>> ^obscenesimian:

Yes yes. Kurds, hmmmmmm let me think
oh yes they were abused by turks throughout history but most notably during the the 1890's 1920's 1930's and on up to the 70's and 80's. Ironically, Kurds also were one of the primary agents used by the Turks in the deportations and massacre Armenians before and during world war 1.
Those Kurds.
Who were also abused by Saddam. All part of a long chain of ethnic cleansing, genocide and nationalist violence caused in a large part by religion and creed as well as tribal identity throughout the balkans and the ottoman empire and what became the palestinian mandate.
Which Hitchens thought we should wade into because science and atheism will put right through warfare that which religion and warfare could not put right.
Hitchens got so much so wrong so many times, but he sounded soooo good doing it.
>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^spoco2:
>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.

His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.



Or more simply, Saddam was so horrific and brutal a monster that Iraqis and the region as a whole are better off for his removal.

Yes yes. Kurds, hmmmmmm let me think

oh yes they were abused by turks throughout history but most notably during the the 1890's 1920's 1930's and on up to the 70's and 80's. Ironically, Kurds also were one of the primary agents used by the Turks in the deportations and massacre Armenians before and during world war 1.

Those Kurds.

Who were also abused by Saddam. All part of a long chain of ethnic cleansing, genocide and nationalist violence caused in a large part by religion and creed as well as tribal identity throughout the balkans and the ottoman empire and what became the palestinian mandate.

Which Hitchens thought we should wade into because science and atheism will put right through warfare that which religion and warfare could not put right.

Hitchens got so much so wrong so many times, but he sounded soooo good doing it.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^spoco2:
>> ^kceaton1:
Goodbye Chris. Some of his most profound moments for me came when he actually screwed up and was wrong! It would often lead to other talks and dialogs between the people he had erred against and himself and in some occasions Christopher would merely present them and allow the other person to put the matter straight. He could be friends with these people and often was.
It showed me that he had within himself the ability to be very humble and that to him the truth WAS paramount! For that and much more I will remember him always.
He had it within himself to be the best of us all.

His about face on waterboarding after being waterboarded was the point that I started paying attention to him.

His about face on Saddam era Iraq stood out more in my mind. After being a champion of the anti-war movement in the first Gulf war he went and spent time with the Iraqi Kurds. He came back vehement in his conviction that America's worst crime in Iraq was in essence listening to him in the first place and not pushing into Baghdad and removing Saddam the first time.

I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.

There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.

Well, this is only half the story. There is a certain amount of faith in science as a whole. This is because science doesn't actually prove anything:

http://www.digipac.ca/chemical/proof/index.htm

To believe in science you must have faith in empiricism, which says that all knowledge comes from sensory experience. Yet there are many truths empiricism cannot account for. Science itself is predicated on a series of unprovable assumptions called "brute givens" which presume the operations of the Universe have remained constant in the past and will continue to do so. Here is a good dialog on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco

Please ignore the title, it was just the best clip I could find. Also, check out this conversation between a physics major and a bunch of physicists and mathematicians about him losing faith in empiricism:

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-184699.html

Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.

This isn't always true. For instance, the scientific community at large consider evolution to be "proven" and won't tolerate any dissent on the issue. A scientist who even breathes the words "intelligent design" will be totally ostracized, have their reputations ruined, be unable to publish scientific papers and lose their ability to get grants. It is nearly impossible to do any work on intelligent design for that reason. Evolutionary theories are the sacred cow of science, and they religiously defend it, even to the point of suppressing any debate on it, and also by propagating this view into our political and education system. They also file lawsuits to keep intelligent design from being mentioned in classrooms. This has clearly gone beyond the bounds of mere scientific inquiry. If scientists had taken this same attitude on classical mechanics, quantum mechanics may never have been discovered.

The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all* just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.

Well, you have to realize that some of things you seem to consider facts, aren't. The Big Bang theory is not a fact, it is totally unprovable. Not only that, but the theory itself doesn't even really work..it has a number of problems, from how stars and planets form, to the lack of observable matter and energy to make it work, to what they call the smoothness problem:

"These structures must have arisen from tiny variations in the energy density in the early universe. Where the densities were greatest is, presumably, where gravity caused matter to collapse into the structures we see today.

The problem is that to explain these structures seems to require a universe that was created in an incredibly smooth non-chaotic manner. This seems extremely unlikely."''

I like the last bit. It isn't unlikely if you consider the Universe was created by an omniopotent being. The basic problem with big bang cosmology and evoltuion is that they are not real science. You can't observe and test them, they are speculation and assumption about things that happened in the past. It is mere interpretation of data, and there are many ways to interpret it. We are both looking at the same facts, but interpreting them in different ways.

Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)

I don't preumse I can prove to you that Christianity is true. I can show you that there are good reasons to believe there is a God, and that there is good evidence for Christianity, but I cannot prove my experience. I can however tell you this is something you can prove to yourself. If you ask God for the evidence, He will provide it to you. You can do this by praying something like this: "Jesus, if you're real, I want to know about it. If you're God please come into my life and I will give it over to you" If you can pray those words and mean them, you will get an answer. He promised to reveal Himself to those who seek Him dilligently.

As far as the crutch thing goes, what I am speaking about is sin. Those who don't know God are in a servitude to their passions and desires. Meaning, the first priority is a fulfillment of these desires, which the intellect first assents to, and then seeks out a worldview that justifies this fulfillment. Meaning, the atheist naturally doesn't want to believe that which contradicts the fulfillment of his natural desires, and will resist believing it. Admitting that God exists also means that you have a responsibility to obey Him, which further means that you can no longer live according to fleshly desires. So, an atheist will resist the knowledge of God so they can continue to live as they please, doing that which they know by their conscience is wrong, but being unable to resist these things. It has virtually nothing to do with evidence; our sinful nature is just naturally inclined to be in rebellion against Gods authority and will continue to operate this way on any pretense that seems even remotely plausible.

>> ^Quboid:
I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.
There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.
Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.
The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.
Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.
(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)
>> ^shinyblurry:
The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.
The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.
So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

>> ^quantumushroom:

A gaggle of marxist enviro-statists decide the way to undermine capitalism is to claim:
a) they know the precise temperature that the earth should be for the next 100 years
and
b) that they can actually achieve this precise temperature via taxes and regulation.

As hubristic and delusional as a guy at the beach yelling, "STAND BACK everyone! I'm PISSING in the OCEAN!"


The reason taxation and regulation is occuring is because almost everyone in government is a twat. It's the same reason why they raise the price of alcohol and tobacco to try and cut down on alcohol and tobacco use. Same reason why they say using cannabis funds criminals, make it illegal and push it squarely into the realm of the criminal. And finally the same reason why they tell us taxes will solve climate change.... MAXIMUM PROFIT.

Mark my words; the real actual science on climate change is undeniable, the policies stemming from climate change are according to the arsehole politicians' whims.

You are an absolute fool for one reason and one reason only; you attack climate change science and not the politicians using it to their own gain. You're blind man, totally blind. I hope one day you realise that it's the lies that are wrong, not the fucking science. Wake up.

It's a shame cos in a way you're dead right, the politicians are coming up with pointless regulation and pointless taxes to get more money from everyone, but it's THEY who are wrong and not the fucking science. Stop attacking science, it's like attacking rationality - science is something everyone can and should agree with. Science is perhaps the ONLY THING that we can and should all agree with because science is blind to religion, status, political view, skin colour; everything. It just tells you the honest facts. This is undeniable - anything else IS NOT science.

You're listening to the wrong fucking people QM, you're not listening to scientists you're listening to government. Your bullshit radar needs fixing, that's all; you can't distinguish between people who know and people who merely tell you convincingly that they know.

BTW:
@EDD was quoting Idiocracy. A film never more appropriately invoked.

>> ^marinara:

because science is based on who says something, and how many people say it, and anyone who says different is crazy.


No, but we can make arguments in the form of:

X holds that A is true
X is a legitimate expert on the subject.
The consensus of experts agrees with X.
Therefore, there's a presumption that A is true.

Fox News is mostly just having non-experts assert that A is false, while presenting a ton of cranks (and one or two real experts) who disagree with the consensus, and then declaring that ipso facto there is no consensus, so therefore we should assume A is false.

I think the main thing that makes someone get called "crazy" is to cling to those sorts of straws and forcefully assert that global warming definitely isn't happening, and is actually just some sort of hoax perpetrated to sucker the American people into implementing socialism.

Thank ye kindly!

In reply to this comment by marinara:
*promote

because science is based on who says something, and how many people say it, and anyone who says different is crazy.

Whereas nation states where religion is part of the law of the land. Well look at those nations. These are isolated states that have remained in a development vacuum but got rich off selling oil. There is no freedom of speech or democracy in those states. The very fact that the first world deals with say OPEC allows the theocracy to be sustained in those nations.

Religion was a form of government for most of Europe. Then we had the enlightenment, democracy, revolution, kings, wars, history and so on. Religious denominations in Europe are now rapidly fading. This process never occured in the Middle East. Suddenly they have BILLIONS to spend on spreading their 'faith' as a form of government intervention. Saudi Arabia building schools in Pakistan that eventually created the Taliban was not an act of religious domination but a ham fisted attempt at geopolitics via religious doctrine. Because for some fucking reason the Saudis believed the Taliban would actually listen to them or something LOL. (Is this of course ignoring specific political issues of the time, USSR, evil empire, Regean, cold war, US allies with Saudi Arabia, fighting proxy wars, stinger missiles, Charlie Wilson and so on).

Saudi Arabia is cool because its such a fucking relic of government policy they have little room for any type of social policy because that is dictat by Religion. Thus their policies stem from it. They are like evil but religiously ahaha so they just fund fundamentalists everywhere thinking it will give them political clout and power when in reality it backfires. Kinda like this US thing where it's like FREEDOM FOR ALL... THROUGH FUCKING DAISY CUTTERS. To Save Iraq We have to destroy it. To save Afghanistan. We have to keep sending troops for a dubious objective. Oh wait let's pull out now. etc.

Fundamentally we have to appreciate the fact that religion is but a theory of the that explained things prior to science. With the rise of science, it tried to fight it. Finally slowly it's either merging or being eliminated or reconstituted in new ideological belief sets.

What I mean to say is that it's only through the evolution of man, knowledge and ideas that humanity has reached a point where it starts to doubt a very flawed perception of reality. First gods were manifest everywhere. Then they were nature. Then they are ghosts. Now we are supposed to believe or have faith.

Those of a stronger mental make up could possibly accept that we live and die and that is the end. Others cling to religion because it is safe. Others believe in living eternally through genes, about the only thing we consistently carry on through time.

Time will see the end of man man religions, into new constructs of stupidity, because science still, while providing much of the answers lacks many fundamental resolutions for most issues at the core of religious belief. Time will tell us all. But so far so good.

>> ^hpqp:

How did Christianity get to Europe? Conquest. To the Americas? Conquest and colonisation. To Africa? Colonisation, slave trade. To Australasia? Colonisation. Does that mean that these means have been taking place all the way 'till now? Of course not. After a few generations of growing up with the imposed religion, you forget it was imposed in the first place. Unless you were "cleansed", then there are no next generations.
Same story with Islam. Only eventual difference: violent conquest/conversion is directly condoned, one could even say "ordained", by the holy text (e.g. 2:191-3/2:216); oh, and the prophet was also a tribal leader and war general, unlike the possibly fictional Jeebs of the Christians.
I'm not saying people don't convert, just that the majority of religion's spread is through breeding and childhood indoctrination, and that the origins of the desert monotheisms' spread (especially Christianity and Islam) was conquest and colonisation so your original comment does not seem to be making any relevant point.
edit: add to that the continual use of majority pressure and intimidation, especially when religion is part of a country's legal and political system.
>> ^Farhad2000:
Naa. Islam reached 1 billion in the 21st century.
The assumption you are making is that it's been spreading at the knife edge from what the Moor times?
>> ^hpqp:
Uh, you do know that more often than not it was spread, like Christianity, at the edge of the sword, right? Conquest, colonisation, slave trade, same old same old.
>> ^Farhad2000:
Furthermore people forget that Islam represents 22% of world population. Much of it not in the Middle East. If the religion was so shit it wouldn't have taken every other religion out there.

You didn't understand my post, and I can't be bothered to explain something that's not simple to someone who doesn't have any desire to learn. Sorry.

Your post was very simplistic..you propose an argument that we will eventually know everything (or rule god out) because science has explained things people use to think God directly inspired..which is false..science has not ruled out a supernatural causation for natural phenomena..we may know some of the ways but not the means

You then further try to say an infinite universe and a supernatural Creator are somehow logically equivilent ideas because they can both solve a particular problem, which is patently false, but of course this is what intellectually dishonest people do when they conduct their argument through ad homs. I advanced the questions I did as being fundemental to understanding life, which they are, and they are ones science knows nothing about. You go on to say I should "read a book". Well, I think that's a great idea and I recommend you do the same..specfically one on antisocial personality disorder.

Read Dawkins, instead of reading people quote-mining (or "summarizing") him. If you have read Dawkins, you haven't understood anything (at all). No way around that, sorry.

I did read dawkins, specifically his abominable God delusion where the idea is postulated that any appearance of design can be explained away by multiple universes. Of course, no word on where all those multiple universes come from, but that's the fun of science. You can postulate any lunatic theorum and cover it under an avalanche of imaginary "data" based entirely on speculation and conjecture. Then of course any ignoramous will buy it because science said it was true.

It will almost certainly happen in our lifetimes (assuming you're under 50) that people create life starting with inorganic chemicals. Will that change your mind at all? Of course not. How could it, when your belief system wasn't founded on reason to begin with? And, as before, there are already interesting ideas for how the first life could have formed. You may not find them credible (and certainly none has compelling evidence yet), but they're not metaphysical. But even if there was credible ideas it wouldn't matter to you, really, would it? Of course not, just move them goalposts.

They are entirely metaphysical, ie taken on faith. Evolution and abiogenesis are not testable theories. The mechanism of natural selection is not proven, and cannot even begin to account for the complexity of life. These theories have been elevated as some sort of unquestionable absolute that dogmatic materialists (and undoubtably secular humanists) take on faith, while pointing to pseudo-scientific research as science fact. As if somehow the methodology of scientific inquiry was respresentitive of the limits of reality itself. As far as abiogenesis is concerned, what was once a marxist wet dream hasn't moved one inch away from the sad experiments conducted in the 60s when they electrocuted pea soup. The theories it was based on have been entirely falsified. Abiogenesis is dead in the water, literally, and just wishing it was true isn't going to make it happen.

I guess add probability and infinity to the list of things you have no idea about. In short, yes those monkeys would - and we could make detailed predictions about how long it would likely take to get a sonnet, a play, or the entire collection. It would take a very, very long time for that last one obviously, but it would happen. Want to dispute that? Don't tell me about it. Again, I can't be bothered to teach you things you aren't interested in learning. Idiot.

lol, your entire post is just riddled with ad homs and childish conclusions with no supporting evidence. You have failed to prove that you know anything what so ever..extended diatribes and assertions of knowledge a counter-argument does not make. The probability of any of that ever happening in the timeline of the Universe is null and void. The odds of anything as complicated as a cell or dna arising from random mutation is expodentially less. The mechanism is completely unproven. Much like your presumption of superior knowledge.

you want a more detailed treatment of all this related stuff, Dawkins has written books that are easy to understand (very "pop science" level) that go over all this very clearly. At least by reading a couple you'd understand the other side (which you clearly, clearly do not at this point).

But if you don't want to know, just keep getting your stupid information and talking points from wherever the hell you're getting them now and go back under your rock.

read dawkins? He may be a passable biologist, but beyond that, its completely amatuer hour. Now that I know where you are getting your information from, I can understand why you think that using personal attacks is a demonstration of intellect. Have you ever had an original thought in your life? Lets see you flex this intellectual muscle you are bragging about...

The argument was that science has explained so much therefore God is barely even probable anymore. That's completely false..science has not answered a single fundemental question about life, or purpose, or the human condition. It just points to vaguer and vaguer conclusions, which draw entirely upon the imagination. The belief in abiogenesis for instance is a metaphysical belief. There is absolutely no evidence to ever suggest that life came from non-life. Nor is the evidence any good that something as complex as a cell or DNA could ever arise via random mutation. A billion monkeys on a billion typewriters are never going to write shakesphere. Even someone like dawkins admits the Universe appears to be designed..but posits that to explain that there are multiple universes and we just happen to live in the one that appears to be designed. That's not science, that's called living in denial.


>> ^messenger:
But, but, but, science DOES explain all the things that it claims to explain. It explains exactly and only those things. It just doesn't claim to explain everything! If God did start the big bang, and science eventually learns every single fact there is to know about the universe, it will be discovered that God exists and started the big bang. Then God and his role in the creation of the universe will be scientific fact. Same with Russel's Teapot -- science may one day prove that it exists. In the meantime, however, there's no sense in believing it, nor god. Science isn't anti-God; it's pro-truth.
So the rest of your argument is that God exists because science doesn't yet have the answers to everything?
MAKE SENSE!!!
(edited)>> ^shinyblurry:
Well, I would say the things that science claims to explain it really hasn't explained at all..yes, we have newtonian physics fairly well understood (maybe)..but quantum mechanics? not at all...Nor, are any real questions answers..such as how did the Universe get here? The big bang..how did the big bang happen? Complete mystery. How did life get here? "life from non life"..how did it happen? No idea. The fundemental questions all have great theories..but are really just in our imagination. I don't think anything about the human condition has ever been sufficiently explained, nor the meaningful questions about life..a materialist explanation must aprori rule out a supernatural one..but if time and space started at the beginning of the Universe then the explaination is by definition supernatural..i think all we've done is make the issue more complicated obfuscating the simplicity of it all

But, but, but, science DOES explain all the things that it claims to explain. It explains exactly and only those things. It just doesn't claim to explain everything! If God did start the big bang, and science eventually learns every single fact there is to know about the universe, it will be discovered that God exists and started the big bang. Then God and his role in the creation of the universe will be scientific fact. Same with Russel's Teapot -- science may one day prove that it exists. In the meantime, however, there's no sense in believing it, nor god. Science isn't anti-God; it's pro-truth.

So the rest of your argument is that God exists because science doesn't yet have the answers to everything?

MAKE SENSE!!!

(edited)>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, I would say the things that science claims to explain it really hasn't explained at all..yes, we have newtonian physics fairly well understood (maybe)..but quantum mechanics? not at all...Nor, are any real questions answers..such as how did the Universe get here? The big bang..how did the big bang happen? Complete mystery. How did life get here? "life from non life"..how did it happen? No idea. The fundemental questions all have great theories..but are really just in our imagination. I don't think anything about the human condition has ever been sufficiently explained, nor the meaningful questions about life..a materialist explanation must aprori rule out a supernatural one..but if time and space started at the beginning of the Universe then the explaination is by definition supernatural..i think all we've done is make the issue more complicated obfuscating the simplicity of it all

>> ^Psychologic:

Air conditioners have the net effect of creating heat. Put one in an enclosed room and it will get hotter in there even though one side of the AC puts out cooler air.
Even if the extra heat could be dealt with in a way that didn't warm the surrounding environment, there's still significant power consumption involved. Currently the power would come from sources that contribute to climate change.
Some of those issues could be addressed, but it would be extremely expensive for a negligible impact and have side effects of its own.


These are some good points. Also there's the acres and acres of air conditioners everywhere. Are we seriously debating the finer points of her laughably bad idea? It's a bad idea because SCIENCE.

Big deal, 1st graders make batteries out of freaking potatoes. You don't know what it was used for or what specific purpose it was created for. That does not mean that it was a battery in the sense that you mean it.

You're stretching the "computer" a little bit, while technically the object in question "might have" been a computer, so is an abacus, and we don't get all up in arms over those.

What then? A drawing that looks like a helicopter? Give me a break, one drawing that looks like something does not a theory make.

Those gold items of jewelry? You saw quite clearly in the history channel video that the "model" the guy built was, speaking in terms of aeronautics, totally different. The cylinder that ran the whole length of the piece of jewelry needed to be thinned out on the flying model until it was just a twig where it met the tail. Again, speaking in terms of aeronautics, that's WAAAAY different. Don't you think it might be a more acceptable theory to say that it's a piece of jewelry that merely resembles a modern airplane? Wait, what am I saying, it's not a theory, because the fact that two pieces of jewelry that happen to look like something else does not make a theory.

Either way, science is full of anomalies, that's because science can't explain everything. Because rational people don't expect it to. Don't apply the omniscient, omnipotent aspects of god to science, because they don't make any rational sense there either.

Shit, I just have to say that watching this terrible video with this annoying used car salesmen was one of the hardest things I've done all week. And it proves nothing. This guy is just cherry picking from ideas that his poor warped brain does not have the ability to comprehend.

I'm not avoiding science because I don't accept this guy's premise. This guy is avoiding science by proposing it.

Yes of course... because science should only be done if it caters to everyone on the planet.

Great point

edit: and besides, you have no way to really know how much this can or will influence the rest of the aviation industry.

ok.
i shall attempt to answer your questions to the best of my ability.due to the length and breadth of your questions i shall tackle them on a singular basis.
welcome to part one:
@IAmTheBlurr
Let me ask you a question. Why do you trust your personal revelation?

I ask this because I used to be very “spiritual” and I’ve even had out-of-body experiences, experiences that I can only call past life regressions. I grew up in a practicing Christian family and I have memories of experience that I can only call “personal revelation”. I’ve come to a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t trust those personal revelations; I want to know if you’ve come to understand how the human brain is very easily tricked into irrational behaviors and beliefs (not just religious)

You say that this has been an ongoing revelation since you were 14. If you had not had this history of personal revelation at all and it came to you suddenly today, would you find it believable? I imagine that you’re beliefs have been challenged many times. Are you certain that the strengthening effect of the challenges aren’t just from the boomerang effect, caused by a need to justify something that you feel committed to?

@enoch
this is a multi-faceted question.
i think the best approach would be to outline my faith in order to give you a decent starting point and will hopefully add context to any further discussions.:

"god" is a only a term i use to represent a creator.
there is no gender bias when i use this term.
now let me define my usage of "creator".
with the stipulation that i believe reality is the illusion and thought is real.
because what is "reality"?
what is "consciousness"?
and how do we measure these things?based on what scale?
we have five senses in which to articulate the "real" world.
and it is our "consciousness" which discerns this reality through first the five senses and then processing through said consciousness.
while over-simplified..we can agree on the basic mechanics of what i say?

now here is where you and i will have divergence.
for i believe (have faith) that we are a composite of mind.body and spirit.
you stop at mind .body.
you may view your ego as an accurate representation of who you are while i believe that your ego is only who you THINK you are based on those who influence your own self-identity but not who you ACTUALLY are.
this is a wholly different discussion but in so many ways extremely pertinent to our discussion.
a topic i will visit in the later parts of our conversation.

now on to my personal revelation.
while i will not share the particulars (for no other reason than it will take up too much space and time) i will share what was shown to me at 14 yrs old.
i was shown that:
god is not separate.
god is a consciousness and not one that we have any capabilities to understand at this point in our evolution and on this physical plane of existence.
god is literally everything.every molecule..every atom or quark.gas-solid-microbe.
god resides outside time/space but also within.
god did NOT create us specifically but we are rather a by-product of his (not saying god is a dude here btw) creation.
as a species god is indifferent if we succeed or fail (let the religious folk have fits over THAT statement).

let me attempt a different approach,not to convince of you of anything but rather to illuminate my position in a clearer light.
1.when this universe came in to existence what was the ONE thing that also came in to existence?(besides the obvious).
time.
and what does this fourth dimension give us?
things become relative.
2.so being relative what do you find in the most basic and simplest of terms?
positive-negative
good-bad
god-devil
a really ancient story but appropriate.
of course humanity anthropamophizes this basic construct but what else does this universal creation put out there?
evidenced over and over again.
the desire to live...life..to create.
the entire universe follows this edict.
religious people will point and say "look at that! there is your evidence!"
i disagree..because that implies intent and god did not intentionally create any of it.
the ONLY intent god put forth was to push forward...to strive..to be.
to a religious person this is blasphemy incarnate because the ideas i am putting forth basically say that god did not intentionally create us as we are..and he didnt..we are a by product of the first intent billions of years ago.

now here is where it gets really cool in my opinion.
jesus stated "i am you..you are me".
correctamundo.
IF you follow my understanding of the universe as i have stated then you must also see where i am going with this.
god is consciousness who created the universe from itself.
we are part of this universe.
so hence WE are a part of god and god is literally a part of us.
think "we were created in his image"
yep..just not in the way religious folk may have ever imagined.

now..lets put the conversation of "consciousness" away for a minute (because that ..in itself is another entirely different..and long..conversation).
and let me ask that you withold disbelief for a moment and consider the possibility of a spirit/soul.
consider that the spirit is the divine spark.the part of us that is connected to this god consciousness.
or..as you would most likely do...dismiss the idea of a spirit.
would you agree that we experience this reality through our senses?
that we love.cry.play and indulge on this physical plane?
and that if my understanding that god is literally everything..would that not correspond to our experiencing this physical reality is actually experiencing creation itself?
and if that makes sense to you would it be too huge a leap to realize that while we experience god subjectively through our experiences that god experiences itself through us?
"i am you..you are me".

pretty cool huh?
the creator resides outside of time/space but experiences its own creation through us and conversely we experience god just by breathing and interacting with creation.
this means that god gets to experience linear existence through us and we through it.

god does not judge because all creation is experiencing itself in a linear fashion.
good and evil are just arbitrary term based on subjective understandings.
god does not discern from either.
so you experiencing love and joy..or the best sex you have ever had in your life.
god experiences also.
just as god will experience the violated and the violator.
both equally.
it is WE who deem acts either good or evil.
because it is WE who have the divine within us.
we make moral distinctions predicated on our own subjective understanding at that moment in time and respond according to those understandings.
god does not distinguish such things.
WE judge ourselves and each other..god does not.

the arrogance and hubris of religion to even postulate that we were somehow this "special creation" to me is just a reaction to just how small and insignificant we are....as a species.
it is the spirit which holds the key to understanding because that is the part of us connected to the divine.so while the flesh will decay,die and rot..the spirit will be consumed back in to the source.
how that will translate i have no idea but i was shown that creation is infinite.
infinite universes and dimension.
life creation in ways that are unimaginable to us.
all of it up/down and sideways.
myriads of lifeforms so strange and alien according to our current understandings.

as a lifeform we are really..at the heart..a complicated amalgamation of co-operative bacteria which strove billions of years ago to be more than the single sum and in doing so became self-aware.
and IN that self awareness came curiosity.
all following that first intent..strive...push forward..be more.
and since the advent of our self-awareness that is exactly what we have been doing,and our understanding is growing exponentially.
everything has a consciousness but we are the most self aware on this planet but consciousness has been evident in other animals (of varying degrees).consciousness can even be attributed to plants.
i propose that the universe has a consciousness.one we cannot comprehend or fathom at this juncture in our evolution.

and NO..i am not speaking of the "good of gaps".
and also a very strong reason why i have no urge to defend my position because that implies that somehow my understanding is somehow more "right" than somebody elses.
just as in saying i am "committed" to one ideology implies that i am somehow a messenger with a strict theocratic way of thinking,or an absolutist way of thinking and both would be inaccurate.every new piece of information changes the paradigm..how can it not?
the only constant i have experienced is how these new pieces of information confirm that very first revelation shown to me.
love creates something more than when it first came into being while negative destroys and gives back nothing.
god is indifferent to both.
and everything is connected.


now.
let me respond to your query "why do you trust your personal revelation"?
i shall answer in bullet point outline:
1.i knew my grandfather had died.though nobody had been called about it yet.
2.i knew..to the day..when my father was going to die and why.
3.i knew my aunt had colon cancer though she showed no signs of having any problems.thank god she believed me at 15 years of age and went to the doctor. consequently lived for another 18 years (died at 84).
4.while i will not post every particular occurance over the span of my life,suffice to say i have learned to trust my inuition because it has been spot on..
every..
single..
time.

now is this due to my brain attempting to find patterns and a certain congruence?
perhaps..but how do i just know some things?
when there is no possible way to even suspect?
my father was the pinnacle of health.
my grandmother was in terrible health and everybody was certain she had only days left.
i knew she would live another year and five months because she was afraid of dying.
i was right on both accounts.

i could go on,but understand i post these events not to convince you of anything other than to explain them is no easy task.
we just dont understand how these things happen but happen they do,
and i have all confidence that one day we will understand.
it just wont be today.
because science..in its most base definition..is obeying the first intent.
to strive..to push.

we are trying to understand creation.
religion does not attempt that.religion only seeks to quantify god into terms that we can understand and accept and in that respect,religion will always fail.
science fails also but recognizes failure and moves forward.
religion stagnates and suppresses.

well,
thats it for this chapter.
am i delusional for having faith in spirit?
possible.being a rational and reasonable human being i have to accept that possibility.
but everything i have experienced has just revealed the exact opposite.
we are more than the sum of our parts.
there is a part of us which is divine and seeks out that divinity in everything we touch/see/hear.
though we may not even be aware of it.
the spiritual person is VERY aware of this though.
the religious person is not.
till next time my friend.
namaste.