Is belief in the supernatural an intelligent person’s game?

That’s the point I made. You can’t name it… Because it hasn’t been perceived… So if supernatural is what cannot be perceived then we cannot speak of it truly because we have no language to portray it as an image because there is no perception of it to describe… Pretty simple.

And the answer to your question of there being nothing that cannot be perceived, death isn’t perceived, in fact it’s the end of an individual perception.

Belief isn’t strictly utilitarian, nothing man thinks, says or does is strictly.
We believe things for all sorts of reasons, to make us happy or sad, to fit in or stand out, to motivate or demotivate ourselves, to orient or disorient, to construct or destruct an identity, just as we say consume things for all sorts of reasons besides sustenance.
It’s not just supernaturality, we believe all sorts of wacky things, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Faith in academia and science is also a wacky thing, but some people will go on having it, because it’s comforting and, for them, compelling.

Science can be wrong, even when the method is well applied.
Science is a good method for figuring things out, but not the only good one, there’s the Socratic, Cartesian and Zetetic methods for example, there’s epistemological anarchism, there’s instinct, intuition and experimenting, observing, reasoning and researching in unsystematic ways for example.
Academia can be corrupted just like business, media, politics or any institution, by their egos, by capital.

Like it or lump it, science is more than method, it comes with some (convenient) metaphysical assumptions and baggage, like patentable medicines are superior to unpatentable ones, or accidentalism, artificialism, determinism, reductionism and paranormalism as opposed to conspiracism, organicism, indeterminism, holism and normalism.
Science was created by Europeans with their particular and peculiar European neurocognition and psychology, their linguistic presuppositions and interacting with their corporations, governments and ideologues, not in a vacuum.

All these things have conditioned what science has become.
It’s not so easy to separate the method from all these things out in the real world, in the real world they rarely are.
Academia and science need to be supplemented with nonacademia, altacademia and nonscience, or vice versa.

In any case, you can’t prohibit supernaturality any more than you can prohibit drugs, herbalism, refined foods and steroids, and you shouldn’t, some people need or want it.
People will always fuck around with their neurochemistry, alter their states, and belief in the supernatural is one way of doing that, drugs are another, and then there’s meditation, art, music, dance, trance…

Furthermore, supernaturalists and their family, friends and community may’ve had individual or collective supernatural experiences, and while they may not be able to prove they had those experiences to others in the hardest sense of the word proof, they may be able to prove it to themselves, and others mayn’t be able to disprove it either.

Life is a massive uncontrolled experiment, so what makes you think you’ll be able to fully, if at all replicate it in tiny controlled ones?
Society thinking on its feet and talking to one another is just as, if not more important than what academia does.

Yes, many times over to all this. The irony is what you are saying is practically taboo and yet everyone, even scientists, are eclectic in determining what they think is true and certainly about all sorts of things they act on in the world. That is make decisions with real world consequences. But that’s is almost never admitted. It was as if they could navigate their lives restricting themselves to consensus science based on peer reviewed articles.

And in many disciplines: shamanism or meditative practices in Hinduism, as a couple of examples, experiences and stages can be predicted and increased with guidance from experts.

Greatest I Am wrote:

Let me see if I can clear things up for you a bit.

Well, that certainly did not clear anything up for me. You seem to have God speaking to Himself, glorifying Himself here.

The below is a hyperlink which more precisely and fully explains the term I AM than I could and perhaps it would hold more authority for you too…perhaps

chicagobible.org/why-did-god-ca … that-i-am/

.
When I believed in God, I did not put myself on the same level as God. I called myself a creation/creature of God’s, not one equal with God and certainly not divine.

Why would I choose to worship something which I found to be equal to myself?

I stand in awe of many things in creation. You might say that I worship them in a sense, but they are things which bring out something in me which I almost reverence. At least I am not worshipping the Golden Calf there.

Can you please post for me here the biblical verse for that. I would have to read what comes before and after that in order to “see” what I think he meant by that.

Do Gnostic Christians believe that Christ was both human and divine – I mean as the Second person of the Blessed Trinity or simply a prophet?

I do not understand how you could possibly believe that that is not over-inflating yourself.

I can easily say that I Am because I am - after all, I do exist, but I do not mean it as it was meant in the biblical sense and translation.
So, do you mean it as I do - that I exist - or do actually believe that you share in a God’s divinity?

As an agnostic, the only mind picture I could possibly at some point in time have of God is that of a creator.

At one time, I did believe in a personal God and if I were to ever actually “see” God in the sense that I would know that one existed, it would not be of a personal God. At least this is my thinking but rather than be so absolutist about it, I will take that last bit back. How could we know now how we might think and feel in the future.

You mentioned that before and I said that I would not have expressed myself in that way. If you are speaking of human evolution, sure but I would say that I am in the process of growing up…I am not there yet.

What does being a “brethen to Jesus” encompass for you and the others?

Anyway, your above quote seems to be a pretty self-serving statement to me. You would probably not be so bad if you did not think of Gnostic Christians as the only good Christians or the only good individuals.

I am sure that there are many Christians who do not label their selves as Gnostic Christians who also see their selves as followers of Christ, as his brethren, and who follow his teachings.

So what is this saying to you?

That is pretty self-explanatory. So, does this also hold true for those who are not Gnostic Christians or are GC the only ones who are capable of following this precept?

Maybe you can explain what this means to me. I looked it up and all I got over and over again were the same words in different lines.
Paul could have actually been speaking there to the OT prophecy of Jesus coming down to Earth and becoming Man, et cetera but I do not. Where is Jayson when you need him. There was once here a man with the username of Jason I believe who was a biblical scholar.

Personally, I do not believe in predestination and I do not believe that I was always a twinkle in God’s eye. I was not even a twinkle in my mother’s eye.

I noted that Watts also spoke in terms of a democracy in heaven which I do not think that you agree with since you like to separate the Christians from the Gnostic Christians.
I also think that the video might be better served if it did not have that sentimental gooey music in the background. That was getting on my nerves. If something is real, it does not need that kind of background music.
Some of what he says I can go along with and some I cannot.

Allan Watts, in the video, toward the end pretty much said that the bible ought to be burned. If only certain parts of the bible could be burned, I would say “yea”. But at the same time, there still is a lot of good and practical wisdom in it.

There is another way of looking at what Paul says. In other words, grow up. He may have also meant what you said. I wonder what he would have thought about the parting of the Red Sea.

I might take this to mean that he was speaking to people like priests, ministers, sisters/nuns. I do not necessarily think that John was speaking in terms of actually hating the world and what is in it.
I pretty much remember having things like this explained by the priests during the epistles and homilies.

So, what do you think and feel Christ was saying with the above words? I am curious about the “disturbed” word in there?
Disturbed can mean having had its normal pattern or function disrupted. or
suffering or resulting from emotional and mental problems.
I personally would opt for the first definition about the normal patterns and functions.
I can imagine both scientists and philosophers experiencing that above quote.

[Those who] become acquainted with [themselves] will find it; [and when you] become acquainted with yourselves, [you will understand that] it is you who are the sons of the living Father.

But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
[/quote]
I do not understand why you have to compartmentalize biblical sayings into Christian or Gnostic Christian.

But I do not see it in that way and I did not see it in that way when I believed that God’s kingdom was…
I do not think that it is living in poverty to see a “real” world out there, the way that it actually is. But you do have the right to see it your way and I suppose that it is not such a bad way to see it, that is, if you actively help the world in some ways in its ongoing evolution.

I do not think that I see either of those. The first seems to me to be an excuse ~ in other words, what choice do we have but to see things your way as things are as they are, (we cannot go back and change things) and as for the second, I do not see an ugly world but I do at times see extremely ugly people - man’s inhumanity to man - It is also a beautiful magnificent world but it is an imperfect world.
The fact that someone believes in God and believes that God is in the world and in people does not change that.

This is a poem which I wrote quite awhile back. It will give you an idea of what I see and how I see when I look around.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=172245

Obviously this statement is true though things might have been otherwise than what they are if we had made other or better choices or had been there when it would have been a good thing. But then again, who is to say. Too many so-called random things get in the way. But I do not believe that we are pre-destined.

I suppose that I can go along with the first part here but as for the second part, I think that that is kind of looking at life through rose-colored glasses although I do realize that we need to live with hope.
But WHY must they necessarily be created for the best end? Do you think that God has it already all planned out? Would that make us puppets?

In other words, we are to accept our fate. We have no other choice. I wonder if we really take this as our philosophy, what part it might play in our sitting back and not doing much at all as far as a future goes. But I may be wrong here.

Just to be sure, the “supernatural” here pertains to God?
Are you speaking of any evidence besides the Universe itself and its workings?
That may speak to the possibility of God but not necessarily to the actual reality of a God.
As for myself, I cannot be forced to take that leap from wondering and questioning and seeing possibility of ~~ to knowing or knowing definitively.

I suppose that I am just a disgrace to the human race. I can accept that. :evilfun:

So then it is perceived to it’s end. That was the point.

Regards
DL

So what a doctor would do for your is no more important than the witch doctor.

Ok.

I would not want to prohibit supernatural thinking. I want it recognized as the speculative nonsense that it is.

Regards
DL

I do not understand why you have to compartmentalize biblical sayings into Christian or Gnostic Christian.

But I do not see it in that way and I did not see it in that way when I believed that God’s kingdom was…
I do not think that it is living in poverty to see a “real” world out there, the way that it actually is. But you do have the right to see it your way and I suppose that it is not such a bad way to see it, that is, if you actively help the world in some ways in its ongoing evolution.

I do not think that I see either of those. The first seems to me to be an excuse ~ in other words, what choice do we have but to see things your way as things are as they are, (we cannot go back and change things) and as for the second, I do not see an ugly world but I do at times see extremely ugly people - man’s inhumanity to man - It is also a beautiful magnificent world but it is an imperfect world.
The fact that someone believes in God and believes that God is in the world and in people does not change that.

This is a poem which I wrote quite awhile back. It will give you an idea of what I see and how I see when I look around.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=172245

Obviously this statement is true though things might have been otherwise than what they are if we had made other or better choices or had been there when it would have been a good thing. But then again, who is to say. Too many so-called random things get in the way. But I do not believe that we are pre-destined.

I suppose that I can go along with the first part here but as for the second part, I think that that is kind of looking at life through rose-colored glasses although I do realize that we need to live with hope.
But WHY must they necessarily be created for the best end? Do you think that God has it already all planned out? Would that make us puppets?

In other words, we are to accept our fate. We have no other choice. I wonder if we really take this as our philosophy, what part it might play in our sitting back and not doing much at all as far as a future goes. But I may be wrong here.

Just to be sure, the “supernatural” here pertains to God?
Are you speaking of any evidence besides the Universe itself and its workings?
That may speak to the possibility of God but not necessarily to the actual reality of a God.
As for myself, I cannot be forced to take that leap from wondering and questioning and seeing possibility of ~~ to knowing or knowing definitively.

I suppose that I am just a disgrace to the human race. I can accept that. :evilfun:
[/quote]
If you believe in the supernatural, it goes against your describing yourself as an agnostic.

As to the word god only being used to denote the supernatural, I guess you are not familiar with the many Emperors who named themselves god and their sons, sons of god.

In early days, god could not even be defined as anything other than a mystery. We should have stuck with that.

Stay in the real world. The supernatural one is for fools.

Regards
DL

Is the doctor a psychiatrist? then sure.

Has the witch doctor worked with herbs in a tradition of using them through generations, well, it probably depends on the health problem.

Bullet wounds and much of the stuff that gets you into emergency rooms - if you have other options - Western doctors are the experts.

Chronic illnesses, systemic illnesses - like cancer - and often you are better off going to people poo pooed by the AMA.

Good points.

Belief is a great risk, and one that an intelligent being will prefer not to take.

“Supernatural” reeks of contradiction.

Unnatural is bad enough.

Some alt media, medicine and so on can prove they’re more well researched, reasoned and affective than other alt and mainstream media, medicine and so forth to their consumers.

Today’s alt media, medicine and so on often becomes tomorrow’s mainstream, and todays mainstream tomorrow’s alt.

It all depends on how much the public has confidence in it.

Sometimes the public’s confidence in something is greater than big business, mainstream science and/or the state’s confidence in it, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re an elitist and you think lowly of the public and highly of big business, mainstream science and/or the state, which’re fallible, often collude and conspire to maximize their profits, power and prestige at the expense of the truth, health and safety.

Greatest I Am,

I would suggest that if you are not going to respond to certain parts of the posts that someone sends you, that you simply highlight and press the delete button. It is not necessary to drag everything along with it into another post. The landscape remains more pristine that way.

Yes, this is true as the statement goes but if you are referring to me as the “you” then I do not think that you have taken the time to read what I wrote. Either that, or you enjoy playing games. You may take your games elsewhere.

Labels I suppose are really not that important except to clarify some things but as I do not BELIEVE in the so-called supernatural realm, which includes ghosts, angels, devils, fairies, vampires, witches, warlocks, whoever, (did I leave anything out?) nor BELIEVE in God, I am more than comfortable in labeling myself as an agnostic. An agnostic holds back belief and judgment and insofar as the above list goes, the only reality is within one’s imagination and creativity. It is far too easy within the fertile mind of the human being to have a seed planted, take root and voila these entities are born…but not into actual reality.

[b]Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable.[1][2][3] Another definition provided is the view that “human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist.”[2]

The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said “It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.” Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife;[4][5][6] and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about the existence of “the gods”.[7][8][9][10]

Agnosticism is the doctrine or tenet of agnostics with regard to the existence of anything beyond and behind material phenomena or to knowledge of a First Cause or God,[11] and is not a religion.[/b]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

Yes, I am familiar. Many human beings love to proclaim their selves as this or that. It is called narcissism perhaps in the case of some pathological narcissism.

At this point in time though we were discussing the matter of GOD, the God who people believe created the universe, the one which people believe is a personal loving entity, the one which people believe will always be available to protect and save them from the world, despite what evidence they see to the contrary, the one who will have to take the blame in their eyes because who else could they blame for nature’s devastation.
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing but so can no knowledge at all.

That is the part of the supernatural that I was basically referring to. The one seen as First Cause.

I can actually agree with the above and THAT is why I am agnostic. Too much mystery, too many unsolved answers to questions. No matter what we think we know we still cannot fathom that question because we cannot know everything and possibly what we think we know is in actuality some different kind of reality.

The supernatural world is not the only one to watch out for and we all march to a different drummer, do we not?
Many of us live in our own fantasy (non supernatural) worlds which are not real. Those are also the ones we have to watch out for and take stock in.

Naturopathy, Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine have their own colleges, universities and in some countries the state recognizes their legitimacy and collaborates with them.

Allopathy isn’t good and alt medicine bad, they’re competitors, naturally they talk smack about each other like competitors do.

The same goes with mainstream and alt media or anything mainstream and alt, mainstream doesn’t necessarily mean good.

The supernatural is a normally imperceptible higher plane or realm of being and its inhabitants.

The preternatural is a normally imperceptible parallel plane or realm of being and its inhabitants.

There’s no internal contradiction here, the only question is, do higher or parallel worlds exist, or are they merely products of our imagination?

I tend to think there’s some truth to them, but my approach to them is experimental and speculative rather than dogmatic.

The unnatural is something manmade or the product of a sentient mind.

Contradictions, lies, fraud and hypocrisy.

Regards
DL

“the one which people believe is a personal loving entity,”
[/quote]
Yes, a genocidal god that they want to get closer to.

That shows the full immorality of Christian thinking.

Regards
DL

No one or institution including mainstream academia has a monopoly on reason, research and publicly reviewing each others work.
We can all publicly review each others work as individuals, or members of an (alt) discipline.
There is no absolute authority if any.
For me, individual authority comes first, followed closely by the authority of the people.
We as individuals, and a democracy decide who the experts are, if there are any, experts aren’t self-appointed.
This is what I call epistemic populism, and it stands in stark contrast to academicism, rigid ideologues, scientism and religionism.

And it should be added that ‘witch doctor’ in contrast to some Western expert, in this case a doctor, is a colonialist cliche. It started as a smug contrast between cultures, where one had the power to eradicate the other.

Greatest’s main beef is with the Abrahamists. I doubt he intended to slight third world cultures however much he might judge religions and spiritual and health practices in these other cultures.

But one interesting thing for me is a certain kind of male hatred, in Western cultures, aimed at anything that seems to have to do with the supernatural, alternative health, organic food, spirituality, and alternative takes on current events. And it’s here the Abrahamists and the technocrats have long been allies.

Any individual who comes at these things differently than the sanctioned by authority - AMA, Pope, mainstream media take - is evil: a quack, some who fools dying people out of money, an anti-semite, an irrational nutjob.

Of course many men are on the other side of this and many women have a lot of bile against alternatives. But I seem to encounter the rage primarily in men.

In the religious/spiritual world, if you claim to have some insight into entities and processes not yet verified by science or via a process not yet verified by science, then it must be bullshit. And the various churches tend to want you out of the business also. God is transcendent, there are no regular human bridges to anything special.

Be small, you bags of chemicals and do what you are told.

We are too busy making our children into our image through indoctrination to teach them the type of critical thinking you want.

In fact, today, we seem to want to dumb down our population.

The dim are a lot easier to control and manipulate than the bright.

Regards
DL

Right over your head.

Regards
DL