Just atad more on the Einstein and Spinoza issue. Einstein's "belief" in Spinoza's God is one of his most widely quoted statements. But quoted out of context, like so many of these statements, it is misleading at best. It all started when Boston's Cardinal O'Connel attacked Einstein and the General Theory of Relativity and warned the youth that the theory "cloaked the ghastly apparition of atheism" and "befogged speculation, producing universal doubt about God and His creation"(Clark, 1971, 413-414). Einstein had already experienced heavier duty attacks against his theory in the form of anti-Semitic mass meetings in Germany, and he initially ignored the Cardinal's attack. Shortly thereafter though, on April 24, 1929, Rabbi Herbert Goldstein of New York cabled Einstein to ask: "Do you believe in God?"(Sommerfeld, 1949, 103). Einstein's return message is the famous statement: "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings"
Beb, I would if there was any reason to include them. We can speculate and fantasize about such things but unless anyone can detect them then why say there is anything other than the physics we call nature?
Cris one of us must be evolving...I understand your reasoning better than I did in the old days. LOL Hahaha Hows life?
I would need to know more about Spinozas definition of God to be able to agree on this. But since it's not possible to prove anything nonphysical physically, maybe only mentally and emotionally, then I would not want to impose my beliefs on your definition of nature. And the word "nature" is sort of already taken by the materialists and the atheists. Although I would like to use the word for what I believe it should include, since everything that is is very natural. I think the best thing to do is to invent a totally new word that matches what I believe in, that I can then use in my utterly intelligent arguments about the nature of reality. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Thats the key to deciding what factors we are able to accept as the all illusive proof Bebelina.....we can prove non tangible "things" only by observing and trying to gain understanding of the reaction it causes in tangible things. Sometimes along with accepting those things we also must accept we shall never fully understand them...or perhaps not for a long time.
Hi Taken, nice to see you back. How does something spiritual connect with something physical if it is not itself physical? The entire basis for a soul communicating with the physical breaks down at this elementary level. If you reason this through then you have to conclude that the spirit must be physical. And that is fine since we can account for that in neuroscience – your mind is the result of the neural networks that comprise your brain. You might say that we don’t know that for sure, and I would partly agree since the brain still requires a great deal of analysis. But that is a good reason to not prematurely jump to a conclusion that a “spirit” is not physical until you can properly account for the full ability of that colossally complex organ inside your head. At that time if the brain doesn’t do everything that you currently attribute to a soul then you would be rational to hypothesize about the possibility of a soul.
That was good Terrafutan, the "ii". Very good. I guess if telekinesis became more common we could finally prove something to the slowminded...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Had this thread gone where I wanted it to go, I would respond; but it seems to have become a discussion of nature. That's alright though. My point is that modern Christians once again contradict the desires of God when he is in his war deity mode.
Infinite intelligence means exactly what it says. The concept of something being infinite is of course always hard to grasp, and so is the concept of intelligence. But since we don't know exactly how much all that is, is, we often view it as infinite. And all the combined consciousnesses that exist must together be extremely intelligent, from a human point of view anyway. And this new label, is made for human understanding, not as an exact desciption of what "ii" really is, because that I think is not possible to know, maybe sometime in a very evolved existance, but not know as humans. We can try though, and that we are doing. Maybe someone has come up with the right description, but rest of us can never tell which one it is. Or maybe all description are right, that it must be. Paradoxes included. Cris, I don't think this can be put as a label to your description of nature though, so we ( I) drop the nature definition and leave it to the atheists. Or?
Bebelina, LOL. So it is a vague term and largely meaningless then, right? But sounds “deep”. But nature is everything that is or can be detectable. Otherwise it doesn’t exist. It is claimed that there is a ‘supernatural’ realm, but no one has really been able to define what that means and if it exists or could exist or how it might interact with nature without itself being natural. Not so very long ago radio-waves were unknown. They still remain invisible to the human eye since that sensor does not operate at those frequencies. Could there be other forms of energy or forces that we have yet to discover? No one knows, I hope so, and it would be arrogant to assume that we currently know all that there is. Could there be something that allows telekinesis or telepathy? I have no idea. The problem with trying to label the unknown is that one has no idea what the unknown is so any label will almost certainly be wrong. In which case why even try? Could you imagine living 1000 years ago and assigning the label of ‘electromagnetic radiation’ to the light coming from the sun? I have heard many say that the power of the human brain is infinite, but we know from neuroscience that is has very finite limitations. The term ‘infinite’ seems to be an overly misused term and tends to really mean something unimaginably large. But ‘infinite’ isn’t simply a large number, in fact it cannot describe any numerical value. It is simply something that doesn’t have a boundary. Perhaps, but they must be combined. For example, and I hope you understand a little bit about binary. Take 2 binary digits and show their combinations – 00,01,10,11. There are 4 possibilities. Let’s say this represents the intelligence of one individual. Now is the combined intelligence of two people 2 x 4 combinations, making a power factor of 8 or is it something else? So let’s take two sets of 2 binary digits and combine them and see what happens – 0000,0001,0010,0011,0100,0101,0110,0111,1000,1001,1010,1011,1100,1101,1110,1111. That gives us 16 combinations, what happened to the prediction 8? This really is a case where the total is greater than the sum of the parts. So I think you are right, if all our individual intelligences could be combined then the result would be staggering, and more so than you are suggesting. Perhaps if all the matter and energy in our infinite universe could be organized into one single combined intelligence then yes I could visualize “infinite intelligence”. But at the moment we are not combined, we are very much separate and very limited. It seems to me inevitable that the human race will evolve along those lines and will find ways to combine individuals into larger intelligences. I believe I can also see quite clearly how to achieve that in the not too distant future. What ya reckon?
Oooh, Cris thank you for explaining it to me in computer terms, makes it so modern. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Well, like you said it, I think "ii" fits very well. Where we differ is where you think we are not combined, I think we are. I know you don't believe in souls etc, but I do, so I will take them in account, and even if souls were excluded, we still have the subconscious. Maybe our brains are not just designed to comprehend the collective consciousness, for whatever reason. I don't know why, but maybe the "ii" want to experience limits to be able to define itself. Doesn't many animal groups show collective consciousness too , ants? We can clearly see that from the outside, but the ant probably think it's very individualistic. Perhaps it is the same with us.
God pro life? if you believe that God CONTROLS EVERYTHING,and is ALLMIGHTY then He is the biggest murderer in the world; He drowned all living beings,(including the innocent children)in the Great flood,he creates earthquakes,tornados,volcanic eruptions,floods,sicknesses,etc,He makes people kill others in His name,need I go on??? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- thank god I dont believe in him.
You are talking about the christian god now? Not the "ii"? Why even bother talking about the christian god now that I have invented a better one? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But , just for the sake of argument, why would anybody make anybody suffer? There must be some logical reason for it, otherwise it would not happen. And it's not because people are just dumb or cruel, think larger. What could the reason be? I'm not saying I like how the system works, as soon as I get a chance I will complain, but I would like to know the meaning of suffering. What do you think it is?
Q, How do u come to the conclusion that Einstein was an atheist..? ( Pl don't quote that 'jesuit point of view'.)
Well it seems everyone forgets Einstein was just a man. He may well have been smart but his works were based on theory, not facts. He could not answer any fact concerning the validity of god- nobody can. Again i point out the self righteous behaviour of the religious masses. Nobody on this earth can answer the question of gods existence with actual fact. We can all assume and summise, we can all guess and believe whatever we want but we cannot, i repeat: can NOT state anything as fact. There are hundreds, if not thousands, or religions and beliefs. You do not have any right to assume you are the person in the correct. In order to ever find solutions and answers, no matter how minimal, one must search instead of instantly subscribing to something because their parents told them to or they had a life turning moment, (near death experience etc). The belief in god because you nearly died but somehow survived is hardly a valid argument to his existence. Saying your parents told you god was there is just as worthless. The only way we'll ever know is to ask questions and endeavor to find the truth, even if it's an answer we dont want to hear. You can by all means sit and sing hymns or you can go out and search, that is upto you. If you like being confined to a belief without knowing the facts, just assuming you do then that too is fine, if not a tad narrow minded. As a prime example we could discuss the shroud of turin. It is a proven fake, but the religious institutions deny any such thing because to deny is to accept your own error and misjudgment. All the science we have and are able to use is far more trustworthy than belief. Of course you'll never see how silly it sounds to state you know the facts when you dont. Imagine for one second me stating that frogs talk spanish to each other. I know that for a fact. I can believe frogs speak spanish, but i cant prove it, thus it isn't fact. Bebelina has shown another reason for belief. She/he states there MUST be a reason for suffering... Makes your life so much more comfortable knowing you can point all the misery and horror at someone who will never answer back. So let us all search for the truth instead of just buying into anything to make life more comfortable. A good suggestion is to try to find the source of all writing. It is a proven FACT that so much of the bible and many other religious works derive from Sumerian, thus i point my efforts there for now. The original Genesis is quite clear on using the term gods, (plural). The bible is but a mere copy/poor translation of that text- It leaves questions to the overall validity of the bible itself, or a majority of it. As it is under intense scrutiny as to any validity it has to offer i'd suggest we all start searching for god from a more reliable source. We'll never know the truth, that doesn't mean it isn't worth looking for. Don't just trust something because you nearly died, or because mummy told you too... search for the real answers.
No no, Snakey, don't put words in my mouth, I did not say that. There must not be a reason, but I think there is. And whatever that reason would be, I would not use it to point my finger at any god and say "you are responsible". Well maybe sometimes, if that was truly the case..Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There is always a reason for everything, we just have to find out what it is. Like what is the philosophical meaning of suffering, does it make us grow, become better beings, to be able to recognize what suffering is not , or what? Yes, all the bibles and such are written by ordinary people, but with extraordinary experiences or beliefs or thoughts.
