LimbicLoser

Anyway, just for the purpose of sharing, here:

 

This thing 'I' in you is this thing 'Consciousness' in you.

This is not going to cut it at all. First of all the usage of the word 'thing,' is misleading. The sentiment of 'self' is deeper than the processing which amounts to the condition of having a state of consciousness. ⁽¹⁾

 

And this thing 'I' in you or this thing 'Consciousness' in you is the only entity who is 'self aware' as well as 'other aware'

The state of having consciousness does not always mean that 'self' is identified. Sometimes what is normally registered as 'self' (that is, one's own body, or mental processing results) is registered as 'not self.' In these cases, self is broken because brain processing has gone astray.⁽²⁾

 

It is this thing 'I'' in you or this thing 'Consciousness' in you who says:- 'I exist' & 'matter' exists.

This is incorrect in a number of ways. The better of the aggregate evidence (I'll leave the citation aside due to time limits; but trust my research, please.) gives the greater vote to 'self-related' cognitive processes as being more right hemisphere, than not. Inner speech is most usually left hemisphere and is quite disconnected (so to speak) from the right's 'self realizing.' Again, this is largely pre-conscious cognitive activity for the more thinkable part. (Consider: Eagleman, David (2011) Incognitio--The Secret Lives of the Brain. Pantheon Books: New York; Damasio, Antonio (2010) Self Comes to Mind--Constructing the Conscious Brain. Pantheon Books: New York.)

 

As for the understanding that we can only know of things which we classify as 'physical,' I know for a fact that you, chandragupta, cannot go out and secure anything at all which does not at least supervene on physical substrate, and put it here on the barrel head for all of us to see. Words empty of any value at all, are words of worth nothing.

 

Matter is neither 'self aware' nor 'other aware'. Matter needs existence of this thing 'I' in you or the existence of this thing 'Consciousness' in you for the affirmation it's existence. Remember this.

At least I am glad to see that you do not subscribe to panpsychism. I am sad to see, nevertheless, that you are so entrenched in your categorical error, and are yet so impoverished by that error's power to hide itself, that you have no idea at all what is wrong with what you have typed out here. However, I do understand. (Compare: Shermer, Michael (2011) The Believing Brain--From GHOSTS AND GODS TO POLITICS AND CONSPIRACIES--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. Times Books, Henry Holt and Company: New York)

 

And, as a side note... So what's the problem? You like to use an Indian sounding name, but cannot understand Hindi? Interesting role play, there.

 

 

 

 

1. Baer, Ruth A., et al. (2012)Emotion-related cognitive processes in borderline personality disorder: A review of the empirical literature. Clinical Psychology Review 32(5), pp. 359-369.

Blanke, Olaf, et al. (2005) Linking Out-of-Body Experience and Self Processing to Mental Own-Body Imagery at the Temporoparietal Junction. Jour Neuro Sci 25(3), pp. 550-557.

Wei, Min, and Angelaki, Dora E. (2006) Foveal Visual Strategy during Self-Motion Is Independent of Spatial Attention. Jour Neuro Sci 26(2) pp. 564-572.

Thirioux, Berangere, et al. (2010) Mental Imagery of Self-Location during Spontaneous and Active Self-Other Interactions: An Electrical Neuroimaging Study. Jour Neuro Sci 30(21), pp. 7202-7214.

Longo, Matthew R., Azanon, Elena, and Haggard, Patrick (2010) More than skin deep: Body representation beyond primary somatosensory cortex. Neuropsychologia 48(3), pp. 655-668.

 

2. Bradley, Walter, G. (2009) Treating the Brain - What the Best Doctor's Know. DANA Press.

Giumarra, Melita, J., et al. (2011) The third hand: Ownership of a rubber hand in addition to the existing (phantom) hand. Cortex 47(8), pp. 998-1000.

Sacks, Oliver (2012) Hallucinations. Alfred A. Knopf: New York.

To those whom it may concern: Is the allowance of such, surely obviously insincere as to explaining in any at least understandably-so degree of scientific thinking posting allowed to continue for some particular purpose?

 

To the OPP. You are mistaken because--as the evidence most clearly demonstrates--you have failed to keep up with what is known, as opposed to what had been imagined in the Bhramic, Vedic, and Yogic traditions of the Arians. Additionally, you have never worked in clinical situations, nor have been exposed to them, where the brain processing which amounts to the 'self' is disrupted so as to allow a 'run-away-brain.'

 

No, there is no non-physical substrate activity at all. When the individual organ of each separate and distinct individual produces the effect of an emergent self, it is exactly due to the processing centers of that organ which does so. This is not mere opinion, this is fact. When you, chandragupta (kay app bharat men rahte hein?), write that off, it is because you are not informed. (ji, eyh tik-tak bhat hai) Please do more carefully consider it. (bahoot shukriya ji)

 

LL

The issue is whether consciousness has come out of matter or matter has come out of consciousness? I feel more comfortable with the idea that matter has come out of consciousness & not the other way round.

Two conditions (at least) will have to be met to demonstrate any high enough truth value in your assertion to even leave it as plausible enough to not throw in the garbage can. For one, you will have to demonstrate that with evidence. Secondly, that evidence will have to out weigh the evidence for the conclusion that brain is required for consciousness, and a certain dynamic processing across and amoung certain rather specific structures within the brain, is required for consciousness. It very much appears that you are skating on the thin ice of a wild-eyed imagination--be it one that makes you feel good, even, nevertheless is nothing more than fantasy.

 

I see that this is another one of those good examples of just how much public education is still needed. Not only the SfN, but AAAS (and I am sure other organizations are working towards that too) are encouraging their memberships to be active in that so need a work. We are not going to be able to get everyone, that's true, of course, but we should strive to reach out and cover as much ground as possible.

 

The OPP has demonstrated a great lack of scientific method mentality, and is evidently weak in some other areas of 'should-have-been-investigated-firstly' domains--it does appear. Again, I wish to point out (and hope all will take fair note), it is surely better to be more careful with the use of the noun forms 'god' and 'God.' These are not the same, actually. The OPP is not talking about God in any sense of the term that is of a more accurate and standard usage nature. If we use the lower case form 'god' we should be careful to use it with the proper article (usually the indefinite article). The OPP seems to wish to talk about his, or her, god. It is the god which that person has created, and not any god, or goddess, which we can find described/prescribed to date. (to the best of my concerned knowledge)

I am a theist & tried to conceive god in various ways. The one way which has satisfied me most is that god is dimensionless point of consciousness & cosmic space is his mind & that universe is a day dream of god.

I am going to take a different approach here. First of all, we need to take care of the linguistic aspects as best we can--working towards higher accuracy and correctness in a more pragmatic, and accepted standard.

 

 

I am a theist & tried to conceive god in various ways.

This is incorrect terminology. Since the word 'god' is a countable noun (and thus has multiply references) it must receive the standard, correct English handling. One can be a theist, and conceive of a god, or the 'the god of something, something theist-involved belief system, or, one can conceive of 'gods' in different, various ways. Additionally, it may also soon be argued that since 'goddesses' have been left out of the equation (as best as can be understood with all that we have so far, to work with), the attempt has already failed. (If there is a god, there is a goddess.)

 

Now, if one wishes to talk about the deity of the later late Christian theist-involved belief system (the one that is to date), then one will need to capitalized the word 'god,' and thus have the proper noun form 'God.' The same is especially true if one wishes to talk about YHWH. Some will allow the deity of the Quran, but I argue that the confusion which that causes, is simply too great to be a properly considerable choice. If, however, one wishes to talk about YHWH, then the information given in the Tanakh which describes and prescribes that particular deity, will have to be adhered to that information source--one cannot go taking it from there (as so many ill-fated [though doubtlessly with good intent] philosophers of ere [and even today, sadly] have done) and claim to know that that original source is mistaken. (An argument which would be beyond the scope of at least this particular thread, I would argue.) The same is true for the biblical god (the triune god of the later late Christian system) and the Quranic god.

 

The one way which has satisfied me most is that god is dimensionless point of consciousness & cosmic space is his mind ...

This is inaccurate and incorrect. First of all (again) we do not know which particular god you have in mind, other than the one which you have dreamed up--for which reason, as best I can tell, you really don't need the word 'god' at all. This is true because the word has a fixed definition, you see, and that involves a male being. We can in no way at all ascribe to the known universe, the condition of being a male being--as we only know of such state in an organism. Next, we know (and again, a better, and considered definition will take us a lot further down the argumentation road) that the condition of having a state of consciousness, is not something that comes about absent certain brain cell (both neuronal and glia) processes at certain levels of dynamic recurrent activity. We know, for example (and this is by mere definition) that a human being in stage 4/5 Non-Rem Sleep (NRS) will not be an instance of a brain expressing the condition of having a state of consciousness--in other words, a deeply asleep brain (dolphins do it hemisphere at a time, however) will not have consciousness. Therefore, brain is necessary for consciousness, consciousness is not a single point of absolutely non-dimension, and outer space does not constitute the requirements for expressing consciousness. Both panpsychism and panenpsychism have been quite throughly dismantled of all pragmatic truth value.

 

With this, therefore, we can see that the proposition put forth has failed. Is there some way in which you might want to alter some of the points which you wish to work on? If you are actually interested in being as accurate and correct as can be, I am willing to work on some of those points you might wish to debate or discuss.

Oh but for the fun of having fun for no more better, nor of greater fun, than that reason of simply having fun! After a short break for other things here, and not wanting to get back into the deadhead thread I had been in with revolving images of a brain which does nothing more than revolve, I was well humored by this one. Thanks guys ! (of course, congregation would surely have been a better word choice than 'church,' but suffice it to say that the point has been taken.)

In responding to the OP, and the circumstances of any particular person committing suicide, my heart-felt emotional surge rises in the moment. It is sad, most sad, that such will happen (suicide, that is) regardless of any state, or putative cause. I lost a dear and very loving sister in that manner. (Bipolar had been doing its evil work for some 10 or more years, and it finally took over.)

 

As for bullying, I personally think that is too, is too bad--a blemish in social animals which we humans, one would think, would have overcome by now; alas. As for whether her suicide attempt could have been prevented, I would surely answer in the positive. That, however, is not talking about the moment of the act, or even the events of the week in which it built up to that, but in the whole history and social environment in which such a situation accumulated.

 

Without a whole lot of further details, the last question is totally unanswerable in any realistic way. It is a sad event, indeed.

• [*]Hi all,I think I finally got the answer. Please read and respond if I'm wrong. ... THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.[*][*]First let me start by mentioning this,[*][*]We (1) have free will (+|-).[*][*]God "1=∞" outside of () does not tamper with (+|-).

Hi there Notexceling ! First of all, let me sincerely express my appreciation for the trouble you have gone to in presenting your hypothesis. I know that can be hard work, and I know it represents a good chunk of your time, energy, and researching abilities. I do, honestly, appreciate that. Let me also say that I can, in some idiosyncratic way, empathize with your wordiness, and length of OP. I am (and I will put this in a fair way) guilty of doing the same, at times. (Although there are times when 'guilty of' would be a stretch of the imagination, in all pragmatic fairness... we do, at times, have to balance all the waffle that is out there.) Then, let me see if I can help out a little here.

 

Mathematics and arithmetic are wonderful, fun, and challenging things. While it baffles me, my mother was a math teacher, and my father was too. (Although he was a physics teacher) One thing that is interesting, is the binary aspect which you had mentioned. Another interesting thing is the 'mass,' 'volume' sensory perception which even Zebra fish have demonstrated, which is at the core of mathematical reasoning too. Of course, as you may know, mathematical ability is a left hemisphere function for the most part, in most brains--including non-human primates (Great Apes, at least). But enough rambling; to the 'helping out' point.

 

The above quote is where your hypothesis essentially breaks down altogether, into a fatal error (save other points for this post). You had started out which some philosophical (as much as, if not more so) issues related to mathematics, and then went down to some pragmatic, basic level. The basics of going from one is pragmatic and realistic, and, does not have any use of the burdensome philosophical fluff that we find. Of course, as John Cuthber had pointed out, above, zero is an important starting place. The farmer whose fencing and barn works had been blown down in the typhoon, found that there were zero cows on his premises. He had to start from zero to get to having one cow, at least, again.

 

The main problem, however, and one especially tied in to this particular sub-forum, is that you have suddenly, without any further explanation, background, referencing to sound knowledge and belief, thrown in the word "God." Of course, if one wishes to use an English translation of the Arabic A'llah, one can use that form (God), but it is not a good idea due to confusion. Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Shintoism, and the many more present and past systems, did not talk about God at all. God is the deity of the Jewish system as of late First Temple Period, and Second Temple Period, as it is a plug-in substitute for YHWH. In Christendom, it is used for the deity of the modern Christian biblical god. Therefore for one, you have misused the word, putting it in an incorrect form. You should have written 'A god ...,' or you should have given the name of the particular god you had had in mind; which leads to the next point of concern with this fatal error the hypothesis commits.

 

The god of the Quran has no name, only epithets and titles, addresses and honorable dressing. Before the Quran had been compiled and edited, the post third century Christian system's information source's god had no name either, only the same--except for the understood dogma of the character Jesus' being a part of a single godhead. Both these systems, of course, derived from the Jewish system, and the Jewish system's information source's god did have an exact name, namely, יהוה (YHWH). Thanks to some nonsensical superstitious, emotionally laden ignorance, and the now known-to-be-the-case non-existence of such an external factuality of nature, the personal name of that said supreme being went out of common knowledge due to non-oral usage. (The crowds were illiterate.)

 

Before that, say, around pre-800 BCE, there was no such system, and there were many gods and goddesses. Before that, say, around the year 25,000 BCE, there were no real gods that can be determined to have been published. To make a long story shorter (since I have, as I had hinted at in the opening lines, dragged it out a bit already) the notion, definition of a god, arose from the Homo genus' activities related to social bonding--powerful warrior leaders and 'kings,' on up to invisible 'big-brother' protectors of the in-group coherence and togetherness. There has been no short supply of gods and goddess over the course of these past 10,000 years. What that amounts to in the way of sound knowledge and belief, is that the very concept, and definition, as it is at present, is due to a figment of the human imagination.

 

Therefore, you have thrown in a premise predicate which in no way matches the course data for your argument start up. Not having a single yen to your name, is having zero yen--a very real, and pragmatic matter. Having one car, is having a very real, external factuality of nature' count--a car is a very real thing. Looking at that old photo, and recalling the number of strands of hair which have now returned to earth (I suppose), is understanding real count, and mass. A god, or a goddess--any god or goddess will do, you know--is not a real thing in this sense in anyway.

 

Although your statement that "God does not tamper with whatever," is very true. That is like the truth that because the figment in my son's mind will never demonstrate a consistently perfect test score result, that figment does not tamper with anything external to my son's mind. In the end, therefore, this point will have to be removed, and then that will surely have to cause us to go back to the drawing board. Any theological concern will not be shown to have any bearing on any pragmatic mathematical matter, and the opposite is true too. Therefore, without that portion, what is it that you wish to show. I would like to hear that.

 

Again, thanks for your time and hard work, and your thought sharing--even though... and look at this post, will you!?... hee, hee, hee...

Thank you for the notice and heads up, iNow. I do appreciate that. I checked out the score, pitched the idea around of starting a new thread to present and discuss the finer points with any interested and capable, but eventually have decided to go ahead and stick with this one. I am now only looking towards readership at large, and not directed in any ways towards the OPP. (Although from the start I had not worried so much about whether the OPP had been reading up.) I will continue.

 

While there are actually a good number of instances which I do have lined up (and, to be honest, surely another three-fold which I could pull out from my several sources), I have decided to present only another four or five here. The point of all this presentation so far, has been to fully demonstrate the fact that the English noun form 'god' is a common noun, and is a countable noun. It does not receive a capital unless at the beginning of a sentence, in a title which uses the 'each major word capitalized' pattern, or has some kind of special usage--which is seen to not be used at large. It receives an article or possessive at all times, practically, depending on contextual usage. The capitalized form is a plug-in for YHWH, or the biblical god model, or is seen as some as being useable for the Islamic model; which is more of a 'politically correct' instance than anything else. (More on that later.)

p 213

(Aelian,

On Animals

11, 34-35) b) And

this same god

in the days of Nero cured Chrysermus who... c)

It was this god (Serapis)

who when Basilis the Cretan fell into a wasing disease, ...

 

p 215

(Pausanias,

Description of Greece

6,26,1. Loeb 3, 157-159.) The image is the work of Praxiteles.

Of the gods

the Eleans worship Dionysus with the greatest reverence, and they assert that

the god attends

their festical, the Thyia. (Martin, Francis (1988)

Narrative Parallels to the New Testament

; SBL Resources for Biblical Study 22)

p 214

Just as in the ancient Babylonian Atramhasis epic, ... Noah survives because of the solicitous care of

the God Yahweh

.

p 230

It is inconceivable that the patriarchs or the Israelites could turn their backs on Yahweh in order to turn to "

other gods

." (Levin, Christoph (2007) The Yahwist: The Earliest Editor in the Pentateuch.

Jour Bib Lit

126(2), pp 209-230

p 631

On the other hand, the Persians did not hesitate to destroy temples that were involved in revolts against their power,... The leaders of the temple in Elephantine claimed that by the power of Cambyses

kol migrah egooriyh eloah mitsriyakh

(in Chaldean script;

my transliteration; my note here

)

, "all the temples

of the gods of Egypt

were overthrown" (TAD A4.7.13-14). Records from the period show... At Ur, for example, we find that the vast temple lands and holdings belonging

to the god Sin

were overseen by the same government officials who...

p 639

A the Ianna shrine at Uruk, for example,... All temple holdings were considered property of the god, and so the temple property at Uruk was called

makkur Anu

,

(sic;

my note here, the author transliterated it

)

"

the property of (the god) Anu

." (Janzen, David (2000) The "Mission" of Ezra and the Persian-Period Temple Community.

Jour Bib Lit

119(4), pp 619-643)

p 226

(foot note)

amidhey

(in Hebrew characters;

my transliteration here

)

here may also be translated "beside me," indicating that YHWH disdains the company of

other gods

(compare Deut 32:12: "YHWH alone guided him;/

no foreign god was with him

") (McGarry, Eugene, P. (2005) The Ambidextrous Angel (Daniel 12:7 and Deuteronomy 32:4): Inner-Biblical Exegesis and Textual Criticism in Counterpoint.

Jour Bib Lit

124(2), pp 211-228)

Ex 32:4

... "

This is your god

, O Isreal...

23

...'

Make a god for us

who will go before us;...

31

..."Alas, this people has committed a great sin, and they have made

a god of gold

for themselves. (New American Standard; Holman Bible Publishers. (1977))

 

These final examples begin to highlight at least there major points of great importance. One, as I had mentioned earlier in this thread, is that any word in any language from which we are translating out of, and then into English, which due to contextual usage in the original tongue will be assigned the noun 'god,' will be assigned that because the referent and concept in the original equals that of the English. The second--and it should come as no surprise at all, due to the first one--is that the actual English noun came about due to the very notion and referent (definition) which human kind had developed in the hundreds of centuries before even Middle English had been around. The idea is not new at all. Thirdly, it is most obvious that of all the god models which we find, by far, the vast majority of them have personal names. Even though I have worded it as I have, it is even possible to consider that 99.99% have personal names. A personal name (a proper noun) is always capitalized.

 

On this matter--and before I go into original language points in the text (as well as resource material to back up the matter of distinguishing between an epithet, a title, and a personal name)--I wish to present one last quote. This one is from Michael Shermer's more recent work, The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths:

 

p172

What is the probability that Yahweh is

the one true god

, and Amon, Ra, Aphrodite, Apollo, Brahma, Ganesha, Isis, Mithra, Osiris, Shiva, Thor, Vishnu, Wotan, Zeus, and

the other 986 gods are false gods

? (Shermer, Michael (2011)

The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies--How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths

. Times Books Henry Holt and Company, LLC.)

Thank you! Let me add that I think that you would also change "I don't speak likes" by "I don't speak lies".

Oh boy, oh girl, oh me, oh my... now how in the world did I miss that one too? (hee, hee, hee... as though to insinuate that it were strange for me to make such mistakes in my typing and spelling in general) Thanks for the heads up. I find, sadly, that I can no longer edit that post.

 

Immortal, I am still waiting for your answers, rather than very, very unrelated quotes stuck in a post which says nothing to deny what the quote actually presents. You have some work to do. You will need to go out and bring a bit of hard, cold evidence back and put it on the barrelhead here. I am waiting.

I think that he is both "lying" and "hopelessly mislead".

I see. I will yet give a touch of the benefit of a doubt a bit longer, and see. I cannot, in the same breath, so fully and drastically disagree with the notion entertained. (Oh, and in appreciation, you helped me find an error in my spelling--which happens at times--which I have now corrected in the main text. Thanks !)

 

Immortal has avoided almost all the questions made to him in the last 200 posts. I desire you good luck.

I do appreciate that. I can fully and quite strongly emotionally feel, that nothing less than very good luck will draw those out.

I am going to be busy for awhile now here and the particular rubbish (that portion which is such) which is being passed forward by immortal is being done so with an attitude that has presented itself as being unfixable, and I have another thread (or two [at the moment) which I wish to focus my energies and time for SFN on. Over a few more posts, other than correcting for a few errors, I will simply see if I can get responsible, matture answers to some of the questions I had asked along the way here, which were not answered.

 

The first thing you need to deal with, immortal, is my prime question in my post #232 linked to here which comes under the first quoted section. You need to show that is not groundless and false--which I argue it is. Then, there are still outstanding questions from the 7th paragraph (under the 3rd quote) which you have not answered yet on my post #226 linked to here. I am waiting to answers to these, please.

 

 

Then, please do take note of the better understanding, and higher in accuracy and correctness (as well as the matter of the more correct and original standard English usage of the noun form 'God') as presented below.

 

We come from a place where all the opposites reconcile into one unity. The Vedic Aryans called it the "Brahman", the Jews called it the "Ein Sof", the Valentinians called it the "Unknowable" and the Buddhists call it the "Sunya". We cannot make a conceptualization of it.

... this

(that is, the above quoted section)

especially quite appears to be, if not an outright

lie

, an extremely gross instance of blanket statement. At best, you will need to refine your subject class, and then will need to refine your usage range and contextual setting. This is gross error--

again

. The failure to correct for all the error you have been making all this time, ought, we can more commonly understand through common rationing, make one at least work to present more accurately and clearly. (And optimally correct error once it has been called to the attention of the error maker.)

 

What error? What lie? I don't speak lies.

 

"Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal and mysterious

Ein Sof

(no end) and the mortal and finite universe (his creation)."

 

The Kabbala, or Cabbal tradition is far more post 11th century by any means of understanding. That some textual fragments of mysticism can only slightly likely can be said to be found by second century Jewish writers (non-Talmud and non-Mishna) in no way at all makes the largely Spanish developed theosophy ancient and exactly Jewish.⁽¹⁾ It is quite clear that the system was a revolt in some Jewish quarters of Medival Europe against Maimonides. That thought-up name, En Soph, is nowhere to be found in any single known ancient Hebrew scroll or fragment or manuscript extant; and neither do we find any alluding to it. It was not even a sideline sect in Second Temple Judaism. The name of the god which the ancient Jewish system published is YHWH. (I'll go into textual detail on the thread The Word God linked to here as time goes on) All the descriptrive material of that god in no way allows a match between it and the model of Brahman, or any other model. The is the fact of the matter!

 

Additionally, it is a very secure understanding that what you had presented there is not true. In light of that being the case, the author of such nonsense is either lying, or is hopelessly misled into a certain blindness towards what is securely known and understood--otherwise gross error. For one to verbatim assert that with the exact following words, "I don't speak likes," one can be expressly asserting that they do not orally communicate that a matter is such as A, while being fully and consciously aware that the matter is actually B--in other words, they do not SPEAK lies. That assertion could be held to be true while written communication would not be participating in the asserted statement. A person would not be lying (asserting a known truth to not be so) if (s)he were to assert that they did not SPEAK lies, all the while communicating lies in written form. (Because writing is not speaking) The wording, "I do not tell lies," would be a different thing, however.

 

Nevertheless, if a person passes along in whatever form of communication, an assertion or claim which quite fully contradicts a substantially known-to-be-so truth, it can be said that they are either a) telling lies, or lying, or, b) presenting gross error. If you were to look carefully at my wording, you will notice that I am talking about the specific statement. What I said is true. It is additionally a fact that you wrote those words into your post--whether directly typed in, or pasted from a copy--and to that degree a fact that you said such was so. In that the statement itself is either a lie, or gross error (in the form of blanket statment), it is necessary to discover the originator of such statement if it were not you, immortal, yourself. The source is either lying, or making gross error in the form of blanket statements. Which is it? I know, that it is not you. I know that that idea is from around the 13 century, or so, and is essentially Spanish Jewish in origin, and is false. The other things you have written are of course not true at all ! I know that, immortal, and will deal (as I have said above) with parts of them elsewhere; in time.

 

I am awaiting your very carefully researched, mature and rationally thought out answer to the questions which you still have not responded with answers towards, or to.

 

 

 

 

1. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge Vol II, p326; Catholic Encyclopedia Vol 8, p 1514.

 

EDIT: I have edited just now to see if I could make a third indention. I had done that successfully on this PC in my studio, but at the office it didn't allow that today. It doesn't work; probably due to some coding in the link from immortal?... anyway...

For a quick response, if you will, probably there is no absolute answer. I envisage this due to the possible fact that it may depend on the person and the social in-grouping of a person doing so. It may also depend on the actual make up of the beads themselves. To the best of my knowledge the 'prayer beads' (or 'worry beads') were prevalent in Buddhism and Hindism before they were taken up into the Roman Catholic tradition. Here in Japan today, if one were to wear a set of beads around their neck which were clearly of the make up of those used for the Mahayana theist-involved Buddhist system here, most likely few would give it much further thought than 'that person's trying to show off in bad taste now, isn't (s)he!'

 

The word 'anti-god' stands to be corrected, actually, however. The far better word choice for the general situation--and possibly what you might have wanted in such general case--would be 'blasphemous' ( or possibly 'sacrilegious'). Additionally, in that the contextual setting (though greatly lacking in background information) appears, at least, to be in reference to Roman Catholicism, it may also be possible you could have used 'anti-God.' The former suggestions, however, would be the more commonly registered-at-first-sight ideas by the readership at large; I would think.

 

If this is a serious question in regards to any idiosyncratic attire, or dressing habit, I would suggest that one probably shouldn't worry about what some stricter folks of that theist-involved religious belief system sect thought. Go ahead and alter your fashion to your artistic whims.

... the Jews called it the "Ein Sof", ...

Leaving all the other saliently vehement figments aside, this especially quite appears to be, if not an outright lie, an extremely gross instance of blanket statement. At best, you will need to refine your subject class, and then will need to refine your usage range and contextual setting. This is gross error--again. The failure to correct for all the error you have been making all this time, ought, we can more commonly understand through common rationing, make one at least work to present more accurately and clearly. (And optimally correct error once it has been called to the attention of the error maker.)

 

... Its done by invoking the gods ...

This is correct and accurate usage of English standard rule of thumb. Good job !

 

... the pleroma of Gods ...

This is incorrect. The English proper noun form cannot, in this specific case, be pluralized. The error here is lazy and careless use (on whomever's part that may be) of the personal name of the Jewish god, or (by extension, though less accurate) the biblical god. In other words, actually the noun form found in the above quote should have been used. Additionally, transliterated Koine Greek serves no purpose without further explanation of what the Greek term means--and of course it simply means 'fullness,' or 'being full of something,' so it will actually prove much better, and academically acceptable, to inform us on what that thing is which is doing the filling of the retainer, or receiver of that which fills it.

 

... Finally I like to end this post by a note from the wisdom literature of the Old Testament.

Jesus Ben Sira's works are not part of the specific Old Testament library. Those scrolls have been included in some Christian Bible Copies, but do not fall in the specific library. If you had written something along the lines of '[io]a note from the wisdom literature of Second Temple Judaism at large[/i],' you would have created no error. I really reason, as I am sure others do too, that if you were to simply rush less, and expend far more energy on accuracy and correctness, at least your argumentation would be more error free--at least, I repeat (for your position is as useful to human life on earth as the putative water under the frozen surface of... oh well, I forget which moon that was at the moment. Maybe its time to put into practice what you had supposedly learned in school. (That too, might help at getting a job using that background?)

There is so much to iron out, and so seemingly, so little willingness on your part, immortal, to actually open the eyes of coherent exchange of pieces of evidence and thoughts, and try to fit all the puzzle pieces together to at least a more coherent whole. Anyway, deadlines have pressurized the time for me at the moment, so I have to break things down into smaller chunks spread farther apart chronologically. I'll stick with basics for a moment.

 

Its quite clear that you're moving the goal posts...

This is the second time that you have said that--although I cannot recall your verbatim form in the first instance, and do not have time now to look it up. Here, however, you have specifically and expressly evidenced the emotional (at least) understanding that I have continued moving the goal posts. (more than one post?) I claim that this understanding is not correct, and the charge groundless. I ask that you please specifically, and in no uncertain terms, identify the goal posts specifically, in verbatim format, and then point out where any 'moving' occurred, and the specific and verbatim format for that (or those) took place in my posts. I would suggest that you be sure to start from my first post #180 on page 9 linked to herein (If I get this linking correct.)

 

I wish to ask that you take your time, get it right, and make it as logically coherent and consistent as you can; please. This is something you have a need of carrying out correctly and conscientiously. Thank you.

 

While I await for the above, and as mentioned at the opening of this post, don't have time, I would like to point this out here--as a good example of things gone haywire:

 

The simple truth of the matter is that the so called scientific method itself is saying that scientific realism is false ... ( from post #220)

 

This is simply not true,

immortal

. ... Scientific method, in the broadest sense, is what can be understood through the operation of the brain. It is not something that only the H.

sapiens

exercise. Everything which is discovered through that method, is a discovery about the external actuality of nature at large. There is not a single stitch of evidence which demonstrates that what has been soundly understood (sound knowledge) to date about the world we live in, is not an external or internal reality of this world. (

from my #226

)

What is simply not true? that

experiments

which is

based on

the very notion of

scientific method

has casted serious doubts on

the existence of the

empirical reality existing independent of the human mind

? (from his 227 above; bold and underscore mine)

Speaking of quantum, this (that bold and underscore above) is a perfect example of where the cliche '

quantum jump

' came from. A jump from one point that falls within a contextual setting of presentative theme, and jumping to a totally irrelevant (

once again

) point which is in no way supported by the earlier. (my note added here for explanation)

 

In quantum mechanics the term counterfactual definiteness is a well defined term and it means that objects have well defined values independent of measurements but recent experiments from quantum mechanics have falsified such an assumption and if we cannot in any way assign the value to an attribute of an object then the attribute loses its objective meaning and we cannot say what is it that exists out there in the physical world.

This is--the above--is a quantum jump. I hope you can follow through and see how that is. By the way, what's that on my desk here? You consist of mind, so what is it? At any rate, I await your carefully researched out explanation and defense for the upper most matter of this post.

What is simply not true?

You quoted a portion of the explanation backing that up; did you not actually read it? What I know is not true is spelled out there, so, it may be good to back through that again. That you are arguing that it is true, is no surprise to anyone following.

 

... that experiments which is based on the very notion of scientific method ...

This is spinning here. Please stay on track!

 

... has casted serious doubts on the existence of the empirical reality existing independent of the human mind?

Speaking of quantum, this is a perfect example of where the cliche 'quantum jump' came from. A jump from one point that falls within a contextual setting of presentative theme, and jumping to a totally irrelevant (once again) point which is in no way supported by the earlier. What you need to do is stop wasting time doing internet searches, and get down the nitty-gritty of logical explanation so as to attempt to clarify what in the world you wish to hold your terms to be at--at least that much. I gave you a bunch of stuff to think about, and you don't. What will fall under realism and what would fall under being in your mind alone and not in mine?

 

... that nature disagrees with you? that objects like protons, quarks, electrons are not self-existent independent of the human mind?

How is it that a neuron depolarizes with something that does not exist except in my mind? Solipsism is dethroned nonsense.

 

This is BS, Bernard is a philosopher of science and we know what scientific realism is and what quantum physics is saying. If you want to be deluded and ignore facts, by all means you can but don't claim that Bernard doesn't understand it in a rationally developed manner. Scientific realism is a well defined term in philosophy of science.

A tangent. Go back and read with the intent to fully see the whole picture of what I had written there. What you had written in reply is a different thing from what I had been talking about.

 

It is a well established fact that quantum mechanics is a successful universal theory and that it is complete and its fundamental to the universe...

Other than the fact that it involves yet much theory, some more secure, some less, and for that reason is largely a different thing from knowing that a 2x6 laying flat will never be as strong in supporting weight as a 2x6 laying on its side, I see no room for disagreement on this much. What you have written here, is disconnected from what you had just written above it. I am aware of the idea of the three dimensions of scientific realism in general, but am also aware that that very blogged down in mire playing field is largely irrelevant to any rounded-out, reasonable pragmatic concern.

 

and this theory directly questions the metaphysical commitment of scientific realism and forces us to renounce that belief.

LOL ! Here's another one of those 'quantum jumps.' Going way off on a tangent on non-relationship. Questions, yes; denies, no--and that is the difference.

 

Dude, these are facts established from experiments and I obviously have to state the stupidity of the way you seem to have made up in your mind that my position is erroneous and how you're deluded that Bernard and Penrose ideas have been falsified.

I have found an error in my text which I will correct for first here. The following should have been the correct read (bold italics below)--I unintentionally omitted a connector:

 

That the element and portions of what you have been presenting and saying

that

are in fact erroneous--that is, they are not factual, but rather false in their overall setting--is one thing which I fully realize now, you will never be able to handle properly so as to learn from being corrected on them.

 

I am not particularly talking about the results of any of the experiments in physics. I have been trying to correct the error which you have not yet corrected yourself; and have demonstrated the disposition of not be willing to do so. I know that I have plainly told you that before.

 

 

Its because of the amount of misrepresentation of religion that was there not only over the internet but also in the circles of scholars, scientists and philosophers was the main reason to start this thread and this is the correct approach to study religion.

Misguided misconception on the internet of course, among philosophers, it has been well enough shown, among religious scholars, yes, but among scholars of religious knowledge hardly at all ! This is the truth of that matter. Scholars of religious knowledge are fully aware of the proper use of the collective, non-count noun 'religion,' and the countable sense which requires the indefinite article--'a religion.' It is here where you keep making the same mistake again and again--a mistake, which is an error.

 

The fact that reality is only a state of mind is not an extraordinary claim as you seem to think. Its a well sort out argument.

Besides the sidestepping, I have shown in that very post, that actuality of nature at large is not something that is in your mind alone--again, solipsism is dead. The claim that reality (actualities of nature at large in total) cannot exist without a human brain to create them, is in no way a fact. An argument can be valid, without being sound. An argument can be logically correct without being true, or so fully representing all true pertinent and applicable details which could be involved with the matter under discussion. Therefore, to assert an argument's logical coherency as representing its faithfulness to sound knowledge, is really 'the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.'

 

As I said you need a reality check.

As I said, you need to correct your errors and inaccuracies.

 

Religion falls under the noumenon and science falls under the phenomenon which is the empirical reality.

You are using the word 'religion' here to signify, not any specific theist-involved (or non-theist-involved) religious belief system, but the collective human emotional element by which, and through which, such systems derived. In that there is full incompatibility amongst them, we cannot in any correctly and soundly assert that their individual claims to know, are correct; much less that they represent sound knowledge of external actualities of nature at large. Your usage of the word 'science' is not accurate enough here, in any reasonable pragmatic degree, as something to compare in evaluating against the human emotional element. If you were to compare the sound knowledge and belief which has been pragmatically demonstrated against any theist-based religious system's information source statements and claims, then that is a different story. Will you never correct for that?

While we do find misuse, and lack of care (as has come to be overly practiced, especially by those who have little invested time in research on the matter), it is clear among all the examples of proper usage in English, that we do have a major distinction between the word form 'god' and 'God'--and 'goddess' as well. There is a quite clear rule of thumb for capitalization in English--which I have touched on at another point in this sub-forum. Over the course of my dealing with this, I have found, for example of one instance of error, that a few have tried to apply the capitalization rule of thumb in the German language, in the English language. That is a fatal error. English is not German.

 

Below, I will randomly list a number of examples, probably over a couple of posts (maybe?). While there is of course much more, this will be explicit enough, and numerous enough, to ascertain and clinch the point correctly. Unless otherwise noted with "sic.," all bold is mine. I occasionally add some notes, which I identify.

 

Hesiod, an early Greek poet, preserves myth of pre-Arian '

Silver Age

' heros : divinely created eaters of bread, utterly subject to their mothers however long they lived, who never sacrificed

to the gods

, ...

 

Thus a Central American stone-sculpture,

a Toad-god

sitting beneath a mushroom, ... or heard of a Mexican Mushroom-god, patron of an oracular cult; ... (Graves, Robert

New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology

; pp 6, 7)

Now this king (Ahaz;

my note here

) was so sottish and thoughtless of what was for his own good, that he would not leave off worshipping(sic;

my note here

)

the Syrian gods

when he was beaten by them,..seemed more desirous to honor

any other gods

than his own

paternal and true God

, whose anger was the cause of his defeat.

 

A certain Parthian, who came as general of an army into these parts, had a wife following him, ... and admired above all other women for her beauty. ... As soon, therefore, as her husband had been declared an enemy to them, and was fallen in the battle, the widow of the deceased was married to this her lover (one Anileus;

note for clarification here

) Since she was led away captive, on the death of her husband, she concealed the images of

those gods

which were their country

gods

, common to herself and her husband. ... They added, that the marriage of this woman was made without their consent, and without regard to their old laws; and that

the worship which this woman paid [to her gods]

was a reproach

to the God

whom they worshiped

[/b]

. (Whiston, William (trans)

The Complete Works of Josephus: Flavius Josephus. Kergel Publications

; (1981); pp 210, 394)

Ashima

, plural, Asherim,

a pagan goddess

, who was found in teh Ras Shamra epic religious texts discovered at Ugarit in North Syria... Her cult object, whatever it was, was utterly detestable to faithful worshippers of Yahweh... In Canaan there was a tendency to employ the plural forms of deities Ashtoreth (Ashtoroth), Asherah (Asherim), Anath (Anathoth) to summarize all the various manifestations of

this deity

. In like fashion the Canaanite plural

Elohim

("gods")

)sic;

my note here

) was adopted by the Hebrews to express all the excellencies and attributes of

the one true God

. (Douglas, J.D. (ed),

Unger's Bible Dictionary

; p 412)

65. GOD--is used of any one (professedly) MIGHTY, whether truly so or not, and is applied not only to

the true God

, but to

false gods

, magistrates, judges, angels, prophets, &c., e.g. Exod. 7.1; ... (Young, Robert,

Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible

; Funk & Wagnalls; HINTS AND HELPS TO BIBLE INTERPRETATION.)

... p 298

Local gods and demons.

[sic] While the contemplative elite may deny the real existence of

gods and demons

together with the rest of phenomenal existence, the majority of Buddhists from the earliest of times in India, ... have never neglected indigenous religious beliefs. ... Such favoured deities include Mahakala, the great black divinity;

the mother goddess

Hariti, ... Hayagriva,

a fierce horse-faced god

who is powerful in driving off unconverted demonic forces. (As is the case, I had forgotten to take note of my source, but I have 10 pages (from a scope of at least pp 266-299) from a rather large sized book, in smaller print on Buddhism.;

my note here

)

The Temple Scroll

(IIQT=IIQ

19-21

, 4Q

365a

, 4Q

524

), p 216--You shall be perfect towards

YHWH

(sic;

my note here

), your

God

. For these nations that

LXI

([sic]; section marker;

my note here

) ... to utter a word in my name which I have not commanded him to utter, or who speaks in the name

of other gods

, that prophet shall be put to death. (Vermes, Geza (trans)

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English

, Revised Edition; Penguin Books, 2004)

p 96

As a result, "Enkidu was grown weak, for wisdom was in him." He sits at the woman's feet and she tells him, "You are wise, Enkidu, and now you have become

like a god

."

p 149

Beginning in the fourth millennium B.C.E and gaining momentum into the first millennium B.C.E., the conception of

the dominant, creative gods

--or later,

the single God

--as male arose and triumphed.

155

This system (the Brahmins' system;

my note for clarification here

), with its

violent storm gods

, such as Indra, corresponded to... (McElvaine, Roberts,

Eve's Seed--Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History

. McGraw-Hill; (2001))

p 421

Psalm 106:19-23 omits Aaron entirely from its summary of the story, though just four verses earlier in calls Aaron "holy to YHWH" while narrating the rebellion of Dathan and Abiram. Nehemiah 9:18 also omits Aaron in its allusion to the golden calf in a longer historical summary, though it quotes the crucial "

these are your gods

" line. (Watts, James, (2011) Aaron and the Golden Calf in the Rhetoric of the Pentateuch.

Jour Bib Lit

130(3), pp 417-430)

p 153, 154-- The festival did indeed commemorate the rededication of the altar and temple worship

of Israel's God

, but it is difficult to believe that Jewish people would not be thinking about the defiled conditions of the temple and cult from which the Maccabean forces had to cleanse and reconsecrate them. In this connection it should be recalled that Antiochus IV not only banned the practice of Judaism and the temple cult but that he also imposed new forms of worship which included veneration of himself

as a god

in Jerusalem's temple. ... The extant coins that were minted during Antiochus IV's reign prove that he, like a number of other hellenistic monarchs, advertised himself

as a god

.

 

 

p 410-- (on I Enoch and Jubilees) 2. Unusual or difficult circumstances of origin, and the hero is reputed

to be a god

: The story about Noah leaves no doubt that there were at least suspicions regarding the conception of the child. Raglan notes that the hero is often reputed

to be a god

. In modified form this theme is evident in the Noah story. Naturally, in a Jewish text,

there are not many gods

, but the nearest equivalents to

the multiple gods of other nations were angels

. In a sense he is presented as superhuman, even though his father was not an angel: he exudes the miraculous brightness of divinity, and in the Animal Apocalypse he is semi-deified. (

From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature, by James Vanderkam. Brill Academic Publishers, Inc. 2002.)

p 723-- Just as Isa 10:5a understands the Assyrian king to be a weapon in the hands of Yhwh ("Woe, Assyria! Rod of my anger"), Ashurnasirpal II understood himself to be a destructive weapon

in the hands of the gods

: "Ashurnasirpal, strong king, king of the universe ... beloved

of the gods Anu and Dagan

, destructive weapon [

kasus

]

of the great gods

. (Chan, Michael (2009) Rhetorical Reversal and Usurpation: Isaiah 10:5-34 and the Use of Neo-Assyrian Royal Idiom in the Construction of an Anti-Assyrian Theology.

Jour Bib Lit

128(4), pp 717-733 )

p 776-- These readers and hearers would have been aware

that a god's avian departure

signifies to epic characters taht the "human" conversing with them

was actually a god

in disguise. p 777 We heed the cautions of earlier scholars that neither

theios aner

nor

"son of God"

was a fixed title used to denote a specific type of divine-human figure, and it is not my intention to suggest a Markean "divine man" christology.

 

p 778-- [iamblichus (3rd-4th CE)] writes that some regarded Pythagoras as

"one of the Olympian Gods"

, who, in order to benefit and correct the mortal life, appeared to men of those times in human form" (

Vit. Pyth.]/i] 30) Also in the third century, Philostratus writes that Pythagoras has certain knowledge of his divinity because Apollo had come to him acknowledging that

he was "the god [i.e. Apollo} in person"

(

Vit. Apoll.

1.1). (Dixon, Edward (2009) Descending Spirit and Descending Gods: A "Greek" Interpretation of the Spirit's "Descent as a Dove" in Mark 1:10.

Jour Bib Lit

128(4), pp 759-780)

p 19-- So if kings and heros could be gods, what might a god have been? A god was someone with....

 

p 27--

The city gods

reigned locally, but they also sometimes made visits to other cities.... An aspect of Mesopotamian religion that must remain elusive to us is

the existence of the personal god

.

This was a god

who was concerned with individual person...

 

p 152--[The jews] could believe the right things, however, and they came to see statements of Yahweh's power in the Hebrew Bible as statements of beliefs, indeed creeds, to use the Christian term. ... Jews were saying that most people had it wrong and therefore trusted

in the wrong gods

, who in fact did not even exist. The Jews trusted in

the true God

and could argue that He was worthy of trust. (

Religions of the Ancient Near East

, by Daniel Snell; Cambridge University Press. (2011))

 

I will continue from here with more references and citations in the form of quotes which demonstrate that the English noun 'god' is a countable noun. I argue that the insistence on detail is of the utmost importance towards a more accurate and correct understanding, and, additionally, that my going into such presentation level (listing and citation), while not really natural for internet discussion boards (I do admit) is yet, even so, a necessary thing to overturn the error that is out there.

The simple truth of the matter is that the so called scientific method itself is saying that scientific realism is false...

This is simply not true, immortal. I know for a fact that it is not something that you will ever be able to get over, so I don't have any pressure to invest much more here. You have very clearly proven on far more than just a few examples, that there are some major errors in some of the finer points which build the ideas behind some terms which you misuse, as well as some fault in being able to reason correctly. Misconstruction is often enough found in your several posts, so as to undermine your very position to a very high degree.

 

Scientific method, in the broadest sense, is what can be understood through the operation of the brain. It is not something that only the H. sapiens exercise. Everything which is discovered through that method, is a discovery about the external actuality of nature at large. There is not a single stitch of evidence which demonstrates that what has been soundly understood (sound knowledge) to date about the world we live in, is not an external or internal reality of this world.

 

Now it is true--as we can see (through the course of dealing with your posts across the boards)--that you may have had some twisted explanation of what you wish to delimit the term 'scientific realism' to actually be defined as. Nevertheless, going by the OP, I do not see how one can escape all sound knowledge as being included in that phrase 'scientific objects.' That sticking your hand in a full-volume of fire will burn it, is an object of sound knowledge learned through the scientific process. That drinking salt water only, for a certain period of time, will cause extreme health problems is sound knowledge learned by the same scientific method process. That the female development track is the default mode, is also, just like the above, an item of sound knowledge. That if one's ascending reticular activating system is totally disabled, that one will absolutely not have the condition of having a state of consciousness, is sound knowledge. The list goes on and on and on, and it is clear that there is not an item of sound knowledge which has been over turned by another--for such theories and hypothesis which have been over turned, altered, adjusted, or so on, do not amount to sound knowledge.

 

What you may well wish to have been presenting, is the fact that in the studies and experiments in quantum physics, it has become evidenced that there is more happening in the external actuality of nature than we have been able to perceive thus far without all the fancy equipment and set ups, and such. (And please do not forget that all that equipment represents sound knowledge; scientific method processing.) No contest there, immortal. When you go applying that to an interpretation of some ancient theist-involved religious text--that is, interpreting the text in light of what is being learned of, or seen, or interpreted from experiments in quantum physics--and then conclude by that misgiven and illicit interpretation that some god exists, and our over-all, objective perception of external reality is a falsehood, your proper sensible rationing has fatally broken down. Your above quoted claim is due to your not being capable of understanding in a rationally developed manner.

 

and the stupidity is not on my part but actually its on your part for not understanding what is being discussed here...

This assertion has no value. That the element and portions of what you have been presenting and saying are in fact erroneous--that is, they are not factual, but rather false in their overall setting--is one thing which I fully realize now, you will never be able to handle properly so as to learn from being corrected on them. That your mix of things held in mind is based on some primary errors, and that if you don't fix those, the position you hold will never be correct, may of course make it appear (in that rose-colored setting you hold in mind) that what I have been trying to correct you with, appears to be stupid. That you hold such in mind is now most obvious! That your errors have not been corrected for, is now most obvious as well!

 

... and what interesting is that the methodologies in esotericism have also been saying the same thing about our nature for all these years that what we call empirical reality is only a state of mind.

Well, I had tried to see if I could get an example going to demonstrate something about this matter of knowing something, but it seems not to have worked. I have of course been down this road before--trust me, it's nothing new on the internet, at all !! Phenomenology is good to a point; but you will always find those that mix it with Mysticism and inaccurate and incorrect renderings and interpretation of ancient (pre-10th century) theist-based religious belief system information sources, and taking it to FAR extremes. It gets so ludicrous that it becomes a sad laugh.

 

No, immortal, reality is not only a state of mind. This is a fact. The mere fact that you are denying this fact very clearly shows, in fact, that you are hopelessly drunk with this illicit and illegitimate mix of imagination and results from studies in quantum physics. Tell us, therefore, about what it is that I have next to the thing beside my computer here (a relatively fixed, always there item), and, additionally, what that thing is and what my computer model is. These tubes of paint over there across the room, and that canvas, what do they portray in that particular situation that they are presently in? Do you think that if you jump off the downhill side of the roof of my dozo (an old, thick-walled Japanese storage house) which I rebuilt to house my studio, a fall of some 10 meters, that you will land on the ground with the same momentum as would be the case if you jumped off a step ladder? Do you think that any person, elephant, cow, dog, and even cat, would experience the same pressure of sudden stop with the two distances? Do you think moving the two distances to different locations on the face of the globe would result in similar impact forces between them? Do you think the same would be the case on the moon? The real, down-to-earth-like reality that is the same (as can be understood clearly enough) for all who experience, or don't experience it, is real. Can you prove that the certain scars on my forehead are only in your mind, and the historical events, and objects which led to such scars, had only been in my sister's mind? The only way to know of it is through brain, in a scientific method process of trial and error, testing and learning, over a high number of sample space examples, over a long stretch of time, but that in no way at all makes it only an internal actuality of nature. Complexity makes that hard in some areas, and requires a number of special and fancy machines, equipment, and set-ups, but it is still the same single thing--scientific method.

 

You are deluding yourself again and again by ignoring facts established from experiments and that's what ought to be corrected. Did you understand? I am not attacking the scientific method instead I am attacking the scientific consensus.

I am clearly not the one deluded here on this thread. The OP makes that pretty obvious. Additionally, if you are not attacking the scientific method in its broadest sense (which I would tend to say that you have not specifically been doing), its because you are not paying any attention to it; that's all. If you had been paying attention to scientific method, then you would not have started this thread, because you would have known (unless your phrase 'scientific realism' has some yet untold meaning for you which the bare words themselves cannot identify for us other readers) that the results of the quantum experiments do not prove that external reality is false, or not there, or is only in our brains as a totally internal alone matter. The scientific consensus is largely built on sound knowledge gained through scientific method--after having set less secure theories and hypothesis of academic and professional fields aside for further sample set testing and more time over which to do so. So, what's the problem? Is some Vedaic author's wild imagination getting in the way in an a priori fashion?

 

The truth of the matter is that both religion and science are converging and there is no conflict between religion and science. Like it or not.

Again--and exactly has I have pointed out in this post, and in others here and elsewhere--you are not using your terms nearly accurate enough, and thereby are misleading and confusing your terms and your ideas, and related matters. Religion and science are not converging. To assert that is blatant ignorance of the more accurate and correct, and standard usage of, the definitions of the terms used. Like it or not, one has got to use language as carefully as can be, and you have failed here on more than one account. In that I have (and more than once, this will make it) basically decided not to invest much more in this silly mistaken nonsense of your position--since it is obviously much, much more of an ideology which you have avowed yourself to, rather than part of a process of learning and expanding sound knowledge and sound beliefs--I will only ask you here to please expand fully (as comprehensively and exhaustively as you can) what exactly falls under the word 'science' as you wish to use it, and what exactly falls under the word 'religion' as you wish to use it. Since it is clear that you have ignored my corrections on the better usage of these terms, I want to see just how mixed up you actually are--and thus I ask for you fill them out here.

 

PS: I do not think that there is any value at all in simply quoting a WHOLE post just to answer to a few points therein. It does because clutter more than anything else.

 

Contrary to your immortal misunderstanding, quantum mechanics is perfectly compatible with realism.

A very, very should-have-been-most-obvious-from-the-get-go fact. I am aware, at the same time, that we might have to get a full description (definition with an inclusion of all items falling within it) from immortal, however. He could be holding that term in some totally incorrect (relative to set definition and common usage in the English language) manner.

 

Congrats by linking to the typical sensationalist article from New Scientist with such nonsenses...

LOL !! That reminded me of when my mentor shared one article from NS on consciousness, and said up front (and along with it) that this journal is one that a person has to be careful with--it's very tilted in a direction of imaginative freedom taking. He added that if we use articles from NS and SciAM (yes, even Scientific American, though much better, at times leans a bit... you'll very seldom find it cited in papers) we should fully collaborate with studies in the several professional journals (as opposed to magazine) and professionally targeted books. I subscribed to NS (hard copy) for a number of years, but finally got rid of it (although I of course have access to it still)--more than half of each issue was for job hunting, and I was paying for that too?!

Actually I think there is a third option that no one seems to ever hit on and that is that god, or religion at least, is completely man made and the bible reflects the morals of the time it was written. I think the real disconnect occurred when religion was first written down. ...

Quite spot on, Moontanman! There is a little more to it in the detail, of course, but that is the correct overall matter. Of course in the Western area of the world--'Christendom' if you will--folks will more generally refer to the documents of canon within that single volume book called the Bible. I have been for some while now (not talking of this forum) working on trying to adjust for accuracy and correctness pertaining to some degree of detail in that.

 

The several scrolls which made up the Torah--the law--were rather finalized in the Second Temple period, even though the law had been acting in the first temple period (before exile) even. It is thought, based on evidence, to have been altered a little. When Christianity first got going, it set aside the law code pretty much, for its own code--not unlike the Qumran community and the Essene community seemingly had done. We can think that only because the early Christians had been using the documents of the Jewish canon (LXX) to support their doctrine, we have received the whole of the documents which made canon for the later late (post 3rd century) Christian community. The Jewish documents are otherwise pretty much useless. Of course, the god which the earlier early Christian group had worshiped was YHWH, and so while they had more obviously formed their own code, the spirit which underlay that, can be seen as being built on the Jewish code.

 

We have, thank goodness, come a long way since the hay days of Second Temple Judaism, and have no need to adhere to the moral norms of that individual social in-group of that day. I would argue, at the same time, however, that we have not quite come far enough. That was a good post you had made there!

While I of course appreciate your sharing your thoughts and imaginations, Denise, I really wish to encourage your more careful and detailed thinking over sound and valid knowledge. You have mentioned that you feel you do not wish to come, read, or/and post here much more--for whatever reason that may be--yet you have signified that you wish to think about things further. Well, this is why I wish to encourage you, namely, because as one thinks, it is necessary to get the predicates of the thoughts as accurate and correct as possible. In you above post there is a high degree of error due to not having done so so far.

 

First of all, I would greatly suggest that you take more care not to simply sling the word 'science' around as though it were some collective blob of mass of a thing. Knowing of things through the brain is the only way of knowing of things, period. When you mention, or use, the very word 'god,' you are talking about a provided referent to which it identifies--which ever referent from among the thousands it may be. If you use the form 'God,' you are talking primarily about the Jewish theist-involved religious belief system's god model, YHWH, or, secondly, about the biblical god model of later Christianity, thirdly (and a greater error in my concerned opinion) the Islamic god model. If one wishes to find out about the particular models, it is good to do so through a chronologically flowing search, because time is essentially (to us) a one way flow-like thing. It is necessary to let the information source which developed, explained, described, and prescribed the model, to inform us on the model which is being presented by the information source.

 

What is the god said to be like, his (since a god is not a goddess, thus always a male being) personality, likes, dislikes, and so on. In what manner is the said god portrayed as having intervened in the affairs of human activity, in natural events, and so on. We can take the whole body of information, and test it against what we do know from empirically collected sound and valid knowledge. We can then test the model to see if it holds up against what we know. The god being tested will stand or fall with that testing.

 

Denise, it is totally meaningless to posit that there may be something which of you what is, that may exist (that is, may be a factuality of nature at large), but which is not known to you at all. This is true because you have claimed to know what it is. When the word 'god' is used, it is used as what it is defined as, therefore, it is claiming to know of the referent. (Perhaps checking the thread on the "Word God" might be informative.) The word 'god' says that there is a male being of superhuman, supernatural strength and being which controls certain elements of nature, and which requires certain degrees of obedience and worship. Simple using the word already posits this much, and already asserts knowledge of that referent. In other words, the user of the word is already saying that such is known by the word.

 

There are many, many gods, Denise, and a good number of goddesses as well. If one wants to single out any particular one of them, and investigate whether that particular god, or goddess, holds up under testing, one is required to go through the process mentioned above. However, it is obvious to me, Denise, that you are not talking about any particular god, or goddess. You simply wish to point out there may be some actuality of nature at large which we do not know of--and maybe cannot know of. I do not at all see how any reasonable and honest thinker could deny, or argue against, such a proposition. I recall one fairly recent article in Science on the discovery of a new species of bug. The main conclusive clinch on its being a yet unknown of species, is that no one, neither the locals, nor the classification catalogs of biology, knew of it. In other words, it was an unknown until known. Now, Denise, one could have posited that such a very species existed, before its having been found, but they could not soundly, nor validly, claim to know that that species existed before having found it--they could posit the possibility that such a specific species may exist.

 

The authors of the several gods and goddesses, never do that. They claim an actuality of nature at large a priori. In fact, many of the information sources of the several systems claim to know (as a matter of fact) that it is known that such a being as the particular god described by the information source, is known to have lived before the H. sapiens even came into being. Well, Denise, to make a super long story short, the several gods and goddess have all failed the tests. (see above) We do not need to posit them any longer.

 

Therefore, Denise, you are in need of finding a different word. You are absolutely not talking about 'YHWH' and if we were to stick to the information source of Christian thought, it would eventually work out that you are not talking about the biblical god either. Yes, Denise, there may be some force of a thing, or energy, or whatever it may be, that pervades though out all of nature, which we do not, and cannot know about. What we do know, however, is that that is not a god. My hope and wish is that you carefully consider the details and information which underlies what I have written here. My hope and wish is that you do think about it most carefully and fully.

Of course, a very thought provoking piece--and I mean this literally, and not in the simple, usual cliche usage. However, it is old hat--nothing new at all. Of course, among the several classes of believers, there are responses which, in varying degrees, undermine the unspoken details of what, for example, Mosaic law might mean, and so on. In my concerned opinion, the effort is noteworthy, as it always has been, but is far to lacking in secure detailed understanding and accuracy of presentation. Of course, at the same time, I understand that one could not do that in a singe You Tube shot. That--the rush of presentation and the lack of detail on sound knowledge that should have played a much larger role--is a shame.

Its funny how you move goal posts ...

Oh my, you silly little girl. It's not funny at all, how you keep casting your line in a different spot each time. No, no goal posts have been moved at all. Look over all my recent posts that have anything to do the fundimentals of the argument and position you are coming from (even on another thread about 'If Science Could One day...'). I have never been using any loose, overly collective term like 'science' as far too many folks, on both sides of the table, even, far too often tend to do. That word will never be able to function so precisely as its users wish it to because a collective, non-count noun will never function in such a manner. No, immortal, you silly little girl, from post one I have been talking about external and internal reality via the only way to know of anything about it at all, and that method, or processes of thinking, is called 'SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Its the method you use to know whether it's too cold outside to wear a T-shirt and be comfortable. It's the same you use to know whether your tea is too hot to drink in gulps without burning your tongue. It's exactly the scientific method in its broadest sense (which is how I always use it unless other specified) that allows us to know that the earth has a core, is quite solid, revolves around a star (our sun), is ever so slowly slowing down; to know that concrete and steel have very, very similar expansion rates, that sugar poured into very hot coffee with milk in it causes a spillover, that the described and prescribed deity of the Tanakh is a figment of the authorship of the documents of that library, and so forth and so on, and on...

 

In continuation, and referencing back to so as to build on, the general outline of scientific method as found in the post quoted here (linking is possible I believe through the time stamp):

 

It is not '

science

,' not '

religion

.' It is

scientific method

(in the broadest sense)

,..

(and notice that I had said that there too,

immortal

)

.

 

 

 

II. The science in scientific method--relations among pragmatic experience, sound knowledge, and sound beliefs.

 

There is an exact and accurate reason for the classifications stone age, bronze age, and iron age. There is plenty of secure enough evidence to realize that at a period of time in the long course of the Homo genus, the process of forging hard metals out of rock types, had not been discovered, whereas softer metal works (bronze, copper, possibly lead) had been. That exactly means that the materials, heating requirements, and processes had come about through a slow trial and error method. It is the same process that is strongly inferred from the evidences of stone tooling. While this all is far, far before the entry of the more specific SM in its more narrow definition range within the academic and professional fields in our more recent point in time, it reflects, nevertheless, scientific method in its broader range. All the evidence and information I have come across clearly demonstrates (so far) that we cannot find the instrument used by any Homo species which has not gone through this very process; either directly, or indirectly. (if any may request reference material citation, I can do it, but it is troublesome, and time consuming, to pull all that out again. I ask for trust in my honest, and fair reporting here, and my memory content accuracy.)

 

There were many events in early human history which scientific method (SM) (keep in mind that unless otherwise pointed out, I use this in the broadest definition range sense) most certainly had direct, or nearly direct involvement, and participation in things such as finally understanding the wheel, controlling fire, agricultural techniques, fermentation control, social in-group building techniques, or astronomical knowledge building . In the same breath, however, I fully agree (as it too, is most rational and realistic) there were those which it did not, such as migration patterns, inter-breeding patterns, and in-group ritual development. We can yet conclude, however, that there is every reason to understand that SM involvement had had an indirect influence on those to varying degrees, while not participating in them. (Also for example, in boat building, in large game hunting tactics, in searches for natural resource materials, in tool development for artistic expression, and so on)

 

 

A. Science in the broadest sense, as a minimum, pertains to knowing of a matter (I.A. & I.B.).

 

 

 

 

 

B. Knowledge and pragmatic experience, as they relate to SM, are strongly related over a continuum of relativeness and scale of inquiry.

 

... and delude yourself of falsifying Bernard and Penrose arguments and also the ideas of ancient wisdom.

Science is not all there is and the scientific method is not the only method that is out there for gaining valid means of knowledge.

I am pretty sure I have essentially and substantially enough pointed out, that I am not talking about this 'science' some folks can never outgrow. The usage is so misleading that it's pathetic. As for scientific method, in the broadest sense, why of course it is the only way to know of anything at all. In that I have amply enough provided an example of what the required action to subtantiate and demonstrate the claims of immortal would be, the fact that no one of the face of the earth has to date been able to execute that consistently over large sample space and length of time, fully demonstrates that the claim is false. In that it has been shown to have been false (and I have not provided all the data and results which do so, on this thread, of course), it has been falsified. That some will never wish to come to terms with the cold-world realities of nature, is, in an almost paradoxical way, a natural event.

I will hold a paragraph or two on the known history, and historical artifacts, by which it can be more soundly and logically deduced as to how the concept of a god developed in early human social groups, aside for later. Here I wish to extend firstly on the English; the word forms and the bare noun. This will entail a bit of grammatical concerns too, but please do bear with me on that, for it is perhaps a necessary evil in understanding more properly.

 

As touched on above (and this may come up a number of times to ascertain having the readership more fully grasp the importance of the matter) naming words (nouns) are created, composed, or thought up to refer to a concept, or an idea (abstract-like), or, to refer to some thing, place, or person (concrete-like). They never come barren of such. The words we have in English which have come down to use from a long history of usage, will have quite set standards of more proper usage-- such as that of the English word 'god.' A cross-reference among a number of good dictionaries will most usually provided that information. It is useful to remember, all the while, that dictionaries not only describe, but also prescribe the more proper usage, and will work to maintain that balance across the general population--as highlighted in the quote below. We will do good to keep the syntax and grammar (almost the same thing) in mind correctly, as well as idiomatic structuring and collocation. As in any language, contextual setting will demonstrate senses applied, and dictionary definitions always take that in mind, as much as possible, and present the senses. Taking a given word being looked at out of its original contextual setting, then pinning a sense on it which does not logically in any manner match the contextual setting communication, is illicit sense assignment. Such is a fatal error without any soundness nor grounding whatsoever. (And in both translating from original tongues, or interpreting within original tongues as well as in the target language translated into, this must be kept in mind.)

 

Attitudes toward language are not unimportant - far from it! But dictionaries are not the best vehicle for dealing with them, for that is not one of their main purposes. There are plenty of

usage guides

, but when one is dealing with attitudes or approval or disapproval, the social context counts for everything. ... Given the complexities of such information, dictionaries can only give a brief indication of attitude most commonly associated with a particular usage. (bold mine; Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th ed. (1999); pp xxvi-xxvii)

One would expect dictionaries to be an obvious source of relevant information. However, dictionaries tend to focus on the decoding process. That is, they provide excellent decriptions of the meaning(s) of words through synonymy and other word relations such as paraphrase and contextualization. A major drawback is that most dictionaries give relatively little explicit attention to collocation and other co-textual features of words. A good English-English dictionary usually provides one or two expressions or sentences demonstrating the use of a word, and these will probably contain one or two useful collocates of that word. (Lewis, Michael (ed)

Teaching Collocation--Further Developments in the Lexical Approach

. LTP; LONDON (2000); p 36)

 

One of the best dictionaries in regards giving a much information on usage, and its development, is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). I have used it in the above post. There are other good English dictionaries, and for a good review, one should cross-reference at least two to three (as I have done above). Here, however, I wish to point to what the 'usage guides' tell us about English nouns.

 

Nouns have certain characteristics that set them apart from other word-classes. For example, they can form plurals (

book-books

) and take articles (

the book-a book

). However this is not true of all nouns: there are no forms *

educations

, or *

homeworks

, or *

a harm

, or *

a chess

. ... Nouns like

John

,

Paris

,

Mississippi

are PROPER NOUNS. They do not have the full range of determiners and lack article contrast. ... The remaining words in the table are all COMMON NOUNS.

Bottle

, which takes definite article and indefinite articles and admits a plural form,

is an example of a COUNT NOUN

. (Quirk, Randolph,

et al.

(1972)

A Grammar of Contemporary English

; Longman Group Ltd.; LONDON; pp 127-128--{

Also note p 130 We have noted that mass nouns [non-count

my explanatory edit here

] do not have a plural

}. (bold and edit in brackets mine)

 

What has been determined with the above (and all the detail not presented which underlies it) is that our English common noun 'god' is a countable noun, and should (and ought) always work in, and be exercised in, such manner as grammatical rules have set for the standard of countable noun operation. The next thing to do then, would be to examine examples of actual usage. Before that, however, and as a kind of conclusive resting place for those who might be weary of doing the 'long-hand work,' I wish to cite and quote one more dictionary. This is a good learner's dictionary, designed and edited for advanced learners of English--which provides some information that the usual English to English dictionary for native speakers, will usually not provide.

 

God

n

[singular, not with

the

]

1

the BEING who Christians, Jews, and Muslims pray to ... [then it gives many collocations;

my explanatory edit here

]

 

god

n

[C]

1

a male BEING who is believed to control the world or part of it, or represents a particular quality:

Mars the god of war

(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, New Edition; 1995)

 

The capital 'C' in the entry 'god' identifies the noun as a countable noun. We can verify that by looking at the entry 'chicken.'

 

chicken

n

1 BIRD

[C] a common farm bird...

2 MEAT

the meat from this bird eaten as food (

ibid

, but I forgot to take the page number)

 

The capital 'C' identifies the concept of the living animal basically (it could be dead, but not thought of, or looked at, as food), as is totally without contest. The capital 'U' identifies the second definition/sense, as that concept of that animal as food, something to eat, the meat thereof. It is for this very reason that that cute little bumper sticker I had seen here in Japan, which was written in English in imitation of the 'I (heart) NY' boom expression, was so hilarious. It read, in the manner of that boom expression, but explicitly 'I love dog. Poor little pet got eaten, I guess...

 

For those who wish not to do the 'long-hand work,' and go over this quite carefully in the posts to follow, can rest here with a firm, and uncontested conclusion, namely, the English noun 'god' (lower case letter) is a countable noun, and must take an article or proper modifier in usage. I will go on to demonstrate this more exhaustively in the next several posts to come, anyway, however.

I see. As I get a little more time, I may come back and clear this up for the third party. You are still adding error on top of error,immortal, and until you actually show a far more intellectually honest demeanor, one wiling to get down to the details in a chronological and material degree of weightiness manner, there is little other to tell you, yourself, than that you are grossly mistaken, effectively misleading and misrepresenting--almost so that it would appear that some charge such as 'lying through one's teeth' would not seem to be so far fetched a charge--and must be warned about to others. You, immortal have now fully demonstrated a wilful choice to not answer to the question asked, neither to come clean and admit to that instance of error which you have committed in such loudmouthness. Additionally, you are still, as I have just now pointed out once again, adding error upon error. For example, almost every single line you have written in your above post stems from error--and you either cannot see it, or wish to hide it for the purpose of saving face.

 

One aspect of the world-wide web, as it has blossomed out, is that information and knowledge do have a vehicle by which to be spread out more easily to thosehonest and earnest learners around the globe. It has has some progress in helping set misguided and misinformed ideas and understandings aside, has helped in allowing some to free themselves from the bindings of falsehood that is pounded into their mental and social fabric from youth, by theist-involved religious belief systems. It unfortunately, nevertheless and at the same time, has allowed gross error and misinformation to fester and swell, infecting the dispositions of learning potential and capacity of some before they will have had the opportunity to branch out and see better. Of course, we will have no fault in mentioning--as it is most obviously and only a real factor of the world we live in--that not all are going to be of the cognitive acknowledging acuity and plastic flexibility as others. Not every student who has been given the exact same information, over the exact same distribution of time, will make 100 points on the very same test given to all the students thus taught; it's a fact of life forms with ganglion-derived brains. Some we can pity, and work with, but others we may often find little else that would work more effectively, or as well, than to thus probably have censoring as the only last resort--to whatever degree, and in whatever form.

Actually, this is getting quite stupid, immortal. The consistent inablility of concentrative logical anaysis is tripping you at every single turn, it seems. All the talk about quantum studies, research results (which I read up on too, of course, though much less than other areas), and theories providing us with extremely way-out-there concoctions about there being some factual element of nature at large which no one can know anything about at all, is just stupid. This carries no weight at all. Of course quantum mechanics is an external reality of nature at large. It always has been. Did you think it was created in the nineteenth century? And, was there any major, noticable change in classical physics, for any major degree, when quantum theory began to be worked with? The folks whom you wish to appeal to on this, are wrong on this; period!

 

It is one major additionaly error that some have made in trying to assert that quantum machanics is what is directly responsible for consciousness, that is worthlessly incorrect. And yes, you have been talking about the condition of having a state of consciousness without even knowing that you were. This demonstrates the incoherency in your whole hodge-podge of an attempt to espouse falsehood. And that very well takes us back to the points I had highlighted earlier in my #128.

 

There is not any possible way to demonstrate any said, or putative, factuality of nature at large, when that same said item is simulataneously declared to be unknowable to the human mind (the condition of having a state of consciousness). It has been sustantially enough demonstrated over a large enough sample space, and length of time and testing, that claims made in the past by a good number of people (especially those who adhered to, or were part of, the various theist-involved religious belief systems) about the brain, and brain and mind, were incorrect. What is wrong--not a fact of external, natural reality at large when asserted to be so--is wrong, and no amount of quoting and pleaing will alter that fact. Just as you, and all, and every single poster on this forum, is not in the condition of having a state of consciousness in slow wave sleep (although plasticity still occurs to some extent), we will not be in that condition when all the neuronal and glia cells which make up the tissue of brain, die. This is not the stuff of some human dreamed up god of a model (for no external factuality of nature at large exists), this is the stuff of earthly material. It's real. It's inclusive of the external elements of the facts of nature.

 

It has come to my full attention now as to just what degree of irrelevant, and unrelated to the heart-of-the-content-provided responses you can make. At almost every single turn, you are resonding in a quite totally irrelevant tangent. Scientific method at large, is THE ONLY way to know of anything (in the common parlance usage of that term). That, immortal IS the bottom line from which we work upwards towards increments in understanding of any and every problem. There is not a single normal range human being on the planet who does not exercise scientific method from infancy onwards, and none who never did. The writers, leaders, and mainstays within all the world's past and present theist-involved religious belief systems used broad imaginative schemes and stories, steeped in ignorance-driven superstition overkill. The accumulation of empirical knowledge which we have access to today, through the exercise of scientific method, has proven parts of the imaginative narratives, dogma, and doctrine and ritual, to be falsehood. You obviously understand working procedures in the field, but you are twisting, spinning, and mishandling logical analysis. Steel couldn't be forged without the knowledge of how to make charcoal, charcoal could not be made with the knowledge of how to make the instruments and materials needed for the circumstance of making charcoal... and on back.

 

It is exactly in light of the above, that it is not the case at all that a practicing member of any theist-involved religious belief system has a different process through which knowledge is accumulated mentally so as to be active in the condition of having a state of consciousness (mind). The claim that the information sources (written documents which remain from the past, the doctrine they hold in that time-locked format) had been written and accumulate because the human individuals and groups which composed them had a way of knowing things that any person living today does not have, is a false claim--little more than childish story telling. No, immortal what you are saying is false. The external reality, taken in full pragmatic concern (as that is the most efficient and applical mode of taking understandings and sound knowledge) does not amount to something which is not the only factuality of external reality that we have to deal with. It has been so hard to get any quantum things going at room temperature because it is something that has to be kind of forced to be able to get any sound knowledge about it at all. Sure external reality has an element which, as far as we can understand and describe it, amounts to a connectivity of wholeness. Big deal; the world we humans have evolved in, and are experiencing consistently over thousands of years, has no bearing with which we can tool anything, or effect causes through, or with. In other words, its totally useless pragmatically--and pragmatism is what saves lives, works towards eleminating in/out-group contrasts, can be applied to better lifestyles, improve quality of life concerns for some, and help work towards bring internationa society together as one. Talking about some particular god, or reading off some text of some ancient work, will simply not cut the mustard.