelessness for humanity, and give science great power over peoples hopes by offering maybe a way to circumvent this speed limit and travel between the stars. (In my own faith I know we will be easily traveling between the stars in the Kingdom of God).
Medical science also limits people to what the Dr’s (experts) say, while in my faith healing comes from Love (which is God), and by following Love, if that be through Dr’s Medicines, Alternative meds, prayer, that only through Love will one be healed, so it gives me so many more options.
Is that you, Dr. Bronner?
At this point - well, long before this point, really - it’s clear you don’t know anything about science. The fact that you talk about it like an oppressive being is one clue, but this is even further divorced from reality.
Be pretty cool if he was, except Dr. B’s dead.
That would be even cooler!
Best psychic channeling act I’ve seen in years.
This is a classic ad-hom. You denigrate the man while not touching the point he put forward at all.
Further, he spent the remainder of his life in mental hospitals AFTER he had written quite a lot of good stuff. This is, of course, BESIDE the point since I didn’t bring him up to argue that he was a great man.
I can sympathize with that view, certainly. Although, on the otherhand suppose that you live in utter squallor (sp?) and barely eek out a pathetic existence (starving, often diseased, etc). With that in mind, the idea of an afterlife becomes the only hope.
What? “If” reality is subjective? What would be the benefit of entertaining such a notion?
Science is a method of knowing about reality, it’s pragmatically justified. If you don’t accept it, fine, but telling me that you don’t accept it over the internet - the fruits of science - is a tad hypocritical, don’t you think?
This seems to be your arbitrary viewpoint. I see no reason to entertain it.
Group think mentality?
Are you familiar with how science works?
Many philosophers over time has suggested it. It is basically a suggestion of think for yourself, question authority. If reality is really objective then your subjective reality should tend towards objective reality, if it does not it suggest it is not the same.
Science assumes objective reality, that has never been proven by science.
Yes I was trained in it, when I started to question it I was told not to and just accept it, when I persisted I was ostracized, When I began recognizing many flaws in it, I sought out the truth and found Him in Jesus.
And what particular science were you trained in?
And what does “trained” mean?
I don’t hold belief in the things I do in order to get something out of it, I hold belief in the things I do because the evidences and proofs as I interpret them naturally incline me to believe or not believe in said thing.
The “belief” part.
I have no idea if God is “telling” me what is and isn’t moral. I just rely on my own inner sense of right and wrong, and I don’t know what the origin of that inner sense is.
I never claimed that the deity I believe in is good or evil. There may well be a bazillion deities, but you only need one creator deity to create, so, so far, I only see evidence of at least one.
Mothers chicken soup has been known by many to be a cure for so many illnesses, including the common cold. What the cure is is not in the chemical compounds but the Love flowing from the mother to the child who is acceptive to that Love and trusts his mother. Love is what cures, Love is God and God is Spirit, so Love is Spirit, something science does not want to deal with.
When scientists get their hands on this, they analyze the chemical compounds, and remove the Love from the mother as far as possible by double blind studies, and remove the acceptance of Love and trust from the child. Then no surprise they find nothing. Or if they do find something they insist that the soup has to contain a certain compound to work, or be made a certain way. This insistence of a certain way, repeatable results, is in religion called legalism. Legalism manifests itself in Christianity in insistence of certain prayers, or rituals or the use of a certain version of the Bible. Science is no different, and they take it to a whole other level. Love does not work this way, Love is accepting and not demanding.
What about pharmaceuticals that do work. God has His one church everywhere, people who Love others. They work for pharmaceutical companies, and the Love of God flows through them into the medicine, which the person takes. That person may block healing, which is the flow of Love, from prayer or chicken soup, but is open to healing from a medicine, but as has been proven, even placebos can deliver healing.
It’s not the compounds but the belief that healing must come through compounds that limit people’s ability to heal only through compounds. Once freed from that you can heal from many sources of Love.