RE: The Covert Messiah

RE: The Covert Messiah (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

Zonie63 -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:06:04 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML quote: But when people ask "Why don't you believe in MY God?" then that's a different matter. Not only does it take a leap of faith to believe in an invisible deity, but it goes even beyond that when such a leap of faith involves all the other falderal associated with religion. I won't necessarily ask religious people to prove the existence of God, since that question has gotten a bit cliche and old hat. But I might ask them to prove that eating meat on Friday during Lent is a "sin." Or I might ask questions about the alleged spiritual properties of communion wafers or "holy water" - that sort of thing. Zonie . . . These sorts of questions seem peripheral and uninteresting to me. The questions were merely examples of the kinds of claims religionists often make - beyond the simple declaration that "there is a God." quote: I would propose that even the question of the existence of a divine creator is secondary to the most important primary question that we all wrestle with in one form or another: Does my personal consciousness and personality survive the death of my brain? How we answer that question informs the structure of our religious belief or nonbelief. Some neuroscientist said the HARD question was how does our brain account for consciousness. I would counter that the REALLY HARD question is the question of survival. Well, not so hard for the faithful I guess although even Augustine and Aquinas struggled with their faith. I agree that the question you're asking here is one of the great mysteries. My grandfather often claimed that he saw ghosts. In the days before my father's passing, he was saying that he could see dead relatives walking across the room. My dad was not the kind of person who would just make stuff up, but during those last weeks, he was in a semi-conscious state of mind, so he may have been half-dreaming. I can't really say. I don't know if there are any devices which can measure or detect any energy particles leaving the body at the moment of death. If we have a "soul" which survives after death, by what mechanism does it leave your body and where does it actually go? A particularly frightening thought is that the "soul" might actually survive and remain "conscious" even after death - but still trapped inside your body, so that you'd still be aware of what was going on around you after death. (I remember seeing a horror movie about that many years ago, but I don't recall the title.)

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:10:46 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML Does my personal consciousness and personality survive the death of my brain? Just out of curiosity, what might convince you? Or to make it more open-ended, what might tip the scales to incline you toward giving the possibility more credence? And in case it need be said, I intend that as a serious question, not as bait for responses from people who can't resist saying Jesus (or Elvis Presley) knocking on their door with a boxed lunch and a couple of beers to share. K.

Zonie63 -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:35:59 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer It's almost impossible to consider the idea of 'God' without the big bearded bloke and the Bible popping unbidden into my head and making loud enough noises for me not to want to bother thinking about the subject at all. That, of course, is in large part because I, like most people i know, was pumped with too much sustained religious propaganda when I was too young to be able to filter it. I was raised with similar propaganda during my younger days. I was originally baptized a Catholic, although after my parents got divorced, we didn't go to church as much anymore. Usually, it was our grandparents who took us to church, while my mother's resentments over 12 years of Catholic school eventually drove her to become a Hindu. My father converted to Catholicism only because he married my mother, but after they divorced, he went back to being Protestant (and joined a Methodist church when he married my step-mother). I also took an interest in Hinduism and then (later) Islam. I worked with a guy who was a convert to Islam back in the 1980s, and he and I discussed religion frequently. Then there was another Muslim cleric whom I encountered around the same time frame, but he was considered a renegade and received many death threats (one of which was eventually carried out). His son went to the same high school as me, and my best friend was their next-door neighbor. I remember him saying that the vast majority of Muslims have been in Satan's camp for over the past thousand years which would certainly raise the ire of other Muslims. He was a mathematician who ran the Quran through a computer and determined that there was a mathematical code based on the number 19 (which he believed to be "God's number"). I've also encountered a few different people claiming to be the Messiah. One in particular was a very boisterous and zealous individual who took a very hard stance against Christian churches he considered "hypocrites" and "apostates." He had been arrested several times for disrupting church services and other public protests. He cited the fact that the churches he protested at had to call the police, which he viewed as evidence of their apostasy. He thought that any true believers would never ever call the police, since a believer should call upon God - never the police or the mechanisms of the State. He thought that believers should be totally divorced from the State (he was a big advocate for the "sovereign citizen" idea), and he said that anyone who pays taxes to the U.S. government will be held accountable for everything and anything that the U.S. government does. Interestingly enough, the local atheists really dug the guy. They thought he was pretty cool, since he was majorly pissing off the local religious establishment. He was once invited to speak before the local chapter of American Atheists. He called himself "Y'Shua Lord of Hosts 666 Israel." He also had "666" tattooed to his forehead, which led many Christians to believe that he was the devil. There was a certain Rasputin-like charisma about the guy.

Zonie63 -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:43:36 AM)
FR I just came across an article which might be interesting to this topic: What Oprah doesn’t get about atheists quote: The part that struck a chord with me — and many other atheists — was Winfrey’s dismissal of Nyad’s non-religious label. Nyad explained that she called herself an atheist but that didn’t take anything away from the awe she felt about the world and all of its inhabitants. To her, “God” was humanity. Winfrey clearly didn’t understand that, responding, “Well, I don’t call you an atheist then! I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, that that is what God is!” First of all, Winfrey’s definition of God is fairly meaningless, applying to everything and nothing all at once. More importantly, however, was the (unintentional) implication that those of us who find beauty in plants and animals and the universe itself can’t possibly be godless. That’s a common stereotype atheists face and it’s an incredibly pernicious one, made even worse because it was repeated by a celebrity of Winfrey’s stature.

vincentML -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 6:06:46 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML Does my personal consciousness and personality survive the death of my brain? Just out of curiosity, what might convince you? Or to make it more open-ended, what might tip the scales to incline you toward giving the possibility more credence? And in case it need be said, I intend that as a serious question, not as bait for responses from people who can't resist saying Jesus (or Elvis Presley) knocking on their door with a boxed lunch and a couple of beers to share. I accept the serious intent of your question. It is a fair and reasonable one, the counterpart to Tweakabelle's question about the historicity (?) of Jesus. On a rational level I would have to see a convincing explanation for the notion of duality, i.e. that there is a ghost in the machine. Quantum mysticism doesn't achieve that for me. The presence of energy in all matter, the interchangeability of energy and matter on a quantum level does not evidence consciousness in all matter. Not for me anyway. Alternatively, on an empirical level I would need a dramatic demonstration of the suspension of the laws of physiology (physics) that is confirmable and not just some tale from a faraway land or a long ago time. Good question, K. What would it take to convince you to the contrary?

vincentML -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 6:28:04 AM)
Zonie . . . quote: In the days before my father's passing, he was saying that he could see dead relatives walking across the room. My dad was not the kind of person who would just make stuff up, but during those last weeks, he was in a semi-conscious state of mind, so he may have been half-dreaming. I can't really say . I might guess that death often proceeds slowly. I think I read or heard in a lecture recently that the brain quickly loses oxygen as the heart begins to fail. That might account for illusions. There is plenty of research on the topic. quote: I don't know if there are any devices which can measure or detect any energy particles leaving the body at the moment of death. If we have a "soul" which survives after death, by what mechanism does it leave your body and where does it actually go? There are ways to measure energy particles, surely. And certainly a dying body is losing energy. But how does that translate into a soul? Reminds of the movie 21 Grams** quote: A particularly frightening thought is that the "soul" might actually survive and remain "conscious" even after death - but still trapped inside your body, so that you'd still be aware of what was going on around you after death. Gawd! That is a horrible thought! As bad as having insufficient anesthesia during an operation and being aware of the knife. ** The title refers to a belief propagated by the early 20th century research of physician Dr. Duncan MacDougall which attempted to show scientific proof of the existence of the immortal human soul by recording a small loss of body weight (representing the departure of the soul) immediately following death. The research by MacDougall attempted to follow the scientific method and showed some variance in results (21 grams is the reported weight loss from the death of the first patient). His final report has not been recognized by the scientific community, neither at the time nor since. The film presents MacDougall's findings as accepted scientific fact as a form of dramatic license.

GotSteel -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 11:21:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML I would counter that the REALLY HARD question is the question of survival. Unless one is a believer it's not a hard question at all. Consciousness is very notably an emergent property of the brain. We can measure it and measure how damage to the brain effects it. Asking whether consciousness survives after death is very much like asking if your Windows 8 is still running after your laptop has taken a ride through the wood chipper. For the non brain washed there's a very obvious answer.

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 4:29:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel Unless one is a believer it's not a hard question at all. Consciousness is very notably an emergent property of the brain. We can measure it and measure how damage to the brain effects it. Asking whether consciousness survives after death is very much like asking if your Windows 8 is still running after your laptop has taken a ride through the wood chipper. For the non brain washed there's a very obvious answer. That is not a fact, it's a theory. That you proclaim it a fact, thump it like a Bible, and call anyone who disagrees with you "brain washed," is the stuff of Sunday morning television. K.

deathtothepixies -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 4:44:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel Unless one is a believer it's not a hard question at all. Consciousness is very notably an emergent property of the brain. We can measure it and measure how damage to the brain effects it. Asking whether consciousness survives after death is very much like asking if your Windows 8 is still running after your laptop has taken a ride through the wood chipper. For the non brain washed there's a very obvious answer. That is not a fact, it's a theory. That you proclaim it a fact, thump it like a Bible, and call anyone who disagrees with you "brain washed," is the stuff of Sunday morning television. K. Ignore the brain washed part K and answer the rest of GS's statement

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 4:48:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML On a rational level I would have to see a convincing explanation for the notion of duality, i.e. that there is a ghost in the machine. Well I might have a quibble there, Vincent. Our entire scientific enterprise is based on the assumption of a subject-object duality. Otherwise, there would be no basis for calling science "objective". quote: ORIGINAL: vincentML Good question, K. What would it take to convince you to the contrary? Well I can't say I'm convinced of it in the first place. But I'm sufficiently convinced that individual consciousness, although normally coincident with the physical body, can nevertheless function independently and separate from it. How long it can do so, and what happens then, is another matter. K.

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 4:53:53 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies Ignore the brain washed part K and answer the rest of GS's statement I think you're confusing a statement with a question. But since you want to play, how about if I ask one of you: quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel We can measure it What units of measurement would those be? K.

PeonForHer -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:01:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Zonie63 FR I just came across an article which might be interesting to this topic: What Oprah doesn’t get about atheists quote: The part that struck a chord with me — and many other atheists — was Winfrey’s dismissal of Nyad’s non-religious label. Nyad explained that she called herself an atheist but that didn’t take anything away from the awe she felt about the world and all of its inhabitants. To her, “God” was humanity. Winfrey clearly didn’t understand that, responding, “Well, I don’t call you an atheist then! I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, that that is what God is!” First of all, Winfrey’s definition of God is fairly meaningless, applying to everything and nothing all at once. More importantly, however, was the (unintentional) implication that those of us who find beauty in plants and animals and the universe itself can’t possibly be godless. That’s a common stereotype atheists face and it’s an incredibly pernicious one, made even worse because it was repeated by a celebrity of Winfrey’s stature. Oprah was articulating stereotypical drivel, of course. No surprise there - that's what she's lavishly paid to do. 'The religious can see beauty and wonder everywhere; atheists cannot.' It's been a pisspoor line from the romantic poets onwards - 'you ruin to dissect', as Wordsworth said. Bollocks. You understand how something works, it only adds to the wonder of it. Religion has killed far more love of the universe than it's ever inspired.

deathtothepixies -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:07:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata quote: ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies Ignore the brain washed part K and answer the rest of GS's statement I think you're confusing a statement with a question. But since you want to play, how about if I ask one of you: quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel We can measure it What units of measurement would those be? K. maybe I should have said reply, not answer. Consciousness exists only in the brain, the brain runs on electricity so when the motor which powers that electricity dies so does the brain and consciousness with it. Some residual electricity may cause consciousness to exist for a brief period of time but it certainly can't go wandering around willy nilly for ever. Oh, watts

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:25:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies quote: ORIGINAL: Kirata What units of measurement would those be? Consciousness exists only in the brain, the brain runs on electricity so... watts That first statement is a recitation from your catechism. It is an assumption that consciousness exists only in the brain, and equating electrical activity with consciousness is provably wrong. There is a great deal of electrical activity in the brain that has no correlate in consciousness. We process an enormous amount of information that never reaches consciousness. Not to put too fine a point on it, people who are unconscious have electrical activity in their brain. K.

deathtothepixies -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:32:30 PM)
picky picky...unconscious people don't have activity in their brain for long after the thing that powers it dies either. no power, no nothing, gone, just an inert lump of chemicals with a guy wearing a dog collar making shit up to appease the relatives

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 5:50:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: deathtothepixies picky picky...unconscious people don't have activity in their brain for long after the thing that powers it dies either. That's a kinda backhanded way of admitting you were wrong about brain activity equating to consciousness, but I'll accept it. [:D] K.

GotSteel -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 6:22:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL:http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-psychologists-report-new-248299.aspx Monti and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study how the flow of information in the brains of 12 healthy volunteers changed as they lost consciousness under anesthesia with propofol. The participants ranged in age from 18 to 31 and were evenly divided between men and women. The psychologists analyzed the "network properties" of the subjects' brains using a branch of mathematics known as graph theory, which is often used to study air-traffic patterns, information on the Internet and social groups, among other topics. "It turns out that when we lose consciousness, the communication among areas of the brain becomes extremely inefficient, as if suddenly each area of the brain became very distant from every other, making it difficult for information to travel from one place to another," Monti said. The finding shows that consciousness does not "live" in a particular place in our brain but rather "arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another," he said.

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 7:17:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: GotSteel quote: The finding shows that consciousness... "arises from the mode in which billions of neurons communicate with one another" Except that it doesn't. Firstly because correlation does not prove causation. But also because it is equally true that I (my consciousness) can alter the pattern of electrical activity in my brain, and even physically change my brain. I can enrich my brain's connections along any motor pathways I desire, or, for example, between my pre-frontal cortex and other parts of my brain. I can cause parts of my brain to enlarge, my hippocampus for example, or increase the gyrifcation of my neo-cortex. And following the logic exhibited in your post, this "shows" that the brain "arises from" the actions of consciousness. Except that it doesn't. K.

PeonForHer -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 7:35:31 PM)
quote: I can cause parts of my brain to enlarge, my hippocampus for example, or increase the gyrifcation of my neo-cortex I bet that works as a chat up line way better than 'Your eyes set my soul on fire'. ;-)

Kirata -> RE: The Covert Messiah (10/17/2013 7:36:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PeonForHer quote: I can cause parts of my brain to enlarge, my hippocampus for example, or increase the gyrifcation of my neo-cortex I bet that works as a chat up line way better than 'Your eyes set my soul on fire'. ;-) You tryin to chat me up there, fella? [:D] K.

Page: << < prev 6 7 [8] 9 10 next > >>

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.046875