Bikerman

You need high-level filtering skills to be able to use the internet reliably. Unfortunately most people do not possess these skills and that is a problem.Such skills includei. the ability to recognise good and bad sources of informationii. double or triple checking data; spotting fallacies and composition errorsiii. checking references and citations properlyWithout such skills the user is floundering around in the dark and is easy prey for those who would mislead.

Religion is not about truth. Faith is a terrible way to find truth - you wouldn't use faith in your daily life if you were searching for truth. Faith is the excuse people use when they have no evidence.Buddha certainly existed - we have evidence in contemporary writings. Jesus probably didn't, in my opinion. Neither of them were 'Gods'.The idea that all religions have the same 'core' of teaching is just nonsense. Some religions are polytheist, some are animist, some are monotheist and some are so weird that we don't have a word for them. If the Christian god exists then the Jewish and Muslim god cannot exist - they are mutually exclusive. If the Christian god exists then polytheistic religions must be wrong - and vice-versa.There isn't even a common thread or message. Jesus tells people to abandon their responsibilities and follow him, and he will then give them eternal life in some 'paradise'. Yaweh tells people that they better do what he says or they are toast (he has nothing to say about heaven or hell). Buddha says that these notions of a God are silly and the thing to do is reduce dependence on material possessions and search for 'non existence' - freedom from the cycle of birth->death->rebirth.These are not even close to being the same message.I think that you are so desperate to find some way that these religions can be true that you have deluded yourself into thinking that they are somehow all pointing towards some greater truth. They are NOT. They are superstitions, with zero evidence for their supernatural claims, dating from a time when people generally believed in spirits and unseen powers.We don't need Gods to be righteous - in fact there is a very strong NEGATIVE correlation between religiosity and bad social indicators (divorce, abortions and teen prenancy rates, violent crime, prison populations - you name it - the more religious a country is, the worse these problems generally are). This is hardly surprising when you actually READ the bible - it is a horror story, full of rape, killing and genocide, utterly immoral behaviour by God and commanded by him of his 'people'. Hell, the 3 Abrahamic religions share a common foundational story - Abraham being told to kill his son. And the insane thing is that we are supposed to think that he was a GOOD MAN for being willing to do so, rather than obviously being a dangerous nutcase hearing voices.Religion has NO redeeming features. Maybe once it had a use. When everyone is blind then a man with a little amount of sight is useful. When the lights go on, however, he is not.The only 'positive' thing that can be said about any religion in today's world is that it apparently gives comfort to some people. To me that is illusionary comfort and I don't consider it worth a candle - and I also consider it immoral to offer such comfort.I've said this before, but it bears repeating. If a friend asks you if he is dying, and you know he is, do you lie (maybe he will live longer if you lie) or do you tell him/her the truth? Religion offers the lie. I would tell the truth because that's what REAL friends do.

So it this God malicious or just stupid? Presumably this God is anxious for us all the know and love him? So why rely on 2400 year old semi-literate scribblings which are full of errors? Why does each religion have a different AND MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE idea of God? If the Christian God exists then the Judaic and Islamic Gods DON'T exist - you can't say they are all the same being becauase they don't believe that.You admit that this God is a genocidal monster - in fact Genocide is too small a word isn't it? What is the word for 'killing everything on earth except for an insignificantly small group' ? Humanicide? But he did all the animals as well didn't he...so humanicide still doesn't cover it....Zoicide is probably closest - killing all life. The idea that this God could then regret his action, or make an agreement not to do it again, means that it cannot be all-knowing (omniscient) - it is one or the other. It is also something made up - point to where it says any of this in the bible (don't bother - you can't because it isn't there). So, to clarify, you believe in a Zoicidal monster who you claim is the same monster that Jews, Hindus, Muslims and the rest also believe in (even thought that is actually not possible - especially for those that are polytheists). You believe that he was a nasty God for a while, but then changed his approach and became a nice God. That would coincide with the time that he stopped appearing to anyone. I suppose next we will have the Christian version - sending himself down to earth, in the form of his son, to have himself tortured and killed, so that he could forgive us for a supposed sin that was committed by distant ancestors and for which sin the only way he can forgive (despite being all-powerful and all-loving) is to have himself temporarily killed. And people actually think this makes sense? Sheesh....what a load of crap.

Hmmm...a familiar tale from believers.Basically there is another way to explain those facts:You were waiting for the results of an exam, but you strongly suspected you had done badly. The dream is fairly standard - subconsciously you were trying to find reasons for failure and granny enters to grant the forgiveness that your self cannot grant itself....You still show some emotion regarding this exam - for example you talk about 'clearing' rather than passing or failing which is an unusual choice of words.....And you base your belief in a supernatural and the inevitable and inexplicable system of spirits and miracles that this entails on.......on that?Aside from the obvious - even if true it would tell you precisely nothing about the afterlife other than it existed, but consider, which is more likely?An explanation such as the one I came up with in seconds or an entire realm of reality which means a lot of what we know must be wrong. And before you say that science has been wrong before, let me explain that scientific theory has certainly changed over time. Basic measurements and laws, however, have NOT. An apple took about a second to fall one metre in the time of Newton. Last time I checked, it still does.For your belief to be truth requires that thermodynamic law, causality itself, as well as everything we know about neuroscience, information and basic human biology. We also have to add an infinitely complex entity (and anyone who says, at this point, that God could be simple, not complex, you are WRONG as I can demonstrate if required) to our model of reality, and Ockham's razor demands that it better bring something pretty impressive to the party, otherwise we ditch it. What does it bring ? Nothing at all.It doesn't tell you what happens after death - or it does, but it keeps changing - is Purgatory still in? Is Hell being denied the presence of God, rather than a real hell and brimstone existence? Do un-baptised babies go to hell?Ask a variety of religious people and see what you get back - and these are the EASY questions. It doesn't tell you ANYTHING about the hard questions, like 'What do I think about genetic manipulation of humans?' or 'What do I think about the current Government-Media relationship in their respective rolls of establishment and watchdog?God couldn't even get it together to tell us not to keep slaves - in fact he rather said the opposite - so God is not going to be a great source for properly tricky moral questions is he? even if we knew what he thought about them - an issue on which he seems strangely silent...

You are not reading. I don't believe there IS a soul and so of course I see no problem. You are inventing a problem that I don't believe exists.

COnsciousness drops but doesn't entrely go away. There is no soul so it doesn't go anywhere. I was simply saying that in dreamless sleep we come as near as we can imagine to death - lack of self-awareness etc. Nononono...I thought I'd been clear that I don't believe in the concept and see plenty of reason to be fairly sure it is an invention....

Really? How odd...Why would religion have that purpose? Surely religion is about the truth of 'God(s)' or worldviews and, again, surely you would not change the truth in a utilitarian manner simply to better people would you? let me pose an example. You know your good friend is dying and only has weeks. He asks you directly what his prognosis is. The doctor has told you that telling him will almost certainly shorten his life. Do you tell? My answer is yes, and I wouldn't agonise long over it either. The duty to truth is greater than the duty to perhaps contribute to a short extension of his life - and it would be, IMHO, even if telling him killed him on the spot. Some people think that is wrong, and that a REAL friend would lie to extend his life. All I know is that I would find it hard to remain friends with anyone who I believed would do that to me......

Nope. My thought certainly change - moment by moment. It isn't 'percolated' within me....it results in different synaptic connections in the brain (physical) which I perceive as different knowledge, thoughts, habits etc (mental). The physical change absolutely describes the mental change, we just don't understand enough yet to be able to 'read' those changes.Therefore the soul becomes an entirely dodgy and unwanted notion because it either records a decrepit 'me' or it records a 'me' that is out of date. Both are horrible ideas to me.Now, this point about not creating or destroying matter. OK - there is a basic truth there, but think about what YOU are. Your mind is electrical signals moving around the brain. When you die, the electricity is switched-off. Without that there is no mind. The matter still persists - although it will decompose into simpler chemicals over time - but the 'motive force' - the electrical currents - they die when you die.When you sleep, are you conscious of yourself (assuming no dreams)? The answer for most people is no. Now, stretch that sleep period to a year, a decade....still no consciousness. Stretch it as long as possible - eternity - still no consciousness, no soul, no afterlife, just literally nothing - no perception, no memory, no sensations, nothing at all.People find this idea scary - I don't really understand why. I was 'not alive' for many billions of years and I don't particularly have a problem with that - so why should the same thing be a problem now? Answer - it isn't. When you really face the issue squarely and head-on, fear vanishes. Sure, I don't want to die, but I'm not scared of dying or being dead. I do not want a painful death - I'm much more scared of that, but the act of dying and of being dead - why should that scare me?As a wise man said:- Why should death worry me? Where I am, death is not. Where death is, I am not. Why fear that which one will never meet?Moreover there is wonder and beauty in this. Every atom in my body has been though a star - many of them have been through 2 or 3 stars. They will, in the future, go through more stars and be blasted into space to maybe end-up as part of a planet - maybe even part of another being or creature.I am, in a very literal sense, stardust - as are you. We come from stars and we will, in turn, return to stars, our matter being recycled over and over to make new wonders.I find that a marvellous and deeply moving thought - now that is what I CALL spirituality. Compared to this real truth other versions of afterlife - heaven, nirvana, elysium - these are childish, parochial, so unimaginative, so downright boring. You can keep the nonsense of eternal life and 'happiness forever' - because it would be a horrible punishment for anyone to endure..As for me? I'll be a star please! What a wonderfully better vision the real future holds than some bronze-age silliness......I'm filling-up just thinking about it.....magnificent.

The bible, without doubt.

Well, you see, I think it CAN be measured.Anything that has an 'effect' can be measured by that effect. Everything has an effect, so everything can be measured. Saying that something has no effect means it does not interact with our observable universe - which is the same as saying it does not exist in our universe. The notion of a 'soul' being the essence of a person is simply unsupportable. We KNOW what makes me ME - it is the porridge-like matter in my skull. We can pretty much prove it - change someone's brain - by accident, for example, and their entire personality can change, they essentially can become a different person. If there really was a soul then it must, by definition, contain information. Information needs to encoded. Encoding information can be done many ways but they are ALL measurable. Guess what? Scientists have tried many times to measure a soul - by electrical effect, by mass, by energy discharge - you name it. Nobody ever found a trace. It also flies in the face of everyday experience. I am a 50yr old man. I am, in many important ways, a different person to the 18yr old me. If I did have a soul and it developed with me to reflect the current me, then that would be horrible. Most people die sick and old. I don't want an old copy of me - Ii'll have the younger one please. But if that were possible then what happens to the older me? I find the whole notion of a soul frankly ridiculous.

No, sorry, I don't believe it. I know of devout Christians who have died in terrible agony and who were certainly praying during it. To say that they somehow forgot is insulting. It is also pretty easy to demonstrate that prayer in such circumstances does NOT do any good. The most famous such study involved cardiac patients who were prayed for, and some of whom prayed, after heart-surgery. The results showed no benefit from prayer at all and this type of result is repeated in many similar studies.What REALLY happens is that some people pray when they get in trouble and, statistically, some people get out of trouble. They then draw a causal link where non exists. This is completely normal - we all tend to forget the misses and remember the hits.Incidentally, this is why shysters like John Edwards and other con-merchant spiritualists can make a fortune - he will try several times to score a hit and the person will forget each miss and only remember the hit.Classsic cold reading.

What about the people who die painful deaths everyday? Did they not believe hard enough?

No, obviously I do not believe in animism - this is obvious from my general stance as a materialist/humanist/atheist. Since, as you say, you cannot provide any evidence to support the notion, it seems to be simply faith - belief despite evidence* * Yes, I know that it is almost impossible to prove the negative - you can't prove that the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bless her Holy Hooves) doesn't exist, but that does not provide any reason to believe she does (even though she actually does exist, of course). The fact is that there is simply no good reason to believe that anything that is 'me' could possibly survive my death. It is generally accepted that my consciousness, personality, self-awareness - in other words everything that makes 'me' - is a product of the physical brain which dies when you die. Any claim which disputes this must provide some pretty damn good evidence, yet they provide not a jot.

I think a recurring problem is the definitional one. What, exactly, IS spirituality? Unless that is addressed then we may be talking about entirely different things. To me it is simply a feeling or state of mind in which one experiences something of the awe and splendour of the universe. Nothing more, nothing less. It isn't necessarily transcendent, though it can be, and it hasn't got anything to do with supernatural entities, though some people insist otherwise.

I mean better as in 'less pain and suffering' - something which most people would agree with i think, and something which science, and ONLY science, has consistently delivered. From philosophy, where such questions belong and where they are must fully addressed. The Greek philosophers asked exactly that question - what shall we say is a 'well lived' life? Philosophy has been addressing that particular issue ever since. Yes, I believe it does mean exactly that. Family is not simply something to discard in search of personal fulfillment and to do so is, in my opinion, not only selfish but actually immoral. One has obligations and responsibilities to other. To abandon those responsibilities and obligations is, almost by definition, an immoral act. I can and do deny that.It may bring temporary peace or even soimething akin to 'bliss', but so does heroin or cocaine and I believe in neither case is the effect more 'real'. Certainly we can 'think' in different ways which are interesting and may offer some benefits, but that cannot be done at the expense of responsibilities and it could never even get close to offering the same benefits that science has already brought to humanity. No, I was not talking about such people - who are basically nothing more than con-merchants. Conscience is nothng more than personal morality nudging one. It is found in the vast majority of people - excepting, perhaps, sociopaths and psychopaths, and it has little debt to any particular notion of spirituality.

The Everett Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics is a bit more than a basic belief. I'm pretty sure than a lot, if not most, physicists would go along with it...

Let me recommend some reading to you. Specifically the writings of Jaques Monod, who I think sums this debate up beautifully.

That is a big claim, and although I don't disagree, I wonder what you base it on?

Do you really think that earthly parents would, under ANY circumstances, condemn their children to eternal and unbearable suffering as a 'punishment'? Do you really have the nerve to call that 'compassion' ?I don't believe in God. This is not some wilful rejection on my part, it is a very considered and thought-out opinion arrived at through much contemplation and study. Yet according to Christian dogma I am destined for an eternity of unbearable pain and suffering. And Christians then have the barefaced cheek to tell me that God is merciful and compassionate? What a lot of nonsense.The notion that we cannot 'question God's creation' is a prescription for ignorance and, of course, religion is the father of ignorance and the mother of stupidity. Thankfully we have moved beyond that sort of nonsense and we DO question creation - and by questioning it we have discovered the principles by which it operates - principles that allow you to type your thoughts and have them displayed for the world to see. If we took religion seriously then you would be shouting your message to those few people within earshot, then returning home to your hovel, with a life expectancy of about 25yrs, and the certain knowledge that your life would be full of pain and misery, helpless victim of disease and probably dying because your teeth became so infected you could no longer eat.

But this is just platitudinous guff.Truth is what science is all about - it is a system, honed and refined, to arrive at objective truth. I'm talking about measurable, testable, workable truth - how things ARE, what is REAL.The notion that science is only concerned with human welfare is yet another misconception. Science is a METHOD, not an AGENDA. If you want to learn about other species, if you want to do conservation work, if you want to understand the biosphere in general, or specific parts of it, then SCIENCE is the way to do it. You don't learn about new species by meditating or embarking on some spiritual quest - you do SCIENCE.Do you think those people doing the most to help the environment are using 'spirituality' as a tool? Do you think they sit around in circles chanting? In fact 'spirituality' - whatever that actually means - is far more selfish than science. Spirituality is all about the 'me' - whether it is understanding MY position in the universe, or understanding how MY actions affect others, or understanding how I can live a 'good' life. A scientific consciousness opens one up to the entire universe - it is exactly the opposite of what you say. Rather than focussing on humanity, science teaches us that we are a minor, tansient part of a much bigger picture. Science doesn't set mankind up as a be all and end all - just the opposite. Science teaches us just how insignificant we are in the universe and gives us a (proper) sense of humility when we compare our achievements to the wonders of the Cosmos.

PS - additionally, I am now certain that your previous claim to be a physics graduate was simply a lie.This would tend to support Voltaire's assertion (above).

Again you seem to be confused. It doesn't matter what the rules are, science is the method we use to find those rules. The scientific method, boiled down, is : observe, hypothesise, test, refine. This method works, and it works regardless of the actual rules.The notion that science is a subset of spiritualization (whatever that means) is absurd. The knowledge we have of the modern world - the knowledge that enables you to type your replies, for example - owes nothing at all to spirituality and everything to science. Whether you believe the wheel or the brake is more important - both are the products of scientific thinking. Neither came about by someone searching for inner meaning.You have not answered my question. What does spirituality tell us about consciousness that we can test? Show me one single useful prediction about consciousness that arises from some spiritual understanding. I'll give you as many as you like that arise from scientific analysis - all I ask for is a single example.

Well, someone who does not accept facts - such as the FACT that life expectancy in India has increased - is immune to logical debate. Anyone who can say that they 'do not believe in science and its theories' is clearly living in a fantasy world of their own creation. The fact that you are using the products of science to type your nonsense is absolute proof, if any were needed, that the theories of science DO work. Presumably you think that your words appear here by magic and not as a result of science. Well, if someone demonstrates such invincible ignorance then there is little point trying to debate rationally with them because they reject the very notion of reason. As such you are a very nice example of the dangers of blind faith. If someone can be brought to believe absurdities such as the ones you believe, then they can be brought to believe ANY nonsense. As Voltaire observed: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

But if you went back and corrected the mistake then the mistake never happened, so there is no mistake for you to go back and correct.Ya see da problemo

I think you are confused. A materialist outlook/philosophy does not mean believing that only 'material hapiness' is possible - it questions what that phrase means. If you mean happy with things other than material possessions then I see no contradiction at all. Believing that there is no supernatural is not the same, or even remotely related to, believing that only material possessions can bring happiness.Science actually WILL tell you about 'the brink of welfare' - in fact it is the only thing that can. If you want to make rational choices about the environment then you can either adopt a scientific approach and make decisions based on evidence, or you can adopt some other approach and base your decisions on gut feelings or signs from heaven, or a voices in your head...I know which approach I think is easily the best...Your last two sentences don't make any sense to me. Everything is defined within the realms of consciousness - even unconsiouss thoughts are rooted in consciousness. That has no implication that science is a subgroup of anything.Science is based on one axiom - that the material universe exists in a way which is related to our perceptions of it.That is the only pre-requisite - the only thing that needs to be assumed.Any other philosophy or religion must make that same assumption, or it is meaningless. Religion also assumes more - normally a deity or plan or purpose.Science is a method, a way of examining the universe. You could call it one of a number of different ways of looking at the universe - and therefore a subset of 'ways of looking at the universe'. But that gives a misleading impression - that the other ways are somehow on a par, or equally valid, when clearly they are not. Science is the only one which has proven successful time and again. The only one which allows us to make rational decisions. The only one which makes testable predictions which come true everytime.What does religion actually tell you about consciousness? What facts can we take to the bank and rely on? I don't mean deep-sounding statements which can never be tested and are therefore meaningless, I mean good solid information that might help us better understand consciousness?