Evidence

[Rolling_Stone]

Critics exhibit the very kind of dependency on externalities I mentioned. Note this: "...a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life." What does that tell you? Nothing?

I'm tired of Sunstone's (and others) cynical red herrings and habit of posing questions without answering any posed in return

 

[yossarian22]

I'm tired of Sunstone's (and others) cynical red herrings and habit of posing questions without answering any posed in return

Perhaps you should, I am just throwing this out there, answer the bloody questions instead of dancing around them?.

 

[Sunstone]

Critics exhibit the very kind of dependency on externalities I mentioned. Note this: "...a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life." What does that tell you? Nothing?

I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you elaborate?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Perhaps you should, I am just throwing this out there, answer the bloody questions instead of dancing around them?.

Okay. Answer this: What is the difference between "...a level of awareness for which there is no evidence that manifests as a way of life" and "by their fruits you shall know them"? Both statements are a direct answer to the question posed.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you elaborate?

Red Herring, Sunstone. I'm not playing your silly game.

 

[Sunstone]

Red Herring, Sunstone. I'm not playing your silly game.

Suit yourself, Stone. It was an honest question. I'm beginning to suspect you are a troll.

 

[Rioku]

Red Herring, Sunstone. I'm not playing your silly game.

What about me, I love reading what you type it is like a puzzle when you first see it there is no meaning then when you are done putting it together it still has no meaning.

And by the way, you have not said a single coherent idea this entire thread. :sorry1:

 

[Autodidact]

 

[Rioku]

That is just annoying. Please don't do it again. Ever.

 

[Autodidact]

That is just annoying. Please don't do it again. Ever.

Well, you said it so much better. When you are done putting it together, it still has no meaning.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Suit yourself, Stone. It was an honest question. I'm beginning to suspect you are a troll.

See post #64. If the question was honest the answer is there.

 

[Rioku]

See post #64. If the question was honest the answer is there.

In an attempt to help you I tell you this. If you ever have to refer to your own post that has already been read then your original post was not clear enough in the first place.

 

[Autodidact]

I think that Rolling_Stone has amply demonstrated the benefits--and the risks--of moving beyone evidence as a criteria for knowledge. Thank you, Stone.

 

[Rioku]

I think that Rolling_Stone has amply demonstrated the benefits--and the risks--of moving beyone evidence as a criteria for knowledge. Thank you, Stone.

LOL, you are funny.

 

[gnostic]

Evidences are important.

Otherwise is God is no better than Ra, Zeus, or the Fairy Godmother, Satan is no better than ghoul, goblin, Big-Foot or the Big Bad Wolf. And angels are no better than elves or fairies.

The stories of the creation and flood are no different than other creation myths from other cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India.

Belief and faith in a belief can only go so far, and is about as reliable as these myths.

Why should the Bible or any other scripture be exempted from critical analysis and investigation, when it provides no evidences beyond than literary evidence and faith? I might as well as believe in the Fairy Godmother as I would believe in God or Satan.

The evidence that the earth and the universe is older than the Bible's less than 6000 years speaks louder. That we have no evidence of global flood between 4000-4350 years ago is proof that the Genesis is wrong.

Believe me, "believing" is actually the easy part. It is much harder to not believe, because there is certain comfort in following everyone else. When you open your eyes and see that what the bible or other scriptures say and got many things wrong, then you realise you are being conned. Some people refused to see the proof, preferring the belief of supernatural than the evidences found in nature.

Don't get me wrong. There are some values in the Bible and other scriptures in regarding to the wisdom, compassion and justice in which case I can admire the teachings of Jesus, Moses, etc, but the miracles and prophecies are very hard to believe. That's why I would prefer evidences, in regarding to miracles and divine intervention, other than the testimonies of so-called prophets and messengers.

 

[crystalonyx]

It is true that Christianity exists.

It is also true that Christianity is based upon myth, like many other religions.

 

[Willamena]

Not THE truth, but the avenue to it. I'm just saying their reliance on consensus evidence limits them outside the truth of their inner life. There is no blame, really. That would be like blaming a blind person for not knowing what color of socks he's wearing.

Conditioned deference for “evidence” at the expense of input from the inner life can only inhibit one’s awakening. The habit of looking for “evidence” for experiential truth does not reinforce one’s autonomy as a self-realized being. Rather, it reflects and fosters dependency.

I am invested in an ongoing process of self-realization that has a distinct sense of direction. I don’t need the logical mind to steer the ship. The process is not one of assimilating and reorganizing facts, but in the form of a vantage point.

What is the difference between your (the person with your understanding, per se) reliance on consensus evidence and theirs?

 

[Rolling_Stone]

What is the difference between your (the person with your understanding, per se) reliance on consensus evidence and theirs?

Consensus evidence is like a "punch in the face": there for everyone to see as a black eye; I'm relying on the "light touch on the skin." Reliance on the former at the expense of the latter is limiting youself to the physical.

Like I said earlier: reality doesn't end where the skin begins; that is, at the physical boundaries between "self" and "other." The inevitable corollary is: life doesn't end where the skin ends. There's a continuity between inside and outside. This makes sense when you think about it. Matter and energy are different manifestations of the same thing. That this fact is not readily manifested to our awareness does not invalidate it.

 

[gnomon]

Show me someone who asserts that they make their life’s decisions based on evidence, or whose every discounting, cynical and intellectualizing argument includes “show me the evidence,” and I’ll show you someone who has never really considered what kind of “evidence” they are looking for: consensus. Truth-seeking is not an undertaking for cowards: it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual and living. By limiting their life’s decisions to the “evidence” at hand, people build a cage around themselves that prevents them from exploring new avenues of thought.

Rationalism has gone bankrupt when it persists, in the face of each recurring phenomenon, in making its objections by referring what is admittedly higher back into that which is admittedly lower because the “evidence” for a purposeful Creator is scant. Consistency requires that it not discount religious experience on grounds of credulity while it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from something that is utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling. “Intelligent men should cease to reason like children and should attempt to use the consistent logic of adulthood, logic which tolerates the concept of truth alongside the observation of fact.” They should be mature enough to acknowledge that not everything in life is reasonable, logical or empirical. The incessant demand for “evidence” at the expense of the inner life is also a demand to be an outcast in the universe, for reality doesn’t end where the skin begins.

Wow.

If I were sticking to the "consensus" I would probably still be sitting in an AA room or dead. My whole life has been one of the iconoclast, seeking truth based on the best evidence and the examination of my own personal experiences.

I wound up an atheist.

How many generalized rants against atheists must there be? Though they aren't as interesting as the rant-against-the-LDS threads.

 

[Rolling_Stone]

Wow.

If I were sticking to the "consensus" I would probably still be sitting in an AA room or dead. My whole life has been one of the iconoclast, seeking truth based on the best evidence and the examination of my own personal experiences.

I wound up an atheist.

How many generalized rants against atheists must there be? Though they aren't as interesting as the rant-against-the-LDS threads.

I think you missed the point. A punch in the face is one kind of evidence, one that everyone can see as a black eye. I'm not dismissing evidence at all, but expand my awareness to include the soft touch on the skin, so to speak, that leaves no evidence for others to see. Is one less real than the other?

I don't know whether I should be amused or incredulous at the inconsistency I see here among atheists. There is in modern physics "consensual evidence" (or a punch in the face) that shows there is continuity between inside and outside. Yet, rather than accepting the punch in the face as evidence, people (quite inconsistently) choose to cling to what they have been told and what they have been taught: there is a separation between inside and outside and outside takes precedence--even at the cost of denying what is undeniable to their own senses and irrefutable in their own experience.

(BTW, I used to be "Mormon" and my family still is. Like you, I don't understand the rants against Mormonism. And the anti-atheist rants will be fewer if atheists weren't so obnoxious about it...comparing belief in God to belief in pink unicorns, for example.)