|
Post by mystery on Feb 24, 2021 3:55:01 GMT
I understand that God and the supernatural are not necessarily one in the same, but most atheists are materialists. I was just curious as to whether there was some scientific explanation for premonitions, even if it involves theoretical physics or whatnot. I just think that time is such an interesting subject to ponder. I wish I knew more about quantum mechanics and all that fun stuff, but my eyes tend to glaze over. It's just slightly over my head. There does seem to be a point where the line between science and spirituality begins to blur, which is really fascinating. Many atheists are materialists...maybe. How many atheists that exist in the world do either of us know? There are millions of atheists. The question should have been phrased as "What do materialists and/or skeptics think about premonitions?" That way there is no confusion. One of my biggest pet peeves it assuming they are one in the same and assuming you know what the majority of atheists think. For me there is no point where science and spirituality begin to blur. One is a scientific method and the other is speculation. Spirituality is also a very vague word that different people use differently and is based on feelings. I love talking about this stuff and answering questions as to what my take is on things is and I like to know what other people's take is on things. As a skeptic (and an atheist due to my skepticism) I can answer any questions you have for me as one individual. I also pay a lot of attention to science, though when getting to specifics I know less. Theoretical physics is over my head for example. I am a very curious person who likes to learn. I apologize if my terminology was inaccurate. I probably shouldn't even have addressed the question to atheists and skeptics, because I'd be interested in what anyone has to say on the subject. Premonitions have affected my life so profoundly, and yet they're still completely inexplicable to me. There does seem to be some genetic component, because there are stories about premonitions in my family going back at least 150 years. But if there is an answer to how it all works, I almost certainly wouldn't be able to comprehend it anyway. Quantum mechanics is just too mind bending for me. And ultimately, it really doesn't matter how it works. It's just a curiosity to me, and probably always will be.
|
|
|
Post by moviemouth on Feb 24, 2021 4:08:52 GMT
Many atheists are materialists...maybe. How many atheists that exist in the world do either of us know? There are millions of atheists. The question should have been phrased as "What do materialists and/or skeptics think about premonitions?" That way there is no confusion. One of my biggest pet peeves it assuming they are one in the same and assuming you know what the majority of atheists think. For me there is no point where science and spirituality begin to blur. One is a scientific method and the other is speculation. Spirituality is also a very vague word that different people use differently and is based on feelings. I love talking about this stuff and answering questions as to what my take is on things is and I like to know what other people's take is on things. As a skeptic (and an atheist due to my skepticism) I can answer any questions you have for me as one individual. I also pay a lot of attention to science, though when getting to specifics I know less. Theoretical physics is over my head for example. I am a very curious person who likes to learn. I apologize if my terminology was inaccurate. I probably shouldn't even have addressed the question to atheists and skeptics, because I'd be interested in what anyone has to say on the subject. Premonitions have affected my life so profoundly, and yet they're still completely inexplicable to me. There does seem to be some genetic component, because there are stories about premonitions in my family going back at least 150 years. But if there is an answer to how it all works, I almost certainly wouldn't be able to comprehend it anyway. Quantum mechanics is just too mind bending for me. And ultimately, it really doesn't matter how it works. It's just a curiosity to me, and probably always will be. That is why my answer has to be "I have no way to form an opinion the matter" when it comes to stuff like premonitions. If I was someone who believed I had premonitions then all I would know is that for some reason I am able to see into the future. That is where it would end for me. I would have no way to form a belief on what the cause is. Just for anyone else who is reading. Atheism only addresses one claim - God. Everything else is something else. Skepticism addresses every claim, therefor most skeptics will also be atheists. My answer to most questions involving the ultimate state of existence is "I don't know." This should be everyone's answer imo. I personally don't want to know the ultimate truth of existence, because then there would be nothing left to wonder about.
|
|
|
Post by amyghost on Feb 24, 2021 12:08:32 GMT
The Manson Family was a curiosity to me, but it doesn't mean I'd have granted any degree of legitimacy to their opinions on matters of social import. Not sure where I said I would give their opinions any social import. I don't think you did, but I have a feeling you may be giving some tacit assent to the level of power they've gained in this nation on political and social levels. I may be wrong about that.
|
|
|
Post by moviemouth on Feb 24, 2021 12:18:16 GMT
Not sure where I said I would give their opinions any social import. I don't think you did, but I have a feeling you may be giving some tacit assent to the level of power they've gained in this nation on political and social levels. I may be wrong about that. How did you get that from anything I said?
|
|
|
Post by amyghost on Feb 25, 2021 2:37:48 GMT
I don't think you did, but I have a feeling you may be giving some tacit assent to the level of power they've gained in this nation on political and social levels. I may be wrong about that. How did you get that from anything I said? Mainly just your overall level of concern. Seemed to indicate more than mere curiosity.
|
|
|
Post by moviemouth on Feb 25, 2021 2:45:41 GMT
How did you get that from anything I said? Mainly just your overall level of concern. Seemed to indicate more than mere curiosity. I am not sure what you are getting at. I am curious about people and why they believe what they believe, that is separate from my feeling about what they do and what society allows them to do. Your original response was about the positions that society puts them in to be able to push their beliefs through. That is a concern, but that isn't what I am talking about.
|
|
nostromo87
Sophomore
@nostromo87
Posts: 448
Likes: 80
|
Post by nostromo87 on Feb 25, 2021 5:26:53 GMT
The simulation has not been perfected.
|
|
|
Post by drystyx on Feb 25, 2021 6:05:26 GMT
I'm curious about how atheists would explain premonitions, because some of them aren't so easy to shrug off as coincidence. I'll just give one average example to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. One night I was driving, and I pulled up at a stop light. For some reason, the car in the lane next to me caught my attention. It wasn't anything special, just some late model sedan, and it was a flat gray color that reminded me of storm clouds. And then suddenly, I knew this car was going to get into an accident. I was sure of it. The light turned green and we drove forward. I felt so unnerved by this car that I finally pulled over at a grocery store just to get away from it. I took my time, and then decided I needed to get back on the road. When I reached the edge of town, I saw all these flashing lights, and my heart sank. There was a cop directing traffic around the accident scene. When I drove past, I saw that one of the cars had that flat gray paint, the color of storm clouds, and it was crushed like a pop can. I was pretty upset, obviously. I had assumed that if I wasn't there, then the accident wouldn't happen. I was wrong. This was the only time I had ever thought that a specific car was going to be in an accident. Obviously, one experience like this can be dismissed as coincidence. But after dozens or hundreds times, it becomes harder to simply ignore. I always thought of premonitions like ripples in a pond, flowing back from some disturbance in the near future. I've never heard any scientific explanation for premonitions, other than skepticism that it even happens. Thoughts? Unfortunately, you're getting responses from the feebler minds here. Movie and Rachel, for example, just decide to believe what they want to believe, and they aren't "skeptics" at all, just wishful thinkers who want to believe whatever they want to believe. Now, we'll look at your situation. I've had similar situations. When one is driving, one is picking up signals quite subconsciously. You have probably noticed that. I recall driving a fellow race track worker from Baltimore to Frankfort after we finished working the Preakness. She was in a hurry over some emergency with a daughter. I was going quite fast, but she was adamant. We hit Frankfort and I just felt the need to keep it at 55 to 60, despite her screaming to go faster. The limit was 45. I just felt ,the need. I was probably picking up something through some sense. Could have been a sense of smell of some gas flowing from the West that could cause an accident, for example. I don't know, but it turns out that we avoided an accident by perhaps a minute, and if I went faster, I probably would have had a bad situation instead of just being stuck behind cars. We pick up information from all our senses. That doesn't mean there is no premonition. It just means that often there is a logical cause. There have been a few times when I actually reasoned out what was almost certainly a logical cause. Driving is one of those actions that involve a lot of subconscious information. You probably realize that you even get sensory data during highway hypnosis. That doesn't mean you positively didn't have a "premonition". To say you didn't would be an ignorant statement of self righteousness, and I want to keep an open mind. In fact, you have a very intense situation, with a car crushed like a soda can, and that doesn't happen all that often. You can probably figure out in your own mind how many "red herring alerts" you have had, and perhaps you haven't had any, in which case it would be illogical to just call it "coincidence". Even if you have had "red herring cases" where your premonition was off, that still doesn't mean there wasn't anything supernatural involved. It just means it would be questionable. I've done the math for myself, and the "coincidence factor" is just too high, even when one adds up the variables, to dismiss supernatural events, unless there are mortals so powerful that they actually conspire to make many things happen. Like the casino where the dealer and his friends always hit blackjack and always deal you garbage. Then, when you hold on "12" to change the course of the cards, the crooks at the table get outraged and demand a new deck on the next deal. Now, that tells you that it's probably mortals "playing God", or it could be that they have actual evil angels helping them to crush you. When it happens at every casino, every time, you know it's one of the two options, because there comes a time when you have to accept reality, instead of believing everything you hear and see. None of this means there is a god, of course. One looks to other factors to find the answer to that. But whether it is evil angels helping those with the resources, or whether those with resources just magically have the resources, either way it does prove there is something supernatural at work. In your experience, you can determine if that "crushed soda can car" is one fluke, or one of many such occurrences that don't add up, even among the millions of events you may witness in a day or week or month.
|
|
|
Post by moviemouth on Feb 25, 2021 6:53:50 GMT
I am not sure what you are getting at. I am curious about people and why they believe what they believe, that is separate from my feeling about what they do and what society allows them to do. Your original response was about the positions that society puts them in to be able to push their beliefs through. That is a concern, but that isn't what I am talking about. The Manson crimes and the media frenzy (understandably so) around it pretty much ended the Sixties “peace and love” generation. But the trial and lingering fascination of him and his horror was exactly what Charlie wanted: control of the narrative. That is like telling someone to not think about a pink elephant, but I don't think that applies to religion. It applies to Manson because we know what he wanted as one man. Unless you are suggesting that fundamentalists don't actually believe what they say they do and are just doing it to control society.
|
|
|
Post by rizdek on Feb 25, 2021 9:15:03 GMT
I'm curious about how atheists would explain premonitions, because some of them aren't so easy to shrug off as coincidence. I'll just give one average example to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. One night I was driving, and I pulled up at a stop light. For some reason, the car in the lane next to me caught my attention. It wasn't anything special, just some late model sedan, and it was a flat gray color that reminded me of storm clouds. And then suddenly, I knew this car was going to get into an accident. I was sure of it. The light turned green and we drove forward. I felt so unnerved by this car that I finally pulled over at a grocery store just to get away from it. I took my time, and then decided I needed to get back on the road. When I reached the edge of town, I saw all these flashing lights, and my heart sank. There was a cop directing traffic around the accident scene. When I drove past, I saw that one of the cars had that flat gray paint, the color of storm clouds, and it was crushed like a pop can. I was pretty upset, obviously. I had assumed that if I wasn't there, then the accident wouldn't happen. I was wrong. This was the only time I had ever thought that a specific car was going to be in an accident. Obviously, one experience like this can be dismissed as coincidence. But after dozens or hundreds times, it becomes harder to simply ignore. I always thought of premonitions like ripples in a pond, flowing back from some disturbance in the near future. I've never heard any scientific explanation for premonitions, other than skepticism that it even happens. Thoughts? As an atheist, I explain premonitions as the mind continually (consciously or subconsciously) mulling over a thousand inputs and coming up with possible outcomes to real or imagined scenarios. It could be as simple as watching a motor cycle weave in and out of busy traffic or a child playing near a busy street. Our 'premonition' that such activity might lead to trouble is pretty obvious and direct. We've seen motor cycle wrecks and heard of kids tragically hit by cars. But in less obvious cases it becomes thought experiments we engage in continuously and we rely on less obvious clues. Have you ever had a premonition that turned out to be baseless? I believe I have.
I think it's the old, 'our ancestors heard rustling leaves' scenario. The 'rustling leaves' might mean a) some small harmless animal, b) a friend is approaching or c) some dangerous animal/enemy is lurking nearby. What reaction would favor survival? If the ancestor assumes it could be a dangerous animal, their heightened caution, picking up a weapon, finding a hiding place won't hurt them if it turns out the noise was nothing dangerous, but might make the difference between life and death if it was an enemy or dangerous animal. Or one of our ancestors sees a vague shape and it somehow brings to mind the image of a predator...he reacts to protect himself and either the shape was nothing and he's lost little or the shape was a tiger and his quick reaction protected him. And before there were words to describe these situation as I just did, creatures had to (and have to) rely on intuition. I don't imagine birds 'put into words' why they flit away when they hear a noise and sense movement. I doubt they ponder the source of that feeling. It's just in their best interest to be wary. They likely get feelings like what we would describe premonitions and act on them.
But...as an atheist, if I was convinced that there was something more to premonitions than just the mind naturally mulling things it would raise many more questions than it answers.
How could a god know the unmade future decisions/mishaps of someone who makes 'spur of the moment' decisions or even just have accidents? If it's the 'god exists timelessly' and sees all of time as it has already happened, then it raises the equally inexplicable conundrum of how does a god manage to do things...think, decide, plan, judge with no time in which to do them? The way we explain how we can think, decide, plan and experience things is that we exist in time. One event/thought follows the other and that procession of events is essentially what time is. But, if it's the case that god just 'somehow' can do this, think and act with no time in which to think and act, or that god has a part of him that exists timelessly and it is this 'part' of him that knows the future, then perhaps 'somehow' humans have a natural capacity to know the future. In your case, since you eventually DID come upon an accident. Perhaps a subconscious part of you DID know what was going to happen because THAT PART OF YOU had already experienced it and communicated it to the you 'living in the present' before the accident. I don't think that's what happened, but it shows how I can as easily craft natural explanations for conundrums as someone else who makes up things about some supernatural being/existence that they really know nothing about. Inevitably, these unknown capabilities are what theists invent to allow them to believe a god can do things we can't do.
It's the classic god of the gaps line of reasoning. We don't know HOW or even IF a god can do the things we attribute to him, but it fills a gap in our explanations of the world around us. And often, the thought of 'eternal life' and a big friend watching over us is a side benefit.
|
|
|
Post by moviemouth on Feb 25, 2021 12:32:55 GMT
That is like telling someone to not think about a pink elephant, but I don't think that applies to religion. It applies to Manson because we know what he wanted as one man. Unless you are suggesting that fundamentalists don't actually believe what they say they do and are just doing it to control society. They do believe what they say and it is their belief that they have the True Faith and God’s mandate to gain control of society in order to make it moral again. This is true of fundamentalist Islam as well. Add in charismatic leader and you get a religio-political movement. And my curiosity is as to why they believe it and how they can get around stuff that just seems blatantly obvious to you and me.
|
|
|
Post by mystery on Feb 25, 2021 20:53:03 GMT
Thank you drystyx and rizdek for your thoughtful responses. Most of my premonitions have no discernible "cues". They just happen out of the blue, completely unrelated to anything I'm currently thinking or observing, and they seem entirely irrational. In fact, that's one way I can tell that it's a genuine premonition. If it's merely good judgment based on observation and logic, and it seems reasonable, then it probably is *not* a premonition. Predictions based on rational observations often turn out to be wrong. For me, premonitions are far more insistent, they come on very strongly and typically have some emotional involvement, and they virtually always come to pass, unless I do something to avert them. When my rational side is at odds with a premonition, it's still very easy for me to ignore a premonition in favor of rationality. And then I end up paying for it. That's a lesson I've learned the hard way (repeatedly) over the years. My faith in premonitions is almost absolute. That's actually why I had the guts to travel in some pretty dicey third world countries as a solo female backpacker. People are always astounded that I'm so brave and fearless, but I'm really not. It's very easy to be brave when you have an early warning system. I wake up in the morning and try to get a sense of any trouble on the horizon, and then plan accordingly. Most backpackers who travel like me have horror stories about being robbed or injured or getting seriously ill. I don't have those stories. I genuinely admire people who have the courage to take risks even while flying blind, so to speak. That takes real guts. This is where things get really interesting. From what I understand (and I could very easily be wrong) according to quantum mechanics, there is no reason why space-time should only flow in one direction. It should flow in all directions. The only way I can wrap my head around that is by seeing time like waves or ripples within a pond. What we perceive as time is simply the "ripple" we're riding on. When there is a disturbance ahead of us, it may cause a ripple to flow backward and collide with ours, causing us to essentially "remember" things that haven't happened yet. This may be completely off base, but that's basically how I conceptualize it, if that makes any sense at all. In that regard, premonitions could potentially be explained purely through materialism alone. However, I've also had premonitions that are not the usual "wave of remembering" type. Some are clearly presented as messages, usually from someone I know who passed away. If the spiritual realm exists, then it must exist outside of space-time, and they should have a pretty good view of the future, too. The nature and content of these messages tends to be much lighter than the wave premonitions, which are usually life and death stuff. I just find it curious. Atheists tend to get very hung up on the Christian view of God, while my view of Divinity is far less anthropomorphised. I usually don't even try to define It. It is All. I don't put myself in boxes, so I certainly won't put Divinity in one, either. Well, I think that's about enough woo for one day, so I think I'll just stop here.
|
|
|
Post by rizdek on Feb 26, 2021 12:36:22 GMT
Thank you drystyx and rizdek for your thoughtful responses. Most of my premonitions have no discernible "cues". They just happen out of the blue, completely unrelated to anything I'm currently thinking or observing, and they seem entirely irrational. In fact, that's one way I can tell that it's a genuine premonition. If it's merely good judgment based on observation and logic, and it seems reasonable, then it probably is *not* a premonition. Predictions based on rational observations often turn out to be wrong. For me, premonitions are far more insistent, they come on very strongly and typically have some emotional involvement, and they virtually always come to pass, unless I do something to avert them. When my rational side is at odds with a premonition, it's still very easy for me to ignore a premonition in favor of rationality. And then I end up paying for it. That's a lesson I've learned the hard way (repeatedly) over the years. My faith in premonitions is almost absolute. That's actually why I had the guts to travel in some pretty dicey third world countries as a solo female backpacker. People are always astounded that I'm so brave and fearless, but I'm really not. It's very easy to be brave when you have an early warning system. I wake up in the morning and try to get a sense of any trouble on the horizon, and then plan accordingly. Most backpackers who travel like me have horror stories about being robbed or injured or getting seriously ill. I don't have those stories. I genuinely admire people who have the courage to take risks even while flying blind, so to speak. That takes real guts. This is where things get really interesting. From what I understand (and I could very easily be wrong) according to quantum mechanics, there is no reason why space-time should only flow in one direction. It should flow in all directions. The only way I can wrap my head around that is by seeing time like waves or ripples within a pond. What we perceive as time is simply the "ripple" we're riding on. When there is a disturbance ahead of us, it may cause a ripple to flow backward and collide with ours, causing us to essentially "remember" things that haven't happened yet. This may be completely off base, but that's basically how I conceptualize it, if that makes any sense at all. In that regard, premonitions could potentially be explained purely through materialism alone. However, I've also had premonitions that are not the usual "wave of remembering" type. Some are clearly presented as messages, usually from someone I know who passed away. If the spiritual realm exists, then it must exist outside of space-time, and they should have a pretty good view of the future, too. The nature and content of these messages tends to be much lighter than the wave premonitions, which are usually life and death stuff. I just find it curious. Atheists tend to get very hung up on the Christian view of God, while my view of Divinity is far less anthropomorphised. I usually don't even try to define It. It is All. I don't put myself in boxes, so I certainly won't put Divinity in one, either. Well, I think that's about enough woo for one day, so I think I'll just stop here. Have you seen the movie Arrival (2016) starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner? You might like it.
|
|
|
Post by goz on Mar 1, 2021 23:14:02 GMT
The biggest issue anyone should have with the bible is the simple realization that it's a book that was written by human beings (quite a few of them, in all probability), filled with all the contradictions that an unwieldy compendium of myth, moral instruction and shaky history can deliver up; meaning it certainly can't be taken as a literal or even very dependable guide to anything. It will have as many different interpretations placed on its contents as there are readers of it, and as with all manifestations of religion in general, it is a purely human creation--making it, by necessity, often filled with error and prejudices. Taken as such, one could just as easily employ something like Huckleberry Finn as a good moral guide to life insofar as both books are products of the human intellect and neither is more 'divine' in nature than the other. Come to think of it, in some respects, old Huck might actually be a better guide to living a right life than much of the bible is. That reminds me of what my mother used to say.... " A camel...an animal designed by a committee".
|
|
|
Post by goz on Mar 1, 2021 23:20:27 GMT
It would be easy to ignore them if they didn’t force their religion onto everybody else. The beef they have with gay rights is it is against God’s ordinances, they can’t make same sex intercourse illegal again using the “against Nature” argument. If Trump had not so easily won these people over by donning Christian drag, Trump would never been elected President. Unfortunately, part of how they gained that degree of asendancy over secular law was the result of their being given a place at the table by many of our more dingbat politicos, most notably old Ronnie Raygun himself. The media quickly followed suit. If the voting public had exercised more vigilance and less apathy at the ballot box back in the day the fundies would have had a much harder time of it in the present era, I feel certain. Forty years of largely ignoring this crap has been at the public's peril, but the public (and I fully believe the majority of the public are not in sympathy with these loons, no matter how it may sometimes appear) can begin dismantling the damage by refusing to elect or re-elect the twits who support these cretins--oftentimes in exchange for hefty campaign contributions from said cretins' all-too-plentiful reserve funds. I have discussed this extensively on the politcs board where we try to understand how and why Americans voted for Trump and were taken in, and especially the ever increasing phenomenon of 'anti-untellectualism' and how it is becoming dangerously pervasive. Just look at the conspiracy theory phenomenon and all the harm being caused by a lack of factual scientific and critical thinking, in everthing from the press to social media and mainstream thinking.
|
|