How do the non-spiritual explain it?

[Boss]

Then I see a guy like Brian williams and scientists in the Detroit news today were trying to explain how it might not be a lie if Brian williams believes it and that does happen. A person recalls a real story but embellishes until the myth becomes a belief.

In psychology we call this "sociopathic behavior."

I'm guilty of this myself. I have some great fight stories. Even I don't know anymore when my friends embellish the stories. Did I really throw that guy that far? Probably not.

I edited my post since you replied. I meant to say Psychotic behavior. A psychopath believes his own lies, to the point they can often beat a lie detector. In their minds, they are convinced events took place as they imagine and not as they actually happened. This is what Brian did.

 

[RandomVariable]

Setting aside the various criticisms of religious beliefs for a moment, and pretending the whimsical dismissal of God is perfectly 'natural' for man and all... how do the non-spiritualists explain the following....

Astral projection experiences.
Near-death experiences.
Transcendental meditation.
ESP and telepathy.
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences.
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon.
Spells, curses and black magic.
Edgar Cayce.
Nostradamus.
Prophecy in general.

Is every single bit of it a bunch of hooey caused by our fears and imagination?

To me, it just seems as if there might be something more here. Especially in the case of people like Edgar Cayce. If you've never studied up on him, it's worth a search and read... fascinating man. His uncanny ability to predict the future was beyond anything we've ever known. He gave over 14k readings but that includes a brief period where he didn't do them because he was getting headaches. People were exploiting his power to win horse races and trade stock and he believed this was why he was getting the headaches. After some time, he did more readings but only his trusted wife was allowed to ask him questions.

Can our physical sciences understand this?

This is awareness. The OT gives understanding.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Unexplained phenomena is real. I saw Siegfried and Roy disappear an elephant on a Las Vegas stage in 1989!

 

[sealybobo]

I don't know that David Blane isn't really doing magic. I can't explain everything he does. But I'm sure its not supernatural power. Sorry I don't believe other peoples encounters with the supernatural. There is always a better explanation including the power of suggestion.

None of them? In all the assorted areas I mentioned in the OP and all the billions of accounts... not a single one has any validity or legitimacy? 0% possibility... absolutely certain? I can be rational enough to think that 100% couldn't be valid and legitimate, but certainly some must be.

It just fascinates me to talk to people who have built such a parameter of denial in their minds.

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

 

[RandomVariable]

I don't know that David Blane isn't really doing magic. I can't explain everything he does. But I'm sure its not supernatural power. Sorry I don't believe other peoples encounters with the supernatural. There is always a better explanation including the power of suggestion.

None of them? In all the assorted areas I mentioned in the OP and all the billions of accounts... not a single one has any validity or legitimacy? 0% possibility... absolutely certain? I can be rational enough to think that 100% couldn't be valid and legitimate, but certainly some must be.

It just fascinates me to talk to people who have built such a parameter of denial in their minds.

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Everything God does can be explained scientifically. Well, that which can't be can just be denied.

 

[sealybobo]

I don't know that David Blane isn't really doing magic. I can't explain everything he does. But I'm sure its not supernatural power. Sorry I don't believe other peoples encounters with the supernatural. There is always a better explanation including the power of suggestion.

None of them? In all the assorted areas I mentioned in the OP and all the billions of accounts... not a single one has any validity or legitimacy? 0% possibility... absolutely certain? I can be rational enough to think that 100% couldn't be valid and legitimate, but certainly some must be.

It just fascinates me to talk to people who have built such a parameter of denial in their minds.

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Everything God does can be explained scientifically. Well, that which can't be can just be denied.

How does he hide? Scientifically. How did he turn 5 loaves and 3 fish into a feast for 5000.

 

[RandomVariable]

I don't know that David Blane isn't really doing magic. I can't explain everything he does. But I'm sure its not supernatural power. Sorry I don't believe other peoples encounters with the supernatural. There is always a better explanation including the power of suggestion.

None of them? In all the assorted areas I mentioned in the OP and all the billions of accounts... not a single one has any validity or legitimacy? 0% possibility... absolutely certain? I can be rational enough to think that 100% couldn't be valid and legitimate, but certainly some must be.

It just fascinates me to talk to people who have built such a parameter of denial in their minds.

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Everything God does can be explained scientifically. Well, that which can't be can just be denied.

How does he hide? Scientifically. How did he turn 5 loaves and 3 fish into a feast for 5000.

'Scientifically' he does not exist, now does he? We promise not to open the lid to your little box.

 

[Boss]

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Well, fundamentally we've explained very little. Whatever things you believe have been explained, I can continue to ask you "why?" Eventually, the answer becomes "just because that's the way things are." We can't explain the cosmological constant... it's just how the universe is. We can't explain why a molecule of oxygen combines with two molecules of hydrogen to form water, they just do. We can't explain why some electrons can be two places at once. We can't explain why gravity exists. We can't explain why the particular strength of gravity is essential to our entire universe existing.... it just is.

 

[Boss]

Unexplained phenomena is real. I saw Siegfried and Roy disappear an elephant on a Las Vegas stage in 1989!

No, you saw an illusion. The phenomenon is explained, it's a trick of the eye.

I am talking about phenomena that science has no explanation for, where we have clear documented evidence something has happened. The OP was intentionally very broad in perspective, it includes all sorts of 'other-worldly' areas, many of which have nothing to do with each other. But we all know about these things, everything in my list can be Googled and you'll find all kinds of alleged encounters and instances of occurrence. All of these things have been around for many years, are they all hoaxes and delusions? Even the ones which totally baffle science?

 

[RandomVariable]

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Well, fundamentally we've explained very little. Whatever things you believe have been explained, I can continue to ask you "why?" Eventually, the answer becomes "just because that's the way things are." We can't explain the cosmological constant... it's just how the universe is. We can't explain why a molecule of oxygen combines with two molecules of hydrogen to form water, they just do. We can't explain why some electrons can be two places at once. We can't explain why gravity exists. We can't explain why the particular strength of gravity is essential to our entire universe existing.... it just is.

Actually the chronological constant is because of an expanding universe. Einstein could not bring himself to admit it so he threw in the cosmological constant to balance the equation. Many of your other examples might be considered scientifically explained. Just saying.

 

[emilynghiem]

Setting aside the various criticisms of religious beliefs for a moment, and pretending the whimsical dismissal of God is perfectly 'natural' for man and all... how do the non-spiritualists explain the following....

Astral projection experiences.
Near-death experiences.
Transcendental meditation.
ESP and telepathy.
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences.
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon.
Spells, curses and black magic.
Edgar Cayce.
Nostradamus.
Prophecy in general.

Is every single bit of it a bunch of hooey caused by our fears and imagination?

To me, it just seems as if there might be something more here. Especially in the case of people like Edgar Cayce. If you've never studied up on him, it's worth a search and read... fascinating man. His uncanny ability to predict the future was beyond anything we've ever known. He gave over 14k readings but that includes a brief period where he didn't do them because he was getting headaches. People were exploiting his power to win horse races and trade stock and he believed this was why he was getting the headaches. After some time, he did more readings but only his trusted wife was allowed to ask him questions.

Can our physical sciences understand this?

these can all be explained using energy and science, whether or not we have studied or agreed on this yet.
this does not have to be outside the nature of the universe.

and this can still be consistent with the concept of God
that God is nature or the universe so this is affirming and not rejecting anything

the same laws of science or spirituality still work
whether you see life and the universe as impersonal and just self-existent
or you personify God as a personal being

the same laws still work the same way.
there is no conflict except where we make one up as a condition.

 

[Boss]

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Well, fundamentally we've explained very little. Whatever things you believe have been explained, I can continue to ask you "why?" Eventually, the answer becomes "just because that's the way things are." We can't explain the cosmological constant... it's just how the universe is. We can't explain why a molecule of oxygen combines with two molecules of hydrogen to form water, they just do. We can't explain why some electrons can be two places at once. We can't explain why gravity exists. We can't explain why the particular strength of gravity is essential to our entire universe existing.... it just is.

Actually the chronological constant is because of an expanding universe. Einstein could not bring himself to admit it so he threw in the cosmological constant to balance the equation. Many of your other examples might be considered scientifically explained. Just saying.

Einstein originally posited a nonzero value for the cosmological constant, but after the expansion of the universe was discovered, he lamented that this was his greatest blunder and set the constant to zero [Davies2007, pg. 58].

Physicists, who have fretted over this paradox for decades, have noted that calculations such as the above involve only the electromagnetic force, and so perhaps when the contributions of the other known forces are included (bosons give rise to positive terms, whereas fermions give rise to negative terms), all terms will cancel out to exactly zero, as a consequence of some unknown, yet-to-be-discovered fundamental principle of physics. When "supersymmetry" was theorized in the 1970s, it was thought that it would meet this requirement, but when it was later discovered that our universe is not precisely supersymmetric, this explanation was abandoned. In any event, until recently physicists remained hopeful that some yet-to-be-discovered principle would imply that the positive and negative terms of the zero-point mass density (and thus the cosmological constant) precisely cancel out to zero.

These hopes were shattered with the 1998 discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, which implies that the cosmological constant (and the zero-point mass density) must be slightly nonzero. This "dark energy," which is the unknown force accelerating the universe, also appears to be just what is needed to fill the 70% "missing mass" of the universe, namely the mass needed to explain the observed fact that space is very nearly flat (i.e., locally it appears to be almost perfectly rectilinear) [Panek2011]. But this means that physicists are left to explain the startling fact that the positive and negative contributions to the cosmological constant cancel to 120-digit accuracy, yet fail to cancel beginning at the 121-st digit. This is an even stranger paradox! Curiously, this observation is in accord with a prediction made by physicist Steven Weinberg in 1987, who argued from basic principles that the cosmological constant must be zero to within one part in roughly 10120, or else the universe either would have dispersed too fast for stars and galaxies to have formed, or else would have recollapsed upon itself long ago [Susskind2005, pg. 80-82].

 

[emilynghiem]

Setting aside the various criticisms of religious beliefs for a moment, and pretending the whimsical dismissal of God is perfectly 'natural' for man and all... how do the non-spiritualists explain the following....

Astral projection experiences.
Near-death experiences.
Transcendental meditation.
ESP and telepathy.
Ghost stories and paranormal experiences.
Other unexplained supernatural phenomenon.
Spells, curses and black magic.
Edgar Cayce.
Nostradamus.
Prophecy in general.

Is every single bit of it a bunch of hooey caused by our fears and imagination?

To me, it just seems as if there might be something more here. Especially in the case of people like Edgar Cayce. If you've never studied up on him, it's worth a search and read... fascinating man. His uncanny ability to predict the future was beyond anything we've ever known. He gave over 14k readings but that includes a brief period where he didn't do them because he was getting headaches. People were exploiting his power to win horse races and trade stock and he believed this was why he was getting the headaches. After some time, he did more readings but only his trusted wife was allowed to ask him questions.

Can our physical sciences understand this?

Exorsisms ghosts angels devils and gods don't exist. I'd like to know if that guy ever invited science to come and verify him or before that could happen did he start having headaches?

How do you explain the long island lady who talks to dead people?

How do you explain David copperfield?

Psychology was explaining how unreliable the brain is as far as taking anyones word for what they saw. Brian williams may actually believe his embellished story. So I don't care about stories I or science hasn't verified.

Dear sealybobo just because these things are not real to you or proven to you doesn't mean they don't exist
don't you think that is a bit egocentric to believe it is not even possible to be true if you haven't seen it proven yet
it could still be possibly true and you just haven't seen science prove it

microbes weren't believed to exist until microscopes were invented that could show these things visually
doesn't mean they didn't exist before there was proof

how convenient that you have to exclude the testimonies of people who were plagued by demonic voices
and then these were later cured by exorcism

in order to maintain the theory these are not possibly true
you ahve to ASSUME they are false when you haven't experienced what these people went through

one of my closest friends who is atheist went through deliverance to get rid of demons he had
are you going to say that isn't true and he was making up his own pain and suffering
he couldn't shake these voices and choose to make them go away until after he went through the healing prayer
to forgive the abuses that these rages were attached to

same with the patients in Dr. Peck's books where they reported very similar.
one used the same terms of my friend and said it felt like rape to remove this sickness
but afterwards they recovered and no longer have demon voices in their heads

how dare you assume these people are lying about their experiences
just because you are lucky enough not to suffer as they did

that is egocentric to think that nothing can exist that you haven't experienced for yourself

people's minds and lives have been saved by exorcism and deliverance prayers

you can read all these testimonies online and in books
(Peck "Glimpses of the Devil" or Martin's books on cases of possession)

or you can "conveniently" say they are all FALSE because you haven't seen it for yourself

and then "conveniently" refuse to look into such cases so you can continue to claim they don't exist.

how scientific is that? to keep avoiding the control group so you can keep assuming your theory is true?

 

[emilynghiem]

Here let's see if I can break it down:

Spells, curses and black magic - a buttload of hooey

Dear TheOldSchool
1. one researcher into healing prayer and why this clashes with occult and sorcery
studied the Hawaiian death curse, and found that the creeping paralysis caused by the curse
still affected target victims who were unaware they were the target of the curse.
so how can this be power of suggestion if they didn't even know they were targeted spiritually.

2. another study at Princeton measured the outcomes of random number generators
and found that the correlation of people either meditating or praying to get a certain combination
showed up in the statistics as a pattern greater than just random probability,
and that it made no difference if the prayer/meditation was done BEFORE or AFTER
the numbers were generated. They still had a positive correlation. So this indicated whatever
energy relationship was between the mind and the outcome was independent of time and not linear.

3. the people cured of ills that were interpreted as connected to occult or sorcery influences
all report similar patterns: that first the source or event of the voodoo/witchcraft/spiritism practice
must be renounced, and this removal prayed for in Christ Jesus, and then the negative symptoms
can be removed and healed.

You can call this psychosomatic, but Forgiveness cannot be faked. it has to be real forgiveness
really chosen in order to break through the negative mindset of victimhood keeping people stuck and sick.

that part is real and cannot be substituted for anything else.

all the recovery groups and especially deliverance and healing prayers that work
are based on forgiveness in order to invoke natural healing.

 

[Boss]

the same laws still work the same way.

But we know this is not true in physical nature.

For instance, at the speed of light, time stands still. This defies reality, but it's what happens. That's why a black hole is black, even the light particles have no timespace to exist. As objects reach the event horizon on the outer walls of a black hole, they begin to reach the speed of light and time slows down until 'poof' it stops.

At the atomic level, the famous double-slit experiment seemingly defies laws of physics.Light is a particle and a wave at the same time. It's protons can go through either slit or both slits at the same time, depending on if they are observed. There is no scientific explanation of the observer effect, it defies what should be. Subatomic particles can be connected to other subatomic particles billions of light years away and communicate instantly. Why? How can information travel billions of light years instantly?

For 2000 years, the physics laws of gravity and levity presented by Aristotle, are the "same laws still work the same way". Newton turned that on it's ear and gave us the laws of motion. Later, Einstein and Plank would challenge those laws. So our laws are ever-changing.

 

[emilynghiem]

the same laws still work the same way.

But we know this is not true in physical nature.

For instance, at the speed of light, time stands still. This defies reality, but it's what happens. That's why a black hole is black, even the light particles have no timespace to exist. As objects reach the event horizon on the outer walls of a black hole, they begin to reach the speed of light and time slows down until 'poof' it stops.

At the atomic level, the famous double-slit experiment seemingly defies laws of physics.Light is a particle and a wave at the same time. It's protons can go through either slit or both slits at the same time, depending on if they are observed. There is no scientific explanation of the observer effect, it defies what should be. Subatomic particles can be connected to other subatomic particles billions of light years away and communicate instantly. Why? How can information travel billions of light years instantly?

For 2000 years, the physics laws of gravity and levity presented by Aristotle, are the "same laws still work the same way". Newton turned that on it's ear and gave us the laws of motion. Later, Einstein and Plank would challenge those laws. So our laws are ever-changing.

Yes man's laws are changing
but that doesn't mean universal laws aren't just what they are
and we just can't pin them down. I know some physicists who know all these same
things and just see it as the Universe and don't personify God as a being, so what?

You can still believe in universal laws of energy and how all these
things do this or that or whatever,
and that doesn't suddenly leap to a "personal God who interacts with man"

You can still believe the universe has its own laws
and we don't know how all they work exactly.
this doesn't have to mean there is a personal God.

Boss I've studied the patterns in why people can or cannot reconcile
their views. the number one reason is unforgiveness and fear, or whatever you call
the bias that makes people REJECT what someone else is trying to say.

get rid of that bias, and it doesn't matter if you call the universe personal or impersonal.
people will come to peace about this business and it doesn't matter if they are theist or nontheist
there won't be this mutual rejection going on caused by fear or unforgiveness or distrust of other people/groups

curiously enough, once these biases of fear/unforgiveness are removed,
yes, people DO open up and quit rejecting what is meant by God.
it is not caused by not understanding all these phenomena

it is caused by rejection from unforgiven conflicts with other people or groups
or by fear they are trying to impose their ways. it creates this weird barrier,
so remove that and people go back to their default state where they are open to truth
and don't fight over who is imposing which bias and trying to convert the other person...

 

[zaangalewa]

Quantum Physics predicts there are as many as 11 dimensions in our universe.

One notable feature of string theory and M-theory is that these theories require extra dimensions of spacetime for their mathematical consistency. In string theory, spacetime is ten-dimensional, while in M-theory it is eleven-dimensional. In order to describe real physical phenomena using these theories, one must therefore imagine scenarios in which these extra dimensions would not be observed in experiments.

*cue Twilight Zone music.​

If our universe had only 2 dimensions and an object with three dimensions would cross it - a ball for example - then we would see coming a point from nowhere, the point would grow to a circle and after it reached a maximum the circle will shrink again to a point and will dissapear. This would be the same if the ball had not only 3 but also 4,5,6,7,... or any higher number of dimensions. If an object with more than three dimesions would cross our three dimensions then we would see for example a ball coming from nowhere, growing and going into a nowhere again. As far as I heard never anyone saw something like this. This doesn't mean someone needs not 1,10,100,1000 or more dimensions if he likes to calculate something. But not everything what or how we calculate is reality.

 

[Hollie]

the same laws still work the same way.

But we know this is not true in physical nature.

For instance, at the speed of light, time stands still. This defies reality, but it's what happens. That's why a black hole is black, even the light particles have no timespace to exist. As objects reach the event horizon on the outer walls of a black hole, they begin to reach the speed of light and time slows down until 'poof' it stops.

At the atomic level, the famous double-slit experiment seemingly defies laws of physics.Light is a particle and a wave at the same time. It's protons can go through either slit or both slits at the same time, depending on if they are observed. There is no scientific explanation of the observer effect, it defies what should be. Subatomic particles can be connected to other subatomic particles billions of light years away and communicate instantly. Why? How can information travel billions of light years instantly?

For 2000 years, the physics laws of gravity and levity presented by Aristotle, are the "same laws still work the same way". Newton turned that on it's ear and gave us the laws of motion. Later, Einstein and Plank would challenge those laws. So our laws are ever-changing.

You should void using Answers in Genesis for your science data.

It would take an infinite amount of energy to actually propel an object to the speed of light so it's best to think in terms of an object approaching the speed of light. Nothing in the above defies reality.

As far as science can make a determination, that is the reality so how can that possibly defy reality?

The physical laws that are operating in the universe are not "ever-changing". Our understanding of those laws is what changes as knowledge and technology expands our understanding.

What supernatural laws can you define for us that will explain the natural world?

 

[Slyhunter]

I don't know that David Blane isn't really doing magic. I can't explain everything he does. But I'm sure its not supernatural power. Sorry I don't believe other peoples encounters with the supernatural. There is always a better explanation including the power of suggestion.

None of them? In all the assorted areas I mentioned in the OP and all the billions of accounts... not a single one has any validity or legitimacy? 0% possibility... absolutely certain? I can be rational enough to think that 100% couldn't be valid and legitimate, but certainly some must be.

It just fascinates me to talk to people who have built such a parameter of denial in their minds.

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Everything God does can be explained scientifically. Well, that which can't be can just be denied.

How does he hide? Scientifically. How did he turn 5 loaves and 3 fish into a feast for 5000.

who says he did? A book full of fairy tales isn't proof. Just like Mercury flew on winged shoes.

 

[sealybobo]

How many things did we once think must be god that turned out to be scientifically explained.

Zero supernatural

Well, fundamentally we've explained very little. Whatever things you believe have been explained, I can continue to ask you "why?" Eventually, the answer becomes "just because that's the way things are." We can't explain the cosmological constant... it's just how the universe is. We can't explain why a molecule of oxygen combines with two molecules of hydrogen to form water, they just do. We can't explain why some electrons can be two places at once. We can't explain why gravity exists. We can't explain why the particular strength of gravity is essential to our entire universe existing.... it just is.

Have you seen the old and new cosmos yet? Sagan and Tyson explain how from the beginning humans have asked these questions and the best our ancient uneducated primitive superstitious ancestors could come up with was "must be a god"

Were better than that today. The more we know the less true that comment is. No it doesn't have to be a god.

I'm only going to believe what can be proven. The rest is just wild speculation.