Don, It concerns me that you seem to be filled with such anger, hate, and you own ego. Why are you being like this towards the people here who are expressing their personal beliefs here. Who gives you this right to judge us so harshly? Very few here deny the existence of "God", yet you attack them like they are some how less than you. You insult our intelligence at every opportunity in order to make your beliefs look correct. Please look inside of yourself and consider the damage you are doing to not only your own soul, but also to what you say you believe in. Your turning me off religion more than I have ever been before.
Joe

Well thanks for them kind words, Berserk.

After you're through dissing me for being intellectually impotent, you might want to pick up my text in hypnotic regression and its companion in psychopathology - published by Amazon - But don't tell Mainstream Academia - they might think it's an effort to become critically engaged in the mental health industry and its methodology.

Oh yes - if you want the metaphysical part, try a copy of this: Armentrout, D (1987) "An Attributive Systems Model of the Generation of Knowledge". Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Access: LD 01227 - Assuming that you have enough math to read it.   Notice especially the section on entropy accretion in a closed active system.

In point of fact, this forum has more heavyweight academics, healers, technicians, engineers and field workers than any other of this sort that I've discovered. The depth at which a lot of these discussions occur is, frankly, better than most of my discussions with academic colleagues in the Faculty Lounge. And of course there are always a few odd balls and kids who still have foot-in-mouth trouble. But we tolerate them gladly, both here and in everyday encounters, because it is through criticism and discussion that these will become the thinkers of tomorrow. And some of them will make it.

Hope to see you amongst the successes. 

dave

As someone who tried past life regression once and finds the idea of past lives interesting, I must admit I do see problems with them as proof. The person I went to didn;t even, for example, go back to early childhood first, just relaxed me with visualisations and then told me to go back to a past life with some significance to my current one and start describing my surroundings and what I was wearing. The problem I see with that is that hyponsis is known to release inhibitions, stimulate the imagination and spontaneous creativity etc - as you can see when stage hypnotists get people to act in amusing ways, so I'm not sure one can be sure that any images that come up are definitely a factual past life or not.

I don;t want to take sides on this, but I imagine (not based on much knowdledge of the area, admittedly) that mainstream scientists dealing with the study of consciousness etc probably on the whole take a skeptical view of claims that regression proves real past lives whereas the view they DO is probably quite common among those therapists that make use of it in practice, probably becasue it seems to help many people, as dave says. It seems fair that if a number of people say the experience helped them and they feel more in control of their lives etc then that is a positive result. On the other hand it still doesn;t necessarily mean the experience relates to a factual past life for it to have had a therapeutic effect IMO

I must say though, in view of the hard-nosed stance Don takes on this - insisting on siding with the most skeptical, materialistic, fact-driven view - I can;t quite see how this gels with his defence of Christianity, which try as I did, did not seem to make any hard-nosed logical sense at all (or even fluffy, touchy-feely sense either) . I was going to say that in a sense it can be best seen as like a fantasy book which makes sense within its own world and rules, but not when compared to the actual world of facts, history, logic, experience and laws of physics we live in, but even that is not true as it is full of internal inconsistencies that any top-notch fantasy writer - say Tolkein - would have spotted and ironed out.

I see a few possible approaches to believing it - 1. the naive, unquestioning approach - the person who doesn't seek to ask questions and probably doesn't want to hear about theories that would make them doubt (or maybe thinks such things are from the Devil), similar to the obedient/passive approach - like the Roman Catholic who accepts the Pope is always right and the Cathechism can explain everything once and for all 2. the highly academic and theoretical approach whereby a certain type of clever person may be able to convince himself it makes sense, despite the common sense evidence to the contrary, by complicated intellectual contorsions 3. the mystical aproach - going on feelings and not spending too much time reading the Bible and creeds etc 4. the liberal approach, agreeing that traditional explanations are largely a product of their time, and not to be believed too rigidly, but that somehow there is a "core" of values, experiences, traditions and even aesthetics that are valuable. There is also probably the most common approach of those who call themsleves Christian (in the Uk anyway, where I am from originally) , in that it is mostly a matter of tradition and emotion and they have not bothered to examinine it much and see either what the religion precisely teaches or if and why they should believe in it.

If someone wants to believe in it, that's OK, it would take far too long to rehash all the reasons against it, and if anyone wants to find out about them they only have to read sites about atheism, biblical errors, the historical Jesus, comparative religion, church history and so on. However a "true believer"probably won't. i do find it odd though that Don inissts on his credentials as a fiercely logical and intellectually honest person. i mean it has been shown again and again that we know incredibly little about the historical Jesus, for a start, and that credible cases can be put forward for the possibility he did not even exist. Even if that is an extreme viewpoint, a much more common one, for which there is a great deal of evidence, is that he was a very minor figure in his time who was built up into a figire of mythic proprtions after his death. So how you can base a whole belief system of eternal salvation and damnation around the obligation to hold certain improbable beliefs about this character, when you have access to such information as now exists, instead of being forced by lack of information and social and legal pressures, to conform (as in the past), I'm not sure. Christianity is also internally inconsistent with Judaism, the faith it sprung from - which, for example , has no concept of original sin and a concept of the Messiah quite at odds with the one Jesus is purported to have provided.

On the other hand, it could also be argued that "New Age" type beliefs, while more immediately appealing and somewhat more consistent and more easily believable, are only so because they are a reaction (and human construct, based partly on a pick'n'mix of western and eastern ideas)  against the problems with the traditional western default religion, substituting the confusingly inconsistent God of the Testaments with one who is PUL, substituting eternal black and white judgment with eternal "spiritual evolution" and learning and so on. Also, for example, ditching the wildly improbable Christian notion of the resurrection of the body and final judgment (itself - the judgment - hugely pointless as most christian denominations say you are immediately assigned Heaven or Hell after death anyway, or Purgatory, which is an antechamber of Heaven) in favour of a mix of otherworlds and reincarnations for endless experiences and learnings, which appeals to the modern, educated, liberal mind.

Just playing Devil's Advocate (for both sides  

Don,
My love to you.
Joe

Orlando,

In my view, allmost everything you say about Jesus is a mischaracterization fueled by online New Age and anti-Christan sites sponsored by people who lack the requisite training to offer informed insights.  I don't expect you to take my word for this.  I am setting up future threads on the issues recently addressed and you can post your reactions there.  I don't assume that the modern mainstream consensus is always correct--only that those like Dave who differ from it should engage it critically and post their justifications on this site.  At the risk of repeating certain themes, I hope to find the time to offer a comprehensive assessment of various types of evidence for an afterlife to accomodate the newbies who have not been exposed to this discussion before. 

It is striking how offended some are by a frank and honest reaction to a site's tone and bias.  I probably been exposed to more relevant paranormal experiences than almost everyone here.  I view reasoned alternative perspectives as the most helpful way to energize the spiritual quest of others. 

Don

Berserk2 wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 8:09pm:


No, I don;t think so. It's based on a  lifetime of interest in religion and wide reading around the topic. I find the lack of solid information about Jesus disappointing but I know there is, for example, no writing from his century that documents him apart from Josephus, whose main mention of him is certainly altered and IMO probably inserted altogether after the 2nd Century, and who possibly, but not certainly, refers to him in passing when mentioning his brother James (some suggest the "called Christ"bit was inserted later and that this originally referred to another jesus - a very common name at the time). In comparision, for example, he writes at some length and without sensationalism, about John the Baptist, who is more credible as a historical figure of some importance in the period. It is not as though no other major  historians were writing at the time - for example Philo the Jew, writing about Jewish history in the 1st century (when he lived) omits mention of Jesus. Otherwise we just have the letters of Paul, which may or may not also have been tampered with, but which are notable for the surprising lack of information and interest in the historical Jesus as opposed to the Christ of faith.

Oh, apart from the gospels, of course - but they are contradictory , include obvious propaganda to try and link their Jesus character with expactations of the messiah from the OT and were written decades after Jesus'supposed death by people who most likely never met him and were trying to promote their new religion. I know tradition claims John and Matthew as disciples, but modern scolars mostly discount this - for example  the consensus is John is the latest gospel, possibly written around the 90s, so he would have had to be extraordinarily old. Matthew is also one of the least credible gospels (IMO) becasu eof its style, for example, in his deperation to make implausible links between the OT and Jesus to impress his fellow Jews as to Jesus being the Messiah.

I have studied the evidence and no doubt so have you and I guess we just have different standards of what proof we need or come to different conclusions. but don't just assume I've only read a new "new Age websites". I came to studying Christianity and its historical basis with an open mind, initially trying to bolster a shaky and ill-informed Christian faith.

orlando123 wrote on Aug 7^th, 2007 at 12:52pm:


I remember somewhat fondly our dialogue in the video threads about the Secular Case for Survival. I'm glad you have decided to join, while you are skeptical about some of my beliefs (as even I am sometimes about my own) you are open and honest with your inquiry.

I think a difference between me and those who consider themselves 'skeptics' is that I choose to take a little more on the 'balance of probabilities'. I'm in my late 20's but already I'm intellectually comfortable with my 'beliefs', spiritually and experientially I'm becoming more and more convinced. I'm also even heading towards being 'convinced' scientifically.

I haven't had alot of direct experience yet, that's why I've got Bruce's book and cd's. Then I got a nasty fright, they seem great and all but personally I find it hard to relax, I need to learn to really meditate first before I can do any astral travelling or anything of that kind. That's what I'm learning now and I wouldn't have really bothered if I'd never found this site.

Enjoy your debate with the re-incarnation of Berserk. Oops! 

Hello NSD

Nice of you to say you enjoyed our chat before, and thank you for the welcome. What do you mean when you say you are heading towards being convinced "scientifically" Do you agree with Michael Roll's theories, or do you have another version of how spirituality fits in with the physical world as science knows it at present?

I would like to see science going further in investigating all this, but I guess science is always going to be a slower process than imagining, experiencing or believing - like, for example, the way science fiction has sometimes preceded real scientific technologies (Jules Verne wrote a story about a rocket journey to the moon in 1865). That's because it needs to proceed with caution and establish credible theories and experiments etc, and because investigating every out-there theory would be very expensive and would be bad for people's credibility. It's much cheaper and quicker to believe in something but not be able to prove it! To some extent you could say this lag will always be there - for example, we all experience consciousness but science can;t say exactly how it works yet, neither can it say exactly what gravity is, for example. However we know from universal experience that these things do definitely exist as phenomena. Claims about physchic/metaphysical matters are a bit trickier as some people have strong experiences that are convincing to them, but many people don;t, and those that do experience them have quite varied accounts and explanations.

Good luck with the investigations and learning to meditate etc. I find that whole area a bit confusing because meditating means such different people to different people - it could perhaps almost be described as any technique designed to deliberately create an altered (or controlled) mental state, from emptying the mind, to focusing intently on one image or idea, to letting the thoughts meander  around a particular topic, or creating a visualised journey, or just watching the breath, or mentally saying a mantra or focussing on certain emotions, or just letting the mind relax and drift off to whatever images it comes up with to..... you get my point!

One thing I used to have a problem with was visualising, but I think I'm better at that now, since I stopped thinking you must see a crystal-clear image like a TV screen in your head, and, for example,  allowed the impression of whatever it is to be fuzzier round the edges and concerned with the other senses as well as the visual (perhaps "sensualisation"would be a better word?). Not that I specifically do any visualisations at the moment as such.

All the best  

Never say die wrote on Aug 10^th, 2007 at 10:59am: