Science is screwing up the battle for America's minds.

[monavis]

@lekatt

I pointed out in my other post that technically science is neutral to God. Just takes away life after death which is not neutral to religion. Take away life after death and God is meaningless. That is fact. The religious people understand it fine. I think it is easy to understand.

Why take away life after death. Death is just a change to what one was before, even if you burn a paper it’s atoms etc. go back into what they were. It’s ash can last a lot longer, just as a human body decays it returns to what it was before, the bones take longer to decompose. God would not be meaningless if God is everywhere, but if God is “a” being and has boundries then “a” God could be said not to exist. The psalmist says,“even if I go into hell you are there”. In order to be every where you have to be everything.

Monavis

[monavis]

@lekatt

You have read only the links by skeptics, I won’t bother you any more, there is no desire to learn the truth. But I do hope you are right in you’re right in losing control of education and research. Perhaps we can direct it in more constructive areas.

Read some real near death experiences, not intrepretations of them. Below are some more links for you not to read.

I started my site because of statements like yours about NDEs, totally off the wall.

Question 10 about Near Death Experiences.

Question 19a about Near Death Experiences.

A Near Death Experience, No. 147.

I once had what I thaught was a near death experiance, I went into a light etc. but I later learned from my doctor i was not near death, it was a result of the anesthetic.

Monavis

[monavis]

@Bricker

God is not a being. God is an entity outside our understanding.

The difference (as I see it) as postulating something as always existing is outside the models science uses.

Where was this entity before it existed? The dictionary describes entity as:something that has a real existanse,thing or being. being or existance.

Monavis

[monavis]

@monavis

Where was this entity before it existed? The dictionary describes entity as:something that has a real existanse,thing or being. being or existance.

Monavis

Looks like i should have checked my typing before sending out my reply it is existence. Shame on me!!

[Papermache_Prince]

@monavis

I once had what I thaught was a near death experiance, I went into a light etc. but I later learned from my doctor i was not near death, it was a result of the anesthetic.

Monavis

Oddly enough, this resembles lekatt’s experience, as he had a dream in which he was near death, which is not a situation that a physician would label as “near death.”

[lekatt]

@Papermache Prince

Oddly enough, this resembles lekatt’s experience, as he had a dream in which he was near death, which is not a situation that a physician would label as “near death.”

Why do you post lies about me. Are you that afraid of spiritual experiences.

[lekatt]

@Fiveyearlurker

I will regret this…

First, I will start by saying, no neuroscientist (and I am NOT a neuroscientist) would ever come out and say, “We understand memory perfectly”, and would fully acknowledge that we don’t know everything, but we do know quite a bit. A lot of work is currently being done, and it’s a very hot area.

Second, Eric Kandel (who won a Nobel a few years ago for it) did some pioneering work in Aplysia, a snail with a limited (and clearly identifiable) number of neurons and neuroanal connections. People painstakingly mapped where every neuron connected to every other neuron. Tasks such as habituation and sensitization, which required memory of previous events, could be traced to specific neuronal connections.

If you want to define the spirit or the soul within those connections, I have no beef with that. That’s how you interpret the data, and you are clearly able to use faith, whereas I am not as willing or able to use it. I’m waiting for more data.

Thank you for the information, and your honest approach, I know that many do use faith, but having experienced spirit I know it exists. Millions of people have had out of body experiences, it is not something rare.

[Bricker]

@monavis

Where was this entity before it existed? The dictionary describes entity as:something that has a real existanse,thing or being. being or existance.

Fair enough.

God is not an entity. God is simply unknowable. God has always existed, and does not have a beginning.

[lekatt]

@monavis

I once had what I thaught was a near death experiance, I went into a light etc. but I later learned from my doctor i was not near death, it was a result of the anesthetic.

Monavis

If you have a real near death experience, no one needs to tell you, you know.

You might look at my previous post to Kimstu

[Johnny_L.A]

@rwjefferson

DSeid There is no question that there is a g~ (call it what you will ~ force, power, energy) that is somehow responsible for our existence.

r~

Actually, there is a question. That’s sort of – you know – what the thread is discussing.

I want to believe in a ‘god’. How comforting it would be for the end not to be The End. But I know that consciousness is a function of chemical and electrical reactions in our brains. When the brain dies, there are no reactions. What about NDE? Do people experience their sould going to Heaven? Or is it more likely that they are experiencing plain old electro-chemical functions? And remember that these are near death experiences. No one who has actually died has ever been documented to have come back outside of biblical stories.

The Bible does not mention, as far as I know, extraterrestrial civilisations. Are we, out here on a spiral arm of a nondescript galaxy that is one among billions of other galaxies, the only beings in the entire universe with souls? Are we the only beings, period? If not, then why are the others not mentioned? Surely God would know about them?

And about these ‘souls’. Do souls remain individuals? When you add an electrical charge to a battery, does that charge remain an individual charge? Or is it added to the ‘force’ stored within the battery? And where is ‘the battery’ anyway?

As I mentioned in another thread, current evidence is that the universe will eventually run down. It will be a cold place with no light. It will be ‘without form, and void’. When there is no energy, how would Heaven (and God) exist?

I would like to believe in an afterlife. I’d love to be freed from my body to explore the myriad galaxies in the universe. I’d love to converse with other beings, to learn from them and to teach them what I could. Even without individuality, it would be nice to think that my ‘essence’ would be joined with the essences of every other living thing in the universe.

But I can only believe with this caveat: I don’t know.

That’s why it’s called ‘belief’; because people accept the Divine without proof. I am neither a scientist, nor a theologian. Does God exist? Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn’t. If he does exist, and if he created everything, then he must have created the physical laws by which we live. People like to say that ‘we are put here to learn’. If that’s true, then it is our righteous duty to study the sciences. By understanding the science behind God’s creation, we are only doing what he expects us to do. If he doesn’t exist, then why should he be brought into the equation? So either scientists are doing God’s Will, or there is no Will not to do.

@Dio2112

God created us and has a plan for us.

I didn’t create them, but I have a plan for some dungeness crabs in the next couple of months. Let’s hope God’s plan isn’t similar to mine!

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@rwjefferson

I understand that there are so many additional definitions and interpretations of God. It also goes without saying that some might go a little too far in their interpretation (even if not so to their believers).

The fact remains. We exist. I am.

I agree that this fact remains. However, I disagree that, if there is a single definition of God, your proposed definition (“That for which we can credit existence”) suffices. Many people use the word in many different ways.

Furthermore, I suspect that most Christians and Jews pay less attention to the Creation story than they do to other aspects of the Bible–stories in which God shows His attitudes toward humanity, shows His power, shows His love (or, it appears, petty hatred, anger, deadly whimsy, vengeance, jealousy, and love on various occasions).

Finally, as I said before, it’s very possible to believe in an Uncaused Cause without calling it God, or believing that it has any of the traits that normally characterize God. If, rwjefferson, you become convinced that space-time really did begin with the Big Bang, and that this Big Bang was the Uncaused Cause, will you begin worshipping that singularity as God?

Daniel

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Johnny L.A.

I didn’t create them, but I have a plan for some dungeness crabs in the next couple of months. Let’s hope God’s plan isn’t similar to mine!

This is sort of like “GIVE YOURSELF TO CTHULHU–that way He’ll eat you first!”

Daniel

[Johnny_L.A]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

This is sort of like “GIVE YOURSELF TO CTHULHU–that way He’ll eat you first!”

Daniel

I almost made a Cthulhu reference.

[Apos]

@Bricker

Fair enough.

God is not an entity. God is simply unknowable. God has always existed, and does not have a beginning.

With such ur-reasoning, any position is hunky-dory, even the position that no position is. Which is not to say that I begrudge you it. But it seems about as interesting a position as claiming you can get a perfect score in Windows pinball as long as any score you get is declared the perfect score.

I would say that the reason science is in trouble is simply because science is under attack. A growing movement of people who wish to politicize and divide this country have targeted science, among other things, as a problematic because it stands outside the domain of rigid message control and bullying they are used to. But then, science is not alone: Christianity is under assault as well. It’s the Christianity that’s about building 95million-dollar Babylon churches used to assault their “liberal” enemies vs. those that see Christianity being about helping people and turning lives around. We’ll see which side triumphs in the end in all of these arenas.

[lekatt]

Getting back to the OP: We have discussed the anti-religious nature of science pro and con. Some believe it exists others don’t.

Now I think it is appropriate to discuss an issue that turns more people off on science than any other, in my opinion. Cloning

This is a hot issue now, along with stem cell research.

I read this article on cloning a couple of days ago, and found it disgusting that science can treat animals in this manner. 94% of clones are failures, making deformed and defective animals at the rate of nine to one normal. Animals have feelings, feel pain, show emotion in ways a lot like humans. And science wants to clone humans.

My personal opinion is science is out of control, a loose canon. Their secular nature adds to the lack of feelings displayed for these unfortunate helpless animals.

Science teaches feelings get in the way of critical reasoning, logic and other methods and doctrines held forth by “science.”

I probably won’t defend this much, because I expect the same avalanche of posts I got when I tried to show compassion for Terri Schivo and her parents. No compassion, no empathy, no respect, no nothing, only science for science’s sake.

I don’t see how anyone could work day to day in a cloning lab without being devoid of any feelings and emotions.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050718/ap_on_sc/texas_cloning

[Loopydude]

I wanna keeeill! Keeeeeill! KEEEEEEEILL!

[Eve]

Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?

@lekatt

My personal opinion is science is out of control, a loose canon.** Their secular nature adds to the lack of feelings** displayed for these unfortunate helpless animals.

. . . because, of course, all us “secular” types are bloodthirsty killers who delight in kicking kitties and spearing bunnies.

[Apos]

@lekatt

Getting back to the OP: We have discussed the anti-religious nature of science pro and con. Some believe it exists others don’t.

I believe that to some religious people, religion is about the eliminative domination of all things, finding special treatment via claiming a supreme pathway to truth and rightness (hence the otherwise somewhat inexplicable feeling that one’s God must be the ultimate, first, final word/cause/etc. on everything). Because science doesn’t recognize these special privaleges, these people are inclined to see it as an enemy just like anything else that fails to bow to such demands for special treatment.

My personal opinion is science is out of control, a loose canon. Their secular nature adds to the lack of feelings displayed for these unfortunate helpless animals.

I don’t really see what science has to do with it. Most academic scientists that use lab animals are more humane than your average pet store. Corporate scientists are another matter.

Science teaches feelings get in the way of critical reasoning, logic and other methods and doctrines held forth by “science.”

Emotions often do get in the way of critical reasoning. But this isn’t a realization that’s unique to science. That anti-Semetic bigotry causes emotional but irrational evil isn’t a realization that is particular to science.

Science doesn’t simply dismiss emotions in the way you claim, however. It is morally neutral: it doesn’t claim that moral feelings are themselves to be dismissed to paid no attention.

I probably won’t defend this much, because I expect the same avalanche of posts I got when I tried to show compassion for Terri Schivo and her parents. No compassion, no empathy, no respect, no nothing, only science for science’s sake.

If that’s how you want to paint yourself, I suppose that must make you feel better than others. Myself, I find your characterization here to be deeply dishonest and slanderous.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

I’ll just note that the author of the theory that animals were no more than machines and therefore devoid of all sensation and emotion is that noted atheist Descartes.

Daniel

[Eve]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

I’ll just note that the author of the theory that animals were no more than machines and therefore devoid of all sensation and emotion is that noted atheist Descartes.

Daniel

Well, now you’re just putting Descartes before the horse.