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Author Topic:   The Power/Reality Of Demons And Supernatural Evil.
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 725 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 106 of 334 (75827)
12-30-2003 12:33 PM
Reply to: Message 104 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 12:10 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
A Dr Duncan McDougall tried to weigh souls, back about 1910. He had shaky results and methodology. See, for a starter:
FACT CHECK: Weight of the Soul

This message is a reply to:
 Message 104 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 12:10 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 3:04 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 107 of 334 (75828)
12-30-2003 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 12:18 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephan
You say you were a professional scientist? Did you ever study any physics? I do not understand how you arrive at the ability to accept such blatant disregard of the very laws of nature that you would use notions like timelessness.
You say there is a measureable plausibility that we have 21 gram souls? Please tell us how you arrive at this.Then you state "where they somehow fall into a black hole and suffer a lot." You have not a lick of incredulity in you I suppose.What a loss.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 12:18 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 3:18 PM sidelined has replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18248
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 108 of 334 (75830)
12-30-2003 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Buzsaw
11-23-2003 6:05 PM


a personal encounter with the supernatural
I guess that I will jump in on this one! My motive is not to try and prove or disprove anything, but merely to recount a firsthand experience. About five years ago, I and my friends were active in fellowship and communion with other Christian Believers. We were praying together in agreement, and we were becoming at peace with our relationships to each other, the world in general, and God as we knew Him. One night, I was asleep. My roomie came home with two friends. At 2 a.m. they were praying in the other room. I then heard a commotion and shouting! I observed that an electrical feeling was present in the air and that my hair on my arms was standing on end. I also became very restless and an inner unction to pray was felt.
Afterward, going out to see what the commotion was, I saw one of the guys with deep blood red eyes biting himself and emitting deep growls.
Several explanations came to my mind for why this was happening.
1) Bad acid.
2) Trying to get attention
3) mentally ill. Or...my last explanation? Perhaps supernatural.
Mind you, I was still a skeptic. One of the others spoke to him and said that "we plead the blood of Jesus over you!" Out of this guy came what may have been several different voices at once. There were no tricks. No wires. I am certain of the authenticity of this moment.
These voices cryed out "The Blood! No! No!" Now I know that you all think that I was fooled, and I cannot claim that I wanted to believe that this was true at that time either. I WAS scared! Scared because I felt not in control. Yet I knew that what I heard was a real event and it sounded very otherworldly! Everyone was genuinely shook up. This was one event among several in my life that has caused me to wonder about the supernatural and the possibilities of such as reality.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 109 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 1:09 PM Phat has replied
 Message 192 by badandigood, posted 01-23-2004 11:13 PM Phat has not replied
 Message 209 by Phat, posted 04-08-2014 1:16 PM Phat has not replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 109 of 334 (75832)
12-30-2003 1:09 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Phat
12-30-2003 1:00 PM


Re: a personal encounter with the supernatural
Phatboy
Care to explain how you came to eliminate these explanations?
1) Bad acid.
2) Trying to get attention
3) mentally ill.
Are you even qualified to make a determination of any of those?
------------------
Chemical kinetics firmly restrains time's arrow in the taut bow of thermodynamics for milliseconds to millennia.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Phat, posted 12-30-2003 1:00 PM Phat has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by Phat, posted 12-30-2003 1:40 PM sidelined has not replied
 Message 146 by Phat, posted 01-02-2004 11:36 AM sidelined has replied

  
:æ: 
Suspended Member (Idle past 7175 days)
Posts: 423
Joined: 07-23-2003


Message 110 of 334 (75833)
12-30-2003 1:11 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 12:18 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephen ben Yeshua writes:
There is measurable plausibility that we have 21 gram souls, which when they leave our bodies, enter into a timeless world, where they somehow fall into a black hole and suffer a lot.
Coragyps already beat me to snopes. Note that only the first patient he weighed at death lost approximately three quarters of an ounce (21.3g). The rest displayed results rather inconsistently -- some losing less but more over time, some losing and then gaining weight, etc...
Stephen ben Yeshua writes:
Donald Carpenter has published an e-book on the matter of the soul's weight, and he seems to be most trustworthy authority on that subject.
Can you supply a reference? A quick Google search doesn't return any results that would support your statement.
[This message has been edited by ::, 12-30-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 12:18 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 112 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 2:41 PM :æ: has not replied

  
Phat
Member
Posts: 18248
From: Denver,Colorado USA
Joined: 12-30-2003
Member Rating: 1.1


Message 111 of 334 (75836)
12-30-2003 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by sidelined
12-30-2003 1:09 PM


Re: a personal encounter with the supernatural
Sidelined....I am not professionally qualified to make a judgement, but at the time of this event, I felt that I was personally qualified due to the familiarity with which I knew these people. Thus, the value judgement was mine alone and can not be substantiated for anyones satisfaction. Perhaps if you knew me better, you would trust my account. Then again, perhaps not!

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Stephen ben Yeshua
Inactive Member


Message 112 of 334 (75845)
12-30-2003 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by :æ:
12-30-2003 1:11 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
:ae:,
I got there with Download thousands of books, hundreds free, directly to your computer!, and then searched under Dr. Donald Gilbert Carpenter, Physically weighing the soul. Ask God about souls having weight. I'd like to know what He tells you. I thought I understood Him to connect soul weight to dark matter. And soul energy to dark, or vacuum energy. But talk about prophesing in part, and seeing through a glass darkly!
Cheers,
Stephen

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 Message 110 by :æ:, posted 12-30-2003 1:11 PM :æ: has not replied

  
Stephen ben Yeshua
Inactive Member


Message 113 of 334 (75847)
12-30-2003 3:04 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Coragyps
12-30-2003 12:33 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Coragyps,
Thanks for the reference to snopes. I read it, and was not impressed. But then, I have read Carpenter's better analysis of the study. I especially like Carpenter's reminder that souls aren't the only spiritual beings thought to inhabit bodies. And some of the others might be messing around with the experiment. There are also some recent studies on animals, published in the journal for Scientific Exploration, that are relevant.
And remember, I am a hypothetico-deductive scientist. No conclusions, only interest in plausibility. I am attending to all these studies as if I were playing poker and watching showing cards, facial expressions, whatever, trying to estimate what is the most profitable bet. MacDougal's study had problems, but ad hoc explanations are generally regarded as easy. Overall, the results as published raise the plausibility of souls having weight, at least a little. The discovery of dark matter does more, actually, in my estimation. Now we are pretty sure that there is stuff out there that invisible souls could be made of. Stuff that has weight. This raises substantially to me the scariness of black holes.
But I concede that anyone who only attributes zero or one plausibilities to ideas (is dogmatic), would probably remain unmoved by MacDougal's studies. And, I were God, wanting to keep dogmatic people in the dark about reality, deluded, that's the way I would keep it. Maybe that's why no one has bothered to try to replicate MacDougal's studies, and why they remain so "inconclusive."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by Coragyps, posted 12-30-2003 12:33 PM Coragyps has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 119 by Rrhain, posted 12-31-2003 1:14 AM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

  
Stephen ben Yeshua
Inactive Member


Message 114 of 334 (75848)
12-30-2003 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by sidelined
12-30-2003 12:38 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Sidelined says:
You say you were a professional scientist? Did you ever study any physics? I do not understand how you arrive at the ability to accept such blatant disregard of the very laws of nature that you would use notions like timelessness.
You say there is a measureable plausibility that we have 21 gram souls? Please tell us how you arrive at this.Then you state "where they somehow fall into a black hole and suffer a lot." You have not a lick of incredulity in you I suppose.What a loss
Yes, I was a professional scientist, and so good at it that I got so far ahead of my times, I had to stop, to let everyone catch up. That was twenty years ago. At present my students are enormously successful, and my publications still being cited hundreds of times per year. My last major one I am hopeful will win me long-term historical recognition, as a major contributor to the discovery of cascade effects, and food-chain dynamics, as the central theory of ecology.
I am not a physicist, but I look in on what they are doing. Science makes progress by blatent disregard for the known laws. It's called a paradigm shift.
But, before I am a scientist, I am a lover, and love believes all things, according to one well remembered authority. It's a skill required of all Hypothetico-deductive scientists. I can, and willingly do believe anything for the sake of confirming or rejecting it, from the inside out. Better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all.
It has worked for me, as the philosophers of science said it worked for others.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 12:38 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 5:35 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied
 Message 122 by Rrhain, posted 12-31-2003 1:33 AM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied
 Message 125 by Quetzal, posted 12-31-2003 8:56 AM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 115 of 334 (75858)
12-30-2003 5:35 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 3:18 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephen
I am not a physicist, but I look in on what they are doing. Science makes progress by blatent disregard for the known laws. It's called a paradigm shift.
Do you include the law of gravity in your list of blatant disregard?
How about the law of inertia? Laws of electromagnetism? You can walk to the edge of a tall building and jump off in blatant disregard of these laws and let us know how much it shifted your paradigm Hmmm?
------------------
...people today are so accustomed to pretentious nonsense that they see nothing amiss in reading without understanding, and many of them at length discover that they can without difficulty write in like manner themselves and win applause for it. And so it perpetuates itself.
G. A. Wells, 1991

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 3:18 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 116 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 7:29 PM sidelined has replied

  
Stephen ben Yeshua
Inactive Member


Message 116 of 334 (75891)
12-30-2003 7:29 PM
Reply to: Message 115 by sidelined
12-30-2003 5:35 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
But sidelined,
didn't Einstein basically throw out Newton's law of gravity, with his curved space-time ideas? The laws are just explanations of inductive observations. People before Newton didn't need any law of gravity to keep from jumping off cliffs. I don't live in blatant disregard for what the law explains, just how science at this point in history is explaining it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 115 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 5:35 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 117 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 8:37 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has not replied
 Message 118 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 8:49 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has not replied
 Message 121 by Rrhain, posted 12-31-2003 1:32 AM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 117 of 334 (75904)
12-30-2003 8:37 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 7:29 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephan
didn't Einstein basically throw out Newton's law of gravity, with his curved space-time ideas
No he did not. He showed how to calculate where Newtons equations fell apart.This improvement allowed us to investigate things that Newton was not aware of.However newtons laws are still valid for normal speeds and conditions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 7:29 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 120 by Rrhain, posted 12-31-2003 1:20 AM sidelined has replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5898 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 118 of 334 (75906)
12-30-2003 8:49 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 7:29 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephen
just how science at this point in history is explaining it.
Just what points is science making that you are in disagreement with and why?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 7:29 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 119 of 334 (75946)
12-31-2003 1:14 AM
Reply to: Message 113 by Stephen ben Yeshua
12-30-2003 3:04 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
Stephen ben Yeshua writes:
quote:
And remember, I am a hypothetico-deductive scientist.
No, you're not.
Otherwise, you wouldn't make ad hoc justifications like, "souls aren't the only spiritual beings thought to inhabit bodies."
Therefore, it doesn't matter what it is that we find. It all coincides with your preconceived conclusion.
quote:
but ad hoc explanations are generally regarded as easy.
Indeed. That's why you make them.
What you have failed to grasp is that they are invalid.
quote:
Stuff that has weight.
If the soul has weight, why would it leave the body? The gravitational pull of the body is greater than that of any black hole. If there's any force that would affect the soul due to it being made of matter, then it should affect the body, too.
quote:
And, I were God, wanting to keep dogmatic people in the dark about reality
Logical error: Ad hoc.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Stephen ben Yeshua, posted 12-30-2003 3:04 PM Stephen ben Yeshua has replied

Replies to this message:
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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 120 of 334 (75950)
12-31-2003 1:20 AM
Reply to: Message 117 by sidelined
12-30-2003 8:37 PM


Re: Demons and epistemology
sidelined writes:
quote:
However newtons laws are still valid for normal speeds and conditions.
No, they're not. Newton's laws are invalid at every speed, in every condition.
However, the discrepancy between the Newtonian answer and the Einsteinian answer at slow speeds and large masses is so small as to be detectable only by the most sensitive equipment and, for all practical purposes, negligible.
But do not confuse the smallness of the error term for the non-existence of the term. It may not be important for everyday uses, but it will always be there.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 117 by sidelined, posted 12-30-2003 8:37 PM sidelined has replied

Replies to this message:
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