What to believe......

That's cool, I just didn't want to contribute to you feeling guilty about any of this.As an aside, I am currently reading the other threads and I feel like I am way in over my head; even though I've been out of high school for some time, the school board should make this forum required reading; very impressive indeed.

I may be a little groggy from too little sleep, but I'm not getting what you're saying, Phat. I was just commenting that using mental energy, if it exists, to move objects, which would probably be a physical energy of some sort, is nothing compared to the power of the mind's normal uses of thought and communication. Imagination is a mental power too.

You aren't making a whole heckuva lot of sense, Brennakins, but maybe that's just me.

That is the Buddhist view, and New Age thinking too. That's what I think too. I wonder if this view could be argued against the no-language school of Knowledge to any good purpose on its own thread.

what i'm saying is that early christians would think your computer is a tool of sorcery. why? because they wouldn't understand how it works and what it is. (but then i know how they work and i think it's all voodoo.) we think that astrology and mind manipulation is witchcraft because we don't understand it.

http://news.independent.co.uk/...echnology/article338679.ece
Seite nicht gefunden – Innovations Reportbut maybe even astrology is based on reality.This message has been edited by brennakimi, 01-24-2006 11:38 AMThis message has been edited by brennakimi, 01-24-2006 11:39 AM

It's certainly an important issue. But it might be too abstract.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think you have a completely wrong idea about what the early Christians would have thought.

I was just pointing out that we can either imagine our destiny or we can trust God and surrender our mental power (in a sense of controlling or attempting to control the future)This relates to objects that move. Why would one want to move anything? Perhaps Jesus is showing us not that we can move mountains but that we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer. When one is concentrating on moving an object, what is one asking for?That is why the Lords prayer is the model...we are better off concentrating on knowing God rather than becoming aware of the ability to manipulate future events.(If it is even real and not a deception)

I dunno what to make of it Faith ... but at least for yourself you have protection and cannot stumble so as to fall. Not so Hal, so I imagine it would be best to steer clear of something that might encourage him to fiddle with live hand grenades. "I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my"...fellow EvC-ersI need prayer to help keep me feeling that way and not like I'm throwing pearls to swine

Swine, huh?

I appreciate the concern, but statements like these indicate that there is something to this, and I just want to see if it is so.
If I can make a pen float through the air or cause a glass of water to explode, repeatedly, why whouldn't I?If the power exists in my mind and it not the force of demons or something equally monstrous, what's the harm? I didn't subscribe to Christianity before I started this, so it can hardly be said that my attention is being diverted.

Well.....oink you, then.

By what means do you think you could discern where the power was coming from. Assume for a sec the power came from elsewhere. 'It' could sit and watch you give yourself an hernia concentrating on moving something and then...move it for you.If that happened the causation and the motive would be it's - not yours. But it would seem to stem from you because you 'did' something. You are now a little captive to it's will - assuming it has oneYou can't tell thus you might very well be trying to pull the pin out of a hand grenade. And if you don't accept that particular pearl of common sense then pork off This message has been edited by iano, 24-Jan-2006 05:35 PM

I understand that, but how then can we be sure that we are responsible for anything that we 'do'?
Using that logic, couldn't we say that nothing we physically move is actually moved by us, but instead by invisible trolls whose only purpose is to deceive us into believing that we can physically do anything?

Well... we are truely humbled. Not the most 'christian' attitude I've ever seen in my life... but then again... am I surprised?No.Hal:
have you ever read any Rudy Rucker? a couple of novels (white light, Spacetime donuts) but also some good text, (geometry, relativity and the fourth dimension, and some others I can't remember right now..)He does an interesting little exercise where he 'flips' things over in the fourth dimension (the fourth dimension being a geometrical on rather than time)... can't recall the details right now but worth a look. Not witchcraft but rather opening the mind to visualise 4D cubes and 4D spheres and the like.(oh and his novels are great... white light is fantastic)