Why ? Why? WHY???

by rune 160 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  LittleToe

  google:It's all well and good to denigrate individuals, thousands of years after they died. Those kind of comments are contrary to scientific method (which is a given, as those individuals are no longer with us to observe!).
  How do you explain the multitude of believers who have nothing wrong with their physical functions?
  

  IMHO skeptics are as apt to grasp for explanations of "what is wrong with believers, that makes them behave the way they do" as believers are about skeptics. These are extremists and tolerance is the best that can be hoped for, with them, since all respect is lacking. We needn't be that way.

  [Edited to add: your post might be taken by believers to mean that skeptics have a dysfunctional brain, where their "spiritual part" is switched off - there are often at least two ways of looking at everything]

  Have you ever taken a Myer-Briggs test?
  It might help demonstrate to you that there are many ways of thinking, and that while you are not unique in the way you think, that it can be quite different from the majority of those around you.
  A little understanding, of this fact, can go a long way towards understanding the social aspects of the world in which we live.
• 

  Granny Linda

  LT; My thought too, about the age.

  When you get it all figured out...please clue me in, ok. I stopped trying to find anwers to so many of my own questions when I started living life according to my own standards. Oh, I can still enjoy a deep conversation, but that's where it ends because I don't know what another person needs in their life, nor do I care to try and sway them to my way of thinking. {I got old}.

  Sometimes, too, I think it's some sort of mind $uck game that some just like to play because they can. Unfortunetly I've seen this in older people that were not looking for insight, they just liked screwing around with people.

  I found it's more important too understand myself {to thine ownself be true} then worry to much about what other's think.

  I wish you well in your endeavor for finding, as I read, that "one" answer that will put all the others to rest.

  Granny, of the "I quite looking for the burning bush a long time ago" class.
• 

  googlemagoogle

  no offense/offence intended, really. if there's really that religious part in our brain it might as well be interpreted as a "prove of creationism". i just wanted to show that some scientists are following the tracks of spirituallity. and i simply find it interesting that a specific form of epilepsy makes people more religious than they would normally be.
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Rune,

  All I'm getting so far is that people like believing life is magical because it makes them happy. That's great, I just wish people would quit beating around the bush.

  If you want absolute answers you have come to the wrong place to get them. Wishing for people to change and be the way you want them to be is a vain hope full of frustration,, especially for such a large group.

  frankiespeakin (again): Actually that is not true. Many primates can think in a dulled, slower way with a memory far lesser in comparison to ours. Even insects and fish have memories, even if they are short. Chimpanzees and dolphins hold a remarkable intellect, with complicated systems of speech and social behaviour. .... Our minds are simply, faster, better and able to hold a whole load more symbols than that of a chimp's or another animal's.

  If you read my post a little more carefully You will see that I said: "Evolution made our minds to function in certain "primal" directions that made us develope thought "unique" to our species.

  I think your interpatation of my use of the word "unique" is something other than what the dictionary definition is,, perhaps you took my use of the word to mean something "abosolute" like man thoughts have nothing in common with thoughts of other species,, Unique as I used it is just the common everday uniqueness,,that doesn't have to be totalitarian in its uniqueness is just different but not different in "everyway" but in enough to make it "unique"..

  Our minds, like our bodies, are finite, and the pretentious assumption that our minds have some great power of infinite dimensions is just well, wrong.

  Well that's just an assumption,,but I'm sure you must know that.
• 

  LittleToe

  google:No offense taken nor intended
  As I keep saying, sometimes this medium sux!
• 

  frankiespeakin

  Goog,
  

  no offense/offence intended, really. if there's really that religious part in our brain it might as well be interpreted as a "prove of creationism".

  I agree with your use of "Interpreted". Interpretations as proof don't seem to be on solid ground any more as man evolves.

  i just wanted to show that some scientists are following the tracks of spirituallity. and i simply find it interesting that a specific form of epilepsy makes people more religious than they would normally be.

  I think the brain has untapped potential,,and imagination set the limits. What ever the brain can't imagine can be true,,and we just might not be able to imagine it with visual type of thoughts or mathematical thoughts or precise images of what a "Non-local Universe" is since we our minds operate in the space-time continueum.

  Science(quantum physics) is pointing very heavily to a "Non-local" universe in which every thing is 'one' and all differences are because of the brains "interpretation" So God or what the hell ever else you want to call it,,, is everywhere and yet nowhere,,, because space & time are just an illusion (thought based). We are the 'one' this thing we call "I" is an illusion a distortion created by the mind and the way it thinks.

  I think that is what some scientist are telling us with this Non-local idea. There are many physicist that have a hard time with the idea,,because it is not what we see and feel with our senses.To understand Quantum Mechanics one has to get used to the idea that things don't happen following the same logic in the world we see with our eyes and touch with our hand on the daily scale,, that we have become used to. It is way different with particles appearing out of "nowhere". With particles changing with observation. Those things just don't happen on a eye visible scale,,except when we play tricks using slight of hand and other such means.
• 

  Midget-Sasquatch

  Being a bio major, I was very fascinated with Persinger's work on temporal lobe stimulation, and its induction of supernatural/paranormal experiences. (I was an ET nut since I was a little kid.) It does weaken the argument for the existence of the mystical or supernatural to a Thomas-y person like me, but it doesn't negate it. As LT rightly pointed out if even such a module were to exist, couldn't one just as logically say that atheists have underdeveloped ones?

  From an evolutionary/material standpoint, one could argue that this sort of belief was necessary and beneficial for the early human mind. It would help it deal with its awareness of eventual death. It would help them remain sane and continue forward, rather than become dysfunctional (insane) and paralyzed by the prospect of a futile existence.

  Editted to add: Quantum mechanics and "spooky action at a distance" are way too counterintuitive for this chimp!!!! But Frankiespeaking is right in how limited are views are even on what most would call objective reality....can we really be judgmental with the spiritual then? <---------- (Its the local agnostics club's membership drive can you tell? )
• 

  seattleniceguy

  Carmel,

  Whether or not you like or are satisfied with the answers, however, is another question. We in the west are so embued with the philosophical notion of freedom to the nth degree, that it is difficult to accept "submission" to any external set of commandments or laws. Yet daily we subject ourselves to driving on prescribed side of the street, obeying all kinds of laws. We recognize for the most part their importance in an ordered society. Religious law, if derived from a source that you accept that has "authority" must be utilitarian and conducive to human advancement.

  I think you misstate the position of agnostics/atheists. It sounds like you are suggesting that people do not believe because they don't like the implications of constraint that belief would impose. I've never met anyone that honestly feels that way, and it's difficult to imagine, to tell you the truth.

  But I shouldn't speak for others. Personally, I have no problems "subjecting myself" to constraints imposed by reality. As you note, I follow traffic laws every day. "Freedom to the nth degree" is not something I seek. What I do seek is a a belief system that makes sense to me. Belief in God simply does not make sense to me, so I can't subscribe to it. But it has nothing to do with a desire not to believe. Trust me, if it were true, I'd be damn excited.

  SNG
• 

  formerout

  Rune,

  Have you seen the movie Mrs. Doubtfire? When Robin Williams' character is being interviewed by the social worker he cracks a few jokes. The social worker, in a very overbearing and rude manner, says "Do you think you're funny Mr.Whatever?" (I can't remember the character's name.)

  He replies, "I used to think I was funny. But you however have convinced me that I am not. Thank you very much for pointing that out to me."

  I feel the same way about your replies to me and every other post I have read. (I haven't read all of them.) I thought you wanted some objective viewpoints. It seems as though you don't want that. It seems as though you want to tell everybody how messed up they are, potentially in order to satify your need to express anger.

  While doing it on this relatively anonymous forum is much safer than doing it in society as a whole, it still does not tend to make people admire you very much.

  From the posts I have read and your subsequent comments to them it seems to me that the more open-minded, objective and quite frankly, loving people are the more you are condemning them.

  Go ahead and vent if you need to, my fellow Canuck, but don't expect to convert any of us who may see the world with glasses that have a little bit more of a "rose colour" to them. Some of us like to live in what you consider our "delusional world". I'll be here smiling and with open arms when you want to join me, my friend.

  Brad
• 

  BrendaCloutier

  Rune, dearheart,

  You're young and your experience is limited by your short existence. Common to youth, you want to know it all NOW. Yet you are not willing to listen to the many viewpoints offered. You have discredited the viewpoint and worse, the messenger. There are people here who have gone beyond anything you can imagine or ever experience. Just because you cannot imagine it, doesn't mean it's not real.

  I'm sorry, but you will just have to experience life a little while longer, maybe even explore some of the things you take issue with like mysticism - perhaps Buddhism, or Native American spiritualism - before you can condemn them. It's easy to condemn that which you, personally, have not experienced, or does not conform to your mindset.

  For instance, creationist ideas vs the theory of evolution. There are new discoveries being made the world over that provide more links to support the evolutionary theory.

  These are not mutually exclusive theories. They are usually taught as mutually exclusive, but I (and many) believe it took both to get to where the universes are today. For me, science supports my personal belief in a god and the universes' intelligent design. I believe that evolution has had a set path or paths. Because a species dies out, may or may not be part of the original design and engineering - a top set to spinning goes it's own course based on its motion and surroundings. But some one or some thing set the top into motion. It didn't start by itself.

  I believe the only true laws of god (He, She, It, They) are the universal laws of math, physics, relativity, gravity, electricity, magnetics, et al. They can be used to our benefit, i.e. flight, atom splitting, but they cannot be broken. The laws (and morals) of man are a totally different issue and are highly subjective.

  Give yourself (and us) a break. Time takes time, and you will gain understanding if you wish to and apply yourself to it.

  With love and peace

  Brenda