RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid



Message

Rule -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 6:39:45 AM)

Quite.
 
I told you that Noah could effortlessly take your arguments apart, BA - and he did. I might have done the same myself, though not as eloquently.
 
It is indeed my impression that BA jumped into the end of the thread without having read more than a few of the earlier posts.
 
It also is my impression that BA enters into debates not in order to acquire knowledge, but in order to win by any means possible and to hell with any truths. Such people, in my opinion, will have lost any debate they enter already before they entered it.
 
A debate has to be conducted cleanly. Whatever the position one is defending or attacking, the arguments are required to be unambiguous and clear and cast in iron.
 
Whether or not they agree with my point of view or do not care at all, to me it has been a pleasure to read the posts of seeks and Noah, for they have a scientific mindset and in my opinion good science always is beautiful.
 
Some other posters in this thread - like WhipTheHip, Chaingang, meatcleaver and BA - do not have a scientific mindset. They are tremendously confused about the issues that are the subject of the debate, focussing obsessively on their myopic and erroneous perception of religion and history and science. Garbage in, garbage out. Bad science in my opinion always is ugly. They are mostly intelligent people, but rational they are not.
 
If one wants to patroll the halls of science like a myopic bulldog and call it his turf, do so by all means - I love science - but do not call yourself either a scientist or rational. Rather: call yourself limited and myopic. A scientist knows that there may be territories beyond the reach of his blind man's cane.
 
What is inside a black hole? Twenty years ago physicists would have said "anything is possible" for their equations were unable to tell them - and I assume that such is still true today. For all they know inside a black hole a Dormouse and a Mad Hatter may be having a Teaparty. The same is true for anything not within our universe: the physics of our universe does not apply there, for otherwise it would most likely be part of our universe. What is not within our universe is outside the reach of the scientist's blind man's cane.
 
In my astronomy book I have argued that black holes do not exist. I have deduced other - 'classical' - principles to explain the same phenomena. Neither do other impossibilities of modern physics exist.
 
Again and again you have seen WhipTheHip confirm that I was right and - pay attention - once he admitted that I offered a possibility that physicists to his knowledge had never considered. It was a very simple solution to the problem at hand. Why did they not see that, those very intelligent people? Because being very intelligent merely means that you can get somewhere fast, but usually precludes the ability to see and to choose your destination.
I respect high intelligence, but compared to me such people are about as bright as chimpansees.
 
 
 
 



meatcleaver -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 7:34:29 AM)

Rule. You have written pages and pages on the divine and never once defined what the divine is. What all this has come down to is an argument about language and philosophy which has little to do with the devine. I read your writing and it is nothing but garbage in, garbage out.

Now tell me quite clearly in basic English that a five year old can understand, what is divine? I've read the dictionary definition. You are so adament it exists, you must have some idea what it is. If it is a sense of something other, it has as much meaning as my sense of nothing.

Also tell me. If there is a divine creator....

1 Is the divine creator subject to laws in the same way that the universe is apparently subject to physical laws?

2. If the divine creator is not subject to laws and is truely omnipotent, please explain its apparent arbitary choice of laws that govern the universe in which we live. One suspects if the divine creator has designed laws, it has a motive or is it just having a laaarf!?

3. If the divine creator is subject to laws, how is it divine because it is then just an extension of the universe?






Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 7:36:22 AM)

Noah:

You make really long pointless arguments that merely show it is possible that a general statement doesn't cover all possible cases unless it is qualified to death. That doesn't actually achieve what you think it does. Just because you can imagine some hypothetical case that avoids the critique made in general terms doesn't mean you have defeated it - you have just imagined a case in which it doesn't apply. The general argument still applies to the general case to which it refers. And dammit, try to consider brevity the better part of wisdom - it's getting really hard to want to read these meandering posts that really aren't as clever as you think they are.

Rule:

I am by now reading your stuff only sporadically - only if a quick skim makes the statement seem like a coherent one. You seem to think you can constantly refer back yo yourself as your own authority by making references to unpublished texts you have written and that no one else knows the slightest thing about. Frankly, you just seem delusional. You didn't win the argument with WhipTheHip - he just got bored arguing with you as you seem actually deluded. For my part, you have had an uphill battle with me since you claimed Paul of Tarsus was a genius in another thread.

Withdrawing from a debate with a troll is not to admit defeat, it is to not waste time. Nothing more, nothing less.



Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 8:11:03 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule
Truths are not subject to group consensus...There may be group consensus that the sun is an octagonal ice cream, but that does not make it truth.


In a scientific context I take consensus to mean merely "approved by reproducible results." How you may mean it is anyone's guess.

The latter statement is just classic nonsense because no one makes such claims and it simply doesn't follow from the first idea. An outrageous idea is not likely to achieve consensus among scientists. So this is just bullshit and I hope you know it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule
The divine affects our universe, but acausally, and it 'exists' only outside' our universe, so its 'objective verification' by definition is impossible.


To restate:
The divine effects change in our universe, but it does so acausally.

Is there some reason we should grant you pure authority on this issue? There's a bit of a contradiction there I think. I could be more polite and call it merely paradoxical.



Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 8:20:35 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule
What is inside a black hole? Twenty years ago physicists would have said "anything is possible" for their equations were unable to tell them - and I assume that such is still true today. For all they know inside a black hole a Dormouse and a Mad Hatter may be having a Teaparty.


You would seem to think that one of the greatest strengths of science is instead it's greatest weakness. That all scientific knowledge is provisional is the very reason science is flexible to changes in our knowledge data set.

You would seem to require instant gratification even if the results obtained are absurd (e.g. your Dormouse and Mad Hatter scenario, or perhaps even your as yet ill defined "god hypothesis").

Funny thing: not knowing a thing isn't the same action as asserting utter nonsense into the gap in our knowledge. The scientist says: "I don't know." By contrast, you would seem to be saying: 'In the space of what is not known there is an acausal God."

Soon I shall make you as acausal as your supposed divinity, it's called the "block" feature.



BrutalAntipathy -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 8:23:52 AM)

In response to Noah.
Using the quote option here would be pointless, so I will just skim down the list and make some observations.
 
Paragraphs 1-6: No argument on your part, just ad hominem attacks that fail to address the issue. Hardly the hallmark of a person that has a leg to stand on.
 
Paragraphs 7-8: More ad hominem, but mixed with the assertion that an analogy cannot be false. But when you are using an analogy to make a case, as you were doing, they can be false. If A has property X, then B must also have property X. As the objective of religion and poetry are diferent, they have to meet diferent criteria. Any student of logic could tell you this.
 
Paragraphs 9-10: Narrowly avoided ad hominem, but i'll let the dunder head thing slide. Now the problem is, I see the usefulness of myth, dichotomy, metaphor, and the like when they are applicable. But you are using apples to defend oranges. If you were to say that someones tears were the sweetest nectar, I would get it. But you are saying that " your tears are the sweetest nectar. And therefore spirituality is true! " Sorry, apples and oranges. This is not truth, but poetry.
 
Paragraph 14, skipping quotations: Back to ad hominems. As I have a quirky modem, my connection tends to die unexpectedly. That was a spelling error.
 
Paragraphs 15-20: Allusions to my Song of the Harper/ Song of Solomon, Hammurapi/10 commandments, Suffering Servant/Job references here. Were you familiar with the source material, you would know that the theological implications of the sources are vastly different from those viewed as ' truths ' today. You seemed to be making a point that different people could have the same religious epiphany, but had you bothered checking those sources, you would find that the message was completely different in the source material than the Hebrew plagerism.
 
Paragraphs 22-23: Various cultures also have words that translate to ghost in English. Does this mean that ghosts exist? As I mentioned earlier, the only notion I was putting forth with that was that much of the Bible was plagerized from other sources. I have since mentioned that those sources had little in common with the Bible from a theological view.
Paragraph 25: People wrote the sources that I was pointing to, not some god or gods. Which is why I mentioned your incoherence in the quote you used. As " I " wrote my material, people would not conclude based on that alone that it was false, nor that " I " do not exist. Apples and oranges again, but you miss the point, and by now I am beginning to wonder if this is deliberate.
Look, take Stephen King's novel The Stand. It has a great flu epidemic that destroys society. The Stand mentions geographical places that actually exist. Not only does it cover Buffalo, but it also mentions the obscure town of Sipe Springs.
Now what would happen if archaeologists a thousand years in the future find a copy of The Stand and another team of archaeologists digging in Texas uncover the city limit sign of Sipe Springs? Should they automatically assume that The Stand is a true story? Should they then begin looking for the place where the great final battle took place? That someone wrote about a couple of places that actually exist in a fictional novel does NOT make the novel factual.
 
Paragraph 26: I said DETRACTS, not disproves. Are your arguments so feeble that you must now resort to misrepresenting me?
Paragraphs 27-32: Newton, Einstein , and yes, even Machiavelli represent the collected efforts of truth. This has nothing to do with rewritten, theologically muddled plagerism. That is no pedigree of antiquity, it is theft and manipulation of data to make it say something quite opposed to the messages handed down from ancient cultures. The Hebrew infused pagan myths with their own outlook, changing the content of the myth while simultaniously claiming that their adaptation was a mandate from a god.
I accept reviewable testimony that has some basis for it as evidence. Testimony which seems based on nonsense I tend to assign to the nonsense bin pending some credible evidence. I may not grasp every nuance of relativity, but I get the basics behind it and accept Einstein's equations as provisional evidence that is subject to modification or even discrediting at some later date.
 
Paragraph 33: Your most recent posts point to your defence of invisible sky daddies. If I am mistaken in this, I most humbly apologize.
 
Paragraphs 34-36: Myth and metaphor can hold truth, but comparing the Brothers Grimm to the Bible is just plain silly. Tons of more ad hominem here, but little substance. I was making a point that my sources were derived from history and archaeology, and that these sources pointed to a non Hebraic source for the Bible. You proclaimed this to be some ' wacky shit '.
 
Paragraphs 37-44: Said priests all over the world did not draw similar conclusions regarding theology, but concerning society in general. The additional ad hominems do nothing more than further demonstrate your lack of a valid argument. You are really one to be pointing fingers at the sky daddy thing, as you have used more ad hominem than argument of my points in this entire thread.
 
Paragraphs 45-47: I have no problem with poetry containing truth. I have a problem with your poor choice of analogies.
 
Paragraph 48: In the post I responded to, you seemed to spend considerable efort defending the mythology, not attacking it. If I misread, sorry. But judging by the vehemence of your attack here, I suspect that I did not. Do you always go out of your way to insult and attack people on your side? Pathetic indeed.
 
Paragraphs 49-51: Already covered this.There can be truth in poetry, but not in the context that you are proposing it.
 
Paragraphs 52-60: The weatherman's testimony is subject to verification from other sources, including my own should I so choose. As the weatherman down not tell me that his meteorological presentation means that I should teach children in public schools that the earth is under 10,000 years old, I also see his mistakes as less harmful to society in general that someone who wishes to present plagerized myth as fact and science. " evidence " that is unverifiable is no evidence at all. Again, apples and oranges. You are trying to make it seem as though a warm, fuzzy feeling constitutes the same degree of evidence as does meterology, when the two are worlds apart.
 
Paragraphs 61-68: Evangelical fundamentalists, say George Bush for instance, do in fact deny that the Bible has pagan origins. They would go so far as to deny the Magi being an allusion to Zoroastrian astrologers. These are the very people that I make points about the Bible's origin to, in order to hopefully pull the wool off of their eyes.
 
Paragraph 69: It is a common belief that racoons wash their food because they lack salivary glands. But rabies is transmitted through those glands. A rabid racoon froths at the mouth due to the virus making their glands work overtime, hence the false belief.
 
Paragraphs 70-73: Back to the old ad hominems, I see, and just when I thought we were making progress. I was pointing out that people are not always rational in their beliefs, but apparently this fact ' sucks dick '.
 
Paragraphs 74-75: I have no faith whatsoever. I trust in science, but not blindly. I consider faith the tool of the delusional, and have given an example of the diference between the two in other posts.
 
 
In conclusion, and by way of parting shot. I am trying to see things from your perspective, but can't seem to get my head that far up my ass. Should you ever choose to actually address my arguments rather than engage in an unfounded and ultimately self revealing character attack, I would be more than happy to continue this discussion. But so long as you ignore points, distort quotes, and generally display all the characteristics of an apologistic fundamentalist devoid in substance of debate, I have little choice other than to limit myself to exchanges with people capable of defending their stance, not maliciously throwing random insults while their delusional cheerleaders wave them on.



LadyEllen -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 8:35:34 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chaingang

"The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcBV-cXVWFw

-----

And this is at least part of why all religions are just myths to me. As god is conceived by most men, god would just be so puny in the vastness of space. I see this kind of beautiful scientific imagery and just cannot believe in the silly, grotesque and all too human god of the Abrahamic faiths. Those faiths - indeed all faiths yet conceived - just seem utterly absurd. And yet the people of those particular faiths cover most of the world and squabble over land, riches, and philosophical territories as if any of what they were doing mattered in some greater cosmic sense. We teeter on the brink of self-annihilation because of lies told and retold over thousands of years.

Science does not have all of the answers but I think we have finally begun to ask some of the right questions. There is beauty, majesty, and peace possible in a scientific view of the universe. We are all one family of humans on one tiny planet that we must all share with each other and other species. We must stop fighting over the body of mother earth and learn to cooperatively explore the greater universe as one people. That's what we are here for - to evolve and to leave our first home among the stars. It is time for the species to grow up and rise to the challenge posed by what is out there in the vast and gorgeous abyss that is the heavens.

So what happens next?

Something wonderful.


I took the OP, because I thought back to it and then I wondered, how did this thread get to this point where there is more of less namecalling going on, with such an interesting allegory for where religious conflicts have always led.

That religion fulfills a purpose for mankind, for good or bad, for right or wrong, is really beyond doubt surely? Its been around in myriad forms for as long as mankind has existed, and if it were worthless then it would long ago have been discarded as such.

That science fulfills a purpose for mankind, for good or bad, for right or wrong, is equally beyond doubt. It has been around for less time, but has added greatly to the ease of life as well as to the ease of its destruction.

Yes- most religions are absurd, in the context of a universe which science is now revealing to us. But for most of us, we must accept what we are told about the universe as an act of faith every bit as much as it is an act of faith to believe in any form of Godhead. Most of us have no idea, no interest and no proof that what the scientists tell us about black holes and so on is any more true than the myth of some messiah sent to the world who died and rose again. Most of us have no idea, no interest and no proof of any form of Godhead either.

Both positions are true, in and of themselves. Religion is no more a lie, as far as most are able to discern, than science is a lie by way of most of us being unable to see it for ourselves. Myths are merely stories we as humans use to explain things in a human way - even the scientists use myths to explain to us less intelligent types what it is they see through their telescopes. Myths are neither good nor bad for us, neither right nor wrong - they are tools for understanding. The irony of all the scientific mythology being used in this thread to demolish the religious mythology is not lost on me.

And the irony of demolishing religious myths whilst seeking to establish a scientific explanation and reason for our existence which is more religious than scientific in nature, is also not lost. Maybe, we are just here and thats that. Maybe we have no more reason or purpose than that which we ascribe to ourselves - and maybe science is just the latest religion by which we are attempting to do that.

But we are asking the right questions. This is nothing new though, and nothing special to the scientific method. Religion has always evolved as understanding has progressed too. Its only those traditions fossilised in scripture and with which our culture is so enamoured, where such evolution has been slowed. Without their influence, we would likely have been living on Mars for the last century by now.

Maybe, just maybe, as our view on the universe is expanded by science, we will form new religious outlooks and change the division in the world. But we will never lose religion entirely, of that I'm sure.
E




meatcleaver -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 8:47:32 AM)

Now I'm sure you know you are being disingenous here LadyE. One doesn't have to accept what science points to as an act of faith, in fact it opens itself up to be challenged and challenging science only makes it stronger. It is within our own capabilities that if we are so motivated we could set out to challenge science on its terms, we can't challenge religion on its terms because it is simply faith based. Scientists aren't part of a brotherhood, they challenge each other and test each others work. Science doesn't profess a truth, it is religion that professes a truth and the problem for religion is that there are so many of them professing different truths.



Rule -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 9:09:49 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Rule. You have written pages and pages on the divine and never once defined what the divine is.
...
Now tell me quite clearly in basic English that a five year old can understand, what is divine? I've read the dictionary definition. You are so adament it exists, you must have some idea what it is. If it is a sense of something other, it has as much meaning as my sense of nothing.

I did define the divine in post 275 on page 14. Perhaps you should have paid attention to what I post?
 
quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
What all this has come down to is an argument about language and philosophy which has little to do with the divine. I read your writing and it is nothing but garbage in, garbage out.

I am sorry that you did not benefit from my posts. However, that is not my problem but yours. I cannot teach someone without legs how to walk or run. At least one person considered my posts "always interesting and thought provoking".
 
quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
Also tell me. If there is a divine creator....

There is the divine and there are the primary human incarnations of various aspects of the divine, one of whom is recognized as the god called the Creator. Now by extension each of the different gods may be called divine. So what are you refering to here? To the divine, or to its human incarnation the Creator?

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
1 Is the divine creator subject to laws in the same way that the universe is apparently subject to physical laws?
As for any human incarnations of the various aspects of the divine, they are subject to the laws of our universe by definition as a consequence of being part of our universe.
As to the elusive divine, the laws and restrictions of our universe do not apply to it, as it exists 'outside' our universe. As to its nature and physics I do have an incling, but this is not the place to discuss such.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
2. If the divine creator is not subject to laws and is truely omnipotent, please explain its apparent arbitary choice of laws that govern the universe in which we live. One suspects if the divine creator has designed laws, it has a motive or is it just having a laaarf!?

Again you are confusing all kinds of perceptions. I recommend that you read all of my earlier posts again and that this time you pay attention instead of discarding what you cannot understand nor accept.

According to Egyptian mythology the Creator - are you still paying attention? - created the other gods and the universe in order not to be lonely. I can fathom that explanation. In fact, before I read that particular part of Egyptian mythology I had independently come to the same conclusion. The theological implication is that this motivation may be extended to the divine.

In the third (and possibly final) of a series of books by science fiction author Frederick Pohl he described how mankind developed a supercomputer in order to as a species not to be lonely any more, only to discover that they had for the same reason been created by an omnipotent being that was not at all amused by their feeble attempts to create a selfaware computer.

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
3. If the divine creator is subject to laws, how is it divine because it is then just an extension of the universe?

Again we need to distinguish between the divine and the Creator. Your inability to do so demonstrates that you have not paid sufficient attention to my earlier posts.
The Creator is divine by extension - just like the other gods - because he and they are human incarnations of aspects of the divine.
Whether the divine is subject to laws we cannot know, as it is 'outside' the universe - but as I said I do have an incling as to its nature.
But supposing that the divine is subject to 'outside laws', how would that make it an extension of our universe in which different laws apply?

Science and logic is all about language. You and some others have demonstrated again and again to be not sufficiently linguistically aware to produce any credible statement or conclusion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chaingang
Soon I shall make you as acausal as your supposed divinity, it's called the "block" feature.

Vice versa. Me first. Bye.



meatcleaver -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 9:22:03 AM)

I've read them. I am now considering dropping acid before I read them again.



LadyEllen -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 9:41:05 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

Now I'm sure you know you are being disingenous here LadyE. One doesn't have to accept what science points to as an act of faith, in fact it opens itself up to be challenged and challenging science only makes it stronger. It is within our own capabilities that if we are so motivated we could set out to challenge science on its terms, we can't challenge religion on its terms because it is simply faith based. Scientists aren't part of a brotherhood, they challenge each other and test each others work. Science doesn't profess a truth, it is religion that professes a truth and the problem for religion is that there are so many of them professing different truths.


True, I am probably arguing from a totally different position to many here in that I see the truth in religions because perhaps I have experienced the divine as a direct event - I dont expect you to believe that by the way! I will certainly agree with you that no religion we have here on earth today is totally true, and each of them is equally as fallible as the others, but they do all point to one truth - a similar one to which the OP aspired of all of us putting aside petty squabbles to join as one. Once we deduct all the cultural stuff and the power politics so prevalent in religions, they are all saying the same thing. That some can see through the haze to this central truth is similar to the point about science being a faith to we lesser mortals; just as those who have experienced the divine can deduce the inadequacy of religions as well as their value whilst the less aware accept or reject one or another on faith out of lack of ability and opportunity, so the scientist can see the scientific truth whilst the rest of us must accept or reject his research on faith, again because of lack of ability and opportunity to understand it. Religion and science thus stand in the same relation to the bulk of mankind.

You may argue that science produces reproducible results and roll out thousands of research papers to back that up. But the experience of the divine also produces reproducible results in the people who experience it. That science will deride me as crazy is its prerogative, but since I receive regular psychiatric and psychological evaluation in at attempt to prove this in relation to my gender identity, and this has so far failed to identify any form of mental illness or aberration of brain chemistry, then science by its own methods and considerable achievements has judged me fit and sane, and so my experience of the divine must be valid.

I have to go out now, but the main idea of what I was trying to say (and I think I might have lost it en route) in the last post was, that I dont think we need an argument which is science vs religion. What we need is a debate concerning science AND religion.
E



meatcleaver -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 9:59:09 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

That science will deride me as crazy is its prerogative, but since I receive regular psychiatric and psychological evaluation in at attempt to prove this in relation to my gender identity, and this has so far failed to identify any form of mental illness or aberration of brain chemistry, then science by its own methods and considerable achievements has judged me fit and sane, and so my experience of the divine must be valid.



I don't doubt people when they say they have had certain experiences that they consider to be divine. I would question as to whether they are truely divine or just illustrate a gap in our knowledge. There are too many people who have had such experiences to dismiss them out of hand and there are enough scientists who question whether the mind is limited to within the brain or not. The fact that something can't be explained doesn't mean it will always be that way or that it doesn't exist or that it is indeed divine because of lack of an explaination.



Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 9:59:20 AM)

LadyEllen:

I must respectfully disagree. The fact is that we must simply set aside religious considerations altogether - it is one of the main things keeping people apart and we simply cannot make people agree on the subject.

I am not denigrating your personal experience of the divine, I am just saying that it doesn't matter to anyone else beyond yourself (or possibly with whomever you may have shared the experience). It's like love in that it's a matter of import only to those that experience it; it is utterly irrelevant to everyone else. The utility of any given religious idea is absolutely in the eye of the beholder.

So privately we all do and worship as we will. Publicly it seems best not to discuss it overmuch. I mean, look at this thread! [:D]



Rule -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 10:14:29 AM)

Actually I byed twice. Ah, quietude!



Rule -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:09:25 PM)

Quite.
 
Indeed, what concerns me is the vitriolic, nearly bloodlusting hatred that some posters display towards what and whom they do not comprehend, and for that reason consider craziness. It is disheartening that though the OP wonders why peoples occupy themselves with petty squabbles, that he is unable to let go of his own petty squabble with religions and spirituality. It is not rational.
 
This reminds me of the proverb in the Old Testament about a man complaining about a splinter in the eye of other men that is not able to perceive the log in his own eye.



Lordandmaster -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:14:22 PM)

That hardly follows.  "Science" is not in a position to judge infallibly who is sane and who insane; nor is it true that anyone who attributes his or her experiences to an incorrect source must be insane.  Maybe you've experienced the divine and maybe you haven't, but it's not the case that your opinion must be correct merely because no one can prove that you're insane.

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

That science will deride me as crazy is its prerogative, but since I receive regular psychiatric and psychological evaluation in at attempt to prove this in relation to my gender identity, and this has so far failed to identify any form of mental illness or aberration of brain chemistry, then science by its own methods and considerable achievements has judged me fit and sane, and so my experience of the divine must be valid.



cuddleheart50 -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:27:27 PM)

It's easier to disprove something, than it is to prove it.



Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:29:54 PM)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_impossibility



cuddleheart50 -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:38:16 PM)

I read both of those links several times, and I still dont understand what it said....Granted, I'm not the brightest light bulb in the room...but proving God exsists or doesnt is not going to happen.  To you, He doesnt. To me, He does.



Chaingang -> RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken (9/18/2006 4:39:04 PM)

Now we agree, see?



Page: <<   < prev  20 21 [22] 23 24   next >   >>

Valid CSS!




Collarchat.com © 2025
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Spam Policy
0.0625