True, however, I did want to at least answer your questions, since I seem to be debating a bit here. And while I describe faith, that does mean that I believe in a higher power. And if said higher power can wave his hand and create life, well…that looks like “magic” to me. smile I hope some of the others can answer your questions better. Have you checked out the thread in GD about magic? Might be some more info there.
Diane may be satisfied, but I’m not.
Bullshit. Bullshit stacked to infinity and beyond. Every day, people die because they didn’t get something they needed: Food, medicine, shelter, you name it. Last year, one of my aunts needed to get out of the way of an oncoming truck. She didn’t. She died. Every day, someone dies because he or she didn’t get what he or she needed to survive. Every single fucking day.
I suppose you believe that those people I described died because their faith wasn’t strong enough? Do you believe that you will die someday? If so, will it be because your faith was weak or because you didn’t get something you needed?
That would not be “divine help,” that would be adrenaline, perhaps combined with a clever use of leverage.
That isn’t magic or divine help, that’s persistence and a favorable economy. You probably would not have done so well during the Depression.
Not necessarily, as I have demonstrated here.
Those stories would have to be better than the ones you’ve told here.
jab - I’ve looked through the thread and haven’t seen anyone answer your 5+5 question.
5+5 isn’t necessarily 10 -
base 16 5+5 is A
base 8 5+5 is…uh…13, I think
binary 5+5 doesn’t exist (although binary 1+1 is 10, while we’re at it)…
d & r
Thus completely ignoring the convention that Base 16 is written 5[sub]16[/sub]+5[sub]16[/sub]=A[sub]16[/sub], etc., but Base 10 is written without the subscripts to indicate the Base.
:rolleyes:
Bite me, Monty.
It was a J O K E
[sub]sheesh…and a Math joke at that. haven’t I told you lot I don’t do math?[/sub]
We are so far off the beaten track here, it’s not even funny, but I’ll keep answering as I can.
and
Since these are both basically the same statement, I’ll address them together.
What would happen if those people didn’t die? What would happen if there were never any accidents, nobody died of disease, or old age? Why do people die of starvation you ask?..Why can’t he wave his hand, make dirt into bread, and feed the world? Why not make it so that we could all go out and grab a handful of dirt, hold it up, and have a nice juicy steak?
Because what would be the point of living then? If everything were given to you, why would you strive to improve yourself? What, do you really think that if everyone were given all their needs, that they would still work? Uh-huh…sure they would. And to be honest, for every story of a person that failed, there’s more about a person that succeeded. Since I don’t personally know every fact about what happened to those people, I really can’t say one way or another if their faith had anything to do with it. How do you know that they weren’t given an opportunity that they didn’t take? That leads into this point:
That’s the way you see it. But how many people would have quit a decent job, and moved with no guarantee of a job in the future? How often to people let opportunities slip by them because the don’t have enough faith to take the risk? How many times in life is there a chance for you to improve yourself, or your situation, but you can’t work up the nerve to reach for it?
I can’t convince you, no more than you can convince me. Each of us is shaped by our own life experiences, by those things that happened to each of us. You have faith in nothing…anything that can’t be seen, or touched, or explained, you attribute to blind chance. To a random occurrence of nature. I don’t share that view, in fact, I think it would be a very sad way of looking at the world.
I have zero faith in make believe Gods or Goddess, however, I have had quite a few successes in life. Things have happened to me that could be perceived as magical, things a lot more astonishing than the stories you have related here. These things that have happened to me were not caused by faith or the power of an unseen being. They weren’t the result of a magical spell or ritual. What they were, were a combination of plain good luck, hard work, chance, or being in the right place at the right time. Nothing more.
Are you implying that my sweet little 7 year old brother was hit a killed while riding his bicycle because he didn’t do something or that his faith was inadequate?
Bullshit.
It looks like I am not going to get answers to my questions from those who claim the ability to perform magic with results that can be seen.
I don’t believe in magic myself, but what does it matter to you what other people believe?
Yeah, you’re right! Why the hell didn’t we think of that before?
We should never debate topics. We should all agree with each and every word posted on these boards or keep our mouths shut and smile pretty when we don’t. We should never, ever question the claims made by others.
Now, let’s all have a big group hug and pinky swear that we won’t quibble and stuff any more. :::insert kisses here:::
:wally:
I’m starting to regret my apology. I’m not taking it back just yet. But more posts like Atrael’s and I just might return to the conclusion that magic-believers are brainless twits.
The world would be truly over-populated. Every square inch of ground would be covered with humanity. shudder What the fuck was your point, pinhead?
No, you don’t do it because you can’t do it. It’s got zero to do with the morality of giving people help they don’t truly need. The true reason you don’t turn dirt into steak because it’s fucking impossible.
Just how much straw did you use to make this man? You claimed that everyone gets what he needs. I pointed out that there are many people who don’t get what they need and die because of it. If it’s not essential to survival, then it isn’t a need, it’s a luxury.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with your claim that everyone gets what he truly needs. You just cannot answer my question, can you? (Actually you can, you just don’t want to say you were wrong.)
“Waaaahhhh! I can’t handle mean, old reality! I need to believe in fantasy and magic and the supernatural to be happy! Waaaahhhh!!”
I don’t know about anyone else, but there’s nothing like campin’ out, marguritas fresh from the weedeater powered Palm Beach blender, dancing naked round the fire with the wife, and all that other stuff!
(whadda ya mean? i thought this board was about camping. no? oh, well)
This has nothing to do with magic(k), though, but with self-concept and self-confidence. Performing under uncertainty - i.e., experimenting - is the hallmark of a healthy individual in modern society, and a bastion of science.
I’m not unsympathetic. I’m not here to flame. I tried practicing magick in a mixed Wiccan/Golden Dawn tradition for about a year and a half. In the end, magick was my belief, and I held it about as well as a gallon of water in a paper sack. The way modern magickal traditions define magick either:
(1) Equate it with physical actions, and thus conflate activities performed by so-called “mundane” means (painting a picture, moving a pebble) with activites performed purely by consciousness (making $300 come your way by visualizing $100 bills and burning a money sigil); or
(2) Define it such that coincidental actions are causally linked to one’s ritual work - even though any known causal relationship between visualizing and actualization can be explained in psychological terms (cf. Jung, especially his volume PSYCHOLOGY AND THE OCCULT), or as sheer coincidence.
Ever read anything by the psychologist and Buddhist Ken Wilber? If you’re shaking for a spirituality that doesn’t fuck with modern science, check out ONE TASTE. Wilber distinguishes between two modes of spiritual experience: translative, which simply reinterprets the world on the pin of a new philosophical framework; and transformative - the Zen experience of satori that causes a fundamental shift in the way you perceive and treat others.
MAGICK IS WHOLLY TRANSLATIVE. It arbitrarily establishes a relationship between incense-laden hand-waving and external results in reality.
So fucking what? you ask. One idea’s as good as the other, right? Come on. Ask yourself what’s more practical: belief in science, or in magick. Is it more practical to believe you can get a part-time job to earn some money on the side - or to believe that praying for $300 will force a check to materialize in your mailbox? Is it more practical to get a degree in mechanical engineering and go to work for Boeing - or to set up a mock control tower and wave your hands to the sky, in the vain hope that the planes will land?
-J-
Then why doesn’t Bill Gates retire?
Really? You’ve done an analysis, and the good quantitatively trumps the evil?
If you had lived through the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, I’m sure you’d have quite a different slant on reality. Contrary to the New Age Love and Light bullshit, Ye Best of All Possible Worlds is often quite fucking sick.
So the poor people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 died because they didn’t take a later flight? Silly me, I thought it had something to do with two Libyans and a bomb…
I hate postmodern relativism more and more with each passing day.
-J-
For those of you who believe in magick:
How do you reconcile your beliefs with Occam’s Razor? More importantly, how do you reconcile them with Karl Popper’s Falsifiability Theorem, which was created to quash the very kind of evasive theorizing and backtracking we see on this thread?
If your answer is, “I slit Popper’s throat with Occam’s Razor” - how do you justify rejecting these principles? On what evidence (real or imagined)?
-J-
Imagine if some nutcase who claimed he could cast magic(k) spells (note: I am not implying that all those who believe in magic(k) are nutcases) managed to convince your friend that he/she could fly, just be chanting a few words and eating a few McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Your friend believes him. So your friend goes up to the top of the Empire State Building, mumbles some silly words, eats a few burgers, and jumps off.
Splat.
You’ll care then, won’tcha?
Jay, I fear you’ve shot yourself in the foot here. If we go with Popper’s or Hume’s philosophy we agree that no matter how many observations are made which confirm a theory there is always the possibility that a future observation could refute it
Now, you’re actually using the reverse. You’re saying that magic cannot exist, as there is yet no observations of it working. That always leaves that possibility of a future observation.
Only one black swan is needed to repudiate the theory that all swans are white, etc…
But if the theory is that black swans exist, the only way to validate the theory is to come up with just one black swan. If you cannot come up with a single example to prove your theory, you’re pissing against the wind.
Well, I’m not going with their entire philosophies, just with the Falsification theory. If you go with, say, Ayn Rand’s epistemology, your statement is false, since her Objectivist epistemology defends the possibility of conceptual certainties. Besides, Hume vehemently attacked magic and religion as having zero scientific basis - see his ON MIRACLES. Seems like you’re the one with the hole in your toe now.
At any rate, you failed to answer the question. How does redefining magick to include purely magickal phenomenon not violate these two principles?
- God/dess, angels, demons: Inventing entities beyond necessity.
- Magick as natural phenomenon: redefining your theory to duck criticism - exactly what Popper took the Marxists to the shed for in his original essay “Truth and Falsification”.
Theoretically, “The sun will rise tomorrow” might be wrong. But the odds are so infinitesimally small that anyone who believed this in daiily operational reality would be considered a lunatic.
(Besides, if it didn’t, would any of us be around to witness it?)
-J-
Damned right Czar. The reason it’s called Popper’s Falsifiability Theorem is that it’s intended to address the problem of trying to prove something doesn’t exist. You want to prove there’s a black swan, yup, you need to get yourself a black swan. And people will be checking it for signs of dying.
But you’re trying to prove that something DOES NOT exist - a very different task. A task which, according to Hume, Popper, Russell and a few others, can’t be done . You know, if you can reason otherwise you could well become the greatest philosopher of modern times.
So, here’s my theory - “magic may exist”. Care to disprove it?
By the way, it’s getting to the point where this thread manages to prove one thing at least - that’s there is life after death. I swear, every time I think it’s finally died off it damn well pops up again.
Obviously I meant “purely NATURAL phenomena”. Two hollers in a row - ouch. 
-J-