Alan McDougall

Hi tar, You are just as smart as the rest of us, don't put yourself down. You could be right and the others who are debating the subject could all be wrong! Keep on keeping on.

tar, I have never, ever used that facility on the forum, because I don't like it and it is hurtful to others. I express my opinions in the thread and nowhere else!

Dear, dear tar? Why are you so worried about you "REP POINTS" I have nothing against you or your rather odd logic and would be sad and sorry to see you exit debate! Peter J This being a religious subforum in my opinion does not lead to philosophical debates, which are never-ending and get absolutely nowhere. As for me I repeat!! Reincarnation and rebirth after countless rebirths, is an unpleasant idea, to which I refuse to prescribe. When we die, we leave this mortal body that decays due to entropy and go on to exist forever in ethereal planes, some lower than our earthly one and some higher.

I know this is a science forum Peter, but this is a sub-forum created by the Owner of this site? So why the heck can't we discuss religion, religion is faith based and something that scientist can prove or disprove. As for me I hate the idea of reincarnation, I have gone through this life with some terrible struggles, pain and ill health. So why would I want to return to this bleak grey earth zone, be born, become a child again , go to school again and repeat the whole struggle of life again?? It is appointed "ONCE FOR MAN TO LIVE" and then the judgment. Every person that has ever lived, will account for what they did or did not do during their very very brief existence on earth. Eternity come after and eternity is a very very long time indeed. There is a way that seems right to man , but the end thereof is death!. I have set before roads, choose the one that leads to everlasting life!

Maybe you should have done what I did copy and paste direct from a Buddhist site (Of course with the link)

From some reading it seems that even the Buddha did not believe in reincarnation? http://www.buddhistsagainstreincarnation.com/ ‘Thy self to which though cleavest is a constant change. Years ago thou wast a small babe; Then, thou wast a boy; Then a youth, and now, thou art a man. Is there an identity of the babe and the man? There is an identity in a certain sense only. Indeed there is more identity between the flames of the first watch and the third watch, even though the lamp might have been extinguished during the second watch’ (57) .

tar, Really what?????????? was that all about????????????

Why did you fail to respond to my post about the unicorn, 2+2=6 etc?? I am most definitely not a pendanterist or dogmatic in any way or form and you know nothing about me, so it is very wrong to give me that type of attribute. Your quote "Alan in his"pursuit in my pedantry", makes no sense, why should I seek dogmatism? In fact I'm open minded and if anyone can prove the truth about reincarnation/karma to me, I would become a believer, however, not a dogmatic believer!

There are no such thing as "facts in science" So called facts have a degrade graph almost as soon as they are postulated. What was considered tue yesterday might be found untrue today!

Existence -was -Existence-is -Existence-will be. Within the writhing cosmic cloud of magnetic flux energy, that the always was, took on new form, evolved and coalesced again into a dense oneness of primordial glowing energy, which is and was and will be, the primordial source that moves between the everlasting cycle of order to chaos and chaos back to order. It became thought. Within a Timeless zone before existence came to be , a pool of infinite pure consideration held within it all the hopes, dreams, for creating new order within the realms of existence and reality and these immense waves of pure magnetic thought gradually coalesced and a mighty sentient consciousness emerged out of previous chaos. It knew itself and said "What am I"? Then it said I AM I am recorded the evolution of creation and existence as follows below! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I experienced time only in my dreams and the cup of my dreams ran over as do rivers that overflow their banks. I dreamed infinity of dreams in first instant, and infinity multiplied by infinity in the timeless zone I thought of creating all possibilities in one awesome now. I awoke and thought the first thoughts within infinitely primordial mind I had become. Out of the realm of previous chaos I began to recreate outside the absolute realm and started the first realities based on new planes realms dimensions and textures. I had drifted eternally in and out of awareness and within the mind flux of pure energy. I tossed out the foams singularities, started the flow of time and withdrew into itself outside time or space and sustained my creation as a static force of infinite power. I became the Spirit as I twisted in agony of birth, boiling dissolving reforming writhing and vibrating, before existence or creation were reborn out of the thoughts programs of my mind I set up new realities and began to organize myself into a mighty being of thought and infinite intelligence. I looked outward and inward into the infinite boundless dark void and knew I was alone and became filled with unspeakable loneliness. Now aware of infinite potential of the vast unploughed fields of dark nothingness, I strode with great beams of Radiant Light toward the infinite horizons of eternity, sowing seeds of existence, before the timeless moment of creation. I grew out of nothingness by my own will, before anything else existed and with the mobilities of my original thoughts spoke out and created all that ever was, all that is, and all that will ever be. Before I could create I who am everything, had to withdraw of myself to open up a void in which to place the universes I was about to grow out of the thought seeds resting in my mind, waiting for planting. On the panorama of bleak blackness, I sewed seeds of universal radiant energy. Reality is the gem of my creation and the beauty of my achievement. I am it who lives, forever and forever. It is I who illuminated the everlasting darkness of the primordial void, with beams of dazzling light in living and translucent glory to share it with those who love me. At the moment of the thundering dawn of creating existence, I sent out the primordial heat to light up the universes for the seeds of life to be planted within them. I waited and watched as my creation grew and expanded and it filled my being with joy and satisfaction and I knew my workmanship was good. I walked down the road of forever and sat down on the throne of infinity. I am the light being and my everlasting purpose is to create and cause existence, I am both nothing and everything I am the light that dispels the dark. With infinite power and intellect I the nameless- ever- existing- one, looked out at a new empty infinite dark void. I am boundless I will create something with the potential to become like myself. Therefore, I separated into an infinity of fundamental fragments yet remained connected to my created beings as the great creator and father spirit. I set up polarities separating, the sons of light and the sons of dark and permitted enmity to exist between the forces of good and the forces of evil. I decided to separate existence into dualities and I withdrew myself into everlasting light and banished the rebellious- one into everlasting darkness. In this way all sentient beings could freely choose in which duality to exist. Opposing forces split the chasm, as light blazed to banish the dark and the dark flowed as thick darkness to blot out the light forever. I set up a plan to correct my primordial mistake and bring back those caught up and lost to the evil darkness, into the living light again. There was no cause to my existence I having no Cause I am therefore both the effect and affect sustains and shaper of all things that exist My acts of creation are cyclic events and my purpose reason for my existence. I formulate everything in the thoughts of my Mind and knew the first numbers. With the simplicities and realities of the fundamentals I made everything. I am the Prime Mover and there was no other proponent to my "first cause". I am the "immovable rock" and the" alpha point". I took these first fundamentals and weaved them into the fabric of the reality, creating all the limitless universes on the infinite timeless foam where before there was but nothing. You exist because I exist! We sang together the song of creation and the new universe began to vibrate with countless frequencies of light, glory translucent and everlasting with the vibrations of the song of existence. The singer sang the song, the painter the painting, the creator the creation. The universe then began to weave, dance, and vibrate flux and vortex into one colossal maelstrom, spiral in perfect order from the mind of the eternal one The Universe danced and sang with joy. The dancer danced and sang along with his new creation. I am life giver. Back before anything was conceived , I am Infinite pure "mind" and "thought" there is no dark only light within my infinite domain, so I moved upon the great void of dark and said "let there be" light' and there was light. From the light came love and life. To be continued if interest is shown. I am Life I am Light I am emotion Regards Alan

John dear John, "It should be obvious that no one is trying to further scientific thought in this sub-forum" The title of this thread that you mock, is directly related to a religious topic, and if you can take the time to look at which subforum it occurred in you will notice "Religion" The Administrator/Owner created this sub-forum, which is about "Religion" and after more than 10,000 posts you should know by now that it is impossible to get consensus in these types of topics. To me it is fun to watch a debate unfold and where it leads. Lighten up and smell the roses John! Much of science seems illogical and 2+2 can =6, and remain within the boundaries of physics. Such as the "Flow of time" The sea might be boiling hot, simply because you left out which sea you were talking about. The primordial sea of planet earth was boiling hot, or a sea on another planet might be also? Unicorns might exist, how can you positive there is no such animal somewhere in our vast universe? Leprechauns might also exist, and their existence come down as the memories of small human like creatures that existed before mankind (Homo Sapiens) came on the scene some 150,000 years? ago? One should never lose a sense of wonder or the mysterious, no less a person like Albert Einstein made a comment much like this one. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/albert-einstein/66301 The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of all true art and science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity; in this sense, and, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

I hate the silly over use of the "Straw Man" in all his forms and shapes, he just spoils debate!

tar and Peter J tar you quoted the following below, The question then begs, What is the real world and what is not? As far as reality is concerned, it has been scientifically proven that our human sensory capacity is extremely limited. Below is an excerpt of an article I wrote on sensory perception. However, the capacity of human sensory organs such as, the eye for sight, ear for sound, nose for smell, skin for touch, tongue pallet/nose for taste, are very limited and can easily be fooled. It is true that we humans are the most highly intelligent sentient beings on our planet and due of our relatively huge brains, were able to invent and perfect many artificial means and methods of increasing the range and sensitivity of our five senses, far beyond the barriers of the average capacity. What we perceive is not always a true reflection of reality. In fact, the brain makes best guesses about the outside world from surprisingly limited source of information. Research shows the brain reconstructs the rich tapestry of what we sense and experience from bits of scattered input data. However, much of it is just an illusion of the real world we construct in our brains to limit confusion. The reality we perceive us is a but a tiny fraction of the entire environment surrounding us, because God or evolution has designed us to only react or act only to very specific impulses, which are essential to sustain us as a viable and successful species on planet earth. In this we are not special and these limitations of evolution effect other animal species as well. We are internally programmed to perceive only within a narrow band and very limited range what truly surrounds us. Due to these embedded limiting sensory capacities and ingrained factors, we only respond to sensory signals, that are essential for our continued survival, as a viable sentient species on planet earth. As an comparison with the above paragraph. Let's examine the life of a frog, although its eye sends host of visual messages to the cortex of its brain, its brain ignores most of them as redundant, because just in the manner of humans, it is likewise programmed to react only to the movement or vibration of its food source, which is mostly insects. The frog is not concerned with the detail of stationary objects of the world around it. He will starve to death surrounded by food if it is not moving. His choice of food is determined only by size and movement. Another example of this is the security metal detector gate found in most airports, it will only beep when it senses metal and let any other object pass through. We miss a great deal of reality and cannot normally perceive exactly all that is really happening around us, because nature has created us dismiss much of what the brain takes in, as extraneous, irrelevant or redundant garbage. We have been programmed over the ages to only perceive that which is necessary for our survival as a viable species on planet earth. Our brains fill in the gaps and limitations of our sensory organs by creating a false picture of reality, to keep us comfortable. The brain assists us in determining what we see, as can be demonstrated by trying to read while moving your head or while tapping the corner of one closed eye Try it and you will notice what I mean. Your brain receives information from sensory receptors that inform it about body position and movement. Look at the Ames Room test on Youtube and you will be amazed how easily we can be fooled even though we know the two people in the Ames Room are nearly the same height and stature. Various other optical illusions have been invented to test perceptions and how the brain organizes the information it receives. It is thought that this organizing ability is partly genetically determined and activated by an individual’s early visual experience. Two special abilities of humans, which appear to be tied to our social evolution, are good face recognition and an ability to read the emotions of others.

How about this essay explaining what a mystic really is? A mystic is one who, above all else in life, desires to know, not in the intellectual sense of knowing, the deepest Truth of existence. A mystic is one who senses more to life than making a living or being of service in the world although these things are both necessary and good. The mystic, however, is looking beyond an exclusive or preoccupied focus on these survival or self-actualization to something more. He is looking to discover the deepest truth of our being as incarnate souls; to understand our greatest potential as reflections of God; to realize our wholeness within the ground of all. The primary interest in life for the mystic is to discover truth, to know God; to see into man's whole nature. The mystic sees all of life as an abundant opportunity to discover, realize, and express the Divine. Mysticism springs from an insatiable curiosity for understanding the essential questions of life: matters of God, creation, the infinite and the human potential for knowing truth. The mystic is in reality the ultimate scientist who, looking beyond the apparent or obvious in all matters, asks, "Is this that I am seeing reality or the illusions that stem from fear?" "What existed before this sense of reality?" "What existed before my mental constructs, my beliefs, my self identity?" "Who is this that observes and is self-reflecting?" "What is at life's very source?" Mysticism: Why it’s so often misunderstood Mysticism is terrifically misunderstood by mainstream culture. It always has been. Many people incorrectly think mysticism is some kind of odd occult or a mystic someone who studies magic or renounces life and goes off to live in a cave. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reason this has often been confused though is not so surprising. The mystic is one who undergoes a radical shift in conscious understanding and that often looks, sounds, or seems very mysterious to our accustomed ways of thinking and being. The mystic consciously enters into the sacred journey that all the world's great religions speak of in various ways. Some call it becoming awakened, enlightened, or born again. It is an inner journey that requires a deconstruction of the conditioned illusions of separation so that the true freedom of living can emerge.

In reality each person, is his own sage!

Are you hinting that I do not understand the subject, and want to put me right

Nice post Peter! Let’s talk about Karma, Reincarnation and Destiny. http://freethoughtblogs.com/yemmynisting/2014/02/17/of-karma-reincarnation-and-destiny/ · Are you blaming Karma for the calamities in your life? · Do you wish you had known about Karma so that you could have averted the calamities? · Do you believe the Karma you accumulated in your previous life is why your life is a mess? So tell me, · Was it bad Karma that got 3 million Jews gassed? · Is bad Karma responsible for the death of millions of African children from preventable diseases? · Is Karma the reason many African children go to bed hungry or starve to death? · Do you seriously think accumulated bad Karma is why a gay person is born into a homophobic society? If we are to go by the definition of Karma, it is rational to conclude that dictatorship, bad governance, homophobia and poverty are all necessary wheels of Karma, and therefore they are important to life and/or karmic circle. Now, if bad governance, corruption, greed, poverty are all integral to keeping the wheel of Karma rolling, why do we bother to fight these menaces? Are they even menaces considering that they are needed for people to get their ‘Just Karma’? It is sad and ridiculous that Karma seems to be widely accepted as a fact. I have come across some freethinkers who are quick to say ‘Karma is a bitch’ and basically endorse the concept. Karma is just another made up %##@*&. And like religion, Karma is also hurts innocent people. The belief in Karma has caused and is still causing much pain to many. If you believe people are in a bad situation because of some bad things they did in a past life, then you will be less inclined to help them. Visually impaired people where and in some places still treated as the scum of the earth because in some societies, it is believed that blindness is caused by bad karma. Reincarnation works with a belief in Karma. The new concept or rather the western concept of Karma, which often manifests in the saying “Karma is a bitch”, deals more with the belief that people get the repercussions of their actions through cause and effect, brought on by the belief that there is a natural law/order that decreed bad people would get their bad Karma on earth. We know this is not the case, especially since there are more people lamenting “Why do bad things always happen to good people” than people giving a thumbs up to Karma, yelling “Yeah, karma is a bitch, he got his Karma!” Waiting around hoping the cause and effect law of Karma would catch up with a rapist, burglar, or murderer is indeed stupid. For any semblance of justice to be done, the necessary structures must be in place. This includes: · A law and order society that is not at war · A law against the crime · A body that can enforce the law · A system that is not partial · And you have to do your bit by reporting the case to the appropriate authority for investigation. If you were the victim of a crime and you reported the criminal to a security officer, but the officer tells you “Karma is a bitch, just wait around, Karma is dealing with it”, you will no doubt be angry at such nonsense. The angry reaction says a lot. It tells me you also know that Karma is nothing but wishful thinking. Now, aside this consoling, lazy, wishful western Karma, there is the Eastern concept of Karma which dates far back. The Eastern concept of Karma is very much linked to reincarnation. Although there are variations in the eastern version of Karma, for example some belief it has to do with a God, and some think you can achieve a state of Dharma or a state of Nirvana, when you work off all your bad Karma, however one belief that is central to them all is that people are reborn. Souls are reborn in new bodies. Now, it is only rational to ask, what are souls? Is soul the alternative word for consciousness? Is it another word for brain activities? Is my soul my personality?

I know that, the different parts of the body, say from head to feet are under different gravity forces, The head higher, lesser, the foot greater. Time is also affected by movement/velocity. Thus my two posts! Yes it all has to do with the frame of reference and the oddness of understanding relativity.

Time "moves" slower in a walkers frame of reference, than it does for a person some distant from him, who she/he is approaching. Thus the Walker" is a tiny weeny bit younger than his/he standing friend

If I am allowed an opinion (Am I disgusting for believing in Almighty God?) My opinion on the "A course in miracles" is that is a lot of hogwash!

Time "Moves" at different rates, even from a persons head to that of his feet below?

You are wrong about Almighty God!! He exist period. As far as karma and reincarnation, how the heck do believers explain Hitler.

I am perplexed as to why hybrids, can be bred very diverse sub- species, such as we see in the cat, dog, horse families etc. I have been informed that we share 98% of our genetic code with Chimpanzees, and much the same with the other great apes. Why then is it thought impossible for an ape human hybrid to be bred?. This is a scientific question, so lets leave out the moral aspects of doing this in this thread

No!!

Karma is nonsense, however there might be a case for reincarnation!