My journey into atheism and theories on life

[Binky]

religion is definitely a source of violence

Only sometimes. Religion has frequently been the cause (or at least excuse for) positive work.

 

[Klumpen]

Daoism, Buddhism, Hare-Krishna and all the other peaceful ones are sources of violence too?

 

[FaeMinx]

Firstly, I loved reading the first post. I completely relate, and am encouraged to see such dedication to seeking the truth!

I was brought up a christian. My grandfather was actually a priest, a very 'serious about God' guy who also stood up against establishment and I have a huge amount of respect for my late Grandfather. His genuine love for God as he understood 'it', was a real inspiration.

Now, I was (and AM) very serious about God (or Truth, as I like to call it). Not because I was brought up that way, but because I really and truly want to know the truth.

I am no longer a christian... I outgrew that yeeeeeeeeeears ago because the church simply didn't ask enough questions or plain didn't think things through with an open enough mind.

I have since explored everything my ceaselessly curious mind (and heart) could find in my quest for Absolute Undeniable Truth.

Researching quantum mechanics was terribly exciting. For me, science is barely starting to scratch the surface, but the more that is being discovered by human beings, the more that what *I already know* is being validated.

Huh? You might ask?

Well, here's the kicker...

As a christian child, imagine what kind of questions are raised if you:

1) Dream of other worlds / planes of existence / non human beings in a ratio of roughly 80% in comparison to about 20% dreams relating to human beings and earth.

2) Regularly have Out of Body experience or Lucid Dreams.

3) Have intimate non-verbal conversations with Plants, Animals, Rocks, and even the atmosphere. I stress the word 'conversation' because they were not 'one-way' dialogues.

4) Felt like human existence was some bizarre absurd dream that I was going to wake up out of at any moment... except I never woke up.

5) Experienced communications from non-physical beings. By communication, i mean anything from visions to emotional imprinting, to...

6) Seeing sound.

7) Have moments where I experienced my perspective oscillate from being infinitely small to infinitely large and then increase in frequency until I experienced both simultaneously for a short time. I always found these experiences vaguely disturbing...

So what "theories" and so-called facts that we have in this day and age are others going to look back on in a hundred years and laugh at us about ?

So we probably shouldn't place so much confidence and be so belligerent about  what we think we know to be facts. And we probably shouldn't talk about how much more "intellectual" we are than others. Might come back to bite us right in our backsides.

I'm going to save all the juicy details of my quest for truth (from childhood to the Present Moment) for another time and another thread... because, while it directly relates to this one, it also opens up another whole can of worms.

I'm just going to leave this here:

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/esp_vida_alien_19a.htm

I kindly suggest you read through the whole article, even though it is even longer than the OP.

Then, I suggest you do further research.

Then, you have a choice of either:

A) Debate the validity of the information and/or intellectualize it in this thread. (in which I may or may not take part)   Or

B) Ask me questions in this thread:

 http://boards.openpandora.org/index.php/topic/14603-ask-faeminx-questions/

 

[ekianjo]

Daoism, Buddhism, Hare-Krishna and all the other peaceful ones are sources of violence too?

Haha... peaceful ones?

You never heard of Buddhist fighting monks ?

ANd you never heard of Buddhist preaching for Japan to go to war before WW2 ?

All religions can be violent. Men make them.

You seem to be under the impression that a patent means that what is described in the patent actually works.

That's the concept of a patent on paper: you disclose an invention, and you get protection afterwards.

If you don't disclose the invention properly you should not be getting the patent in the first place.

 

[WizardStan]

That's the concept of a patent on paper: you disclose an invention, and you get protection afterwards.

If you don't disclose the invention properly you should not be getting the patent in the first place.

I agree, that should be the case. On paper that is exactly how it should work. Unfortunately that isn't the case. The system is broken and it isn't the scientists fault, please don't claim that their work "isn't science" just because the marketing department is trying to capitalize on every little thing that may turn out to be profitable.

 

[comradekingu]

You said "bible belt giving you trouble" And I took that as slightly offensive

I see what was dids.

 

[ekianjo]

That's the concept of a patent on paper: you disclose an invention, and you get protection afterwards. If you don't disclose the invention properly you should not be getting the patent in the first place.

I agree, that should be the case. On paper that is exactly how it should work. Unfortunately that isn't the case. The system is broken and it isn't the scientists fault, please don't claim that their work "isn't science" just because the marketing department is trying to capitalize on every little thing that may turn out to be profitable.

its not just patents. publications are full of shit as well. improper experiments designs, unreliable conclusions, i stay to my claim that most of the so called scientific work out there is biased andmisleading. bring me any paper anytime and i will point out their obvious flaws.

 

[bzar]

its not just patents. publications are full of shit as well. improper experiments designs, unreliable conclusions, i stay to my claim that most of the so called scientific work out there is biased andmisleading. bring me any paper anytime and i will point out their obvious flaws.

Math okay?

Random example:

http://www.math.md/files/basm/y2011-n2/y2011-n2-%28pp23-40%29.pdf

Okay, this is probably easier since it's experimental (microbiology)

http://www.pnas.org/content/87/20/7839.full.pdf

And one more from your field (chemistry)

http://ipn2.epfl.ch/chbu/papers/cntpapers/applications/balavoine_ac99.pdf

 

[Klumpen]

Daoism, Buddhism, Hare-Krishna and all the other peaceful ones are sources of violence too?

Haha... peaceful ones?

You never heard of Buddhist fighting monks ?

ANd you never heard of Buddhist preaching for Japan to go to war before WW2 ?

All religions can be violent. Men make them.

Yes I heard of them, but Siddharta did not preach violence in any way or at any point afaik (I can find nothing in this direction in the Dhammapada f.e.)

Mohammed did (especcially after he got power and changed his mind about peace) and so did the writers of some stories that made it into the Thora and Bible.

 

[WizardStan]

its not just patents. publications are full of shit as well. improper experiments designs, unreliable conclusions, i stay to my claim that most of the so called scientific work out there is biased andmisleading. bring me any paper anytime and i will point out their obvious flaws.

Ok, I pick any paper you've published. Doesn't matter which one.

 

[FaeMinx]

Oooo... guys... Put down the sharp objects before someone gets hurt.

 

[ekianjo]

Daoism, Buddhism, Hare-Krishna and all the other peaceful ones are sources of violence too?

 
Haha... peaceful ones?


You never heard of Buddhist fighting monks ?


ANd you never heard of Buddhist preaching for Japan to go to war before WW2 ?


All religions can be violent. Men make them.

Yes I heard of them, but Siddharta did not preach violence in any way or at any point afaik (I can find nothing in this direction in the Dhammapada f.e.)
Mohammed did (especcially after he got power and changed his mind about peace) and so did the writers of some stories that made it into the Thora and Bible.

jesus did not preach violence either. does not matter what the original leader stood for. religion can change after depending on who takes control over it. thats what people call buddhism then especially since there are no original writings from the buddha himself or even anyone remotely close to him.


buddhist priest should not be rich either if they were following buddha s style of life. yet they all pactice religion as a business in japan and display their jaguars in front of the temples.

 

[comradekingu]

Jesus isnt the original leader to judeo-christianity, nor is judeo-christianity an original religion.

 

[comradekingu]

Accountability of science doesnt take away from its veracity, its how it works. Its an axiom-deductive system, where you place things in relation to each other and the whole thing up for scrutiny. The validity of the system is how well it works, and we have nothing better.

 

[b_o_b]

Indeed, science is the world as we see it in a reproducible way. You can doubt everything we see - e.g. the matrix - and that can be very nice for a philosophical debate but at the end of the day it is the only thing that we can be reasonably certain about. 

Even the most religious people behave like the world surrounding them obeys scientific laws. Only they have created a new 'science', the science of the not to be proven to make them feel better or to give them control over other people. If I am going to tell everybody I am god and I have populated my body just to talk to everyone there is nobody that can prove I am wrong. The probability I am god is just as high as there is truth in all other religions. No scientific prove vs no scientific prove.

Basically I don't really mind religion as long as it is not damaging for the person practising it or people in their surroundings. Most religions unfortunately don't seem to work like that. That is why I am against religion.. but am not against religious people. IRL there are quite a few I really like. They are humans just like me and this is just  a small % of their total being that I don't agree with.  

 

[SNESFAN]

@_wb_ I'm really digging the pastafarian "religion" although a little eccentric for my tastes, but hilarious none the less. I feel it goes a bit too far in the activist way of thinking though, but it's core point I feel is correct.

it's and my points can be summed up in the russell's teapot theory, simplistic and very to the point. Thanks for leading me to find that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

 

[Klumpen]

Honor the great Invisible Pink Unicorn!

 

[ekianjo]

Accountability of science doesnt take away from its veracity, its how it works. Its an axiom-deductive system, where you place things in relation to each other and the whole thing up for scrutiny. The validity of the system is how well it works, and we have nothing better.

Thats not my point. Of course Science is a great thing and has proven to work very well in most areas, noone disputes that. The point is about not making science into a religion either, since we need to be able to keep a critique eye on it and challenge it when necessary. Thats not happening nowadays, every newspaper story about scientific results starts with "Scientists have proven..." which is basically the same thing as saying "Some unnamed entity that we have to believe in...". 

Scientists are human. They are not always right. They make mistakes. They are not always on the same page regarding the studies and results disclosed. Why turn them into a uniform group whenever results or opinions are expressed ?

On top of bad science, this is another danger: making science the new religion that noone can contest or argue against.

 

[bzar]

On top of bad science, this is another danger: making science the new religion that noone can contest or argue against.

There you do have to take into account the matter of practicality. Some scientific theories are so well established that arguing against or contesting them without evidence against them or for another competing theory (which still explains everything the mainstream theory does) is a waste of time. This happens often when the contesting party is not well versed in the theory he's arguing against or familiar with the evidence for it. In those cases the more informed party may decide that unless the other party comes up with some compelling evidence and not just anecdotes, he's probably not informed enough to even talk about the subject. It may seem arrogant or "religious faith" to the uninformed, but it's really tedious to answer arguments presented and settled about two centuries ago. A polite person only suggests some material to read in that situation. When you have theories upon theories resting on the fact that somethign works like another theory says and they all work as expected, you pretty much don't need to do the experiments yourself to trust the underlying theory as a practical fact.
There ARE people relating to science as dogmatically as one would to a religion, but I wanted to point out that special case where the two may be confused with one another.

 

[FaeMinx]

it's and my points can be summed up in the russell's teapot theory, simplistic and very to the point. Thanks for leading me to find that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

Your link didn't work correctly. Try this one.

Russel seems like quite a cheeky fellow... love the little grin he has in the photo.

- the kind of person who would be fun to know!