What homework do you do? How does one tell a real guru from a charlatan?
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Near Death experiences to atheist
- Thread starter Devillif311
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Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I don't have a school of thought. However, my rational, thought-based approach to determing what is true or not does consider the people who accept their unsupported and fantasy-based claims as credulous.
It's the experimental evidence. There are no physical instruments in 2013 to study the super-physical (and it is a logical error to conclude from that that the super-physical can not exist).
Because:
IMO, the evidence from the so-called paranormal renders the reductionist view of consciousness wrong.
The eastern (Indian/Hindu) tradition has a different view of consciousness than the materialist/physicalists.
IMO, the eastern view shows how the so-called 'paranormal' makes sense in their worldview. The materialists try to explain the evidence away and do so with a very strained and unsatisfying way that appears to be obviously contrived for a pre-determined conclusion.
My in-depth study of teachers/saints/gurus/whatever of the highest repute, show them to have an incredibly deep and philosophical tradition that I found beyond my ability to fully grasp. But I could grasp the basics. The quantity and quality of so many stories of people who knew these great sages I also gave fair consideration.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
As well as substantial cross-over, generally.
That's why a wise man gathers as much information as he can and uses careful OBJECTIVE reason to determine what he finds most believable.
It's not that anyone's concluding that the super-physical cannot exist; it's that they're concluding that if we have no mechanisms to learn about the super-physical, any claims about it are unfounded.
What do either of these statements have to do with my question?
Well, I disagree with both of these, but at least they're responsive.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Examples?
What evidence? Anecdotal evidence? Argumentum ad ignorantium?
The problem is not that it "does not make sense", its that there is a dearth of any real evidence for any of the purported supernatural occurences we hear tell of; what psychic has ever predicated the lottery? Or can reliable predict elections, Super Bowl scores, or anything of the kind? Why are psychics not filthy rich? Why can't people who claim to speak to the dead ever find out anything other than the same vague details that anybody can discern from hot/cold reading techniques, and/or videotaping a studio audience for hints? (we could go on ad naseum here but hopefully you get the idea; none of the evidence we would expect to see, were these things true, actually obtains... And the absence of necessary evidence is necessarily evidence of absence.)
Reeeeaaally.. Do tell more?
Perhaps you're being too modest here- did you ever consider you couldn't grasp it not through any fault of yours, but because it simply didn't make alot of sense?
But as I said, the problem with paranormal/supernatural/occult claims is not that its not intelligible- it makes sense- the problem is that it just looks false; the supposed evidence is never forthcoming.
But if you're aware of some actual evidence, besides unverifiable anecdotes, then I'm all ears.
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No, we can intelligently consider information from the human experience.
Alceste
Vagabond
The fact that your eyes don't work does not mean the part of your brain that creates and projects images doesn't work. Blind people have other senses they can use to tell that part of the brain what things look like. They can learn to echolocate, like bats, and come up with very accurate impressions of the world around them. They can also touch and smell. They can read very graphic, detailed descriptions of things or have them described in conversation.
Sight is a very complicated process, biologically speaking. People with brain disorders that leave them sightless on one side of their body can still point to things on that side accurately, although they feel like it's just a guess. The current thinking is that the subconscious is still "seeing" through that undamaged eye, but the conscious mind is not.
Alceste
Vagabond
Haven't you been arguing all along that these supernatural realms you believe in can ONLY be approached subjectively?
This would be evidence, which I touched on before. You're still within the purview of science. You don't get to declare yourself exempt that easily.
No, the entire body of human experiences can be analyzed objectively like anything else.
Sorry, I don't get your comment.
I'm not claiming any spiritual, super-physical or religious beliefs are within the purview of science.
Here is information from a human experience. It's a Hindu NDE.
"Four black messengers came and held me.
I asked, "Where are you taking me?"
They took me and seated me near the god. My body had become small. There was an old lady sitting there. She had a pen in her hand, and the clerks had a heap of books in front of them.
I was summoned ...
One of the clerks said, "We don't need Chhajju Bania [the trader]. We had asked for Chhajju Kumhar [the potter]. Push him back and bring the other man. He [meaning Chhajju Bania] has some life remaining."
I asked the clerks to give me some work to do, but not to send me back. Yamraj was there sitting on a high chair with a white beard and wearing yellow clothes. He asked me, "What do you want?"
I told him that I wanted to stay there."
Hindu near-death experiences
Yamraj is the Hindu god of the dead. So if we are to believe this the Christian God is not alone and who knows how many other gods are out there. Since a Hindu god meets Hindus we can only assume that every person will be met by the god he or she believes in. So where do these gods go between receptions? Do they mingle or do they have their own separate heavens or what? Do your studies say anything about this George?
I'm saying that any sort of valid evidence, including human experience, is within the purview of science.
If you're going to claim that "spiritual, super-physical or religious beliefs" are outside the purview of science, then you're effectively saying that there is no valid evidence for them.
Glad you find physicalism the position of wise men.
IMO and in the views of the more intelligent thinkers, the universe is non-sectarian; it is not specifically Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, etc.. Only fundamentalists or the more conservative types take the thinking you are implying above.
On the astral plane, life begins as a continuation of the life just lived. Hence, people still experience a 'cultural context' to their experience. Even talking about things like clothes, beards, etc. show a human context. At the still higher planes none of these archetypal human forms exist.
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Can you please explain that logic you're using above a little more slowly please. I can't really make sense of it, sorry.