The Glade 4.0

TL;DW? It's a47-minute video.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

And "unavailable in my country."

(I can fix that when I get home.)

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Basically that the human psyche is prone to manipulation. Belief is not necessarily a bad thing, but those feelings dont necessarily come from God. Even the devoutly agnostic or atheist can be manipulated into a religious or supernatural experience (by a highly skilled manipulator, and there is no doubt that Derren Brown is that) Our brains are hard wired for a belief in something beyond ourselves. Derren proposes that is evolutionarily adaptive, and I tend to agree, but there are other interpretations. (such as placed there by a Creator) Of course if there is a part of the brain that is tuned to a belief in the supernatural, it is open to manipulation. (Which would be a huge security flaw IMNSHO)

For those that don't know, Derren Brown is a close up magician, mentalist, hypnotist, mostly he uses psychological tricks for manipulation etc. He claims no supernatural powers (other than to prove a point, and then dismisses the claim) but he's stunning in his ability to manipulate and predict people. There are videos of him paying for thousands of dollars of goods with a blank piece of paper, or talking people out of their wallet or phone, or systematically pickpocketing someone of everything in just a few touches. I highly recommend his videos.

While potentially interesting, I dont have 47 minutes to watch him talk about the obvious. Even the most devout believers (in anything) don't think ALL experiences come from <source goes here>.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

A bit of a tangent, I suppose, but I've always thought that the fact we're hard-wired to have spiritual feelings and experiences, particularly religious ecstasy experiences, can arguably be evidence in favor of the "supernatural" rather than evidence of the opposite. After all, the hard-wiring for perceiving light and sound developed because there are actual, external stimuli to be perceived. Maybe the "spiritual" hard-wiring is similarly in place because there's an external stimulus of some sort to be perceived? It doesn't have to be supernatural - it could just be some sort of energy, quantum phenomenon, or other aspect of how the universe works that our species is in the process of either developing or losing via evolution. Or, of course, if there really is a creator, it would make sense for it to have installed some kind of interface to connect with us.

With that in mind, the fact that we can trick our sensory systems into perceiving something that isn't there through direct stimulus or psychological manipulation doesn't disprove the existence of genuine external stimuli. After all, many of the subjects in that video reported seeing things, hearing things, and feeling things that weren't really there, yet the experimenter didn't claim that was evidence that sound, light and tangible matter don't exist.

In life and death situations one often feels motivated by a 3rd man that helps them overcome what may be too much for their personality.

This is likely a survival method used by us because we are social animals.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

That we physiologically have a tendency to experience what we interpret to be supernatural or spiritual experience does not, and never has, strike me as evidence of the existence or non-existence of a supernatural presence, in absence of the respective belief in the first place. If the universe, including the exact nature of our neurological physiology responsible for said experiences, didn't exist as it does, it would simply exist in some other way. There are infinitely many other ways in which the universe could exist and result in the presence of what we know to be conscious creatures which could experience what they interpret as supernatural moments.

A person experiencing an altered stated of consciousness, whether induced, from a neurological disorder, neurological injury etc. does not convince us that his experience is true simply because of how real it is to him. Am I saying that the neuro-psychological explanation of supernatural/spiritual/religious experience is qualitatively no different than head trauma? Yes, but so is the collective sum of all human consciousness.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

There are infinitely many things it doesn't disprove. What we do know is the manipulation of physical matter governed by the laws of nature as we currently understand them results in changes according to those said laws.

Your analogy doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The experimenter wouldn't claim that light, sound, and physical matter don't exist, he simply needs to claim they don't exist in the configuration as experienced by the subjects. This conclusion was reached already in the study of both psychology (conscious experience of reality) and physics (general relativity).

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

I understand the notion that God is a hallucination is offensive to some of you. Unfortunately, that is the way it appears.

Light, matter, and sound have all been observed not just by the human senses, but by observing their effects on the environment. For example, sound causes water to vibrate and can be used to chew holes through aluminum foil. We have no independent measurements of any deity that has been worshipped by mankind - and there have been many deities worshipped by mankind. Therein lies the rub. Yahweh is no different in that regard than Vishnu, Baldur, or Tezcatlipoca. Humans have been dreaming up gods since long before Genesis claims the Earth was created.

What we now have is an explanation for why humans feel the need to invent gods.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I guess someday we'll see who is right. I won't say I told you so if you don't say I didn't warn you. If the shoe's on the other foot we can do that vice versa.


But hey if you're confident enough to risk a negative forever in that, more power to ya. If not I'm always glad to talk.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Also I would contend that humanity has been trying to convince itself God doesn't exist for just as long.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

How kind of you. I suspect your PM inbox will not be sending you any notifications.

I"m sorry if I sounded terse to you Lenas.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Fixed. The offensive part isn't the notion. The offensive part is your refusal to understand that this is nothing more than your personal view on the matter. I realize it makes you feel better to claim that it's result of science and observation but.. it isn't, and can't be.



Which is a circular argument. God is a hallucination (not even the correct term, but that's not the issue at hand) therefore we don't observe Him. We don't observe Him because He's a hallucination.

None of this actually establishes that anyone dreamed up anything. God (and for that matter the various beings of other religions) are, in general, posited to be beings that exist outside our universe, but are able to affect it anyhow. They are, by definition and nature, not subject to scientific disproof or proof. There can be (and is) evidence for various of them in various degrees but it will never be able to rise to the level of proof because that evidence is always contained within our physical universe. Nonetheless, there is evidence and the acceptance of any given set of evidence or rejection of all is entirely particular to the individual. The insistence of atheists and other variations on that theme of thinking themselves more "Scientific" is just a different form of religious conceit.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You know, you might want to think about that from Rori's perspective. You do realize that if he's right and you're wrong, there's nothing he could do about that outcome? So why get offended at the suggestion you might be judged by a God you don't believe in to begin with? That seems rather silly.

For the record, I don't agree with Rori, mainly because I do not believe humans should even suggest they have a hint of what God's judgment on another person might be. Pointing out what God has said to humans in general is one thing, pointing that guidance at a specific individual is another altogether. This was one of my major beefs with Bery.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Unfortunately, everyone is taking this risk. Belief in God (the Holy Trinity) and belief in Salvation afforded by the Sacrifice of Christ does not necessarily spare one from damnation if it turns out that belief is incorrect.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

DE:
He came off a bit sanctimonious, but I was not offended by his statement. I wanted to reply with something slightly sarcastic that still got across the notion that we all here know what each other think, and he wont be changing any opinions on the topic with his willingness to talk in PM's.

I did think of it from his perspective, though. He literally feels bad for us and wants to help guide us somewhere. That's cool, I guess, but my smartphone can tell me how to get anywhere that matters.

If you say so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I saw this thread when it first appeared, looked at the video title, looked at the poster, and my first reaction was



I’ve been thinking about the topic a fair amount the past few days, though, and figured this was as good a medium as any to kick around my ideas for my own edification. /inc wall o'text

At the outset, my parents were sort of typically religious. We went to church every Sunday (morning, not the evening service nor the Wednesday night one). Eventually, the standard petty machinations of small town church folk got them fed up, they left their original church, and for a bit, we just didn’t go. After a fateful visit from an enterprising new preacher at the local church who was making the rounds inviting the rural folk to Sunday services, they decided to give it a shot, and they threw themselves into the church whole-heartedly.

Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, deacon meetings, sings, dinners (“eatin’s”, if you’re being proper), Vacation Bible School, homecomings…if the church doors were open, we were there. Mom taught Sunday school, was in the choir, and played the piano at night, Dad was a deacon (then head of the deacons), I ran the church sound system. The preacher and Dad were hunting buddies, and he befriended several other men at the church. My mother’s less social, but made sure to pitch in anywhere and everywhere she could help.

While I love my parents and think they’re amazing people, I’ve never been much like them in terms of interest. My dad is very smart, though he never went to college and simply farmed for the vast majority of his life, due largely to his abusive father. My mom was a schoolteacher. Still, this seemed important to them, and I was old enough that it was thus important to me, for them.

I remember the day I walked up to the front of the church and gave my personal declaration of faith. As sad as it is to admit, looking back on it now I can confirm what I felt in my heart: I didn't do because I’d heard the voice of God talking to me, filling me with a burning desire to fulfill His charges, but because I was getting into the older age bracket of kids in the church, and while I’d tried and tried and tried to wait, to hear the still, small voice of God moving within me, urging me to dedicate my life to Him…I just didn’t. I didn’t and I hated that I didn’t, but I felt an enormous weight on my shoulders every time the invitation was given (and since we were at every service the church offered, that was a lot of guilt; thank God I wasn’t Catholic). To my parents’ credit, they never pressured me, but it was borne of what the church would call a shared sense of community and what an outsider would clearly see is a forced adherence to the rules via social pressure. I did it out of obligation, plain and simple, real or imagined.

I’d committed to it, though. So I was going to be the best damned Christian I could be. Slowly, very slowly however, I just couldn’t keep sweeping the baffling inconsistencies and hatred for fellow human beings (this was in the ‘90s, just as Ellen announced she was gay on her show, which…brought out the best in the Protestant religions, let me assure you) under the mental rug. I couldn’t believe that a just and loving God would ever find love to be a bad thing, much less warrant the vitriol I was hearing three times a week from a man I knew to be otherwise kind, warm, and funny.

In…early high school? late middle school? somewhere in there, I remember a conversation with my parents over dinner, and I asked a question that every so slightly hinted that I was questioning my faith. Not doubting, mind, just…that some things didn’t quite seem to add up. My parents, despite the church and their religion being huge parts of their lives, thankfully never discussed theology (or politics) much, and that’s just fine by me. When my wife and I host Thanksgiving or Christmas, such topics are verboten in our home (football, too). They result in nothing but anger. But somehow the topic had been brought up, and I asked a question. My mother frankly snapped at me, saying “You sound like you don’t believe.” I was a little taken aback, and replied “No, I’m not saying that at all, just that…I’m questioning, is all.” Her response, which has stuck with me to this day, was terse, yet final: “No, you’re not. You’re Christian, and that’s that.” It ended the discussion in her mind, and to be fair, it did it in real life, too. Declaring someone else’s religion by fiat still baffles and infuriates me, but I’ve seen it time and again.

Once upon a time, I was utterly baffled by the very concept of agnosticism. I was raised Southern Baptist, so I understood that. I understood atheism just fine. Believe, or don’t, it didn’t matter, but it seemed a binary choice to me. The existence of a higher power and creator (particularly, as a Protestant, a “personal” God, one who took a direct and pointed interest in each and every person’s individual life) seemed too big an issue to ignore.

Nowadays, though…I get it. Truly, I do. While I lean pretty heavily toward the atheist side, still I waffle, and I respect faith, but not religion. Even if I fell off of that fence I’m straddling, I don’t think I could ever go back fully to the way I was, though.

I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but it was very recent (within the last couple of years). It finally clicked in my head that I didn’t have to believe in the religion in which I was raised. Logically, of course, I long knew that. Accepting it was a completely different matter.

You want to talk about a “road to Damascus” experience? That’s what I had at that moment. I swear, it was an audible “click”. I’m more convinced than ever that Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”) isn’t a divine command, but merely the practice of psychology long before the term was coined. As human beings, we’re hardcoded to lean toward the familiar. Nostalgia is possibly the single biggest influence in decision-making, aside from maybe sexual attraction. And when you’ve had it drilled into you time and again that your very soul is at stake if you don’t follow the rules in this ancient book and don’t you dare question them, have you no faith?, of course you’re going to default to blind adherence.

The great betrayal of the “truth” of Christianity is, to me, the statistics of other religions. With the exception of a minuscule percentage, you’re not Christian because God spoke to you, convinced you of His existence and you converted. You’re Christian because you’re surrounded by Christian culture, by Christian parents and family and friends, and it’s just the default. It’s hard to argue with that kind of constant affirmation that the religion you’ve “chosen” is the right one. If you were born in India, you’d (statistically) be Hindu, and you’d think nothing of it. If you’re born into a Christian family, there’s no reason to question it, and the very mechanics of the religion insist upon themselves so fully that there’s no room to do so. Knowledge isn’t encouraged. Science is doubted. Facts, when in conflict with a 2,000-year-old book of mythology, are ignored with a baleful glare (I’m not even talking about evolution; you need look no further than the Young Earth Creationists for absolute proof of this).

It’s why wars have been fought, it’s why the church has such a hand in “family planning”, it’s why there are more churches than there are Starbucks: it’s all designed to propagate itself, just like any other system of control. The religion itself feels like a self-perpetuating delusion. You have no reason to believe, which of course is the reason to believe, because what is belief without faith, and there can be no faith in the light of evidence. The story of Zacharias always seemed to be the zenith of this: A man (of faith) prays for a child, and a random dude comes up and says “You’ll have a kid and he’s gonna be great and people will follow him from miles around.” Zacharias’s polite and only mildly questioning reply (“How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years” angers the angel so that he strikes Zacharias mute for…reasons? I’m not sure that “lack of faith” is an applicable reason here. If you were praying in a hospital chapel and a random dude snuck up on you and started saying wild things (despite them being the wild things for which you were praying), I’m pretty sure it’s not a lack of faith that would make you think some crazy man had wandered in. It would be wholly unreasonable to accept him at his word, and frankly insane to not even ask “Are you sure?”

Many religious people have done and continue to do a lot of good in the world. If your religion makes you a better person, a kinder and more generous and more thoughtful person, go for it. Just don’t use your religion to hurt people. And if your response to that is "But I'm just trying to help them per the rules of my bible," please remember that what’s absolutely true for you is utter rubbish to someone else, and vice versa. Even within your own religion. If I remember correctly, arrogance isn't kindly looked upon by God, and I would imagine that believing yourself to be the arbiter of what the vaguely-worded ancient texts say ranks pretty highly on that scale.

Heh in the mid 90's our protestant church had an openly lesbian couple that nobody treated ill.

*shrug*

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The guy offered to take time out of his day to help you. If you don't need the help, the correct response is "no thank you."

I'm not trying to hurt anyone. I'm just offering to give my point of view because from my point of view people who don't believe my point of view (it's not my personal point of view alone, but bare with me) are going to a very bad place, and I don't want that to happen. I'm not always the most eloquent about it, esp. in this format. The easy thing to do would just be to log off without a comment and tell people to (literally) to go to hell. Ya I'm probably grasping at straws, but I care enough about you all to keep grasping.

Penn Jillette, the great atheist put it this way.





I admit that. If I die and wake up in front of Allah or Shiva- or whatever- and they demanded exclusivity of me while I was alive, then I guess I'm screwed. That was part of the point I was trying to make. Do you believe enough in what you believe in to risk your eternity if you're wrong? I'm just saying I do, and I'm willing to discuss the whys and hows of it. It doesn't make better than you because I've figured that out. I didn't figure it out until I was 29, until after I "met" most of you all. It's not arrogance, or at least I don't mean it to be. Everything is someone's interpretation. Yeah its what I believe about the bible, based on what it appears to say. That's kind of getting into the weeds though.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I don't believe anything. I'm not sure I understand the question.

I also don't think you're arrogant, either.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones