"Lee" <me@localhost> wrote in message
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"XeNO" <xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote in message
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"Lee" <me@localhost> wrote in message
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"XeNO" <xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote in message
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"Lee" <me@localhost> wrote in message
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"XeNO" <xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote in message
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At least I think I remember that as his name: some odd years ago
when I was much more active in here he made himself a breath of
fresh air with a comment about faith being illogical: I know that
sounds arrogant, but after having studied some more philosophies and
religions his comment rang a bit more fully for me, especially when
one dives into theories of knowledge and the philosophy of natural
history. I won't say I was a "just because" atheist in the past,
but many of my reasons were based on "science," which in analysis is
not a really good reason to base one's concept of faith in any god.

Science cannot be used to define anything ethereal or
incorporeal;

True measuring radio waves, using X rays or CAT scans and particle
accelerators to define subatomic particles was pretty much beyond
science a century ago, go back another 400 years and such ideas may
have been treated as heresy and the people that discovered them
treated very harshly indeed.

I think you read me wrong here:
Ethereal and incorporeal = Supernatural

Unless of course you're suggesting that there is some truth to
paranormal "science?"

Getting ghosts to appear have about as much chance as proving god
exists, which is something that science cannot do.

You cannot design an experiment to test if gods, angels, demons,
ghosts--the whole of the ethereal and incorporeal--exist. That is why
it's not good to base any concept of faith from it, because like I
said, faith is without reason. I didn't understand that before. Not
in depth. Bad things have been done in the name of faith, but bad
things have always been done and faith is simply a scapegoat. If the
faithful during the time of our early scientists followed their own
laws there wouldn't have been all that trouble with "heresy."

Science can tell you that something isn't supernatural: the great
opposition during the enlightenment was natural vs. supernatural
explanations. But science can't disprove the supernatural, because
supernatural things will never obey the rules of logic we put down on
paper. There is no way you can ever design an experiment to prove god
exists. Or disprove.

Very true some cultures like the Incas had very limited literacy so
actually finding the details of what their gods looked like is
difficult to achieve so even considering the obvious faith that the
Incas put in these dieties, experiments to prove that they exsist would
no doubt return little in the way of results.
No doubt in a few thousand years when Christianity, Islam and other
contempary faith systems have run their courses people will not
seriously consider attempting to prove those gods existed either no
more than a present day scientist would seriously attempt to get in
touch with Inti the Inca sun god.

In this case I agree. However my original point was that science was
not something to base faith on, because it can't answer those questions.
People would well get frustrated that the natural world doesn't
corroborate what they want to find in it. I've got a good friend who
insists that science is continually providing evidence that god does
exist, never mind that the same information can be interpreted to say
that it proves god is unnecessary. This is separate from the fact that
these experiments aren't trying to find god in the first place, for the
very reason that science can't answer that kind of question.

You can't phrase that question in a way to be falsifiable. In the
purest sense of truthful logic, you can prove that "will-o-wisps" are a
swamp gas phenomenon, but that doesn't mean that you can say that they
don't exist. We don't have any reasons to believe they do, but we still
can't say they don't. This is the fine line that scientists must walk:
we are custodians of truth, but only on very, very specific levels.

--XeNO

Perhaps another relative point is the hidden aspect most religions
throughout history, excepting for those that use narcotics or alcohol
to induce visions.

It seems that Gods will insist on staying hidden and keep this up to
such an extent that religions eventually get relegated to the history
books. Sometimes as in the case of the Greeks the religious leaders
resorted to using stage managed miracles to hoodwink the masses and
delay the inevitable but the Zeus story eventually ran out of faith.

Why such compulsive furtiveness, why do all these deities invariably
sneak around like thieves in the night when visiting the earth that it
is claimed that they created.

This is where I disagree. The "big three," will likely exist as long as
mankind does. There is a region of the brain that appears to be
dedicated to religious experience; meaning that many of us are
hardwired for it. In my case, music, both creating it and listening to
it provides what I would guess is that euphoric experience. (Esp. when
onstage.) This is how I know "religious experiences" are real: not from
a supernatural cause, but a physiological one.

I could agree with this, the old Greek guy who invented the law of thirds
helped me in many of my paintings and similarily although I have never
played in public he invented a scale system and when using it sometimes
brings tears to my eyes when playing music based on that system on
guitar.

It is possible after such moments to disregard all the religious
propaganda and consider what we actually are.

People on these newsgroups say that Athiest are monkeys with no souls but
I disagree when playing something like Samba Pa Ti on my guitar and my
eyes begin to cry.

Do you by chance have a reference for that scale system? The music I
write straddles metal/techno/trip-hop and there's so much beauty to
ancient work--I would love to try it, just to blend styles. I'm learning
to play a dijeridoo for a future release--doing a tribal influenced album,
and an ancient scale like that would be wonderful to have other
instruments pick up.

I sometimes envy the ancients--the level of belief the greeks shared for
their pantheon as well as the whole concept of how pharoahs were supposed
to work sounds so alien to how much rationality people try to ascribe to
our modern faiths. Hell, even many of the great classical musicians in
the west had what they would have called divine inspiration.

(http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neurotheology/index.html) There
was a much better special on PBS I watched a few years back, lacked some
of the tone of this article that I don't like.

But to stay on track, in Nietzsche's time, they were already predicting
the end of religion: it never happened, just as any speculation of it
happening in the future is also as futile. Partially because it
involves such high-level brain activity as is described in this article.
I stand by the school of thought that declares man an unrational
creature: rationalism is a skill, it needs to be trained and honed, and
there are still thousands of people that graduate with college degrees
that still believe in god(s). As atheists, we can't just dismiss that,
or those people if we want to live in this world. I used to hate Al
Gore for his comment about "Freedom of religion, not freedom from
religion." Now I see it as necessarily true. We have to simply learn
to cope and live unobtrusively if we are going to do anything other than
give ourselves heart attacks. Yeah, it might make us feel better to
declare that religion will die in 600 years, but that's just as much a
statement of faith as anything else: evidence has shown that it hasn't
happened. The statement that provides the most truth: It probably
won't.

--XeNO

aa#1901

Well on the optimistic side Britain is doing well on the power side by
making more wind farms. so leading to less reliance on religiously
dependant countries, perhaps soon our non secular immigrant minorities
will get the hint.

The ever present link between god? and politics is too omnipotent to
ignore. Hopefully someone will eventually demonstrate that to the masses.

I think the more people know it than we realize; I have had my spirits
lifted by some of the groups I've seen on campus that have arisen to fight
fundamentalist interpretations. As for the link between god and politics,
I really wish people could just say "so what" and stop fighting... I'm
such a hippie sometimes, lol.

--XeNO

If the supernatural exists, then it is as a physiological effect in the
human brain.

If it's a physiological effect in the human brain, then you can't call the
supernatural imaginary.

It's like people who have phantom limbs: The unlucky ones might feel
horrible pain in that limb. The pain is still real whether or not the arm
is actually there. They still give them pain meds. (2 yrs experience in
hospital pharmacy.) And the pain meds work.

As for anymore "logic restructuring sessions," I'm not up for it. I only
ever took one class in symbolic logic, and though it's helped me greatly, I
don't have the patience for it. So if all you're here to do is find every
truth table that might create invalidities in my arguments, quit your day
job and become a philosophy professor. (Unless you are one, then I've
probably poked the bear with that one.)

To get back on track, my point--as hopefully it should be crystal clear now,
is that whether or not the supernatural exists, you can't write it off as
tripe. You don't tell the dude in the psych ward he's not Jesus. You tell
them whatever they want to hear, so you can go on with your life.

You might as well stop here until you clear up that bogus argument.

Next time read more carefully. I still don't see what was wrong with how it
was.

--which is real. See my
reply to Lee for more on this matter.

Not until you clarify your error.

Done.

--XeNO

aa#1901

"Michael Gray" <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:jsnl83dncnarssm5sngdvt4nlddilhfpnj@4ax.com...

On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 12:31:58 -0500, "XeNO"
<xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote:
- Refer: <qKvii.6817$IK1.1704@newsfe23.lga>

"Michael Gray" <mikegray@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:3qqj83lu6ffeich72h6t2smvbo72ok0bb2@4ax.com...

On Tue, 3 Jul 2007 00:14:20 -0500, "XeNO"
<xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote:
- Refer: <TWkii.8632$%K1.30@newsfe21.lga>

"Lee" <me@localhost> wrote in message
news:4689c2bc$0$27845$db0fefd9@news.zen.co.uk...

"XeNO" <xeno6696@nospam.never.cox.net> wrote in message
news:4Ggii.263354$NU1.96391@newsfe13.lga...

At least I think I remember that as his name: some odd years ago
when
I was much more active in here he made himself a breath of fresh air
with
a comment about faith being illogical: I know that sounds arrogant,
but
after having studied some more philosophies and religions his comment
rang a bit more fully for me, especially when one dives into theories
of
knowledge and the philosophy of natural history. I won't say I was a
"just because" atheist in the past, but many of my reasons were based
on
"science," which in analysis is not a really good reason to base
one's
concept of faith in any god.

Science cannot be used to define anything ethereal or incorporeal;

True measuring radio waves, using X rays or CAT scans and particle
accelerators to define subatomic particles was pretty much beyond
science
a century ago, go back another 400 years and such ideas may have been
treated as heresy and the people that discovered them treated very
harshly
indeed.

I think you read me wrong here:
Ethereal and incorporeal = Supernatural

= Non-existent = Imaginary

Here's the problem, we don't have any reasons to believe that the
supernatural exists, but as a scientist I can't build a case for that.
You'd have to define the supernatural first, and that definition by nature
is out of the realm of natual science. You can call it imaginary if you
want, but it has a physiological effect on people

BZZZTTT!!!
The logical error alarm is ringing at level "BASIC".

You assume that "it" exists in that last phrase, and then proceeed to
correlate it to another phenomenon.

Dammit, you should save the trite act for trolls. There's nothing wrong
with what I wrote, but since you want it done in logic, I'll oblige.

If the supernatural exists, then it is as a physiological effect in the
human brain.

If it's a physiological effect in the human brain, then you can't call the
supernatural imaginary.

It's like people who have phantom limbs: The unlucky ones might feel
horrible pain in that limb. The pain is still real whether or not the arm
is actually there. They still give them pain meds. (2 yrs experience in
hospital pharmacy.) And the pain meds work.

As for anymore "logic restructuring sessions," I'm not up for it. I only
ever took one class in symbolic logic, and though it's helped me greatly, I
don't have the patience for it. So if all you're here to do is find every
truth table that might create invalidities in my arguments, quit your day
job and become a philosophy professor. (Unless you are one, then I've
probably poked the bear with that one.)

To get back on track, my point--as hopefully it should be crystal clear now,
is that whether or not the supernatural exists, you can't write it off as
tripe. You don't tell the dude in the psych ward he's not Jesus. You tell
them whatever they want to hear, so you can go on with your life.

You might as well stop here until you clear up that bogus argument.

Next time read more carefully. I still don't see what was wrong with how it
was.

--which is real. See my
reply to Lee for more on this matter.

Not until you clarify your error.

Done.

--XeNO

aa#1901