Me and my dad had the exact same dream, with all the exact same details, a few days after a very difficult loss. We were all hugging each other, together - like when we were younger - and we both agreed on our positions, things that were 'said' (felt), everything. As he kept telling me details that i also had written down, i was getting chills down my spine. It felt like nothing i'd ever experienced before.. i even woke up feeling positive, like nothing was really wrong and it was all going to be ok.

I always went through life certain that nothing profoundly mysterious would ever happen; i understood a lot about the world and i thought i knew how to make sense of anything that happened given time. I felt like life was about getting to know someone, growing to love them and need them, only for them to be stripped away and never be known again, and for me to live on carrying that pain until eventually i was released from it. And that single experience changed my mind on all of those things, giving me a feeling of passion back... which in a way, to me, confirms that it was real - even though he passed, he somehow managed to enrich me and give me a reason to carry on. But that experience is something unique to me and my understanding of things, and no one else could or should be convinced by it.

I accept that no one else will be able to believe that what i know happened really did happen, and there will be people who would say it's coincidence. Yes it looks like one, no i can't prove it, but i feel differently about it than you do, and you weren't there.... and that's all i can say with any certainty to another person. If there IS some kind of god, or some kind of life after death, and our loved ones are waiting for us, then why would the evidence BE scientific and provable? Why should it be scientific instead of unscientific evidence, just because THIS world is scientific?

I don't believe in mediums, ghosts, tarot cards or any hocus pocus - none of that will be proven. But that doesn't mean that sometimes, perhaps, when you love someone so much, the distance between is not so great. All i can be sure of, about death, is that absolutely anything can happen, and there is no reason to assume it will be anything like what we know now.

I believe you bob. I wouldn't have before that happened, but i do now... it's just that perhaps we disagree on what it means. Which is ok, cos your guess is just as good as mine.

If I have to be an expert to dismiss the evidence, why don't you also have to be an expert to accept the evidence?

Because experts have already examined the evidence and found it sufficient. That evidence has been used in the development of medicines, and has used to make predictions later shown to be true.

You, on the other hand, want to overthrow the accepted worldview. So you better have some pretty extraordinary evidence as well as the understanding to back it up. I see neither from you.

Why do you have macro and micro evolution in quotations? Do you realize they are scientific terms?

You should read your own links.

Within the Modern Synthesis school of thought, macroevolution is thought of as the compounded effects of microevolution. Thus, the distinction between micro- and macroevolution is not a fundamental one – the only difference between them is of time and scale. As Ernst W. Mayr observes, "transspecific evolution is nothing but an extrapolation and magnification of the events that take place within populations and species...it is misleading to make a distinction between the causes of micro- and macroevolution".

And there is tonnes of evidence of macroevolution. You and your ilk just misuse the term and ask to see a monkey to give birth to a human.

But that's just your lack of understanding.

You could say that, but why should it be taken seriously? The flying spaghetti monster, or the flying teapot, have no explanatory power.

Of course it does. They're magic, they exist outside of time and space and can do whatever they feel like. It's the exact same "explanatory power" that god has, i.e. none whatsoever.

There are good reasons, philosophically and otherwise, to believe an all powerful being created this Universe. The idea of whether the Universe was designed is not a ridiculous question, and I think it is pretty odd that anyone would rule that explanation out apriori.

Yes, and there were good reasons to think thunder was gods fighting and rain happened when you danced. And now we know those are nonsense.

Besides, you are conflating the origin of the universe with evolution. We have a pretty good idea about the origins of the universe, but it's kinda by definition a difficult question to ask. But we know that evolution is true to a ridiculously high certainty.

It may be that in the future that someone disproves evolution. But if they do, it will be through science, not creationist bollocks.

Again, have you ever studied the subject? If you have, what evidences have you looked at?

I really don't have to study it. You have to provide some evidence to back up your assertion, which I will then trivially disprove with 5 seconds on google.

I also don't study astrology, homeopathy, tarot cards, voodoo or crystal therapy because they are all long since proven to be complete bollocks.

You're not just wrong, you're fractally wrong. You're like a kitten who can't work out why he can't eat the fish on the tv. You would require significant education to even understand why you're so wrong.

I used to work for a contractor that used a life coach. At one point we got lunch together, and she was telling me all this libertarian 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps, personal responsibility political crap. She said that those who settled the Western States were the shining examples we should be trying to emulate." I've never suffered libertarians gladly, as those on this site can attest, so I asked her how a life coach fit into her rugged individualist pioneer spirit. She never hired me again. Oops. That's why I no longer talk politics with bosses or co-workers. >> ^ChaosEngine:

Mentally I equate the words "life coach" with "tarot card reader", "medium", "time share salesman", "politician" and various other useless parasitic forms of life.
TED is supposed to be about sharing grand ideas, not this self-help bullshit.
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Not the best TED.

Mentally I equate the words "life coach" with "tarot card reader", "medium", "time share salesman", "politician" and various other useless parasitic forms of life.

TED is supposed to be about sharing grand ideas, not this self-help bullshit.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Not the best TED.

I always go back to evolution.

Humans have, since the beginning, striven to "understand." We evolved over the thousands of years with this "defect."

I think it isn't a defect. I think it gave us an evolutionary advantage somehow. Otherwise, it would have gone the way of the appendix.

Doesn't make me like it, but it also means there is no point in trying to argue someone out of their beliefs. It is a waste of effort. They've got some gene, or brain structure, or something, that makes them susceptible to needing this kind of structure in their lives to make sense of it "all."

I like what the atheists are doing with their billboards and TV appearances -- concentrate on GENERAL education. Get the 'rational' word out there, as a life line to those poor folks born into households of faith and don't know that there is an alternative.

An It Gets Better project for non-believers, if you will.



In reply to this comment by Phreezdryd:
>> ^bareboards2:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/Phreezdryd" title="member since October 17th, 2010" class="profilelink">Phreezdryd, I read your comment (and agree wholeheartedly!). You underestimated my ability to skip over certain loooooooooong back and forths.

I tried to read a lot of the above.

Mormonism starts with a known con artist. Scientology starts with an apparently well medicated science fiction author, and possibly on a bet. Christianity didn't exactly begin in the friendliest of climates, and we may never know who actually started it, besides what the text claims. The list goes on of course across the planet.

Not to mention all the "cults" that have ended badly, or still skirt the edges of society today. Even the people who just believe in their personal psychic or tarot cards, astrology, etc.

The mind boggles at this effort throughout history to answer things possibly unknowable. And that's evidence enough for me to think none of them have a clue.

>> ^bareboards2:

@Phreezdryd, I read your comment (and agree wholeheartedly!). You underestimated my ability to skip over certain loooooooooong back and forths.

I tried to read a lot of the above.

Mormonism starts with a known con artist. Scientology starts with an apparently well medicated science fiction author, and possibly on a bet. Christianity didn't exactly begin in the friendliest of climates, and we may never know who actually started it, besides what the text claims. The list goes on of course across the planet.

Not to mention all the "cults" that have ended badly, or still skirt the edges of society today. Even the people who just believe in their personal psychic or tarot cards, astrology, etc.

The mind boggles at this effort throughout history to answer things possibly unknowable. And that's evidence enough for me to think none of them have a clue.

>> ^NetRunner:

It's a Christmas miracle!


God bless us, every one!

Wouldn't that be awesome if Christians became the new hippies and started living on little farms, growing marijuana?? I would love to buy Jesus weed. There would be Christians on sidewalks in cities doing tarot card reading and henna and working on progressive hard rock and blues albums with lyrics about Jesus fighting hordes of demons during the apocalypse.

God, I am really high.

col ralph peters,
i am liking this man less and less every time he pops on the tube.
he states that he does not know the particulars,but it "seems" to him bla bla bla.
the man is king of rhetoric,basing his theories on????
what? feelings? tarot cards? runes?
what a douchebag.

intro looks like a direct rip from 'Rome' except with tarot cards..

or is it vice versa?? I dunno. I never liked the style

when i first heard about the inner workings via southpark, I thought, 'who would actually believe this crap?'

Then I reminded myself that most of us still believe in tarot cards, star signs, chinese zodiacs, palm readings and etc.

When you're exposed to it, and there are no alternatives telling you that this is 'wrong', your mind is willing to believe anything...