Anyone here who sees the unseen?

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^^

That's what I like about my concept of GOD as a Classical panTHEIST AND YOGI LEANING DUDE.

The irrefutable evidence of my concept of GOD SHARED BY millions and millions of people throughout history and prehistory is everywhere I look.

And it is completely reconcilable with all other concepts of GOD as they are only subsets of my concept of GOD.

In other words even an imaginary GOD is part of my CONCEPT OF GOD.

And given that ghosts, and spirits and even other imaginary thingies real or not real in material substance are part of my GOD as like it or not (not you personally) imagination is part of the reality of the Universe, thereby a part of my Concept of GOD too.

In my mind there is no doubt AT ALL that GOD exists. I'd have to be insane to think any other way; seriously.

But oh yes, the GOD I know of nature is a mysterious ONE at times, IN FACT ALL THE TIME, as TRUTH is always stranger than fiction, per Mark Twain, as Hell NO HELL DOESN'T HAVE TO MAKE SENSE, AS metaphor, only, please. ;)

There are imaginary hells and heavens that are as real in what the only thing in life that really TRULY counts, FEELINGS, are. Words or life experience without complex FEELING is empty, callous, and not worth living, in my estimation. One has to have tremendous patience to get through that, as faith, belief, hope, and even WILL ARE ALL HUMAN FEELINGS UTILIZED as such at essence of TRUE fullest human being reality; and yes, ALSO PART of the classical panTHEIST way of believing, too.

It's a comfortable way of believing to say the LEAST. :) I have no REAL reason to get 'Butthurt' over anyone's opinion as I know GOD does not have to make sense, IN THE SCHOOL DAYS way off thinking. :)

"Atheism" makes no positive claims as it is not an ideology. The only trait that atheists share is that they do not believe in gods. Atheism no more a belief than unemployment is a career.



Ignoring the derogatory implication; anecdotal accounts of whom you personally deem to be intelligent are not a valid argument.



It is you who is guilty of semantic trickery. You are conflating two different meanings of the word 'belief' and presenting them as being the same.

belief

NOUN

1An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof:
'his belief in extraterrestrial life'

1.1Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion:
we?re prepared to fight for our beliefs

1.2A religious conviction:
Christian beliefs

Atheism can only be considered a "belief" in the sense that it is a position or opinion. Calling it a system of belief is a false equivalence with theistic belief. Atheism can, however, be a constituent part of a system of belief.



I have made no attempt to justify rudeness. If anything, I've pointed out the difference between "rudeness" and "personal attack".



That's how opinions work. Exactly the same argument can be applied to "I've seen ghosts".



I think you'll find science was involved in the study of the human mind long before I mentioned it in in passing in this conversation.



This is a lecture:



I gave a definition.



I'd say this one is a step up from your previous slight, but I don't consider it a personal attack. I consider it a false premise leading to an incorrect conclusion.



Exactly. It could be argued that "strong atheism" is an ideology based on the idea that there are no gods.

From a logical perspective this is certainly a valid interpretation, but one that I think is devoid of context. It would be a bit of a stretch to suggest he was insinuating mental illness without overtly referring to it as such.



I think we'd find it difficult to find someone that agreed there was damage to OliveOilMom's reputation. His own, however, has not been aided in any way by this single sarcastic sentence.

As per the rules written, it probably comes under the realm of:



And keep in mind my original statement. I did not say that I condoned what he said. What I do think is that we should exercise common sense when determining a poster's intent.

Anyway. We've meandered quite far from the original topic, so:



I think that ventures too far into the realm of solipsism for my tastes. When I experienced my hallucinations I can state with certainty that the experience was 'real', but that doesn't lead me to believe that what I saw was an actual physical place with actual physical people and objects in it. My personal interpretation is that my brain was a little frazzled from long-term over-stimulation and lack of sleep.

Imagination is real, but only for a given value of 'real'. For example, the things I imagine cannot manifest themselves directly into physical reality. I can try to recreate them though - either abstractly through e.g. a piece of music or physically as a construct.

yes. Today I saw a pink polka dotted flying unicorn, a leprechaun, Cthulhu and the flying spaghetti monster. You can't prove I didn't, therefore I did.

Pfft. Everyone knows unicorns can't fly.

I don't know. I'm just saying I support her right to make up any kind of silly stories and pretend she's a witcheryroo or a hobbit or whatever. It's none of my business to say she's wrong! After all, it's of no consequence at all to hold to an accurate picture of reality.

Thanks for the reasonable response, and it really just boils down to interpretation, which is and can be reasonably different, per context, and a different set of eyes.

And on the quoted point above, of course I am not suggesting that imagination in shape or form is a real place per material substance. However, it is an emotional state and a real change maker for human being, per negative or positive consequences, and of course casual potential as a force of energy in the Universe, no matter how small it may be, that is the REAL part.

I've never had an hallucination or seen or heard anything unreal, however I have experienced sensations such as the slowing or speeding up of time, that my wife recognized at the same time, validating my experience in a way she could not have possibly otherwise known, unless she shared it with a type of emotional contagion that is well beyond the state of science today.

I do not believe in the Supernatural at all. It's only common sense that science is extremely young, in understanding all of nature as is, and no, science will likely never understand even a relative small part of it, as our perceptions of reality are so narrow, and dominated by emotional archetypes per any possible real objective understanding of reality. But perhaps, it is the subjective that is real, and not the objective.

Even Carl Sagan, entertains this ideology under the influence of mind altering drugs. Some folks don't need those drugs; they come naturally equipped as is. Those are the real philosophers, like Socrates, who make the REAL leaps in understanding human being, as yes they are simply and or complexily equipped where some folks are not.

But of course, still as always it takes both logic and creativity to truly understand the most of reality possible. And that is what philosophy is truly about, in only my opinion, of course.

I appreciate the sentiment behind the thanks, but I think it's important to stress that I approach every post I make here with reason. I've grown used to people misunderstanding my intent and, while it no longer bothers me that humans filter the words of others through their own subjective preconceptions and principles, I do find it somewhat draining. There also appears to be a growing trend of hyper-sensitivity towards speech on the internet; it's becoming hard to discern whether this is being done out of ignorance, simple misunderstanding, or as a deliberate tactic to silence opposing voices.

I'll leave it there, because I'm straying off topic again and I think that anyone who is interested enough to read this can extrapolate something close to my perspective just from the above paragraph. Of course, ironically, there is the possibility that some will read it it and completely miss the point.



I'm glad you clarified this, but I still think there's an element of solipsism in your world view. Perhaps it's just the fractured nature of forums leading me to this conclusion. I don't mean to make a value judgement, by the way. Every one of us is the most important person in the world - we're rather central to our own existence after all.



That sounds very similar to an experience I shared with my partner. She has since rationalised it as a temporary shared psychosis. I find this explanation unsatisfying, but I have to admit that it's better than any I can offer.



I prefer the pursuit of objective truth over subjective interpretation. If I can't find anyone who agrees with what I perceive I'll have some warning if my mind starts to deteriorate. Of course, should that happen I'll likely lose any interest in objective reality.

Science may one day answer all of the unanswered questions, but I'm convinced the number of possible questions will increase as fast as, or faster than our combined knowledge base does.



It also takes a great deal of time, and there is no way to precisely convey experiential data. It's a shame we can't direct human evolution. Imagine the potential of our species if we shared a hive mind.

I've encountered Lucifer, Belial, Leviathan and Satan

Lucifer is a tall attractive man in a toga with dragon wings, early 30's in appearance

Belial is of average height, male, late 20's, wearing a red robe (Reminiscent of Dracula's in the film Bram Stocker's Dracula), Promiscuous

Leviathan is a tall, stocky man with green scales, 30's, long claws, forked tongue and yellow eyes with slit pupils, wears nothing

Satan is tall, muscular, male, red hair and eyes, late 20's, wears amour

becuse wrongplanet decided to eat my orginal response when i tried to post it, just going to say what i remember short as possiblle at the bottom. dont know how you posted this and seriusly thought it was logical but gives me the idea again that your eithre a troll, or you just dont think anyone readds all of your post while being guided by very narrow, analyticall thinking because the very bottom of the post broke what i said into mind-boggling irrelevant pieces which you then chose to respond to which i cant even wrap my mind around when there was a reason those were all put together in the same sentence - meant to be read as a whole. you claim up top that atheism cant be an idealogy but then at the bottom you sneak in that, yep, a type of it can be an idealogy. you claim that atheism cant be a belief because those who call thmselves atheists can hold other beliefs/practices besides the belief of there being no gods (ie atheism)? that works for the argument that it cant be like a wholle system of thought like a typical religion but i really hope its obvious why that in no way works for supporting why its not a belief.

you accuse me of semantic trickery while in the same breath you finally admit that atheism is a belief? good on you, though once again contradicting yourself, and just to let you know, english is not my first tongue such thatt belief, position, stance, idea, thought, system of thouht, they are all the same embodiment in first language and rightfully so in my opinion becuse the nuances between them english is placing in my opinion is what is causing this semantic bs. i had wrote more and quoted it in right sections but i cant remember the rest, but as i asserted earlier, there are different forms of logic and clearly we arent using or comprehending the same one, shown by you somehow selectivelly answering only fragments of my sentences that you therefore have the luxury of assigning whatever interpretation yo like to them and shown by me getting gob smacked at your blatant contradictions.

I'm always on the lookout for UFO's or some other phenomenon that is novel, but I have not seen anything. Just shooting stars, and moths tricking the eyes.

I saw a glowing egg shaped flying object once, but it turned out to be a blimp.

Yes, I understand you take great effort in providing reasoned responses in actual debate. A better way to phrase it would have been thanks for the respectful comment; just that there were no 'sarcastic' personal affronts. I don't think those type of comments 'help' anything in REAL effective communication online or off.

I took great effort to explain that I was using poetic expression and metaphors to relate philosophy on this site, and still got the this is Gibberish BS from people who cared not to take the time and effort it does take to understand poetic expression, if possible, as some folks seem not to have the ability to do it, and self-report this. Yes, that becomes tiresome too, and clearly when I can move from one method of communication to the other on a dime, it is poetic expression and not gibberish; If one took the time and effort to actually hear or give an F about my clarification that I provided at least a hundred times on this site.

Whether intentional or not, you set the tone for our communication when I re-entered communication on this site, by suggesting I was speaking in gibberish before. I treat people with respect and make great efforts to ensure that here and always have. But when I am treated with anything but respect; yes I bite back, or if I see other folks treated disrespectfully, whether intentionally or not.

I don't expect people to treat folks respectfully on the Internet as there really are no consequences for not doing it other than avoiding raising hate and discontent. Seriously, not trying to personally boast about my strength of fearlessness in real life, but people do know there can be consequences in real life for not treating people with respect. And that's why in the 'Wild' of real life, people are sensitive about the way they treat other folks, if they want a life without injury.

That's an instinctual part of human nature. And no I've never even had to be in a real fight, as no one has ever followed through with a fight with me once they see what I am fully capable of. And again, I am being factual here with a concrete example from my own life.

The problem with the Internet overall in text communication and wherever text communication only is used, is all Language is designed with non-verbal language (60 to 93% of reciprocal communication) in mind to filter the potential meanings of every word that can be myriad per the way language is designed. That makes text communication rife for problems with intent, and with Autism, in general, the problem is obviously exacerbated. This requires even more time to clarify and validate communication in a world where folks are either too busy or just don't have the attention span to effect it or take the time to read it and understand it, IF they even have that ability.

Yes, that's 6 paragraphs just to describe the issue. While obviously you have the ability to read through 6 paragraphs quickly and comprehend the information, you are actually in the minority per that ability, overall on the Internet. It's obvious as usually people without relatively good attention span or good reading ability do not go to the efforts to go line by line in responses that you do in your efforts here.

I like that, but I too read fast, in fact, 10 to 15 times faster on average than the average human being and comprehend information to the point where I really don't have to quote anything, other than for the fact of clarifying who I am speaking to, to keep a stream of thought going, on focus, but yes detailed and full of information, often addressing a multitude of subjects in a short period of time. Some people call it rambling; others call it extremely smart. My therapist calls it IQ off the charts; thats just a fact, not boasting. It is what it is to me, and that's all. And no my 'standrard' IQ is just 130 to 140, and that's not off the charts. I have a hard time convincing my therapist of that. Seriously, I do. And seriously at times that frustrates me too. I like facts not exaggeration.

But the key is I appreciate the fact that I always learn something from every person I meet, therefore it's not hard for me to respect the communication if presented that way to me. But as a retired person who leads an almost completely stress free life, without having to work, and a wife who is OCD about taking care of everything in the household per mundane day to day chores, I have more time than most to do this, which is a great privilege I do understand most people don't have, so I never actually get upset when I am treated with disrespect anywhere, however I respond in kind on principle not emotion.

Now back to the topic at hand.

I am personally the farthest away from solipsism as my philosophy of any that exists. Interesting though as the philosophy itself sounds like the stereotypical view of what Autism is per not understanding theory of mind. My advantage there is communicating face to face with tens of thousands of people in school and work with the public for decades. In doing so I can anticipate what different minds will do given different circumstances and am fully aware that every mind is different; and often much different. Nature making a difference and nurture making perhaps the biggest different in both effect and affect of human experience.

To clarify what I mean about effective REAL LIFE energy resulting from imagination, I will give you a concrete example from my own life. I can go into my military gym, and visualize myself lifting 760 LBS easily now, with my legs, and I do 10 repetitions of this effort; yes, easily. However, if I visualize, which is imagination, anything negative about the visualization of the lift before hand, the result will be less energy produced by my biological body. It's a very simple example but it is the power of visualization in imagination PER REAL LIFE EFFECT at core of human being.

What we believe and imagine has real life results everyday. And the more we eliminate negative potential out of our mind, the more positive potential in real productive effort does most definitely result. Science now evidences this with the Nocebo effect, where negative thinking of imagining being sick in the future, can actually create human illness IN the future.

Belief and imagination are also 'two and same'. One will not work fully without the other. In my opinion this is a scientific and pragmatic approach and science does back me up now. Some folks here will call it woo. And yes, a deficiency in imagination, particularly the ability to visualize anything per non-verbal learning disorder, studies showing this difficulty present in about 50% of cases of Asperger's diagnosed in the US, is directly related with the inability to imagine in visualization positive things happening in life.

I have actually talked to folks diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome with symptoms of non-verbal learning disorder who say they cannot visualize any images in their mind, and they navigate the world almost entirely by language. To be clear this is a general statement. I have no idea if you have any issue with non-verbal learning disorder, although I do know you have good verbal skills; that's obvious.

I find this fascinating and yes potentially directly related to this topic, as some folks who are more orientated towards visual thinking rather than verbal thinking will definitely have enhanced ability to imagine through visualization and perhaps see what they perceive of the world, in enhanced visualization abilities, contributing to the phenomenon of the topic at hand.

In fact, this may be part of the reason, why there is on average what appears to be slightly more folks with Aspeger's syndrome who are atheist, as with reduced ability to imagine through visualization, the options for imagination and belief are reduced from a pragmatic perspective. In general, perhaps there is less ability to believe at all in anything, i.e. Nihilism. Just conjecture and loose conjecture at that, but that is where science starts.

And hell yes, I love science. But I keep an extremely open mind, effect and AFFECT it as such, if you haven't noticed. ;)

And that's ^ 1418 words, but about 20 minutes of my time, where 24 hours a day is open to do whatever I want to do. That's a great privilege and blessing; I've definitely been to the polar opposite place for decades, with not even any time to know who I even am. Seriously; it was that stressful. I judge no one on a personal basis, based on my own experiences of life, too.

Some on this thread are making fun of the idea of seeing the unseen.

However, ASD sensitivities can be "seeing the unseen". I can see light cycling lower than 70HZ, and I asked a few others and they don't.

Seeing that sort of flicker is uncommon but not supernatural.
http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/tech ... plications



Being able to see somewhat outside the usual human perceptual range is one thing. But then coming to the conclusion that what was seen is a fairy or ghost is quite another. I never had any doubt that there are people scattered throughout the population who are noticing things outside the usual human perceptual ranges. Those ranges are very narrow. What I have no patience with is assigning a supernatural explanation to those perceptions.

I am surprised to see that you paint me as 1 out of 4000, when I thought it was common among ASD people ? This is one reason why school was so tortuous, because they used overhead flicking lights, presumably less than 70HZ.

CDC: ASD occurs in 1 out of 68 people in US
http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/prevalence

So, the 1 in 4000 ratio would seem to make it uncommon among ASD people ?

I looked up the flicker for fluorescent lights, what would have been in your classroom:

http://www.scn.org/autistics/fluorescents.html



Interestingly, the page is in reference to workplace accomodations for autism. So it may be that the figure for perceiving 100 or 120 Hz is higher than 1 in 4,000 which only refers to percieving below 70Hz. They suggest other types of lighting, including LEDs. So you may be in that itty, bitty subset of people who wouldn't be helped by their suggested accomodation even though other AS people would.



Indeed, but maybe perceiving the higher but still generally imperceptible ranges is more common in AS people. It may also be that NTs are perceiving this 100 Hz flicker but are far less aggravated by it and can tune it out.