@shinyblurry

What spirit do you believe in if you don't believe in anything supernatural?

These don't form my "faith", per se, but my best educated guesses or hunches at the moment. I rarely verbalize my beliefs on these matters, so it probably won't come out too coherently, but heregoes:

All the experiences that humans have are part of the natural condition of being human, and are ultimately caused by something in nature and in our natures, not by anything supernatural. I don't believe there are any higher powers necessarily, though our knowledge of what happened more than 14 billion years ago is nil, and there is so much yet undiscovered, so really, anything could be there. I don't think we had a conscious creator. I don't believe there are any superior entities that interfere with the universe at all, and none have a personal interest in us.

Any spirituality I have, therefore, stems from experiences as a human only. I believe conditions like nirvana probably exist and are achievable with great concentration and effort. I believe that faith in something helps it become real, and lack of faith hinders it. This includes health and psychological matters, as well as attracting success or failure in your endeavours.

I think that humans probably don't actually have free will, but considering how complex a question that is (the sum of all laws that govern everything in the universe), it's better for me to interact with the world as if we do. I believe that the the closest thing a person has to a "calling" or a "true path" is to be true to themselves, find their own person, and let it express itself perfectly in the world. This can be done by achieving mental calmness and following your heart and what feels right [edited]. In a state of mental calmness, your heart will never misguide you. There is no single correct expression of a person, just as there is no single correct "good" thing to do at every given moment. It can be suppressed by the self or others, and this suppression always causes unhappiness, which causes people to do bad things to others and themselves. True happiness and fulfilment can only come from feeling free to express who you really are. That to me is the human spirit.

Words do have meaning, and I would suggest, considering the content of our previous conversations, that your conclusion is based on the many misconceptions and misunderstandings you have about scripture.

You're quoting the Bible at me as if I already accept that it's true. I don't. If I were to interpret that passage's spirit into my spiritual framework, it would say that humans usually cannot have numinous experiences unless they are very much in tune with their true selves, and let that spirit flow through them and guide their actions, and leave the ego out.

I will also note that these objections are always concerning the Old Testament, a lot of which applied only to Israel and not to Christianity.

I'm not talking about the laws. I now understand that they no longer apply. I'm talking about the historical account of events. I don't understand how the OT could have been accurate and the word of God before Jesus, but then suddenly ceased to be after. Either a book is God's word and it's true, or it's not. And a god's word should not be something ephemeral. Its truth value cannot change ever. So, either God did all those horrible things in the OT that are ascribed to him, or he didn't. If he didn't, then the OT is wrong.

Instead of considering the words of Jesus on their own merit, skeptics try to do an end run around Him and undermine the OT so they can dismiss Him entirely. [edit: didn't insert this quote in the first draft]

I don't know everything that Jesus preached, but I consider him to be probably the best moral philosopher I've ever heard of, at least in broad strokes.

Actually, statistically, it would be the people who are unaware that there is a supernatural reality who would be considered defective.

Statistics don't determine fact. I thought you told me you were a scientist before your conversion.

There is no evidence that your scenerio is true, it is actually only your confirmation bias at work; you had an issue where you believed something was going on which wasn't true, and then you unjustifiably extrapolated that to everyone elses spiritual experience. That just doesn't follow.

Are you going "lalala" with your hands over your ears? That's not what I said at all. Fact: there are lots of people besides me and you around the world who have transcendental experiences. Fact: they often identify the entity in their experience as a divinity from a particular religion. Fact: they are just as fervent about what they believe as you are about what you believe. If you agree that those are facts, then I don't see how you can tell me that your interpretation of your experience must be the correct one and all those other people's are false ones. Logically, this is strong evidence that your interpretation is not necessarily accurate, and may in fact represent something in the human condition caused naturally.

What I know and you don't know is that most everyone who claims to be speaking to a real entity actually is speaking to one.

How could you know this? Are you in their minds? Did God give you some statistical data?

There are superior beings, fallen angels, whose only purpose is to convince people, usually with supernatural signs and evidence, that anything but Jesus Christ is the truth. They have invented uncounted false religions, cults, spiritual systems, philosophies, etc, to blind human beings to the light of Christ. The people who believe in them are not just deluded, they are deceived.

How can you say that your revelation is the truth, and that all these other people's revelations are false? They would tell me with equal fervency that theirs is real and all the others are false. Saying yours is necessarily right is illogical. I mean, what separates you from these other people that got fooled by what you think are false visions? How do you know you haven't been fooled too? I mean, if they can get fooled, why can't you? Are you smarter? Stronger? What?

Is it possible we're all plugged into the matrix? Sure. Is it possible the Universe started five seconds ago and all of our memories are false? Sure.

We agreed back at Qualiasoup vs. Craig not to introduce solipsistic arguments.

I presuppose that God created reality, and that it is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. I believe my presupposition is well justified by a preponderance of evidence, not the least of which is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Do you have other evidence besides your relationship with Jesus? What is it?

Now I'm paraphrasing the Imam: "I presuppose that Allah created reality, and that it is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. I believe my presupposition is well justified by a preponderance of evidence, not the least of which is my personal relationship with Allah through the teachings of his prophet Mohammed (PBUH)."

What's the difference between the two of you? How can you say you're right and he's wrong?

Now me: "I presuppose that reality is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. My presupposition is not justified in any way. It just makes my experience of life more meaningful."

Bad definition, unless by "knows nothing about the spirit", you mean, "doesn't believe in the same spirit I believe in." I have my own insight into my own experiences with spirituality. So far, they have not led me to necessarily believe in anything supernatural. That makes me a "weak atheist". Would you really respect my insights into "the spirit" more if they had led me to be as fervent as you, but about Taoist Buddhism?

What spirit do you believe in if you don't believe in anything supernatural?

False. I have never anywhere stated that there is no creator being, or even that a God doesn't exist. I have stated that God as described in the Bible -- if words have meaning -- cannot exist as such because the set of descriptions are internally inconsistent. Because they contradict each other, they therefore preclude any such entity's existence -- again, if words have meaning. Now, it's possible that there is a God who is described in the Bible, but only if the descriptions there are somewhat inaccurate, which would cast doubt on the Bible's authenticity as God's word, but then it's possible God, for his own reasons, wanted a flawed book to be his voice.

Words do have meaning, and I would suggest, considering the content of our previous conversations, that your conclusion is based on the many misconceptions and misunderstandings you have about scripture. To the point:

"The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned"

Without the Holy Spirit, you are incapable of understanding scripture. Like you, I once had a number of things picked out in the bible which I believed were contradictory or demonstrated that God is not who He says He is. I thought I had a solid case, but to my surprise my case was only founded on my own ignorance..once the Holy Spirit opened my eyes, I saw how shallow my conclusions were, and I also saw the answers were always there, I just didn't see them.

I will also note that these objections are always concerning the Old Testament, a lot of which applied only to Israel and not to Christianity. Instead of considering the words of Jesus on their own merit, skeptics try to do an end run around Him and undermine the OT so they can dismiss Him entirely. This to me represents the intellectual bankruptcy of the skeptics typical argumentation against Christianity. Skeptics never once consider that the obvious goodness, wisdom and purity of Jesus Christ is actually living proof that they've completely misunderstood the God of the Old Testament. They never consider it from that angle, and try to apply their understanding the other way.

But you don't fall under scenario 2. You just believe you fall under scenario 2. For you to be correct, you would have to know that an omnipotent being is what is revealing something to you. Nobody, not you, not us, can be certain that you are right about that. I can think of two ways you could be wrong: 1) you may suffer from a relatively common mental defect that causes people to be absolutely convinced they are communicating with a superior being; and 2) you are being contacted by a superior being, but you as a human are in no position verify that it is an omnipotent being, as any being significantly superior to you would appear omnipotent to you. In a nutshell, humans don't have perfect understanding of anything except systems they created themselves, such as mathematics and formal logic, so you can't testify that your understanding of your experience is perfect.

About 1), as I've said to you elsewhere on the Sift, I'm not suggesting it to be mean or insulting. It's a common condition, and people of all spiritual stances suffer from it, and they all believe they're communicating with a real entity. If their accounts were consistent, then there'd appear to be something to it, but they're not. People who have these conditions don't even gravitate to the same religion, if any religion at all. For you to say you are right to the exclusion of all those other people who are equally convicted is arrogant. The same applies to your following arguments:

Actually, statistically, it would be the people who are unaware that there is a supernatural reality who would be considered defective. There is no evidence that your scenerio is true, it is actually only your confirmation bias at work; you had an issue where you believed something was going on which wasn't true, and then you unjustifiably extrapolated that to everyone elses spiritual experience. That just doesn't follow.

I'll elaborate on the other issue in the last paragraph.

This part, I get, but what I say above still stands. If one had no other evidence other than an experience like yours, it would make perfect sense for one to believe they had contact with the real God, and that what they were interpreting was exactly true. But there's other evidence: other people have had very similar experiences, often associated with mental injury (falling off a horse and going blind, for the most famous example), and they have come to a wide variety of conclusions based on their own (human) interpretation of the experience. This, to a rational person, should suggest that you may not be right, and that is enough.

What I know and you don't know is that most everyone who claims to be speaking to a real entity actually is speaking to one. There are superior beings, fallen angels, whose only purpose is to convince people, usually with supernatural signs and evidence, that anything but Jesus Christ is the truth. They have invented uncounted false religions, cults, spiritual systems, philosophies, etc, to blind human beings to the light of Christ. The people who believe in them are not just deluded, they are deceived.

"In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God"

Again, I used to be the same way. I believed anyone advocating for supernatural claims had a screw loose. It seems that way on the outside, looking in. It isn't anything which you will understand or believe until God opens your eyes to see.

Is it possible that a superior being could fool quite a bit of the planet? Sure. Satan and his minions are doing just that. Is it possible we're all plugged into the matrix? Sure. Is it possible the Universe started five seconds ago and all of our memories are false? Sure. This is where my presupposition comes in. I presuppose that God created reality, and that it is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. I believe my presupposition is well justified by a preponderance of evidence, not the least of which is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

How can you test my claim? Give your life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and God will provide you undeniable evidence of His existence. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

>> ^messenger:

>> ^wraith:

>> ^Fletch:
"I would pay to see this as a feature."
Me too.

You would pay for "Motorbike Chase: The Movie"?

How many gears did that motocycle have?
I am no expert but from my hearing, he was upshifting about every five seconds
Till around half time of this chase scene, I counted about 35 up-shifts and maybe 3 down-shifts and then I lost interest.


As in most motorcycle movies, the boring "downshift" scenes always wind up on "the cutting room floor"...

>> ^wraith:

>> ^Fletch:
"I would pay to see this as a feature."
Me too.

You would pay for "Motorbike Chase: The Movie"?

How many gears did that motocycle have?
I am no expert but from my hearing, he was upshifting about every five seconds
Till around half time of this chase scene, I counted about 35 up-shifts and maybe 3 down-shifts and then I lost interest.


What is it with you negative Nellies? I thought it was a cool short video, and I think it could be a cool full length movie. What the hell did you guys do when you watched Speed Racer and Gobots and shit when you were kids? What in your lives turned you all into such pissy gits?

"This cartoon has such unrealistic shifting. I can't be bothered with this!"

LOL! So sad...

>> ^Fletch:

"I would pay to see this as a feature."
Me too.


You would pay for "Motorbike Chase: The Movie"?



How many gears did that motocycle have?

I am no expert but from my hearing, he was upshifting about every five seconds

Till around half time of this chase scene, I counted about 35 up-shifts and maybe 3 down-shifts and then I lost interest.

The video is actually kind of annoying, the more I think about it. It's like the girl was told "okay, come up with 10 different little five-second dance moves, and we'll just put 'em together and loop it. Boom, music video!"

Ms. Power's good though.

five second rule...

What the fuck, seriously. So what if some people have had it worse? I looked up the video being talked about and skipped to the middle to see what it was about; I was unable to watch more than five seconds of it, and this is coming from someone who was abused in practically every possible way during childhood. What's shown in the video is not "tough love", it's child abuse, plain and simple.

>> ^Diogenes:

i find it difficult to trust her...
i'm glad she's happy and all now, but... the whole thing went viral and we still don't know very much of the details
i watched the original and didn't think it was that bad, imho... i routinely got far worse and for less as a kid - i'd get a hiding like this for just throwing the cat in the koi pond... or a miserable report card, etc
there are some disturbing aspects as the possible motivations for the original upload:
-her dad had recently cut off her (adult) financial support after she dropped out of college
-he'd also recently denied/restricted her use of the mercedes-benz he'd provided for her
-the mother is in an ongoing court battle re. alimony/benefits and assessing her share of the value of his pension
-the timing of the upload was suspiciously close to the end of of the statute of limitations in their home state
let's keep in mind that growing up in the '70s and '80s was pretty different from growing up today... and that there are myriad shenanigans you can now pull with audio/video to build/strengthen a civil case
granted, i don't lay a hand in anger on my own kids, but that's me... and now -- still too early to say if my parents' tough love made me a better person, but it certainly didn't damage me

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 yesterday and I fecking LOVE it.

Size, weight and form factor are all perfect. It's easy to hold whether I'm at my desk or couch. It also allows me to quickly move around with it to share information with my family. And when I woke up this morning it was great to check my email in five seconds instead of powering on the desktop (I could use my phone but that doesn't normally occur to me when at home).

The whole touch interface is very tactile and pleasing. It's got a smooth learning curve (I got most of the basics right in the shop and set their display model to use Swype which amazed the sales guy) and once you have the wi-fi setup the next thing is to download any essential applications.

I definitely recommend Dolphin HD browser. The widgets work well and it generally feels like a cutting edge tech experience. The market can be flaky - I know it can drop connections over wi-fi which has happened - and I need to google for the tab-optimised applications, but other than that no complaints at the moment.

The next step is definitely support for multiple users. That oversight astonishes me as this is a device that will be shared unlike a phone.

Look at the dumb motherfucker just keep talking through a GD earthquake. I hate when people are so focussed on their own stupid fucking voice that they don't notice anything else. Like an earthquake.

The one guy is aware of the room shaking from five seconds in. But the other numbskull is going to keep talking and TALKING for ten seconds, even though the room is shaking and his fellow newscasters are displaying obvious signs of alarm in their body language. They're even murmuring and starting to talk over him, a pretty obvious sign that something is WRONG when you're filming a TV show and maybe you should look around and stop droning into the camera. The guy's just gonna keep flapping his stupid fucking lips trying to be "professional" like anyone really gives a shit about baseball.

>> ^bamdrew:

"Hey doc, what're you so happy about?"
"Oh nothing,... just cured cancer with AIDS!"
"Fuck Yeeeah" (high-fives)
>> ^ghark:
This needs a five second films "fuck yea" at the end.



That's a fine script right there if I do say so myself.

"Hey doc, what're you so happy about?"
"Oh nothing,... just cured cancer with AIDS!"
"Fuck Yeeeah" (high-fives)

>> ^ghark:

This needs a five second films "fuck yea" at the end.

This needs a five second films "fuck yea" at the end.

Man, I do this all the time with a paring knife. It's such a hassle! Thank god someone finally invented a way to make it five seconds faster!