Dr. Stephen Braude, The Veil of Stupidity |485|

I understand all the problems with the word, but it's a shorthand way of getting that what we're talkin about. jeff long cuts through a lot of this clutter

Yes, but it is still interesting to think what qualities you can reasonably ascribe to God. I definitely think infinite properties are kind of silly. As I said, with infinite powers, why couldn't God set up the earth and everything living in one breath. This is close to what is described in the Bible, but even the Discovery institute makes no attempt to argue for a young earth. They make a big thing about the Cambrian Explosion, and the essence of that seems to be that a great many body forms were tried out and most were culled away. Each of these creatures was a vast increase in complexity from what had gone before (not a small Darwinian step), and then most were discarded.

Does infinite love make any sense?

Does it make sense to talk about infinite versions of any emotion?

David
 
Many have tried to descibe God and our place within that Great Spirit. These are allegorical examples, but I think of a fish and each one of us as one of its scales or I think of a bird and each one of us as one of its feathers. God is aware of our absence while we are on Earth and desires our eventual return to His Being.
 
According to the Britannica the Cambrian explosion occurred between 530 and 541 million years ago. Other sources say it lasted for 15 to 30 million years. Yaknow, that's quite a stretch of time considering mankind has only been on Earth for maybe 1 million years. Lots of time for a Creator to experiment, maybe even entertain Him or Her self with their creations. Something like what we are doing now with our robots. Personally, I don't believe a word of so called evolutionary theory. Naturally, as a Christian I am a creationist. All of that experimental life was wiped out during the Time of Noah. A few of the great beasts survived to be killed later by people like St George.
Total length of time for all of this to happen? Most creationists say about 6 thousand years. I'm willing to concede that it might have taken 40 to 60 thousand years. These are the ages that carbon dating of dinosaur fossils reveal. Some fossils still contain soft tissue.
 
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According to the Britannica the Cambrian explosion occurred between 530 and 541 million years ago. Other sources say it lasted for 15 to 30 million years. Yaknow, that's quite a stretch of time considering mankind has only been on Earth for maybe 1 million years. Lots of time for a Creator to experiment, maybe even entertain Him or Her self with their creations. Something like what we are doing now with our robots. Personally, I don't believe a word of so called evolutionary theory. Naturally, as a Christian I am a creationist. All of that experimental life was wiped out during the Time of Noah. A few of the great beasts survived to be killed later by people like St George.
Total length of time for all of this to happen? Most creationists say about 6 thousand years. I'm will to concede that it might have taken 40 to 60 thousand years. These are the ages that carbon dating of dinosaur fossils reveal. Some fossils still contain soft tissue.

Well, it's easy to argue as if time (and for that matter, space) is real rather than a framework imposed on reality by our perceptions, and, indeed, built into our language structures. Hence, it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to talk in non-spatiotemporal terms.

If there is no actual space and time, then every"thing" that "has ever existed" was maybe "created at once" and all living things "past, present and future" are the one organism, albeit that each experiences a seemingly individual existence for a limited period. That raises issues about free will and so on, but then free will is another concept that depends on antecedent concepts of space and time.

I suspect that God or Mind At Large (M@L) or whatever you care to name The Ultimate doesn't possess a consciousness that is like ours. Being an Idealist, I think in terms of our being dissociated alters of M@L; and of that very dissociation being the cause of the kind of limited metaconsciousness we seem to have. Whereas M@L can simply will something to be, we have to use our metaconscious ability allied with what appears to be our bodies and perceptions in order to create the limited things we can, always within the ordered patterns and regularities of the universe/M@L.

When people talk in terms of really quite literal interpretations of the Bible as well as of events that many take as mythical, I sometimes wonder if they couldn't stop to consider the possibility of this being the result of their imposing on reality not only spatiotemporal, but also narrative, frameworks. I'm not saying that the frameworks are necessarily all bad, but at best, maybe they're just metaphors or analogies.

Switching out of my attempt at "non-spatiotemporality" and lapsing back into ordinary language, I'm not sceptical about evolution, but I am very sceptical about Darwinian explanations for it, or at least for macro- (as opposed to micro-) evolution. I believe that in some sense there has to be intention and telos involved somewhere along the line.

By the way, I'd be interested in seeing a link for your claim about the carbon-dating of dinosaur remains. It's not so much that I doubt what you are saying, as that I'm genuinely interested to evaluate this evidence for myself.
 
I thought that was an interesting interview, and I am reading his "Dangerous Pursuits" book.

It was interesting that he seemed to come across rather defensively, and I it would seem from the preface to his book that he has suffered a lot of academic sniping and unpleasantness because of his explorations.

I do think that parapsychology can get bogged down over issues of proof (which is really a mathematical concept anyway). I have always felt that the super-psi argument should have been laughed out of court, not taken seriously.

His book presents an argument that fear of psi lies at the root of this. Someone did a study of parapsychologists and showed that some seem to make unforced errors in their work, which then lowers the statistical confidence of their results to just below they p<0.0.5 threshold - so they are publishable but relatively easy not to believe!

David

I suspect he also faces issues in academia for his political POV.
 
I was surprised toward the end I think I remember he mentioned that in organ transplants the spirits tend to hover around the recipients which does't seem to fit with his take on the afterlife.
It seemed like you didn't want to push him on the afterlife and nde's or what he considered better evidence but still marginal.

Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...
I thought that was an interesting interview, and I am reading his "Dangerous Pursuits" book.

It was interesting that he seemed to come across rather defensively, and I it would seem from the preface to his book that he has suffered a lot of academic sniping and unpleasantness because of his explorations.

I do think that parapsychology can get bogged down over issues of proof (which is really a mathematical concept anyway). I have always felt that the super-psi argument should have been laughed out of court, not taken seriously.

His book presents an argument that fear of psi lies at the root of this. Someone did a study of parapsychologists and showed that some seem to make unforced errors in their work, which then lowers the statistical confidence of their results to just below they p<0.0.5 threshold - so they are publishable but relatively easy not to believe!

David

Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...
 
I was surprised toward the end I think I remember he mentioned that in organ transplants the spirits tend to hover around the recipients which does't seem to fit with his take on the afterlife.
It seemed like you didn't want to push him on the afterlife and nde's or what he considered better evidence but still marginal.

I was friends with a brilliant man, Dr. Don Watson (now deceased, at least physically) who researched this matter. He found that after organ transplants, recipients often displayed characteristics associated with the people who had donated the organ(s). I suspect that Braude was referencing this phenomenon.
 
OK, I find 'God' an utterly weird concept - at least as it us usually defined.

Let's take evolution, and suppose we take the conclusion that evolution required an intelligent designer (which I consider essentially a fact). Now, if God were infinitely powerful, He could just create the organisms that He wanted on Earth in one massive act of design - rather than operating over billions of years. Furthermore, the Cambrian Explosion suggests to me that whatever entity designed life on Earth created a range of new formed as a sort of experiment - "Hmmm I wonder which of these lifeforms will flourish?". Doesn't that suggest an entity with only finite powers. As so often happens in science, if you substitute ∞ into an equation you often get back nonsense.

Therefore, do you think God has only finite powers, and if so what is it about Him that defines as God?

David
I try not to use God to refer to the Absolute Awareness b/c it has been so badly misused & is used by the most despicable kinds of people; most anything is better to me: the Almighty, the Great Love, etc. I keep searching but I've not found a definition for pleroma, which I think is Jung's term for the dimension outside of physical existence, the Infinite Awareness's realm. Pleroma is used by Philip K. Dick in the same manner. So, if my understanding is correct, there is the Absolute Awareness, which is pure Being which occupies the pleroma while mind or consciousness is in a subdimension. A reflection of Being is in the mind as the witness or silent watcher.
I believe it was Jung again, as well as plenty of others, who say that the Absolute, in creating an infinitely diversified cosmos, had to give up his "identity" for that to happen. So that tells me She/He/It let the consequences of that plunge be whatever they would be. The other take on it is that the Infinite is still around as Being & that one must give up the tiring restlessness of the mind's constant grasping at desire & fear.
This brings me back to the fear of psi. Robert Monroe said that fear is the greatest obstacle to human evolution or progress. I can personally attest to that as the only thing that kept me out of further delving into the OBE. When I tried Focus 15, I was kicked out the body so abruptly, it scared me so badly that I never tried it again. Maybe I've waited long enough??
 
I understand all the problems with the word, but it's a shorthand way of getting that what we're talkin about. jeff long cuts through a lot of this clutter
Thanks for bringing up such an exceptional interview! What this is told me is that the Great Love does just that: loves us in just the way we need at the time. "We are here to learn to bear the beams of love." William Blake
 
Infinite in what respects? I've just argued that God probably isn't infinitely clever, for example - otherwise, why did He need to try out so many body plans at the time of the Cambrian Explosion?

God is infinite in all respects and aspects.

Why do you think God's decision to let evolution select body plans via trial and error was a bad idea?
 
God is infinite in all respects and aspects.

Why do you think God's decision to let evolution select body plans via trial and error was a bad idea?
I don't - I think it was a great idea, but if God had infinite ability to figure stuff out, he wouldn't need to do an experiment.

What evidence is there that any of God's characteristics are infinite? That seems more like religious dogma to me.

David
 
I don't - I think it was a great idea, but if God had infinite ability to figure stuff out, he wouldn't need to do an experiment.

What evidence is there that any of God's characteristics are infinite? That seems more like religious dogma to me.

It wasn't an experiment. Being infinite, He knew what would happen.

The infinite nature of God's creation, from infinitely small quantum entanglements to infinitely large strings of galaxies, provides good evidence for believing He is infinite.
 
I'm afraid I must argue with you on this Shane. I became free when I first truly believed Jesus' instructions. I no longer worry about death because for me there is no such thing. I no longer lament my misfortunes though I've had plenty. I know they are all part of this life experience I've agreed with God to undertake; right to the bitter end without ever a thought of suicide. Acceptance of life no matter how hard at times thanks to Christian Faith is a freedom in a form all on Its own.
i've had the freedom to meddle in the occult, I've had the freedom to mess around uncommittedly with women when I was younger, until I crossed paths with one who was subject to occasional frightening demonic possession. This sort of freedom is an imprisonment in a form all on its own I'd say. All was part of an intercessional development of wisdom, I've concluded in retrospect.

I am happy that you have a dispute with my perspective regarding Christianity. At the same time, I am happy that you have discovered something that makes you no longer fear death, or lament your misfortunes. If this Christian faith prevents you from thoughts of suicide, that is even better news. I can see you are a kind spirit, Gary, so please don't take offense to my line of inquiry, but let us figure this out. Also, it isn't my intent to tarnish your faith. I take this entirely as a curious pursuit. However, let me give you a bit of background on why I have an extreme abhorrence of Christianity, or any other modern "faith."

As mentioned, I grew up in a highly Christian household. We had to pray before dinner, pray before sleep, and attend Church every Sunday. I tried to read the bible every night, but every time I read it, I felt that it was bullshit. In fact, I thought I was evil, because of this supposedly good thing that everybody believed in seemed like bullshit to me. Furthermore, I could see that the church was filled with hypocrites and liars. I couldn't understand why it would be so incredibly important to get around a lot of other people on Sunday, who are obviously flirting with one another, and trying to look perfect in front of one another. The other part is the story that makes Christianity what it is.

As a curious, you lad, I had to ask, "How does God creating his son, then having other idiots he created kill his son, liberate humanity, as long as they believe this is true?" To this day, this makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Even more so, how does a God create a perfect angel, then throw that angel in a place called hell because it thought differently than God? How do these kind of things happen if God is all knowing and all powerful, as the Christian faith professes? If God is all knowing and all powerful, then God knowingly created the Devil and all suffering. The only other argument would be that God accidently created the Devil, and therefor, could not have been all knowing and all powerful. Perhaps I like that God that actually created us in his own image.....as fallible, creative, and somewhat lost creatures. That is the best scenario in my opinion for an argument supporting God. We can dive deeper if you wish, let me know what you think.
 
It wasn't an experiment. Being infinite, He knew what would happen.

The infinite nature of God's creation, from infinitely small quantum entanglements to infinitely large strings of galaxies, provides good evidence for believing He is infinite.
So why did He create all those other possibilities - only to discard them? I want you to seriously think about what infinite intelligence would be like. It would mean no experiment would be worth doing. If you understood your creation down to every detail, and could trace through absolutely every consequence of everything, no experimentation would be needed.

I think the Cambrian explosion is interesting because it suggests a very large but finite intelligence.

David
 
Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...


Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...
Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...


Late in the interview, Braude said he thought that there was compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. Unfortunately, there was no more dialog to explore that comment. I'd like to know more about his thoughts on this...
I missed a word when typing this. I meant to say... Braude said he thought that there was "more" compelling evidence of the possibility of an afterlife than NDE research. I was curious about what evidence this is, as he didn't elaborate.
 
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By the way, I'd be interested in seeing a link for your claim about the carbon-dating of dinosaur remains. It's not so much that I doubt what you are saying, as that I'm genuinely interested to evaluate this evidence for myself.[/QUOTE]

Here is a link Micheal, as you requested: Both fossil ages and evident soft tissue are discussed. Needless to say established science is incredulous. Cheers, ~garry
https://www.newgeology.us/presentation48.html
 
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