Why can’t we prove there isn’t a god?
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@Nyarlathotep
Anyone here can examine the research for themselves. They can confirm everything I've mentioned here.
Well, if you don't trust me, you could go directly the peer-reviewed material and confirm it for yourself that none of this has anything to do with "woo" or "crackpot thinking."
I don't have a history of making "inaccurate claims." The only one that I made that I suppose didn't rub right with you is that not all bottled water you find out there is as filtered as you might imagine. That's not necessarily an "inaccurate claim." Aside from that, if I've made so much "inaccurate statements," you should at least be able to name one.
V.S.
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And that isn't counting the dishonest editing, plagiarism, citing a fictitious journal, misattributing conclusions to articles which do not support those conclusions, and just general lying you done on this site. At this point if you told us you had pancakes for breakfast; I wouldn't believe you without a receipt, and a picture of you eating them.
Okay, and I said aside from the water example, what do you have? Nothing. Precisely as I thought.
Let's dissect what you've said:
Dishonest editing? That's a baseless accusation. Unless you've some evidence, then I'm all ears.
What do you think I plagiarized? More baseless accusations.
The Scientific Journal of Psychopharmacology isn't a "fictitious journal." Try again.
Like which specific articles? What do you think that I'm somehow misrepresenting? All I've done here is reiterate precisely what has been established by the science that's been done.
You've got nothing, my friend.
Here
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You were caught (and admitted to) plagiarizing Terence McKenna by CyberLN.
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I never said the Scientific Journal of Psychopharmacology was a fictitious journal; so add straw manning to the list. I said "The Scientific Journal" is a fictitious journal.
I never plagiarized Terence McKenna. I've may have parroted him, but I surely wasn't plagiarizing. I also never referred to any journal as simply "The Scientific Journal," if that's the case, then "of Psychopharmacology" was probably omitted. That's one specific journal I've cited throughout these threads, along with The Public Library of Science. I see this as a weak attempt to lampoon my reputation here. Why do you have to resort to ad hominen, why don't you address the actual and modern science I cite rather than digging through something I posted almost 4 hours ago now?
You've already acknowledged that you did. But just for kicks:
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Terence McKenna - We have no tradition of shamanism. We have no tradition of journeying into these mental worlds. We are terrified of madness. We fear it because the Western mind is a house of cards, and the people who built that house of cards know that, and they are terrified of madness. Tim Leary once said...but whoever said it, this was a brilliant statement; someone once said, “LSD is a psychedelic substance which occasionally causes psychotic behaviour in people who have not taken it.”...right? And I would bet you that more people have exhibited psychotic behaviour from not taking LSD, but just thinking about it, than ever exhibited it from taking it – certainly in my family. I watched my parents both go psychotic from the mere fact that LSD existed; they would never have taken it.
Kafei - .................we have no tradition of shamanism, we have no tradition of journeying into these mental worlds; we are terrified of madness. We fear it because the western mind is a house of cards, and the people who built that house of cards know that, and they are terrified of madness. Tim Leary once said...but whoever said it, it was a brilliant statement ...Someone once said, “LSD is a psychedelic substance which occasionally causes psychotic behavior in people who have not taken it.” ...Right? And I would bet you that more people have exhibited psychotic behavior from not taking LSD, but just thinking about it than ever exhibited from taking it. Certainly in my family, I watched my parents both go psychotic from the mere fact that LSD existed. They would never have taken it.
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The bold part is the funniest, since it was originally about McKenna's parents, but after your plagiarism it reads as if it is about your parents.
Yes, and I did mention it was a quote from Terence. You're still going to get hung up over an exchange that happened over 4 years ago or are you going to address the modern research I've cited that no one here has addressed yet. They've misjudged it, they've misconstrued it, they've insisted that the Oxford English Dictionary is a better source to understand what this research is about instead of addressing how these terms are defined in the research, etc., but they've yet to properly address the science that's been done.
Only after you were busted for plagiarism; that is not how plagiarism works, it can't be undone later.
Also, even if you had cited McKenna (you didn't) as the author; you altered his quote. You altered the part where he talked about personally knowing Tim Leary, presumably to hide the fact that the words were not your own (no one would have believed that you knew Tim Leary). Guess what: that is also plagiarism.
It seems you are one crooked dude.
Not really. I did, after all, attribute the quote to Terence McKenna. If anyone here is a crooked dude, I might point out yourself. Instead of dealing with what I've been trying to redirect people's attention to, the science relative to these topics, you want to deflect on a nothing burger that happened over 4 years ago. You want to talk about a crooked dude? Get a mirror or why don't you try addressing the science I've cited?
Last time I tried that, the peer reviewed material (you linked) did not contain or support the conclusions you claimed it did (another red flag that you are dealing with a crackpot). Why should I try again?
@Nyar
That's funny, because I'm not saying anything other than what's been established by the research. Therefore, it's far more likely that you thought you pointed out something that I had said that wasn't supported by the research.
@Theist(God believers)
I have yet to see any of you give objective evidence that any god is real. How do you know that any god is real? All you have are your holy texts, written by humans. Humans who made up the gods they worship.
Could you begin by initially describing what you mean by God? Perhaps we can start there. I'm a theist, by the way.
@Kafei
A god or gods that created life and the universe. What is your description of a god?
Very different from the vantage point of Perennialism (The Perennial philosophy). In fact, phrases such as "God or Gods" is already a red flag from the Perennialist view, because a person using this phrase "God or Gods" is a good sign that they've been indoctrinated with a very naïve conception of the divine. We're definitely not discussing your grandma's God here, and within the Perennialist view, there are no multiple Gods. So "God and Gods" is meaningless. If you'd like a better conception of how God is understood within the context of the Perennial philosophy, I recommend my response here to Einy at post #173 at the freethoughtblogs thread for The Atheist Experience.
@Kafei
For god and gods being meaningless, you sure use it a lot in you reply to Einy. Did your god create you or did your parents have sex to make you?
Well, what I meant there was it was meaningless to imply more than one God according to the Perennial philosophy. If you're thinking of a God that is separate from its creation, that intervenes, then obviously that's not what I'm talking about. The Spinozan God that Einstein referenced is quite synonymous with how the divine is expressed at the core of the Perennial philosophy. I take it you didn't bother going through the links.
Dishonest evasion a lot? I see no pretence you are describing a deity in there. Oh and telling atheists that the phrase deity or deities is meaningless is like telling a vegetarian they shouldn't eat meat. You really do post a lot of woo woo nonsense I'm afraid.
Define your deity accurately, and demonstrate some objective evidence for it, else all you are doing is gushing over the naked Emperor's new clothes, whilst sneering at the little boy who's pointing and laughing at the naked Emperor.
@Kafei
Your silence on the god description, speaks loudly of your lack of a description of god.
Well, the Christian mystics did say that Theoria (direct vision of God) does silence humanity. You didn't give me an opportunity to respond, but it's up there, and take as much as time as you'd like reviewing the links. A haste response from you now would only reveal that you've not gone through those links. So, please, take as much time as you'd like to respond.
@Kafei
If you have a vision of god, what does god look like? Why did god failed to reveal itself to me when I was a devout christian?
@xenoview
At the height of the "complete" mystical experience people describe a brilliant inner light which has been referred to the Tabor light or uncreated light in Christian mysticism. The quakers have described it as "The Light upon the Candle Stick." I don't know if you've ever witnessed that example of a topological isomorphism where the doughnut is morphed into the coffee cup, and vice versa, but at every point of the transformation, the volume is kept intact. Well, a "complete" mystical experience is sort of like that, there is an impression of all time in all places collapsing into a single moment. And what that looks like is not very easily described, but what many people describe is something quite akin to a mandalic pattern that forms behind close eyeds, these images pay no justice, but many people describe very kaleidoscopic-like mandelbrot-type fractals of the julia set. And this is riddled as well throughout art history. You can find it in the Mayan calendar, you can find it in the Tibetan mandalas, you can find these patterns throughout the stained glass in religious cathedrals, the Celtic “Triquetra” mandalas, they're riddled throughout all forms of religious art.
Well, for the early Christian mystics, they engaged these mystical states or Theoria by cultivating spiritual disciplines and techniques aimed at eliciting the Beatific vision. Did you ever practice quietism or hesychasm or anything like that? If not, then that would be one explanation as to why you never had these experiences despite your devout belief.
@Kalei
So all god is, is a light in your mind? So you are saying I didn't practice the right form of Christianity? No, I didn't practice any forms of mysticism when I was a christian.
I had visions of a pagan goddess when I was a pagan. She had blonde hair, green eyes, and tan skin.
@xenoview
No, that's not necessarily the implication. The mandala or light is all-inclusive, it's representative of all things. There is a collapse of the subject-object duality that we all experience in our everyday waking sober consciousness. This subject-object duality is completely dissolved in this experience, and so there is a sense of merging with the Totality of existence itself. It's more of a panentheistic description of the divine (not to be confused with pantheism).
Yes, there's a reason they call it "Orthodox Christianity." Orthodox meaning "right view" or "correct view." That is the source of all Christian sects, even the ones that went astray after the East and West Schism a.k.a. The Great Schism of 1054 that culminated in the Hesychast controversy.
Well, then that would explain your lack of mystical experience.
That sounds quite akin to the archetypal/visionary states spoken about that are related, but they are not the same as what these professionals are referring to as the unitive or "complete" mystical experience.
@Kafei
How do the orthodox know they have the right or correct view of christianity?
Why can't god just appear as the goddess did to me?
@xenoview
It holds roots and ties in the Original Roman Catholic church. This is how religion was practiced at its very nascency. Symeon the New Theologian made Theoria his principle teaching as it had been in the very roots of Christianity.
Unfortunately doesn't work that way.
@Kafei
If god can't reveal itself, then god must not be real.
I came to realize that the vision of the goddess was a dream, and nothing more. You vision of light is not a god revealing itself to you.
Your christian belief is just made up by humans to control humans.
@xenoview
God can.
Perhaps it was a dream, especially if it happened while you were asleep.
I'm not a Christian, and this inner light has been the only fashion the divine has been revealed in man or woman. It's never happened in any other fashion.
@Kafei
So you are an eastern religion follower? Which one do you follow?
Do you believe that there is only on god for every religion?
Do you meditate with candles?
@xenoview
I'm a Perennialist, that is to say I'm an adherent of the Perennial philosophy.
Yes, there is one divine source shared by all the major religions according to the Perennial philosophy.
I do meditate, and I don't use candles.
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