Do you believe in God and why

[thaibeachlovers]

9 hours ago, partington said:

It's not a bold theory, except to someone who does not understand either logic or how nerve impulses are transmitted.

 

Your previous argument stated "scientists define thought as electrical impulses." But scientists do not define thoughts as electrical impulses. Only you do. Any neurobiologist would know that thought is not only electrical impulses, but the simultaneous processing activity of these impulses through billions of nerve connections in structurally organised regions of living brains.

 

Thoughts need electrical impulses to occur, but in addition need many many other contingent processes to occur as well.

 

Your silliness is like saying " TV programs are electrical impulses, so as electricity exists in nature, TV programs can exist in nature without TV studios, cameras and actors."

 

Furthermore the kind of electrical impulses that occur in nerve cells cannot occur outside living organisms because they are based on the progressive movement of sodium ions from the inside to the outside and back again of living cells surrounded by a semi-permeable lipid membrane. 

 

These ion flows are also how nerve cells transmit instructions to muscles to move, including the muscles that you use to breathe, or blink your eyes. Breathing and eye-blinking do not result from conscious thought therefore I have shown you nerve impulses alone can exist within a living organism without necessarily producing or accounting for any conscious thought at all.

 

In short:

1. Electricity as occurring in nature, lightning and so on, are not the same as nerve impulses and are not "thought"

2. Even the specialised kind of electrical ion flows that comprise nerve impulses and can only occur in living creatures  do not alone necessarily produce conscious thought, because they occur everyday in everyone at a subconscious level.

 

 

I think you are so confined in your thinking that you missed the point he was making. Unable to see the forest for the trees sort of thing.

There's more to life the universe and everything than human science is capable of understanding.

[VincentRJ]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I think you are so confined in your thinking that you missed the point he was making. Unable to see the forest for the trees sort of thing.

There's more to life the universe and everything than human science is capable of understanding.

Of course there is more to 'life and the universe' than science is currently capable of understanding, otherwise the human race would be the equivalent of 'God'. We make gradual progress by investigating 'hypotheses' that are initially based upon plausible evidence. We experiment further, multiple times and in various ways, until we get consistent results that appear to match reality. We then call the hypothesis a theory. Years later, the established theory is sometimes proved to be wrong, or is required to be modified in the light of new evidence.

 

The existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is claimed to represent 95% of all the matter and energy in the universe, is currently a 'hypothesis'. It's existence is possibly the best explanation for the observations, through the Hubble telescope and others, which imply that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than slowing down, as used to be accepted by most Astrophysicists.

 

However, it might turn out to be the case that a modification of our current theories of Physics will be a better explanation for our observations of the behaviour of distant galaxies, than the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It's a work in progress.

[mauGR1]

14 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Of course there is more to 'life and the universe' than science is currently capable of understanding, otherwise the human race would be the equivalent of 'God'.

In a way "Science is God".

The search for the Truth, be it a temporary truth, or an eternal truth, is one of the highest faculties of humans, and a very clear distinction between humans and animals.

Yet, the true scientist is humble, because he knows that he has discovered only a part of the truth, and there is much more to be discovered.

[UbonThani]

2 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

Yet, the true scientist is humble, because he knows that he has discovered only a part of the trut

Tell that to climate change preachers

 

Anything but humble

[Tippaporn]

The faith required by those who believe that science will find all of the answers is no different than the faith required by those who believe God will once again appear in the world to save humanity.  The faith in either is misplaced.

[Tippaporn]

Paul M. Helfrich, Ph.D made this essay freely available and in opening discusses "creation myths."  The full essay can be found here:  Seth on “The Origins of the Universe and of the Species” – An Integral Conscious Creation Myth

 

Note the last line, which I've bolded and underlined.

 

Religious and scientific belief systems currently dominate our worldviews in the West. They contain officially accepted views about ourselves, our universe, and how we can all get along. They also provide a subset of beliefs called “creation myths” that explain the origins of our universe, planet, and all life, including the morals and laws that “govern” each. Religion and science‟s unique creation myths have competed for prominence over the past three hundred years.

 

In the biblical story, our universe was created in seven days by a Causal Consciousness, conventionally termed God, who placed humans as the caretakers of all living things along with a moral code to govern all behavior. The first man – a fully formed adult – “poofed” into existence in a Paradise called The Garden of Eden. He served as a progenitor for the first woman, and thus had dominion over her. However, a demon in the guise of a serpent tricked this woman to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, thus committing the first sin. Ever since, humanity as been cursed as the descendents of these original sinners, but can be redeemed in a spiritual domain ruled by Causal Consciousness.

 

In the scientific story, our universe was created by a random Big Bang followed by a process called evolution guided by the principles of natural selection and “selfish” genetic mutation. Evolution, and thus our universe, is basically meaningless and amoral because science deals only in facts, objects, and processes from the objectivity of third person perspectives. Humanity is neither cursed, nor blessed, just challenged to adapt as best it can to overall life conditions. There is only physical life, and death is the end. As such, there are no spiritual domains or beings.

 

We can broadly characterize the religious story as premodern, and the scientific story as modern. According to German sociologist Max Weber, modernity is defined by the separation of three premodern “values spheres” – science, art, and morals. In premodern times, they were controlled and enforced by the Church. If you broke the law, your soul could be damned to an eternity of punishment in Hell. Thus, moderns saw the separation of “values spheres” as a healthy sociological step forward, one that allowed all three disciplines to develop independently. Art and literature, in terms of the 16th century Renaissance, and science, in terms of the 17th century Enlightenment, blossomed into new and exciting forms.

 

So, the modern worldview slowly began to emerge over five centuries ago. By the 17th century, Descartes reduced the idea of Casual Consciousness, found in all premodern religions, to a body/mind. In the 18th century, Newton outlined the mechanical laws that governed this body/mind. By the mid-19th century, Darwin and Wallace detailed biological evolution and natural selection that randomly produced this body/mind. In the mid-20th century, as students of William James in America, and Sigmund Freud in Europe codified modern psychology, the consciousness of this body/mind – now with a very small “c” – was reduced to a byproduct of brain chemistry. Body in the form of quantum fields, DNA, genes, and hormones caused mind.

 

However, there was a problem. As modern science produced centuries of discoveries that shredded premodern religious claims of scripture as Absolute Truth (e.g. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, etc.), it declared its way of knowing through third person objectivity as the only real way to know truth. The notion of first person subjectivity was marginalized, replaced by third person facts, objects, and processes. As the modern “values spheres” splintered further into extreme forms, Scientism and its subset Evolutionism were born. These modern “religions” relied on the same faith as premodern religion in that it could not provide a valid scientific proof that scientific method was the only way to know truth.

 

The full essay runs about 9 pages and can be read in less than 10 minutes.  He continues with describing the now 50-year or so movement toward post-modern myth.  These world views are vying for dominance in our world.

 

Further on, and very interestingly, he says, "Albert Einstein intuited this when he said, “The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking that created them.”"

 

That would seem obviously apparent to some and not so apparent to others.  Below this quote is a quote from Seth:

 

“Consciousness, by its nature, continually expands. The nature of consciousness, as you understand it as a species will, in one way or another, lead you beyond your limited ideas of reality, for your experience will set challenges that cannot be solved within your current framework. Those problems set by one level of consciousness will automatically cause breakthroughs into other areas of conscious activity, where solutions can be found.”

 

From all that I have learned I wholeheartedly agree.  The current framework of ideas accepted on a mass scale simply will not work in the long run (they aren't working very well now, I might add).  Our ideas of self and reality are much too limited.  Changing to a new framework requires a radical alteration of ideas regarding the nature of reality and who and what we truly are.  Few . . . very few . . . are willing to even discuss it let alone to begin to move in that direction.

 

Edited March 16, 2020 by Tippaporn

[mauGR1]

10 minutes ago, Tippaporn said:

Consciousness, by its nature, continually expands. The nature of consciousness, as you understand it as a species will, in one way or another, lead you beyond your limited ideas of reality, for your experience will set challenges that cannot be solved within your current framework. Those problems set by one level of consciousness will automatically cause breakthroughs into other areas of conscious activity, where solutions can be found.”

 

I like the way this is worded.

The Master i chose (R. Steiner) is promising to give me 'wings' to explore those "other areas of conscious activity", with the simple power of thought.

Actually i am conscious that the 2/3 beers which i indulge every evening are making my wings a bit heavy, but for the moment i am not in a hurry. ????

 

[Tippaporn]

On 3/15/2020 at 7:45 AM, VincentRJ said:

Not true. Thought requires electrical impulses as an essential component, but without the brain, consisting of a network of around 86 billion neurons in humans, there is no thought.

 

<snip>

Might there be more than you are aware of?

 

"[...] You are in the middle of a “matter-concentrated system,” surrounded, so to speak, by weaker areas in which what you would call “pseudomatter” persists. Each thought and emotion spontaneously exists as a simple or complex electromagnetic unit — unperceived, incidentally, as yet by your scientists."
—SS Chapter 3: Session 520, March 25, 1970

 

Science is so lacking in knowledge regarding "life" that much of what they claim when speaking on certain subject matter is nonsensical in real terms.

 

"Every thought in one way or another is constructed by you in physical terms. You cannot escape the result of one thought. Every thought is an actuality. [...]"
—TES7 Part One Of Seth’s Lecture To Pat’s Boston High School Class March 25, 1967

 

The brain is not the creator of thought, though it is the physical counterpart of the mind.  As such, the idea that without the brain there is no thought would be false.  Again we're seemingly pitting subjective reality against a belief that claims only objective reality matters (pun intended).

 

An instance when Seth discusses his own reality:

 

"Now you do the same thing when you sit in your living room, but you do not realize what you are doing; and presently you are somewhat restricted. When my associates and I meet, we often translate each other’s thoughts into various shapes and forms out of pure enjoyment in the practice. We have what you might call a game, demanding some expertise, where for our own amusement we see which of us can translate any given thought into the most numerous forms. [...]"
—SS Chapter 3: Session 520, March 25, 1970

 

All in all we're dealing not only with the unknown but with the "known" which so often is patently false.

[Tippaporn]

Some more interesting material regarding myths . . . and facts.

 

"(10:43.) Give us a moment … Most people interpret the realities of their lives, their triumphs and failures, their health or illness, their fortune or misfortune, then, in the light of a mythical reality that is not understood as such. What is behind these myths, and what is their source of power?

Facts are a very handy but weak brew of reality. They immediately consign certain kinds of experiences as real and others as not. The psyche, however, will not be so limited. It exists in a medium of reality, a realm of being in which all possibilities exist. It creates myths the way the ocean creates spray. Myths are originally psychic fabrications of such power and strength that whole civilizations can rise from their source. They involve symbols and known emotional validities that are then connected to the physical world, so that that world is never the same again.

They cast their light over historical events because they are responsible for those events. They mix and merge the inner, unseen but felt, eternal psychic experience of man with the temporal events of his physical days, and form a combination that structures thoughts and beliefs from civilization to civilization. In Framework 2 the interior power of nature is ever-changing. The dreams, hopes, aspirations and fears of man interact in a constant motion that then forms the events of your world. That interaction includes not only man, of course, but the emotional reality of all earthly consciousnesses as well, from a microbe to a scholar, from a frog to a star. You interpret the phenomena of your world according to the mythic characteristics that you have accepted. You organize physical reality, then, through ideas. You use only those perceptions that serve to give those ideas validity. The physical body itself is quite capable of putting the world together in different fashions than the one that is familiar to you."

—NoME Chapter 3: Session 817, January 30, 1978

 

Again, "Facts are a very handy but weak brew of reality."

 

I can hear the howls of some posters now, LOL.

[Tippaporn]

The Universe As Idea Construction

 

"[...] To change your world you must change your thoughts. You must become consciously aware of what you tell yourself is true every moment of the day, for that is the reality that you project outward."
—SS Appendix: ESP Class Session: Tuesday, January 12, 1971

 

"Now this is practical and it is the only real practicality. For if you hate, you create a hateful reality. And to the extent that you hate, you find reality hateful. To the extent that you fear, you create a fearful reality. To the extent that you love, you create a lovely reality. To the extent that you create, you create a reality full of creativity—and this is my message."

"Each of you individually creates the reality that you know—and en masse, altogether, you create the reality of your world and your universe. There is no good within it in which you do not participate—and there is no evil within it in which you do not participate—and in which you have no part."

"However, with this talk of discipline and spontaneity my intention has somewhat changed. For I must tell you again, and I cannot tell you too often, that the inner self, acting spontaneously, automatically shows the discipline that you do not as yet understand. You are not your physical body. You are not your emotions. You have emotions as you have bacon for breakfast. You are not the bacon—and you are not your emotions. You have thoughts as you have eggs for breakfast. You are not the eggs and you are not your thoughts. You are as independent of your thoughts and your emotions as you are of the bacon and the eggs. You use the bacon and the eggs in your physical composition; and you use your emotions and your thoughts in your mental composition. Surely all of you consider yourselves somewhat superior to a piece of bacon, and you do not identify with it. Then, do not identify with your emotions or your thoughts. They flow through you. You attract them in the same way you go to the store to buy your bacon. But the bacon goes through your physical system and the thoughts of emotion, left alone, will pass through your psychic system. And you are independent of them. When you set up barriers and doors, then you enclose these thoughts within you—as if you stored up tons of bacon in your refrigerator and wonder why there was not enough room for anything else."

—TECS1 ESP Class Session, April 22, 1969

 

"You will find exactly what you wish to find. You will make of your lives exactly what you expect to make of your lives. The beauties that exist in your physical universe are the results of constructive and positive thought. The ugliness is a direct result of negative thought."
—TES7 Part One Of Seth’s Lecture To Pat’s Boston High School Class March 25, 1967

 

"[...] Your actual words convey information, feelings, or thoughts. Obviously the thoughts or the feelings, and the words, are not the same thing. [...] You take it for granted without even thinking of it that the symbols — the letters — are not the reality — the information or thoughts — which they attempt to convey."

"[...] You create them as surely as you create words. I do not mean that you create them with your hands alone, or through manufacture. [...] Though you hear the words and recognize their appropriateness, and though they may more or less approximate an expression of your feeling, they are not your feeling, and there must be a gap between your thought and your expression of it."

"Now in the same way, I am telling you that objects are also symbols that stand for a reality whose meaning the objects, like the letters, transmit. The true information is not in the objects any more than the thought is in the letters or in words. [...]"

—SS Chapter 5: Session 523, April 13, 1970

 

It can be explained in a million different ways, repeated again and again . . . yet most likely be ignored each and every time.  LOL

 

Anyway, food for thought for some of you posters.  Pure comedy for some of you other posters.  To each your own.

[VincentRJ]

3 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

Might there be more than you are aware of?

 

Are you kidding?  ????  Of course there's more than I'm aware of.

 

One major product of scientific inquiry is the revelation of how little we know. As I've mentioned before, the current hypothesis suggest that our entire scientific/technological apparatuses have the potential to detect only 5% of the matter and energy in the universe, the rest being invisible Dark Matter & Energy. Furthermore, the actual percentage of that 5% that we actually have detected so far, in reasonable detail, is extremely minuscule.

 

There could be as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, or as few as 100 billion. We don't know. There could be as many as 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. So far, we've detected only 4,187 planets revolving around a very tiny fraction of those estimated 200 billion stars in our galaxy. About 1 in 5 of those stars with planets that have been detected so far, have an 'earth-sized' planet in the habitable zone. It can be hypothesized that there are about 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way alone, but we don't know. The number of potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the entire universe could be in the trillions.
 

[mauGR1]

2 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

It can be explained in a million different ways, repeated again and again .

That's a fact, words are hardly fit to describe the spiritual realms, it's nice to have a try though.

There's one book i like, here's a quote:

" “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

[thaibeachlovers]

12 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Of course there is more to 'life and the universe' than science is currently capable of understanding, otherwise the human race would be the equivalent of 'God'. We make gradual progress by investigating 'hypotheses' that are initially based upon plausible evidence. We experiment further, multiple times and in various ways, until we get consistent results that appear to match reality. We then call the hypothesis a theory. Years later, the established theory is sometimes proved to be wrong, or is required to be modified in the light of new evidence.

 

The existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which is claimed to represent 95% of all the matter and energy in the universe, is currently a 'hypothesis'. It's existence is possibly the best explanation for the observations, through the Hubble telescope and others, which imply that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate rather than slowing down, as used to be accepted by most Astrophysicists.

 

However, it might turn out to be the case that a modification of our current theories of Physics will be a better explanation for our observations of the behaviour of distant galaxies, than the existence of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It's a work in progress.

If that's correct, once all the suns have burned out a load of dead matter will be expanding forever, following the light which means that whatever we do now lives on forever too.

[thaibeachlovers]

11 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

That's a fact, words are hardly fit to describe the spiritual realms, it's nice to have a try though.

There's one book i like, here's a quote:

" “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

That book was really popular decades ago. I have a copy and one day I hope to read it.

[thaibeachlovers]

14 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

Are you kidding?  ????  Of course there's more than I'm aware of.

 

One major product of scientific inquiry is the revelation of how little we know. As I've mentioned before, the current hypothesis suggest that our entire scientific/technological apparatuses have the potential to detect only 5% of the matter and energy in the universe, the rest being invisible Dark Matter & Energy. Furthermore, the actual percentage of that 5% that we actually have detected so far, in reasonable detail, is extremely minuscule.

 

There could be as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, or as few as 100 billion. We don't know. There could be as many as 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. So far, we've detected only 4,187 planets revolving around a very tiny fraction of those estimated 200 billion stars in our galaxy. About 1 in 5 of those stars with planets that have been detected so far, have an 'earth-sized' planet in the habitable zone. It can be hypothesized that there are about 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way alone, but we don't know. The number of potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the entire universe could be in the trillions.
 

Sooooo, as I've been saying for ages, our science isn't capable of detecting God or spirituality related things. It's a matter of faith at present.

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

That book was really popular decades ago. I have a copy and one day I hope to read it.

I think that the guy was quite enlightened, either he was smoking some seriously good stuff.

 

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If that's correct, once all the suns have burned out a load of dead matter will be expanding forever, following the light which means that whatever we do now lives on forever too.

I don't quite understand how you got there, but i believe, and i can't explain how, that whatever has been done in the past, lives on forever.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

Some more interesting material regarding myths . . . and facts.

 

"(10:43.) Give us a moment … Most people interpret the realities of their lives, their triumphs and failures, their health or illness, their fortune or misfortune, then, in the light of a mythical reality that is not understood as such. What is behind these myths, and what is their source of power?

Facts are a very handy but weak brew of reality. They immediately consign certain kinds of experiences as real and others as not. The psyche, however, will not be so limited. It exists in a medium of reality, a realm of being in which all possibilities exist. It creates myths the way the ocean creates spray. Myths are originally psychic fabrications of such power and strength that whole civilizations can rise from their source. They involve symbols and known emotional validities that are then connected to the physical world, so that that world is never the same again.

They cast their light over historical events because they are responsible for those events. They mix and merge the inner, unseen but felt, eternal psychic experience of man with the temporal events of his physical days, and form a combination that structures thoughts and beliefs from civilization to civilization. In Framework 2 the interior power of nature is ever-changing. The dreams, hopes, aspirations and fears of man interact in a constant motion that then forms the events of your world. That interaction includes not only man, of course, but the emotional reality of all earthly consciousnesses as well, from a microbe to a scholar, from a frog to a star. You interpret the phenomena of your world according to the mythic characteristics that you have accepted. You organize physical reality, then, through ideas. You use only those perceptions that serve to give those ideas validity. The physical body itself is quite capable of putting the world together in different fashions than the one that is familiar to you."

—NoME Chapter 3: Session 817, January 30, 1978

 

Again, "Facts are a very handy but weak brew of reality."

 

I can hear the howls of some posters now, LOL.

I'm not sure of what that post is saying, but it seems to me it is saying that the Matrix is real and we are all in it, making our own worlds.

[Chazar]

On 3/4/2020 at 6:31 PM, mauGR1 said:

Yes and no.

It can be argued that every single atom is an image of God, but we can't be sure that every atom is self-conscious.

how  about  all the other sub atomic  particles...............and really how can you possible  know

[thaibeachlovers]

2 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

I think that the guy was quite enlightened, either he was smoking some seriously good stuff.

 

I don't quite understand how you got there, but i believe, and i can't explain how, that whatever has been done in the past, lives on forever.

It's simple really. If someone on a distant planet had a large enough telescope they would be able to see us, but at however long afterwards it takes the light to reach them. So, if light takes 1 year to reach them from us, they see us 1 year after we did whatever they are watching. Ergo, what we do lives on in the light traveling away through the universe, and will continue to live on till the universe is destroyed and the light with it. IMO.

[thaibeachlovers]

Just now, Chazar said:

how  about  all the other sub atomic  particles...............and really how can you possible  know

It's a matter of faith.

[mauGR1]

17 minutes ago, Chazar said:

how  about  all the other sub atomic  particles...............and really how can you possible  know

In theory, the solar system is an atom, and every atom is a solar system, with little beings arguing about the existence of God.

[Chazar]

40 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It's a matter of faith.

ok so ballcocks  then

[Chazar]

23 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

In theory, the solar system is an atom, and every atom is a solar system, with little beings arguing about the existence of God.

you know  how  big an atom is  right, all those other particles are  tiny next to an atom which is virtually empty space anyway

[thaibeachlovers]

37 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

In theory, the solar system is an atom, and every atom is a solar system, with little beings arguing about the existence of God.

and all the atoms are in a ball which is on the collar of a dog.

[mauGR1]

13 minutes ago, Chazar said:

you know  how  big an atom is  right, all those other particles are  tiny next to an atom which is virtually empty space anyway

yes, like a solar system, lots of empty space between the sun, the earth, and the other planets.

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

and all the atoms are in a ball which is on the collar of a dog.

uhm, not sure i can follow you there, but i think the same pattern we can see in the solar system mirrors the pattern of the whole universe.

"As above, as below".

[thaibeachlovers]

Just now, mauGR1 said:

uhm, not sure i can follow you there, but i think the same pattern we can see in the solar system mirrors the pattern of the whole universe.

"As above, as below".

You didn't see the movie, did you?

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You didn't see the movie, did you?

ohh, you were talking about a movie..

I think not, i am not fond of movies, although occasionally i enjoy a good one. The Matrix was ok.

[thaibeachlovers]

3 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

ohh, you were talking about a movie..

I think not, i am not fond of movies, although occasionally i enjoy a good one. The Matrix was ok.

Google Men in Black+ belt of Orion

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Google Men in Black+ belt of Orion

Doesn't matter, i think "Men in Black" was ok too, but i prefer reading books, and most of all i am interested in people's sincere thoughts.

That's why you see me here all the time ????