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What does it matter whether it was an Omni-whatis God, or "conscious nature entities who are more advanced..."? Presumably, you would have to have a similar theory for how those entities got to be, and got more advanced. And surely that just leads you to another infinite regress. Not very helpful, in my view.
Because it tells us more of the workings of the universe. Why does any of our knowledge matter then? I might be missing your point??
My purpose was not to get into where everything came from but to explain the workings of the universe better. I consider knowing more about the universe helpful myself.
No, it certainly does NOT tell you any "more of the workings of the universe." Making up -- out of whole cloth -- "conscious nature entities who are more advanced..." tells you nothing about anything except the fecundity of your own imagination. And it utterly fails in another most important way: if our existence requires such an explanation, then does not their existence likewise require an explanation? And where are you going to get that? Make up some other entities? And when they need explaining, make up some more -- and so on ad infinitum?
Science does an infinitely better job of explain "the workings of the universe" than does the invention of "entities," that come with zero explanation and only one requirement -- belief.
Ok, you are changing your slant now. But anyway, my belief in nature spirits come from those who I believe perceive beyond the physical dimension of the universe. I am a student who has studied the paranormal and believe beyond reasonable doubt of the existence of other realms of reality. I am certain it is not 'all made up' but is based on knowledge of an expanded reality.
No, my "slant" remains consistent throughout.
We live in a universe of many dimensions (per many theoretical physicists). In fact 95% of the matter in the universe is not directly detectible by our physical plane senses and instruments.
Well physical proof of the beyond the physical is by definition troublesome. We know of these things by their effect which are not explainable through the paradigms of physical science (paranormal events). Millions of words have been written about these phenomena so where would I start. Here is a link to a site that gives the evidence of many different types of phenomena not explainable under the paradigm of physical science: Spiritual Evidence
I believe the evidence supports that some people do have access to other realms of reality. The eastern/Vedic/Hindu wisdom tradition provides a better explanatory model of reality that show how what the western world calls paranormal is just part of the normal in an expanded view of reality. This tradition has been contributed to by many sages/adepts that I believe have experienced beyond the physical.
Whatever the number, it still doesn't make it magic. Before the microscope, we had no idea there were "little animals" making us sick, which did not turn bacteria and amoebae into demonic spirits. We simply didn't (at the time) possess the means to observe them and learn about them. Time took care of that lack, and may very well take care of other holes in our present knowledge -- without turning up spirit guides and boogie-men.
The real challenge is not that things happen -- the real challenge is being able to replicate those things, and begin the process of discovering why they happened. Many of the "spiritual" things that have happened in all those "millions of words" have been single occurrences and 100% anecdotal. The problem with anecdote is that you can't study its provenance. Somebody hear's a voice, or there's a tape with something on it and no possible explanation of how it got there! (No possible explanation? Have you ever watched David Copperfield or Darcy Oake, the magicians?) And, in fact, another magician, The Amazing Randi (James Randi) has made a career of debunking a lot of this sort of things (with often embarrassing results for the subject but hilarious for Randi's audience).
My comment was in response to your question as to what I meant by "beyond the physical dimensions of the universe?" And this got you on the party rant.
I take it that you didn't look at the data I linked to and are just repeating the party line. I have been around the skeptic arguments for decades now. I started a thread in Paranormal Activities on 'Childhood Reincarnation Memories' in case someone is interested. The point is that we can not prove or disprove phenomena from anecdotal studies but we can judge the reasonableness of the various explanations.
That is not true. There are parapsychologists from multiple scientific fields involved. Some names.
What does the prefix "para" in parapsychologists mean, exactly?
um...
No, 'pseudoscience' is just a vague, derogatory judgmental word made popular in recent times by individuals vested in keeping a materialist view of the universe.
I think that is wrong again. For one, controlled experiments can be done and that would be scientific methodology. Secondly, as in the Social Sciences, research can be done on phenomena looking at quantity, quality and consistency of data followed by analysis and conclusion. This is also a type of 'science'.
pseu·do·sci·ence
So?...its usage is a judgment call and it is a derogatory word as I said. Who determine if the criteria is met when people disagree??
It would be a "derogatory" word if your parapsychology wasn't, by definition, pseudoscience.
My sister does statistics, and analysis of data for the office she have worked at. This doesn't mean she is using scientific method.
The word 'science' can be used in many ways.....see the dictionary. This discussion is just wordplay and nothing important as I see it. My point is parapsychology has some valuable things to show us.
