No. He thinks they are losers because they are atheists.
Why One May Never See God
- Thread starter Spellbound
- Start date
I thought that meant they were realists.
I guess that means that the 911 hijackers who knowingly sacrificed their lives in the service of God were awesome winners? Funny, I think they were the pathetic losers. But what do I know I am just an atheist.
The people in the photo were self-identifying as atheists. They may also be realists.
I suppose they were awesome winners to some people who believe in the same God. Personally, I think "win" and "lose" are more trivial terms intended for checker games, etc. To a realist, every situation has pluses and minuses.
It isn't about what you think. It's about you misunderstanding what the other poster said. That's all I'm saying. I thought his meaning was pretty clear.
But what do I know? I'm an atheist too.
I think the opposite is true. When faced with danger or fear, people tend to lose their faith in gods. That's what almost the whole Bible is about, Job being the one notable exception.
Didn't all of the disciple's of Jesus abandon him when he got 'nailed'? For crying out loud they of all people (if the stories of the new testament are to be believed) should have had a bit more faith!
I was in a bad mood. [shrug]
They probably waited for him to come back...
I personally have privileged knowledge that the G.O.D. is real. You guys do not.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=guIrPsphcMAC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=reality generates itself&source=bl&ots=DjY1yqEQfR&sig=PFJ_0kmozkJcSHuUbOsyJgyUJuI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAmoVChMItICxsdKDyAIVzYuSCh2g3QQi#v=onepage&q=reality generates itself&f=false
https://books.google.ca/books?id=guIrPsphcMAC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=reality generates itself&source=bl&ots=DjY1yqEQfR&sig=PFJ_0kmozkJcSHuUbOsyJgyUJuI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAmoVChMItICxsdKDyAIVzYuSCh2g3QQi#v=onepage&q=reality generates itself&f=false
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
'Privileged' how? Because it's unique to you? If that's the case, then how can you be sure that it's really 'knowledge' and not a psychiatric delusion?
So why do you even want to talk to inferiors like us? We obviously haven't shared your revelation (or hallucination, or whatever the hell it was). What do you think that you are accomplishing when you post on boards like this?
If you hope to ever persuade other people to share your very odd quasi-religious beliefs, then you will have to eventually post something that's comprehensible to other people, something that makes sense, something that they find persuasive. And they are the ones who are going to decide whether what you say accomplishes that.
Claiming that you possess "privileged knowledge" that other people don't possess isn't the way to do it. Making elementary logical errors isn't the way to do it. Posting incomprehensible cut-and-pastes full of pseudo-technical jargon isn't the way to do it. Throwing out cosmic-sounding words from advanced physics and mathematics ('wave-function'! 'recursion'!) that seemingly have nothing to do with your conclusions (G.O.D. is real'!) isn't the way to do it.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=gu...#v=onepage&q=reality generates itself&f=false
The evidence came when my mind was entangled with the external world and my thoughts corresponded to it. I was "linked" with it. So I was able to influence the sunlight in the room I was in a number of times. It became plain for me that Langan was correct... reality is indeed self-aware and self-perceptual. The next step was to prove that this phenomenon was genuine and not a delusion of some sort. My threads in Philosophy and Religion are an attempt to do so.
I'm presuming you don't mean that you influenced it merely by drawing the curtains?Spellbound said:
How are you so sure that it was actually you that influenced the sunlight in the room?
How can you be so sure that the sun wasn't merely disappearing and reappearing from behind clouds? If I concentrate really hard on a somewhat cloudy day, and do so for long enough about changing the sunlight in my room, I'm fairly sure that the sun will disappear behind a cloud quite naturally during that period.
Your "evidence" is, unfortunately, what most people who are capable of critical thought would find to be woefully insufficient. Have you sought to dismiss such mundane explanations - such that it is only reasonable to conclude that it was you influencing the sunlight?
Ooh, the sunlight in my room lessened slightly as I type this... now let me concentrate to make it brighter... and... there we go! Cloud moved away from the sun... but I'm sure it was me influencing the cloud!
Yet he (and you) lack any proof, any testable hypothesis, and all you have to go on is your confidence in his words which, no matter how many threads you start, all smack of tautological uselessness such as "Reality is what is real".
And despite your undoubted best efforts, you won't "prove" anything until you put up a testable hypothesis that can only support your theory rather than any other. Merely quoting Langan won't get you there. Merely reinterpreting his words in your own won't get you there.
And that seems to be all you have ever done in those threads.
I'm presuming you don't mean that you influenced it merely by drawing the curtains?
How are you so sure that it was actually you that influenced the sunlight in the room?
How can you be so sure that the sun wasn't merely disappearing and reappearing from behind clouds? If I concentrate really hard on a somewhat cloudy day, and do so for long enough about changing the sunlight in my room, I'm fairly sure that the sun will disappear behind a cloud quite naturally during that period.
Your "evidence" is, unfortunately, what most people who are capable of critical thought would find to be woefully insufficient. Have you sought to dismiss such mundane explanations - such that it is only reasonable to conclude that it was you influencing the sunlight?
Ooh, the sunlight in my room lessened slightly as I type this... now let me concentrate to make it brighter... and... there we go! Cloud moved away from the sun... but I'm sure it was me influencing the cloud!
I predicted when the sunlight would get darker and it got darker. Or brighter and it got brighter. It's a rare occurrence with me. I knew it was God interacting with me. It was during a spiritual experience that is how I know it was the real deal and that my thoughts corresponded to it.
Or it was simply coincidence.
Amazing thing with coincidences: we tend only to remember and focus on those times that give a positive outcome, and ignore (subconsciously or otherwise) the vast number of times there is no positive outcome.
You can of course interpret the experience as you wish. Noone can dispute the experience itself as they weren't there, but they can call your interpretation into question. And on that, at the moment all you have provided is your own confidence in your interpretation to support it. Do you have anything else?
On the matter of it being "during a spiritual experience"... how do you define such an experience? What makes it spiritual rather than, say, simply being relaxed and introspective, or any other mundane secular interpretation?
Amazing thing with coincidences: we tend only to remember and focus on those times that give a positive outcome, and ignore (subconsciously or otherwise) the vast number of times there is no positive outcome.
You can of course interpret the experience as you wish. Noone can dispute the experience itself as they weren't there, but they can call your interpretation into question. And on that, at the moment all you have provided is your own confidence in your interpretation to support it. Do you have anything else?
On the matter of it being "during a spiritual experience"... how do you define such an experience? What makes it spiritual rather than, say, simply being relaxed and introspective, or any other mundane secular interpretation?
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
One is causally linked with the external world during normal perception. When somebody accurately perceives something, the content of that individual's thoughts should correspond somewhat with what is perceived.
While you seemingly believe that happened, I don't believe that it really did. People often subjectively convince themselves that things are happening that objectively aren't. Schizophrenics often report hearing disembodied voices speaking to them. This is where the hallucination and delusion problems arise.
Are you capable of brightening and dimming the ambient light in rooms on command, as opposed to just waiting for it to happen spontaneously? (As Sarkus says, clouds do pass before the Sun.) Can you do it in windowless rooms with constant artificial lighting? Can you do it in the presence of witnesses, with other people in the room with you? Can you do it in the presence of cameras and light-intensity measuring instruments? Somehow, I doubt it.
(If you can really do this in the objective realm and not just in your own subjectivity, you could be the most famous man in Canada, and probably headline news around the world.)
What does your believing that you can dim and brighten the light in rooms have to do with Langan? I don't understand your leap there.
Assuming for the sake of argument that your miraculous abilities are real, why should anyone believe that Langan's speculations somewhere contain the correct explanation?
Another leap. How do your alleged miraculous abilities lead to that particular metaphysical conclusion? Your will supposedly being able to exert an unknown causal influence on light intensity doesn't seem to have anything to do with the pantheistic conclusion that 'reality' itself is 'self-aware' and is in fact God.
How do your 'Reality is...' posts constitute 'proof' that your miraculous abilities are genuine and not a delusion? How does the incomprehensible jargon in your cut-and-pastes do that?
What I'd like to see you do is walk into the physics department at the University of Toronto and tell them about "this phenomenon". They will almost certainly think that you are a psychiatric case, so just do it: dim the room and then brighten it after telling them what you will be doing. Show them that it's real and invite them to study it. (After you do it a few times, they will start smelling Nobel Prizes, will be calling all their colleagues and will eagerly invite you in.)
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Correct in terms of causal linkage. In my case there was a recursive relationship between my thoughts and the external reality. A sort of "entanglement".
I've noticed a change in the presence of others. For instance, when I shared a loving moment with my brother the sunlight in the room suddenly became brighter and more beautiful, as if it "knew" what was going on. I am not able to do it on command. But I suppose I can try. If the universe is self-aware, then it may not wish to show off this ability.
It was evidence of pantheism.
It tends to occur when I feel the greatness of God inside me. This fact supports the veracity of all other phenomenon occurring during this experience.
I categorize it as proof of pantheism.
I suppose it wouldn't hurt to garner witnesses. Although I am not in the business of showing it off. But I guess I can try. I can try to link my thoughts up with the external world and get it to relate back to me just like I've done about 10 times in the past 3 years, no more.
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Or alternatively your thoughts were merely being impacted by the changing external reality. Your subconscious can pick up changes in environment far sooner than the conscious self, and it could therefore simply be your subconscious at play.
This just seems to be a case of coincidence, and of selection bias on your part - i.e. we remember such coincidences but not the times without such coincidence.
The last sentence unfortunately removes your claims from being anything other than pure belief on your part, as they are not scientific. "God walks in mysterious ways" and other such stock phrases remove falsifiability from any theory you might put forward, and thus you will get no stock from any scientist. So please don't ever try to push them as scientific, that your notions/claims that have such stock excuses as a fallback are in any way part of scientific discourse.
So you believe. Most would not see that conclusion get past Occam's razor, or whatever else they might use as one of their judges of rationality.
Again, smacks of selection bias of coincidences, especially as this supposedly only happened "10 times in the past 3 years, no more".
So you believe. Most would not see that conclusion get past Occam's razor, or whatever else they might use as one of their judges of rationality.
And when it doesn't work: well, "If the universe is self-aware, then it may not wish to show off this ability."