# How I explain my religious experiences (long Opening Post) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 12, 2009, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297 "2009-11-12T08:54:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/101 "2009-11-18T22:33:17Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > There are many gods that we can follow and worship, we get to chose. As such I have found only one worth of all my praise - that being Jesus. He didn’t fight for me but he took my death sentence on Himself and gave me His eternal life, gave me His Spirit - the spirit of The Father and allows me full assess to use His Name with the full authority that He Himself uses it. > > There is just no contest, no other god has offered so much, so easily. Ah, so your belief is based upon greed, which god can give you the most. So it appears your god is making a better offer than the other gods, to you at least. That makes sense. But you still didn’t answer the original question which is how do you know your god is the correct god? What if your god doesn’t exist and the other gods do? Slee ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/102 "2009-11-18T22:33:19Z")
> [@SentientMeat](#): > > In Lorber’s case, we simply cannot know what academic subject matter he was subjected to (since even newspapers would carry enough to allow someone with [eidetic memory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory) to output surprisingly scholarly interpretations, and such people are themselves surprised what they can recall), but note that _he was a teacher_ and would thus have access to significant scholarly and academic works anyway. And in the example you give, note that you are _interpreting his words **in hindsight** _! _Who says_ a ‘solar region’ corresponds to a galaxy, or a ‘universe of universes’ to a supecluster, or a ‘large sun’ to a supermassive black hole (which is emphatically _ **not** a quasar_, by the way)? Who says that a ‘cloudy envelope’ is an electron probability distribution, or that the magnification required to see one is a trillion (which is only correct if we generously allow the 6 orders of magnitude between the size of the nucleus and the furthest stable electronic orbitals to constitute the range)? _You_ do, of course, many decades after the fact. Frankly, that whole passage is rather insubstantial freewheeling based on the already-established knowledge of the galaxy and the precursors to the periodic table, and that page is the _best_ selection from the other 2000, less accurate (and some strongly anti-Semitic) pages of the Great Gospel of John. Do you consider them divinely inspired also, given that they contravened the canonical Gospels so gravely that all of Lorber’s writings were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum? I simply do not see why you say this work must have been divinely inspired, since it reads just like the usual obscure poetry output by mystics the world over. Heck, even the EZW (Evangelical Church in Germany) proposes **psychological** explanations for Lorber’s revelations. Well, if your claim is that Lorbers writings are based on “already established knowledge” of the galaxy and that I’m loosely re-interpreting them after the fact, my only response is that I, of course, believe the exact opposite. Concerning the idea that Lorber was only repeating what was known at the time, it’s not true. He said that the atom is made up of smaller components; that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon and a particle; that there exist particles with a lifetime of only a tiny fraction of a second; that there exist stars thousands and millions of times brighter and larger than the sun; and so forth. All of this contradicts the science of his time. As for the idea that I’m re-interpreting his writing to meet the facts, it’s hardly useful to complain that Lorber didn’t use the exact same words that we have today which didn’t exist a century and a half ago. If he said that there’s a solar region with the stars orbiting around the center and that a massive and very bright object at the center, that clearly matches up with a galaxy and it was like nothing described by the astronomers of his day. Or again when he says clearly that the groups of solar universes are moving, astronomers at that time did not believe the Milky Way was moving, or even necessarily that the sun was moving. Likewise the idea of an electron having a “airy or cloudy form” flies in the face of what any chemist or physicist would have said at the time. They all pictured particles as indestructible and unchangeable solid spheres. In any case like this skeptics will try to hone in on any mistake they can find, yet Lorber’s correct predictions are not at all limited to just particle physics and astronomy. For example, in discussing human origins, he said, “prehistoric man inhabited the earth for millions of years”. This, again, was against the science of his time. Those few researchers digging around for evidence of human origins were still thinking on a time scale of tens of thousands of years, not millions. What makes Lorber’s writings stand out from typical mystical predictions is specificity. Many people have made predictions about a great and destructive war during the past, and anyone can look back after the fact and insist they were really talking about World War II. Lorber talked about a great war and gave the time (less than 2,000 years after Jesus), the place (worldwide, but with particular focus on Europe and Asia), made specific references to Germany and Russia being involved, predicted incendiary bombing (“a great many cities shall be destroyed by fire”), tells that theories of racial superiority will play a role in the war and that those theories will be defeated at the end of the war, mentions much of what occurred in the Nazi Empire (“When this massive war is fought, a rule will be established and everything measured, critically and mathematically, to determine what people may have and eat, what they may know, say and write”, etc… But the bottom line is that at the start we were debating probabilities. If the explanation is that Lorber had both temporal lobe epilepsy _and_ eidetic memory, we can say that the probability of such a thing is low. (Especially since the link for “eidetic memory” goes to a Wikipedia page which freely acknowledges that such a thing may not even exist.) The evidence for psychological explanations is that the EZW said so. (Exactly why you’d consider them a credible organization I’m not sure; it can’t be merely because they’re the only anti-Lorber source listed on Wikipedia, can it?) The question I ask myself is not ‘What’s the only explanation?’ or ‘What’s the best explanation?’, but rather ‘What’s the best explanation?’ I want an explanation that actually explains. [quote] In da Costa’s case, we have claims of [ul]levitation[li]regular emergence from a state of quadriplegia[_]survival for 12 years on apparently less than 100 calories per day[_]cogent writing as an illiterate[/ul]Yes, _of course_ these would be Nobel prizeworthy Gaps for God if they are really true. But, her paralysis was only _gradual_ – it wasn’t a case of severing the spinal column when she jumped out of the window. One would expect _some_ ability to move even after her condition had worsened such that she was bed-ridden. The claims of actual, clear-space-beneath-her levitation are not even explicitly made in your quote: “_as if_ levitating” to me indicates her raising her pelvis – surprising in a bed-ridden woman, but not a literal Gap to be filled divinely. And this 3-hour Friday afternoon matinee performance of the stages of the Cross was apparently _excruciating_ for her, as one would expect of someone whose spinal column was still intact and able to ferry pain messages. Nor was she illiterate, according to her official biography. So we are left with the miraculous survival on starvation rations, which _reduced her to a mere 33 kilos_ – if God was sustaining her divinely, He was being careful to make sure she still clearly looked like someone starving to death. Again, we simply have no way of **reliably** establishing her precise daily calorie count, and can only look instead at [similar cases today](http://www.skepdic.com/inedia.html).[/li][/quote] Your analysis of da Costa’s paralysis does not match up with the analysis of the doctors who actually inspected her. I go by the information of firsthand witness and medical reports (also, according to Sullivan’s book, the ecstasies were photographed and videotaped). On the issue of the her fast, the link to Skeptic’s Dictionary would appear to confirm rather than deny that da Costa’s case was unique. They mention that when Ellen Greve was put to the scientific test, by the fourth day of her fast vital signs such as blood pressure were already going crazy. In the case of da Costa, the doctors who monitored her recorded blood pressure and other data and confirmed that they remained normal as she fasted. To me it looks like a supernatural event precisely because it’s so far outside the range of any case today. (Though the lengthy fast while taking only the Eucharist was also reported and carefully tested in the case of [Therese Neumann](http://www.marypages.com/ThereseNeumann.htm).) > [@](#): > > In short, historical cases do not provide enough **reliable** evidence to open up a clear Gap for which scientific explanations are inadequate. That you place such little trust in peer-reviewed rigour in _today’s_ scientific journals but so much trust in anecdotal evidence from decades or centuries ago is, like I say, [telling in itself](http://comp9.psych.cornell.edu/sec/pubPeople/tdg1/Dawson.Gilo.Regan.pdf). As I’ve mentioned, my absolute trust in the peer-reviewed rigor of today’s scientific journals dissolved when I learned that there was no such rigor. My approach to all learning is to read or listen to what anybody presents and see whether they build a logical case for their beliefs or not. Peer review articles rarely do. I’ve laid out [logical reasons](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=474129&highlight=peer+review) why peer reviewed articles would misfire so frequently, but that’s beside the point. That said, if you want modern-day, scientifically tested cases of miraculous occurrences, you can have them, as in the example of Dr. Benson’s research on the Buddhist monks that I referenced in the previous thread. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/103 "2009-11-18T22:58:04Z")
**ITR** , given the credence you ascribe to Lorber’s hits, what do you make of Nostradamus? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/104 "2009-11-19T07:03:50Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > There are many gods that we can follow and worship, we get to chose. As such I have found only one worth of all my praise - that being Jesus. He didn’t fight for me but he took my death sentence on Himself and gave me His eternal life, gave me His Spirit - the spirit of The Father and allows me full assess to use His Name with the full authority that He Himself uses it. > > There is just no contest, no other god has offered so much, so easily. So you went for the one that gave you what you wanted. Totally understandable. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/105 "2009-11-19T12:24:57Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > He didn’t fight for me but he took my death sentence on Himself and gave me His eternal life… Once. For three days. In Hell. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/106 "2009-11-19T16:40:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So you went for the one that gave you what you wanted. > Totally understandable. Yes, the Love that my heart desires and that I’ve been looking for all my live. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/107 "2009-11-19T16:48:40Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > But you still didn’t answer the original question which is how do you know your god is the correct god? What if your god doesn’t exist and the other gods do? > > Slee They are all correct and they all exist, in the sense that they are all gods, with power of creating realities, life, and having worshipers. It’s then a personal choice. I chose Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/108 "2009-11-19T18:51:36Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > They are all correct and they all exist, in the sense that they are all gods, with power of creating realities, life, and having worshipers. It’s then a personal choice. I chose Jesus. Are there any gods that do _not_ exist? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? The Flying Spaghetti monster? Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel who I just now invented and nobody anywhere believes in? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/109 "2009-11-19T21:35:50Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Are there any gods that do _not_ exist? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? The Flying Spaghetti monster? Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel who I just now invented and nobody anywhere believes in? Hey, I routinely sacrifice\* teenagers to Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel. Slee \*And by sacrifice I mean heckle from the comfort of my car while I am driving down the street. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/110 "2009-11-19T22:08:38Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Hey, I routinely sacrifice\* teenagers to Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel. > > Slee > > \*And by sacrifice I mean heckle from the comfort of my car while I am driving down the street. No, that’s a _different_ Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel than the one I was talking about, that happens to have the same name despite having many differences between them. For example, one of them has a giant purple corkscrew horn sticking out of its left nostril, and the other doesn’t. But don’t feel bad, this sort of error is common among god believers that lack an objectively observable external referent to base a shared understanding of their diety on. The character called “God” is particularly known for being described as having significantly different attributes, depending on who you ask. Sometimes even when the people you’re asking are in the same church congregation. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/111 "2009-11-20T00:08:14Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Are there any gods that do _not_ exist? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? The Flying Spaghetti monster? Biffy the Giant Flying Squirrel who I just now invented and nobody anywhere believes in? It depends upon the devotion of their adherents. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/112 "2009-11-20T00:54:50Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It depends upon the devotion of their adherents. Please, for the love of Biffy, tell me you’re not serious. “I _really, really strongly_ believe in Samson, the Eternally Pregnant Male Hedgehog!” (Poof!) “Holy crap, it worked, he appeared! Who knew! Hmm, with that in mind, now I _really really **really** strongly_ believe in a large-breasted personal concubine who wants to have sex all the time and shits hundred dollar bills!” ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/113 "2009-11-20T01:00:49Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Please, for the love of Biffy, tell me you’re not serious. > > “I _really, really strongly_ believe in Samson, the Eternally Pregnant Male Hedgehog!” (Poof!) “Holy crap, it worked, he appeared! Who knew! Hmm, with that in mind, now I _really really **really** strongly_ believe in a large-breasted personal concubine who wants to have sex all the time and shits hundred dollar bills!” Or you convinced yourself that you saw him anyway. Does it really matter if you’re convinced? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/114 "2009-11-20T01:01:57Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Or you convinced yourself that you saw him anyway. Does it really matter if you’re convinced? It will when I try to spend those hundreds. ETA: And it’s kinda relevent to the question of whether he exists or not too, which was after all precisely the detail under discussion. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/115 "2009-11-20T01:05:04Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > It will when I try to spend those hundreds. Remember what I said about religions being a community thing? If you want the hundreds then your devotion must have some incidental mechanism by which you get the money, and you’d better be able to justify the lack of receipt of funds due to your favored deity being overdrawn, or else you might suffer some kind of nervous breakdown. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/116 "2009-11-20T01:11:18Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Remember what I said about religions being a community thing? If you want the hundreds then your devotion must have some incidental mechanism by which you get the money, and you’d better be able to justify the lack of receipt of funds due to your favored deity being overdrawn, or else you might suffer some kind of nervous breakdown. 😉 Right; additionally if I am able to convince other people to accept that my concubine’s money is good, despite there being no evidence of it existing (maybe it’s a credit account), then that will work fine too. Unless there are some saps who don’t accept the existence of Samson and my concubine, who harsh my vibe by revejecting my divine credit. But then, if I have enough people who _do_ accept my dieties, we can band together and legislate our beliefs on others. Clearly, this is a good thing. But it still doesn’t imply that the dieties actually exist, though. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/117 "2009-11-20T01:17:42Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > …I _really really **really** strongly_ believe in a large-breasted personal concubine who wants to have sex all the time and shits hundred dollar bills!" Sounds great now, but do you _really_ want to have to explain to the emergency room nurse how you got all those paper cuts on your penis? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/118 "2009-11-20T01:31:44Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Sounds great now, but do you _really_ want to have to explain to the emergency room nurse how you got all those paper cuts on your penis? The Samson/Concubine religion bans anal sex - and for good reason! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/119 "2009-11-20T02:36:27Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Right; additionally if I am able to convince other people to accept that my concubine’s money is good, despite there being no evidence of it existing (maybe it’s a credit account), then that will work fine too. Works for the Federal Reserve. Why not you? > [@](#): > > Unless there are some saps who don’t accept the existence of Samson and my concubine, who harsh my vibe by revejecting my divine credit. But then, if I have enough people who _do_ accept my dieties, we can band together and legislate our beliefs on others. Clearly, this is a good thing. Well their belief works against yours if they actively disbelieve. Therefore your divine credit is voted off the island. Harsh dude I know, but that’s how credit works. If people don’t believe you have it, then you don’t have it. Kinda sucks how other people can believe you into poverty huh? > [@](#): > > But it still doesn’t imply that the dieties actually exist, though. Harsh man. I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2009, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297/120 "2009-11-20T11:00:23Z")
> [@ITR](#): > > Well, if your claim is that Lorbers writings are based on “already established knowledge” of the galaxy and that I’m loosely re-interpreting them after the fact, my only response is that I, of course, believe the exact opposite. Concerning the idea that Lorber was only repeating what was known at the time, it’s not true. He said that the atom is made up of smaller components; that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon and a particle; that there exist particles with a lifetime of only a tiny fraction of a second; that there exist stars thousands and millions of times brighter and larger than the sun; and so forth. All of this contradicts the science of his time. But there _was_ no established ‘atom’ at the time – ‘a-tom’ just means ‘indivisible’ (_ie._ todays atoms aren’t _really_ a-toms either). The ‘atom’ we now call a _molecule_ was considered by [Dalton](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton) to be made of smaller constituents in 1808, and so simply proposing a further subdivision below this is hardly imaginative. Faraday had already demonstrated the [effect of magnetism on light](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_effect) in 1845, and the [apparent magnitude](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude) of stars much brighter than the sun had already been measured. As for the particle decay, I’m having trouble finding the exact quote – all I can find is reference to “soul particles” and “not one particle exists that does not have the ability to secure the picture of the eternal sun”, which is meaningless gibberish (and even if he _did_ say something like your interpretation, saying that some particles might _change quickly_ is hardly impressive). None of what you said he said contradicts the mid 19th Century science he might easily have known about as a schoolteacher. > [@ITR](#): > > If he said that there’s a solar region with the stars orbiting around the center and that a massive and very bright object at the center, that clearly matches up with a galaxy and it was like nothing described by the astronomers of his day. No, it only “clearly” matches up _in hindsight_, and you can find such “clear” matches in the writings of [any old crackpot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus). > [@ITR](#): > > Or again when he says clearly that the groups of solar universes are moving, astronomers at that time did not believe the Milky Way was moving, or even necessarily that the sun was moving. _What_? In the **1850’s**?? > [@ITR](#): > > Likewise the idea of an electron having a “airy or cloudy form” flies in the face of what any chemist or physicist would have said at the time. But he never said “electrons” have a cloudy form – again, you’re matching him up in hindsight. > [@ITR](#): > > In any case like this skeptics will try to hone in on any mistake they can find, yet Lorber’s correct predictions are not at all limited to just particle physics and astronomy. For example, in discussing human origins, he said, “prehistoric man inhabited the earth for millions of years”. This, again, was against the science of his time. But the old age of the Earth had already been established by the fossil record for decades if not centuries – it is again no _great_ feat of imagination to propose that humans have been around for a long time as well, especially with strangely shaped human skulls being dug up in Belgium, Gibraltar and the Neander Valley not far from him in Austria from 1829 onwards. > [@ITR](#): > > What makes Lorber’s writings stand out from typical mystical predictions is specificity. Many people have made predictions about a great and destructive war during the past, and anyone can look back after the fact and insist they were really talking about World War II. Lorber talked about a great war and gave the time (less than 2,000 years after Jesus), the place (worldwide, but with particular focus on Europe and Asia), made specific references to Germany and Russia being involved, predicted incendiary bombing (“a great many cities shall be destroyed by fire”), tells that theories of racial superiority will play a role in the war and that those theories will be defeated at the end of the war, mentions much of what occurred in the Nazi Empire (“When this massive war is fought, a rule will be established and everything measured, critically and mathematically, to determine what people may have and eat, what they may know, say and write”, etc… Funny, that doesn’t sound very specific at all to me. It sounds _vague and mystical_, just like Nostradamus. > [@ITR](#): > > But the bottom line is that at the start we were debating probabilities. If the explanation is that Lorber had both temporal lobe epilepsy and eidetic memory, we can say that the probability of such a thing is low. (Especially since the link for “eidetic memory” goes to a Wikipedia page which freely acknowledges that such a thing may not even exist.) No, I said that Eidetic memory might be an explanation if he was, say, completely illiterate. But he was a **schoolteacher**! We don’t need to propose Eidetic memory _at all_ for his knowledge of contemporary science. > [@ITR](#): > > The evidence for psychological explanations is that the EZW said so. No, the evidence for [psychological explanations](http://www.dur.ac.uk/c.p.fernyhough/papers/Ferny04AVHs.pdf) is that Alien Voice Syndrome is common. Please, _please_ read that paper and tell me if you think it’s irrelevant here. > [@ITR](#): > > (Exactly why you’d consider them a credible organization I’m not sure; it can’t be merely because they’re the only anti-Lorber source listed on Wikipedia, can it?) Actually, they’re a _pro_-Lorber organization. If I wanted to cite an _anti_-Lorber example I would have chosen the Catholic Church who banned all his books because he _wrote as Jesus_! Please, please _read_ some of the [Great Gospel of John](http://www.jakoblorberbooks.com/e-books/The-Great-Gospel-of-John/pdf/book%201.pdf). Are you seriously saying that this was divinely inspired? It is just _laughable_, as the passages that **sleestak** and I are directing you to obviously demonstrate. > [@ITR](#): > > The question I ask myself is not ‘What’s the only explanation?’ or ‘What’s the best explanation?’, but rather ‘What’s the best explanation?’ Err, what? > [@ITR](#): > > Your analysis of da Costa’s paralysis does not match up with the analysis of the doctors who actually inspected her. I go by the information of firsthand witness and medical reports (also, according to Sullivan’s book, the ecstasies were photographed and videotaped). She was not quadriplegic, and her _official biography_ states that she could move with excruciating agony, showing that her spinal column was **intact**. > [@ITR](#): > > On the issue of the her fast, the link to Skeptic’s Dictionary would appear to confirm rather than deny that da Costa’s case was unique. They mention that when Ellen Greve was put to the scientific test, by the fourth day of her fast vital signs such as blood pressure were already going crazy. In the case of da Costa, the doctors who monitored her recorded blood pressure and other data and confirmed that they remained normal as she fasted. To me it looks like a supernatural event precisely because it’s so far outside the range of any case today. (Though the lengthy fast while taking only the Eucharist was also reported and carefully tested in the case of Therese Neumann.) But she was reduced to **33 kilos**! She _looked like she was starving to death_. We **cannot** know her **precise** daily calorific intake – bread and wine _might_ have been enough to keep her from actual death while still bringing her damned close. > [@ITR](#): > > As I’ve mentioned, my absolute trust in the peer-reviewed rigor of today’s scientific journals dissolved when I learned that there was no such rigor. My approach to all learning is to read or listen to what anybody presents and see whether they build a logical case for their beliefs or not. Peer review articles rarely do. I’ve laid out logical reasons why peer reviewed articles would misfire so frequently, but that’s beside the point. Well, I wasn’t around when you started that thread - your entire hypothesis is utterly contrary to reality, but that’s by the by. What I really want to ask here is, are you questioning the veracity of the _experimental evidence_ I’ve provided in this thread? Are you saying that people _don’t do_ what the papers say they do in these experiments? > [@ITR](#): > > That said, if you want modern-day, scientifically tested cases of miraculous occurrences, you can have them, as in the example of Dr. Benson’s research on the Buddhist monks that I referenced in the previous thread. You’ll note that I also referenced research on Buddhist monks in my OP. What evidence can you provide for an **external divine entity**? (_My_ citation explains the Buddhists’ EEG readings _without_ an external entity.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-i-explain-my-religious-experiences-long-opening-post/517297.md?page=7)