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Apparently you do: i'm British so i spell it pretence. I mention science because loads of religious people try to hijack the apparatus of science to validate existing beliefs. I'm sure you have heard of Creationists, for instance. Except i'm not trying to masquerade an ought for an is. That's why i explicitly said should, so that everyone (except you apparently), would realise that i'm expressing an opinion. I'm not alone in this view, as counting the number of angels on the head of a pin has become a metaphor for precisely this kind of pretence. Honestly, i'm not trying to to wail on you, but if you can't even distinguish when someone is expressing an opinion rather than stating a fact when they have used the word should, then how can anyone take anything you say seriously? And in those thousands of years religion has been wrong on the age of the universe, orbital mechanics, the origin of man and species - the list is pretty long. Religion has so clearly failed on empirical matters that only religious extremists consult scripture instead of the evidence for things like the shape of the Earth, or whether vaccines work. As a practicing Buddhist, i would agree - sort of. Meditation gives great experiential insight into consciousness - but certainly not as an academic study. You can read every book ever written by meditation and know nothing about the experience of your own mind. Whatever floats your boat.

I will resist derailing the thread.

OK, let’s talk about why science and math are important to test ideas. You have come up with an idea that you think it is correct. You think it is correct because it makes perfect sense to you. It makes perfect sense to you because you created it based on what you know. So it exactly matches your expectations. Now you want other people to accept your idea. But here’s the thing. Science forums like this one are full of people with their personal theories. These are all different, relying on aether, vortices, springs, waves, new particles, new types of energy, superfluids, supersolids, supercrystals, harmonic resonance, etc etc. All these different ideas cannot all be right. And yet, their proponents are all as equally convinced that they are correct as you are. And then there are hundreds of “real” scientists with their ideas based on things like symmetry groups, string theory, causal dynamical triangulation, topological defects etc (all of which are completely over my head). So, how can we decide which of these ideas are correct or not? We need some way of testing them. In order to test these ideas (or hypotheses) humans have developed, over several centuries, the idea of science as a process for testing things based on objective quantitative evidence. This requires the theory to make testable predictions. This means they need to be precise. Not just “this will happen” but exactly how large the effect will be and how much it differs from existing theories. Producing such quantitative predictions requires mathematics. Sorry, but that is just a fact. Without testable predictions, and therefore without mathematics, you are not doing science. I have not seen any such tests from you that would objectively distinguish your idea from existing explanations.

Oh, I would. (But that might just be because it was included in my humanities course!) It is a part of human culture and experience. And, has profound links to art, history and language.

It is based on the perspective that religion should be experiential rather than cerebral. I value the academic study of the humanities - the idea that academia belongs solely to science was assumed by you. But i would not include religion in the humanities. The difference being that science is backed up with mathematical models tested against nature. Religion is not: when tested against observation, it has consistently failed . It's value, if any, lies elsewhere. The Pope doesn't necessarily know more about the practice of Christianity than some pauper who found value in the forgiveness offered by Christ and learned to spread that kindness - unless all you care about are appearances, then yes, i'm sure the Pope could name all the saints and prayers of compassion, even while staying silent during the holocaust. I raised compassion as i thought the idea that its study and its practice are different things, with value mainly in the latter, would be intuitive. This was to give an intuitive idea that the study of religion is useless without the practice. The split off topic, as far as i can discern, is what Biblical scripture has to say about the Soul. I thought you might value another perspective - obviously i was mistaken. No one is forcing you to discuss anything with me - just stop replying to me if you're getting nothing out of it.

John Bauer; It was a pleasure to read your comments in this thread, as it is not often that I find someone who is so obviously intelligent, knowledgeable, and educated in these matters, and is also religious. (At least it is rare in this discussion forum.) I am sorry that I did not notice your thread earlier, as I would have loved to have a discussion with you on the matter of "souls". I am a philosopher by nature and habit, not by formal training, and have studied consciousness for most of my life. My studies have naturally caused me to also study Religion, but I should notify you that I, myself, am not religious. This does not stop me from appreciating and respecting Religion, and if anything, causes me to try to protect people's religious beliefs. There is a good chance that you are no longer posting in this forum, and I can't say that I would blame you after the less than adequate responses you received. You were looking for intelligent conversation and did not get it. Believe it or not, many of the members here are knowledgeable and intelligent; it is only when posting in the Religion forum that they seem to "eat a plate full of stupid" before posting. If you are reading this, and are still interested in conversation, let me know via the PM system -- send me a private message -- of where we might be able to have a real discussion on the matter of souls. Maybe another forum? Gee

I hate people like this. With this attitude, everything we learn will never be passed on and die in a single generation. Freezing Method: very tedious cool the 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution just to the point where ice crystals start to form and filter them off, repeat until desired concentration Boiling Method: not viable due to a high degradation of H2O2 caused by the high temperatures however, it can be done so long as you do NOT FULLY BOIL the solution and keep the solution free of dust, agitation, and anything that will increase the rate of degradation there should very little if any bubbles coming off, the point here is to just increase the solutions rate of evaporation Rotovap: best yielding method, requires a rather expensive Rotary evaporator and is not suitable for amateur chemists. BEST METHOD - Vacuum Distilation: does require some glassware but the apparatus can be built for ~$50 on ebay if you are an amateur chemist you most likely will just need to spend $10 on a cheap pump and power supply (will already have the distillation apparatus) almost as good a yield as the rotovap Pull the best vacuum you can with your equipment or right before the solution is about to boil Apply a minimum amount of heat to the distillation flask containing 3% H2O2 (to prevent degradation) The concentration of final H2O2 product can be estimated by the volume of water that distilled over

Is masturbation healthy? I hope so, otherwise all that healthy eating is for nothing. And I'd hate to be blind.

Moontanman; Please note that I stated "many" members, not all members. You did not post in this thread prior to my comments, and as far as I know, you have never communicated with John Bauer, so it is a little presumptuous to assume that I was talking about you. So you are saying that the above comments are examples of your cool logic? your deep analysis? your critical thinking? What should I say to that? What can I say to that? I rest my case? Gee dimreepr; It is really very simple; I got tired of apologetics. When I first joined Science forums, I had a real respect for Science, you could even say that I was in awe of much of Science. A few years in this forum has taught me that there are two Sciences -- the real one that I still respect -- and the other wannabe one that I see displayed in the Philosophy and Religion forums. There is no Science in the comments in this thread, just a lot of arrogance, ignorance, and bias. It is obvious as a nose on a face that the members posting here have no real education as regards Religion, and learned their religious ideas at their mother's knee or in their local churches. They have a very layman's understanding and did not even know what John Bauer was talking about. I am simply tired of apologizing for wannabe scientists. Gee

Strange; Philosophy is not Philosophy? What? Religion is not in the Philosophy section? What? So stop supporting them. A few points to consider: 1) You did not post in this thread prior to my comments, so I was not referencing your posts. 2) Pretty much everything you know comes from "educational sources", because that is what you trust. That is why you are a "science guy" because you only trust the "known" as being valid. Philosophy deals with the as yet "unknown", or not yet validated. 3) You recently asked me to prove a negative and even called it a "reasonable" request. Logic is not your forte, so you don't trust it, which is why you are not a philosopher. Philosophy uses logic, analysis, and critical thinking to put parameters around the unknown. 4) I have often wished that I could have a discussion with you, Prometheus, and even dimreepr, as you all have knowledge about Religion that I would like to learn about and discuss. But I can't get past the downvoting, bias, and ignorance that permeates this forum, so I gave up. There are other forums and other people, who have studied Religion. Gee Prometheus; What is wrong with laymen vehemently arguing a point with a person educated in the subject matter? Let's say that I took my layman's understanding of Physics to the Physics forum (like that would ever happen), and then I told Swansont that he had no idea of what he was talking about. What kind of fool would I look like? Well, that is the kind of fool some members in this thread looked like. Compassion is not the subject of this thread, and since you admittedly don't care (underlined by me) what the subject is, you are off-topic. Your inability to discipline your mind to the subject at hand is one of the reasons why I do not relish discussion with you. Your opinion is noted and worthless. It is based on the premise that "academia" belongs solely to Science. Nonsense. I just want to study consciousness. It is an elusive subject that has defied understanding by some of the greatest minds we have ever known. Early on I learned that a person has to throw out their biases, discipline their thoughts, and reexamine their "truths" in order to learn anything about this subject. I wanted to talk to Quiet in the NDE thread, as he made some interesting and intelligent comments, but I was loath to draw him into a discussion in a thread that quickly turned into a "witch hunt". I wanted to talk to John Bauer as he also made some interesting and intelligent comments, but I did not get to him before he left the forum. My greatest fear is that I will become as sloppy in my thinking as others have become. That is why I have been looking at other forums, because there is no one here who can help me. Gee

Prometheus; You might want to study Hume. He lived many centuries ago, is a well respected philosopher, and had a lot to say about "should be". Of course he called it "ought to be" because that was the terminology used in his time; you can find his work in Wiki under "is and ought". In a nutshell, he explained that people will take what "is" and replace it with what "ought to be" so they can always be right. imo No. The only thing I assumed was that when you used the word "pretence", you meant pretense. This is what you stated: "All this pretence at academia by 'religious' people seems to belie an insecurity and need for validation with science." "Pretense at academia" means that they are pretending to be academic. It is not real, whereas you validate with Science which you believe to be real. Do we need another English lesson? I am not sure what you are observing. Religion has been around for tens of thousands of years all over the world as validated by archeology and still permeates cultures and societies today. If that is failure, what would be success? One of it's values lies in the study of consciousness. Of course I would value another perspective, but it would have to be on topic. We already discussed this in another thread, and I did not find that you had more to offer on the subject of souls. Oh, but it is so much fun to watch you build your reputation on nonsense. Arguing with me is always good for an up-vote. Gee