I am sure there are people who are genuinly looking for ghosts. And they would be genuine enough to admit they have nothing yet.Quote by: Meleagar
I am sure there are people who are genuinly looking for ghosts. And they would be genuine enough to admit they have nothing yet.
Minorwork, Soylent,
Denials and negative characterizations do not constitute proper debate or rebuttal of the evidence at hand.
Since nobody has offered an argument that the above evidence did not go through the same apparent scientific rigor as any other scientific evidence, then we have laid to reast the claim that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the spiritual.
Such claims are false.
OK. Can you expand on the implications for me of accepting the statements falsehood? I might be tempted to conclude there is life after life; give all my money and remaining time to the Church; announce that I have no family other than God's family while living this life; all of these, so I can fly first class on the next life. Seems a scientific thing to do.
What actions are called for by accepting that there is scientific evidence for your proposition? If there is no change in my actions called for, then I'd not be clear on the significance of your proposition. Do you want more research dollars? More taxes from me? A bow?
I would pursue the nature of the spiritual worlds and their correspondences with the physical world, if any. I would explore the "norms" of sanity and insanity.
However. You want criticisms of the science involved in the investigations of the paranormal, I hope. I am not a con man, though I know some of knockings' trickery. To discover trickery I would go to one experienced in the ways of trickery. A magician of the stage variety. James Randi, for example. He has revealed the trickery of many including the televangelist Peter Popoff and shed light on ruses that had fooled scientists at Lawrence Livermore Labs. I would not, in pursuing the mechanisms of trickery, ask the aid of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he was in his spiritualism funk.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
Even if what little of it did go through scientific rigour, still nothing was proven. All that you have is that some scientists find the results encouraging enough to continue.
You have not laid to rest the claim that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the spiritual, because none has been found. You have only laid to rest that some scientists are still looking for evidence.
The above as i have already pointed out is not evidence.
That you believe evidence MIGHT exist is not in itself evidence that evidence exists.
I never said anything was proven. However, the that the evidence has met normal scientific rigor is, IMO, obvious. Your denials, IMO, are obviously rhetorical. You're not even addressing the evidence.
Minorwork,
Are you saying that the potential for scientifically proving that life continues after death, that identity endures beyond the physical, isn't worth pursuing, and wouldn't matter much to humanity ? Really?
I'll say: "I have pursued, and seized, survival of the personality throughout eternity." I rue the day that it could be objectively scientifically shown. Why pursue such verification scientifically, objectively, when verification is available on an individual basis?
I see little to no difference in the world should verification of such knowledge happen. Today there are many mystery schools that offer verification of existence independent of the body, though none are needed. But few are able to believe that what is free has value. You gonna' open your own shop? Charge a bunch if you do. Bad karma giving such loaded guns to those unprepared for the responsibility. If they can afford the fee then that is some indication of their progress in responsibility.
Last edited by minorwork; 26th July 2009 at 09:57 PM.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
"...I do not believe in immortality of the individual..."
--Albert Einstein
"Dying is a very dull dreary affair. My advice to you is to have nothing to do with it."
--W. Somerset Maugham
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Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
[John F. Kennedy]
The principal value of debate lies in the development of logical thought processes, and the ability to articulate your positions publicly.
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[Terry Pratchett]
I'm certainly no light-weight when it comes to reading capacity, but this convoluted post confused me greatly. The only thing that fits is that you claim eternal life through some kind of religious belief.
I am not addressing the evidence because there is no evidence. All there is is a rigorous scientific work being done to try and dicscover some evidence.
In other words a real lack of evidence.whilst admitting the genuineness of the phenomena, came to the conclusion that they were not due to supernatural agency.
But not at the moment. The Claim be the experience. Not a belief. Faith. Faith is the willingness to act. Faith initiates action in the direction of the experience.
An interpretation, a translation of an experience. If it can be said humans can experience what it means to be detached from almost everything, if but for a small time, then yeah, I can see where some would say they have left their body and traveled in soul. My interpretation based on my understanding of the terms. Been a while back and a few times here and there in between.
Hard to say the experiences were from my efforts alone. I worked at them hard for years with no results; prepared a system to accept ... what? Certainly not what I got. The system was tolerable, I suppose, for a pre-initiate, but entirely inadequate to communicate experiencing freedom independent of the body. My interpretation, pales beside those 5 to 10 second excursions. I'd heard that males generally have a hard time leaving and an easy time returning whereas females are the opposite. Being older now I've met a few others and the classification is .... well the data pool is too small to see any pattern. For me it holds.
Where be the science?
- Question, get educated, hypothesize, test, fail, repeat.
- To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
- "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No sense in being a damn fool about it." ~ W.C. Fields
- "Everybody has to believe in something. I believe I'll have a drink." ~ W.C. Fields
- Repeat.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
Because the first paragraph is countered by the second?
If only the verification were announced I see little to no difference in the world. But if there were such scientific verification there would be a commensurate amount of manipulative knowledge, memory wipes, that could be hi-jacked for "the good of all mankind."
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
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