Post 4192732 - (Do you believe in a spirit world?)

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Do you believe in a spirit world?

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Wrong Planet Autism Forum Index -> Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

Do you believe in a spirit world?

Yes

35%

[ 17 ]

52%

[ 25 ]

Unsure

12%

[ 6 ]

Total Votes : 48

Ragtime
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:06 am Post subject: Do you believe in a spirit world?

I like ghost reality shows like "A Haunting", "The Haunted", "My Ghost Story", and "Celebrity Ghost Stories", not to get scared, but for research purposes. I believe in angels and demons. However, I don't believe that human spirits inhabit our world; rather that demons mimic humans, which process we call "ghosts". I believe angels also mimic humans, as the Bible says (Hebrews 13:2), but not to harm or scare, but rather to help and encourage. What's your opinion? _________________ Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

x_amount_of_words
Aspie
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:14 am Post subject:

Ghosts and the like do scare me but when I'm thinking logically and rationally I know that they are not real. I agree with you that demons will act like ghosts and angels will appear as humans. There's no biblical basis for me to believe that ghosts really exist even though I do entertain the idea from time to time. But I know they are not real because our spirits do not linger behind upon death.

factotum666
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:15 am Post subject:

I believe that this is a string of symbols with no semantic content at all. Words are used that have no commonly accepted meaning. Buy that, I mean that if you got 10 people together in a room and asked for their description of a daemon, that you would get 11 different definitions. In addition, none of the statements are falsifiable. _________________ You can fool people, but nature can not be fooled

auntblabby
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 1:43 am Post subject:

google the following- danion brinkley dr. ian stephenson dr. raymond moody edgar cayce dr. george ritchie, MD robert monroe george anderson seth lots of interesting stuff to chew on.

factotum666
Blue Jay

Joined: Nov 18, 2011
Posts: 99
Location: Las Vegas suburb

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 2:41 am Post subject:

I recognized two of the names. Psychics ooooooooooohh. The only person I would listen to on the subject of psychics is James Randi. Also, I do not pay much attention to arguments that are arguments from authority. In almost all cases, my research has lead me to believe that a person becomes an "authority" by sucking up to his superiors (The exceptions are in the hard sciences, and those who start and run their own companies --- Steve Jobs comes to mind. These are people who got their authority be dealing with the physical world) Do let me know when you have some actual falsifiable information on the subject. Oh wait... that does not exist. _________________ You can fool people, but nature can not be fooled

NineTailedFox
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:06 am Post subject:

I think the demons are the good guys and the angels are the bad guys.

auntblabby
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:14 am Post subject:

to the folks who would categorically deny anything their 5 normal senses cannot detect, i would say that the absense of evidence is not the evidence of absense, and that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." people in my family [including myself] have experienced things that can't be explained any other way than as part of a sixth sense. my older brother learned how to dowse as a marine during the vietnamese conflict. my grandmother, who lived in 1920s rural japan which did not have phone service or even local mails, always knew when her beloved eldest daughter was coming home to visit and would prepare a welcome back meal for her a day in advance. when my mother asked her ma how did she know this, grandma would just say, "i just know." i am much more impressed with edgar cayce and george anderson than i am with mr. randi or other skeptics of his ilk. it is easier to tear something down than it is to create something. to those who insist that this mere physical existence is the be-all-end-all of things, y'all are welcome to that straightjacket of consciousness, but i need to believe that there is much more.

factotum666
Blue Jay

Joined: Nov 18, 2011
Posts: 99
Location: Las Vegas suburb

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:31 am Post subject:

auntblabby wrote:

to the folks who would categorically deny anything their 5 normal senses cannot detect, i would say that the absense of evidence is not the evidence of absense, and that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." people in my family [including myself] have experienced things that can't be explained any other way than as part of a sixth sense. my older brother learned how to dowse as a marine during the vietnamese conflict. my grandmother, who lived in 1920s rural japan which did not have phone service or even local mails, always knew when her beloved eldest daughter was coming home to visit and would prepare a welcome back meal for her a day in advance. when my mother asked her ma how did she know this, grandma would just say, "i just know." i am much more impressed with edgar cayce and george anderson than i am with mr. randi or other skeptics of his ilk. it is easier to tear something down than it is to create something. to those who insist that this mere physical existence is the be-all-end-all of things, y'all are welcome to that straightjacket of consciousness, but i need to believe that there is much more.

Actually what is really easy is to make claims that can not be tested, or when actually tested, are shown to be false.
As to your claim to know what I believe, and how limited I am. A bit presumptuous do you not think?

Let me demonstrate your ignorance of my mental state, and what I believe.

The current information supports the following:
95% of the universe is made of stuff that we can not see, and can only infer from gravitational actions
There is good reason to believe that matter is an emergent property of information ( I will let you explore that since you are so open minded. I originally saw it in a graduate level physics book on general relativity theory)
What we see as three dimensional space, is probably a subset of 11 dimensional space, and may be a projection off of a 2 dimensional sphere.

Consciousness is a phenomenon of information not of matter. So when the matter fails, what happens to the information?

And I have not even begun to touch on the multiverse
This "straightjacket of consciousness, " has produced almost all of the things in your life that you use and do not understand. Unfortunately that includes crappy food --- but nothing is perfect. What, of use, has your belief system produced other than frauds and untimely deaths?

So, what useful things has your mysticism produced?
w
_________________
You can fool people, but nature can not be fooled

Tadzio
Phoenix
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Age: 60
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Location: Banned-4-Epilepsy, USA

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 3:31 am Post subject: The Last Temptation of Christ

Ragtime wrote:

I like ghost reality shows like "A Haunting", "The Haunted", "My Ghost Story", and "Celebrity Ghost Stories", not to get scared, but for research purposes.
I believe in angels and demons. However, I don't believe that human spirits inhabit our world; rather that demons mimic humans, which process we call "ghosts".
I believe angels also mimic humans, as the Bible says (Hebrews 13:2), but not to harm or scare, but rather to help and encourage.

What's your opinion?

Hi Ragtime,

"Ghost Reality Shows" sound like another Irish Bull, as noted by Roger Shattuck.

As I've previously confessed, Yes, Yes, and Yes. I do have Demons, I do have the Devils and the Devils' notebooks, and I possess the Possessed. Various translators always tinker with the Art, and the tinker's dam gives both more ingress and egress.

Feeling the Aura

I now usually use the word "aura" to mean the simple partial seizure of temporal lobe epilepsy which gives me sensations totally distinct from normal environmental stimuli.

I also ocassionally still use the word "aura" to mean the energy fields surrounding everything, including animals and people. Being kissed by the gods (now labeled having tle), I use to speak-in-tongues and read people's aura with great precision. More controlled experiments, trying to satisfy the requirements of the Scientific Method, at "least" by Karl Popper's standards, are being attempted by others using computer technology and the "God Helmet" modifications.

My present wonder with the God Helmet and Shaktitechnology experiments is distinguishing the sensory deprivation effects from the observed effects, and then, avoiding all the "Clever Hans" effects from inadvertent flaws in all the trials. Awhile back, I was going to respond to a posting about a person's observed ability of reading people's "color aura" after discontinuing an AED regimen, but I don't think I posted my response. I use to amaze people with my ability to read their "color aura" they were thinking of being engulfed in, with another person writing down beforehand the color they were to engulf themselves in in thought, for independent verification of my great ability, but looking back, it was probably just inadvertent body-language communication hidden from myself by non-verbal autoclitics creating another "Clever Hans" effect (Clever Hans was one super-smart horse, who would even get angry if anyone questioned his "doctorate degrees from Seance Horse University"). Then, I could "read" esoteric things easier than more mundane things.

Speaking the same language doesn't help, as Nabokov's moral art of the aesthete verifies. While epilepsy's ecstatic iurodivyi, but still being the idiot studying the Idiot is a more curious paradox, and playing the Gambler with the Confidence-Man, while being lectured on Job, gives my articulate speaking-in-tongues temptations of engraving Gold Tablets for Uncle GodBucks' immortality program (he's more afraid of dust now). For sure, it is best to seize on a Fine Persian Rug. And Mammon makes the irreplaceable easily replaced. At least that's what Uncle GodBucks chants in his Dollar Signs: "Lord of Silver, Lord of Gold, Lord for Money, Our Spirits sold, Let the Poor crumble to Dust, In God We Trust." I believe Uncle GodBucks is mistaken, and won't be rescued by Greenspan or Ayn Rand & Grover Norquist, but this Age of Materialism is contrary to my beliefs, like most every piece of USA currency declares.

After researching in the University Library's neurological journals, I found the precurser theories similar to the Geschwind Syndrome across life-time temporal lobe epilepsy (and the "Seahorse Epilepsy" of the Limbic System with my Becker's Nevus), and, for then, I decided to regard my epilepsy more like visits to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" where I had laughed in Oberon's face, and declared that Oberon's powerful fairy dust and elixirs didn't scare me, in fact, I'm very immune and careless with them, besides, mushroom rings are much more fascinating, and he didn't kick me out of the enchanted forest, I was ignorant enough to escape to humanity on my own. Or anyways that's what Oberon tells me, so that I may be a more careful Puck. But, Epilepsy is even more mischievous than I am under the Gods' influence, so when I see what fools those mere mortals be, the question should Oberon be respected counter to the reality he knows and created, as all Gods do, is answered for itself.

Then it was said of Siger of Brabant (1235?-?1281):
"Led like Vico and Nietzsche by the fascination of logic, Siger played with the dismal doctrine of eternal recurrence: since (he argued) all earthly events are ultimately determined by stellar combinations, and the number of these possible combinations is finite, each combination much be exactly repeated again and again in an infinity of time, and must bring in its train the same effects as before; 'the same species' will return, 'the same opinions, laws, religions.'" "The Age of Faith" by Will Durant (1950), page 957.

Top this off with transcendental (non-algebraic) numbers, with Cantor Sets, and get ready for every variating permutation also repeated for infinity, whether in terms of time or temperature. If infinity is denied, zero is also denied.

Two different views of much the same, from different bases are:

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?Volume=13&page=515&journalID=62

http://etd.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Miller%20Jonathan%20Scott.pdf?acc_num=bgsu1174405835

Most of my old "friends" from decades past were a couple or more decades older than I was, so the unknown where is just as fixed and determined as the what now. Being the gifted Idiot, people my own age in the past were mainly friendly when they needed a research paper or an intellectual problem solved. While the religious aspects alternating between God speaking with tongues, or Satan quoting scripture, always ended with epilepsy being taken with the prejudiced view that it's the work of Satan when it didn't conform with immediate church utility, so those people from the past still seek cover or start throwing stones.

I'm still playing with word counts, trying to determine the baby-boom brain saturation with Billy Joel singing "We Didn't Start the Fire" lyrics, and the google word counts. My teasing Oberon appears to have had an effect, undesired or not, and from google, it's apparent I sought refuge behind Mickey Rooney after the popularity seperation from Oberon was too much:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Oberon,Puck,Mickey+Rooney,+Tadzio&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

"To sleep, perchance to dream-", nope, wrong character, but with Dracula, Antinous, and Hadrian:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Oberon,Puck,Dracula,Hadrian,Antinous&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
My wealthy old possessive Draculas always fascinated by turkey neck & giblets have lost count, and actualizable wealth, but, to be replaced by large counts of teeneybopper Dracula want-to-be's falling to the marketing for the highest numbers of falsehoods.

Tadzio

P.S.: Siger of Brabant is easier to understand, but limited, (Google "Siger of Brabant infinity Will Durant" for a few examples of short citations), while Nietzsche is much more of a challenge with his "Vicious Circle", but maybe nicer "Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same".

auntblabby
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 4:39 am Post subject:

factotum666 wrote:

auntblabby wrote:

i said absolutely nothing about YOU, specifically. you needn't defend yourself against a homeopathic attack by a phantom. only YOU can know of your limits, if any.

factotum666 wrote:

95% of the universe is made of stuff that we can not see, and can only infer from gravitational actions
There is good reason to believe that matter is an emergent property of information ( I will let you explore that since you are so open minded. I originally saw it in a graduate level physics book on general relativity theory)

all i can say, is 1] you're a lot smarter than me, and 2] until you've walked in my shoes, you shouldn't tell me it's all my imagination, THAT is what i'd call "presumptuous."

factotum666 wrote:

What we see as three dimensional space, is probably a subset of 11 dimensional space, and may be a projection off of a 2 dimensional sphere.

then, to paraphrase a line from another very smart man, "if our puny little earthbound incarnate lifetimes were all that ever could be, wouldn't all those extra dimensions just be a big waste of space?"

factotum666 wrote:

Consciousness is a phenomenon of information not of matter. So when the matter fails, what happens to the information?

you're asking the wrongest possible guy, my cat may know more about that stuff than i. waaay above my pay grade. Embarassed

but i read somewhere that particles and waves were manifestations of the same thing. what if information and consciousness were a part and/or parcel of some hitherto undiscovered indestructible energy/matter/state of matter?

factotum666 wrote:

And I have not even begun to touch on the multiverse This "straightjacket of consciousness, " has produced almost all of the things in your life that you use and do not understand. Unfortunately that includes crappy food --- but nothing is perfect. What, of use, has your belief system produced other than frauds and untimely deaths? So, what useful things has your mysticism produced?

i'm a lousy one to prosceletize about such matters outside of my own experience. obviously you have a scientific intelligence/sensibility that i don't- one day a critical mass of scientists will determine to explore the non-physical realms and eventually will discover the common intelligence underlying all of existence. you might call that a cosmic metaphysical algorithm whose process results in the metaverse, i'd just call it "god," or at least a vast app under the master programmer. until then, people like me will have to rely on old-fashioned faith to get by in life. my personal faith [just the golden rule, and no real religious affiliation] has not defrauded or killed anybody that i can tell. but organized religions have, in the main, proven to be a mixed blessing at best. as to whether or not science itself is an unmixed blessing in this world, tom lehrer [a REALLY smart man] acidly croaked, "Wherner von Braun": "I'll sing you a tale/Of Wherner Von Braun/A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience/...'Once the rockets are up/Who cares where they come down?/That's not my department,' says Wherner Von Braun."

puddingmouse
exclamation mark!
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:18 am Post subject:

Nope. Never seen a ghost or seen any convincing data for their existence. I've seen ghosts in dreams but I don't count that as data for proof of their existence. _________________ I'm written in a language even I don't understand - but I am learning.

The_Perfect_Storm
Phoenix
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:16 am Post subject:

No. Common sense.

StonedMoonie
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:37 am Post subject:

Human beings are dirt. When it stops being organized dirt it goes back to being just plain dirt. No spooks necessary.

Vigilans
Orgasm Donor
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Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:47 am Post subject:

"Ghost reality shows" LOL _________________ Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do