Ethical Atheist vs believer in God

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You get people within the same denomination arguing, you get different denominations arguing and you get different religions arguing. No one person has the same view on anything, everything we do and they way we perceive things are all intuitive. Yet we need a structure so we are able to explain what we learnt easily
and to the majority. This is a positive thing for society. I can see this in all aspects of life because knowledge is what humans thrive on.
 
Tao_Equus said:
This statement which forms the basis of his argument and he uses repeatedly is fraudulent:
What I have concluded is as follows, "When the complete set of findings are considered, in total, the simplest and most parsimonious explanation that accounts for the largest amount of the data - including the "dazzle shots" - is currently the survival of consciousness hypothesis." This is a factual statement. No other single hypothesis accounts for as much of the data as does the survival hypothesis.
for a scientist who is making a lucrative career selling his books to a gullible and credulous American market to keep using the same so called mediums and releasing only selective results that fit what sells books is fraudulent. His rebuttal itself is a highly selective edit of Hymans critique that seeks continually to rubbish and ignores the substance of Hymans objections. Interesting to note he only set out on this research to get into the knickers of a girl he met who's dad had just died. Perhaps a true indicator of the kind of man he really is.
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Nothing fraudulent in that hypothesis-only seems so to you Tao because you'll never accept the possiblity under any circumstances. As to "selective editting-" no he was addressing Hyman's points and as a result was addressing the substantive issues raised. earl
 
earl said:
Nothing fraudulent in that hypothesis-only seems so to you Tao because you'll never accept the possiblity under any circumstances. As to "selective editting-" no he was addressing Hyman's points and as a result was addressing the substantive issues raised. earl
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Yeh whatever. It is actually only you that reads what you want to read. I despise the pseudo science of Schwarts not what he is talking about and I have already said I do not discount 'paranormal' events as completely without foundation. But there is no proof and Schwarts stretching his 'evidence' to fit the saleability of his books adds nothing to such research. I understand you are used to accepting whatever nonsense is printed in mystical or spiritual tomes as fact, it is a part of your mindset. But some of us are more demanding.
 
earl said:
Instead of looking to just the character or attitudinal set of the proponent, you might want to put Hyman's criticisms into the context of his tendencies, Tao. Here's another's view of Hyman's criticisms of Schwartz's research:
A LAWYER ON THE SKEPTICS- Ray Hyman defames Professor Gary Schwartz
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Lmao!! You expect me to take as credible the word of a former lawyer who now makes his living from selling the same kind of junk pseudo-science as Schwarts as balanced!! He is another NUT!! No more. No less!!

The following is the kind of junk he tries to sell to the gullible as science;
First Law of psychic energy:
All 'solid' objects are vibrating energy.
Unseen waves are also vibrating energy- sound, radio, electricity, light, television waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays and psychic energy waves.
Second law of psychic energy:
The mind is an 'energy station' which creates transmits and receives energy.

  1. The will (of the mind) can change the form of energy.
  2. Thoughts and images, which are waves of energy, can be transmitted to and from human minds within the earthplane and to human and other entities in the afterlife in a process called telepathy.
Third law of psychic energy:
All living humans have a body made up of vibrationary energy which is a duplicate of the physical body and will survive physical death.

  1. This vibrationary energy body invisible to physical eyes can change form but can never be destroyed and retains consciousness.
  2. At the time of physical death, the duplicate body will have reached a certain vibrational level and will go to an energy sphere that can accommodate those vibrations.
  3. Selfless spiritual service increases the vibrational energy of the duplicate body.
Fourth law of psychic energy:
The afterlife has different levels of energy which form different spheres according to the speed of vibration.

  1. The faster the vibrations of a sphere the higher and more spiritually evolved are the entities which reside there.
Fifth law of psychic energy:
The more spiritually evolved a being is the brighter the energy of the aura.
Sixth law of psychic energy:
Slowing down the speed of the atomic vortices of the energy will result in materialisation. Speeding up the vortices will result in de-materialisation
Seventh law of psychic energy:
The Law of Cause and Effect: for every (energy) action there is a (an energy) reaction ie, energy is a 'boomerang' - the 'energy' you give out will inevitably return to you.





As anyone can see he attempts to steal basic known physics and without any evidence infer his own 'psychic' mumbo jumbo onto them. He is nothing but a crackpot. And what the hell does it matter if he was a lawyer? What relevance does it have. The only relevance it has is that he and his overblown idiotic ego thinks it will some how bestow on him some level of credibility or respect. He titled his book " A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife: Irrefutable Objective Evidence" Sorry but what a complete a55hole!!A natural sceptic such as me knows only to well that a lawyer is nothing less than a professional liar. So well done, you have managed to cite the opinion of a professional liar who wishes to silence the exposure of Schwarts' fraud with the threat of a lawsuit. So noble!!

Here is a link to a far more realistic site;
http://www.aaskolnick.com/dammit/

​
 
Tao_Equus said:
Lmao!! You expect me to take as credible the word of a former lawyer who now makes his living from selling the same kind of junk pseudo-science as Schwarts as balanced!! He is another NUT!! No more. No less!!

The following is the kind of junk he tries to sell to the gullible as science;
First Law of psychic energy:
All 'solid' objects are vibrating energy.
Unseen waves are also vibrating energy- sound, radio, electricity, light, television waves, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays and psychic energy waves.
Second law of psychic energy:
The mind is an 'energy station' which creates transmits and receives energy.

  1. The will (of the mind) can change the form of energy.
  2. Thoughts and images, which are waves of energy, can be transmitted to and from human minds within the earthplane and to human and other entities in the afterlife in a process called telepathy.
Third law of psychic energy:
All living humans have a body made up of vibrationary energy which is a duplicate of the physical body and will survive physical death.

  1. This vibrationary energy body invisible to physical eyes can change form but can never be destroyed and retains consciousness.
  2. At the time of physical death, the duplicate body will have reached a certain vibrational level and will go to an energy sphere that can accommodate those vibrations.
  3. Selfless spiritual service increases the vibrational energy of the duplicate body.
Fourth law of psychic energy:
The afterlife has different levels of energy which form different spheres according to the speed of vibration.

  1. The faster the vibrations of a sphere the higher and more spiritually evolved are the entities which reside there.
Fifth law of psychic energy:
The more spiritually evolved a being is the brighter the energy of the aura.
Sixth law of psychic energy:
Slowing down the speed of the atomic vortices of the energy will result in materialisation. Speeding up the vortices will result in de-materialisation
Seventh law of psychic energy:
The Law of Cause and Effect: for every (energy) action there is a (an energy) reaction ie, energy is a 'boomerang' - the 'energy' you give out will inevitably return to you.





As anyone can see he attempts to steal basic known physics and without any evidence infer his own 'psychic' mumbo jumbo onto them. He is nothing but a crackpot. And what the hell does it matter if he was a lawyer? What relevance does it have. The only relevance it has is that he and his overblown idiotic ego thinks it will some how bestow on him some level of credibility or respect. He titled his book " A Lawyer Presents the Case for the Afterlife: Irrefutable Objective Evidence" Sorry but what a complete a55hole!!A natural sceptic such as me knows only to well that a lawyer is nothing less than a professional liar. So well done, you have managed to cite the opinion of a professional liar who wishes to silence the exposure of Schwarts' fraud with the threat of a lawsuit. So noble!!

Here is a link to a far more realistic site;
VICTOR DAMMIT -- A Lawyer Presents the Case for Burning Skeptics

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Click to expand...
His statements re Hyman did not indicate he or anyone were threatening a lawsuit. But you, Tao, per usual, rather than addressing what someone has to say of a factual nature, as does this author regarding Hyman, want to redirect the dialogue onto irrelevant avenues to the discussion where you hope folks will forget the substance of the original discussion. I know you're a religiously zealous non-believer-as is Hyman-but if you wish to make a proper refutation you need to do it with factual observations not simply your prejudiced personal opinions. If you think Hyman is not prejudiciously biased against psi research as this guy alleges, address your basis for saying so to that issue which is what I raised. Your tendencies in such dialogues to simply tell the other person "they're an idiot for believing such and such because I'm right" is as approrpiate and substantive of a counter-argument as if I or others would reply with "no, you're the idiot.";) earl
 
@ Postmaster

Postmaster said:
Maybe Philosophy + Ignorance = Religion
Click to expand...

But according to philosophy, ignorance is admittedly
the most common denominator of human existence.
I prefer this line of thinking instead:

Knowledge=Objectivity vs Man=Subjectivity
Therefore: Knowledge > Philosophy

God=Objectivity vs Philosophy=Subjectivity
Therefore: Revelation > Human Morality

This last bit is the thesis of Kierkegaard as well.
The question he asks is what makes Abraham (PBUH)
agree to God's command when He orders him to sacrifice
his son? He argues that revelation/religion has to be
greater then human conceptions of ethics and morality,
which is something which philosophy tries to 'discover'.
 
earl said:
His statements re Hyman did not indicate he or anyone were threatening a lawsuit. But you, Tao, per usual, rather than addressing what someone has to say of a factual nature, as does this author regarding Hyman, want to redirect the dialogue onto irrelevant avenues to the discussion where you hope folks will forget the substance of the original discussion. I know you're a religiously zealous non-believer-as is Hyman-but if you wish to make a proper refutation you need to do it with factual observations not simply your prejudiced personal opinions. If you think Hyman is not prejudiciously biased against psi research as this guy alleges, address your basis for saying so to that issue which is what I raised. Your tendencies in such dialogues to simply tell the other person "they're an idiot for believing such and such because I'm right" is as approrpiate and substantive of a counter-argument as if I or others would reply with "no, you're the idiot.";) earl
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Ok Earl, So you call Victor Zammit a credible voice in this debate? And why exactly did you make the post or he the article if you and he did not seek to use underhand and contemptable diversions from rational debate? Can you not see that it is impossible for me to have a decent and meaningful discussion with you if you can only produce a bunch of clowns to back your position. If you do not think them clowns then any meaningful discussion with you is impossible. Only a clown incapable of rational critique could ever cite Zammit as having anything to contribute either to this debate or the question that stimulated it. I am not religiously zealous, im laughing like hell as someone with a simple, basic power of discernment. next of all you will be calling me a sceptical zealot for not believing in the tooth fairy. You can carry on trying to rubbish me, its water off the preverbial ducks back, but if you think for a moment because you call me religiously atheist that it makes it true then I will leave you to your incapacity to even comprehend what atheism is.
 
Tao_Equus said:
Ok Earl, So you call Victor Zammit a credible voice in this debate? And why exactly did you make the post or he the article if you and he did not seek to use underhand and contemptable diversions from rational debate? Can you not see that it is impossible for me to have a decent and meaningful discussion with you if you can only produce a bunch of clowns to back your position. If you do not think them clowns then any meaningful discussion with you is impossible. Only a clown incapable of rational critique could ever cite Zammit as having anything to contribute either to this debate or the question that stimulated it. I am not religiously zealous, im laughing like hell as someone with a simple, basic power of discernment. next of all you will be calling me a sceptical zealot for not believing in the tooth fairy. You can carry on trying to rubbish me, its water off the preverbial ducks back, but if you think for a moment because you call me religiously atheist that it makes it true then I will leave you to your incapacity to even comprehend what atheism is.
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So, I take it you have nothing to add on point to the issue of Hyman's probable reviewer bias.:) Why didn't you simply say that as opposed to going off on 1 of those irrelevant tangents in the attempt to distract the discussion. You continue to choose personal attacks as opposed to rational discussion. As Zammit quotes from a distinguished psi researcher in his piece, Charles Tart, speaking of the apparent "irrational" reactions some of the more zealous detractors have re this area, you seem likewise to have such reactions-probably more extreme than perhaps Hyman would even have. But not surprising-I've seen your vitriole when applied to other areas you deem "crap" such as Islam and Catholicism. But, yes I would agree I cannot have any meaningful dialogue with you, not because we have differing views, but because you seem incapable of maintaining a sufficiently open mind to even allow yourself to be civil as opposed to flying into a tizzy. earl
 
earl said:
So, I take it you have nothing to add on point to the issue of Hyman's probable reviewer bias.:) Why didn't you simply say that as opposed to going off on 1 of those irrelevant tangents in the attempt to distract the discussion. You continue to choose personal attacks as opposed to rational discussion. As Zammit quotes from a distinguished psi researcher in his piece, Charles Tart, speaking of the apparent "irrational" reactions some of the more zealous detractors have re this area, you seem likewise to have such reactions-probably more extreme than perhaps Hyman would even have. But not surprising-I've seen your vitriole when applied to other areas you deem "crap" such as Islam and Catholicism. But, yes I would agree I cannot have any meaningful dialogue with you, not because we have differing views, but because you seem incapable of maintaining a sufficiently open mind to even allow yourself to be civil as opposed to flying into a tizzy. earl
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Hyman has being doing his job for so long now it is easy for him to spot bad practice. Do I trust him and his reputation over a couple of nutcases intent only on selling pseudo scientific nonsense to barely literate credulous escapists? Yes I do. And stop being a hypocrite, your invective toward me is no less strident than mine. I have already stated twice that there may be something real happening when people report paranormal experiences yet you choose to ignore that and again insist my mind is closed because I do not share your views. I put it to you that not only am I not the one with the closed mind I am not the one who seems incapable of having the integrity to acknowledge what has been said. You expect me to answer your every irrelevancy yet have made no effort what so ever to address a single question of mine. Some things truly are predictable.
 
Tao,

Freud and Jung both borrowed from the laws of thermodynamics for their theories of psychic energy. I'm not saying I agree with that guy you quoted above -- he does seem a bit nutty -- just that using physics models as a means of understanding the psyche is an established practice used by some folks you might be less quick to call crackpots. Well, you might consider Jung a crackpot given his use of alchemical language to describe the workings of the psyche among other things.
 
dauer said:
Tao,

Freud and Jung both borrowed from the laws of thermodynamics for their theories of psychic energy. I'm not saying I agree with that guy you quoted above -- he does seem a bit nutty -- just that using physics models as a means of understanding the psyche is an established practice used by some folks you might be less quick to call crackpots. Well, you might consider Jung a crackpot given his use of alchemical language to describe the workings of the psyche among other things.
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And Freud for that matter. The point is both of them presented philosophical ideas and NOT science and, this is certainly true of Jung, never used the lack of a scientific explanation to state as fact a metaphysical one. As I have stated I am not closed to the idea that there is more to reality than we easily perceive but both of the pulp authors cited are claiming scientific credibility where they have none. I object to such fraud in the strongest terms.
 
dauer said:
Tao,

Freud and Jung both borrowed from the laws of thermodynamics for their theories of psychic energy. I'm not saying I agree with that guy you quoted above -- he does seem a bit nutty -- just that using physics models as a means of understanding the psyche is an established practice used by some folks you might be less quick to call crackpots. Well, you might consider Jung a crackpot given his use of alchemical language to describe the workings of the psyche among other things.
Click to expand...
There have been countless attempts over the past 30 years to attempt to explain the paradoxes of consciousness with allusion to physics- see for example:
Consciousness, Causality, Quantum Physics

Don't know how legitimate that might be except as anaology. earl
 
c0de said:
@ Postmaster



But according to philosophy, ignorance is admittedly
the most common denominator of human existence.
I prefer this line of thinking instead:

Knowledge=Objectivity vs Man=Subjectivity
Therefore: Knowledge > Philosophy

God=Objectivity vs Philosophy=Subjectivity
Therefore: Revelation > Human Morality

This last bit is the thesis of Kierkegaard as well.
The question he asks is what makes Abraham (PBUH)
agree to God's command when He orders him to sacrifice
his son? He argues that revelation/religion has to be
greater then human conceptions of ethics and morality,
which is something which philosophy tries to 'discover'.
Click to expand...

Ah I see, I don’t think religion or there founding prophets are greater then humanities conceptions of ethics and morality, no way.... Either can one philosopher be greater then humanities conceptions of ethics and morality. This is because just as me and everyone else on this forum and the world since the beginning of time all learn and teach each other and I don't think this is an acceptation for prophets either. Are you saying they never took any influence off anyone, especially for the revelations? (Just looking at the pattern of religious history will obviously show you the answer). Also according to Søren Aabye Kierkegaard on his knight of faith, there may be a knight of faith or many knights of faith that are yet or may never be discovered. Although I do think that religions and there prophets are divinely crucial for the needs and times of people and society.
 
Postmaster said:
Ah I see, I don’t think religion or there founding prophets are greater then humanities conceptions of ethics and morality, no way.... Either can one philosopher be greater then humanities conceptions of ethics and morality. This is because just as me and everyone else on this forum and the world since the beginning of time all learn and teach each other and I don't think this is an acceptation for prophets either. Are you saying they never took any influence off anyone, especially for the revelations? (Just looking at the pattern of religious history will obviously show you the answer). Also according to Søren Aabye Kierkegaard on his knight of faith, there may be a knight of faith or many knights of faith that are yet or may never be discovered. Although I do think that religions and there prophets are divinely crucial for the needs and times of people and society.
Click to expand...


Well, you can try to argue that point, but it is definitely
debatable because there is some solid reasoning on the
other side.
 
Postmaster said:
Does anyone sometimes feel like there heads going to explode? lol I'm starting to theorise that we need ignorance to protect our minds of the infinite constant rays of information we receive and we need philosophy to put everything we learn in dynamic order. Maybe Philosophy + Ignorance = Religion
Click to expand...

There's probably more to what you say here than many would be comfortable with realizing...

But then, I can't help but think that ignorance is a necessary operating parameter of any meme...
 
juantoo3 said:
There's probably more to what you say here than many would be comfortable with realizing...

But then, I can't help but think that ignorance is a necessary operating parameter of any meme...
Click to expand...


Now if I said that ! :rolleyes:
 
juantoo3 said:
Ah, but did you catch the gist?...it includes *all* memes...including the scientific one. It was pointed as much at you as at any / every one else...including myself.
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I feel the same way. I just disagree that a meme has to have anything to do with 'faith' of any kind. But at the end of the day we are all going to live out our own realities regardless of what we say here. It doesnt matter as soon as we charge the post button and move on. The things we discuss are a part of our living realities and how lucky amongst all the people who ever lived that we have the luxury of having time to think and throw our thoughts back and forth at each other. Sometimes I can succumb to the streak of real cynicism that runs through me about the value of any word I type. Not because I doubt the philosophy I espouse but I feel like "who gives a t055". So I love and appreciate you guys, you help keep me thinking - as you will all know this is a double-edged sword in itself, but none of it changes anything really. Fundamental preconceptions are not going to move. There is no winning an argument here and there cannot be as we share different definitions of reasoning. And the biggest truth of all is that we are all wrong. :D Except me of course ;)
 
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