What to believe......

Winning a million dollars out of James Randi. Where's the harm in that? You could always donate it to charity or something. In fact it's probably a sin for you not to be trying to do that.

Well, good luck Hal Jordan for that one. {He's the one TRYING to do it. It merely happened to me.}This message has been edited by Faith, 01-22-2006 07:39 PM

Well, that's mighty strange.

Totally.

It isn't just one reason. It's a whole complex of reasons that work together to enhance one another. I've said a lot about this here already.

OK, conceded. My writing seems to be getting sloppy lately.

Well start with thinkers from the western tradition. Alfred Korzybski's concept of non Aristotelian logic in General Semantics. I really think you and Faith represent the flip sides of literalism. One side asserts that language discribes literal truth (call that Heads, Faith) and the tails, you, say because literal true is false the nihilism is the only proper description of reality.Koryzybski realised the fact that the map is not the territory. It is an abstraction of the territory. If a map were entirely accurate to ever detail then it would be identical to what it mapped. To complain that Buddhism is vague is like complaining the map doesn't show the color of your house, and the flowers blooming in the back yard, or the smell of the liliacs in bloom.Western literalism, if you can swallow it whole then you can be smug and safe in your delusions, but if you can't swallow it why not look beyond it to that which is beyond semantic meaning, What Is, Life.Don't ask Buddhism to be reduced to the silly literalism of western religions, but because it doesn't confuse the Tao with what it's named, it has to use language as to tool to go beyond language. No easy task. Language is for cooking, hunting, explicit directions and earthly actions. To go beyond that ... well... What some of us are saying, what the Buddha and Lao Tzu, and UG Krishnamurti for example said is... you can't put it in words, but words are all we have so try and get the wordless essence of what I'm pointing at. To complain it's vague is to miss the point and decide God is 5 ft. 11 and half inches tall, weighs 150 lbs, and was born in a specific place, died at a certain age, keeps a long list of names in a big book and after death you line up for court.Buddhism, as Wittgenstein understood also, is not making assertions of fact because facts are linguistic abstractions.lfen

Let's unravel this complex. Just give me one the reasons.

Although it may seem that I am mocking Faith, I am not. I am really trying to do this; maybe this experiment will help me decide what to believe (or not to believe).I did not post what happened yesterday (day one 1/22/06) since I have been sick for the past few days and was zonked out on NyQuil; here are the results:1) I have been trying to move more than one object, none of which mean anything to me, so if as Faith suggested, I need to have a certain emotional attachment to the object, then there is none. She did not say this, but from her post (105) this is what I got out of it.2) Since I am an emotional person to begin with, it should not be that hard to get myself into a highly emotional state. I will try anger (the easiest emotional state that I can think of; I'll watch Fox News this morning), love (I'll think of my wife and son) and fear (not qyite sure how I'll do this one) and see if anything happens. I'll try to summon these emotions in the same room as the objects I have been trying to move.3) The objects that I am trying to move:
A) A pen; no emotional attachment whatsoever
B) A piece of broken brake light; my troglodyte neighbors backed into my car and as of yet, the light has not been replaced. Since they have no insurance, notifying the police would not have helped, but would have turned the situation into the Hatfields and McCoys. So, whenver I look at that piece laying on the table on my porch, I am reminded of the and get a little ed. I will bring the piece inside today and try to move it.
C) A paperclip; as with the pen, there is no emotional connection.End of day one: no movement of any of the pieces. Since I have today off, I will be alone and have more time to focus on the pieces.
I really hope something happens, though.

Sorry, Hal, I misremembered my story. A crucial point. I have thought of it as a mental thing but the fact is that what broke the object was my voice. I groaned out loud at the difficulty I was having with this problem I was trying to solve, and that's when the object broke. It broke further a couple hours later when exactly the same thing happened. Just a loud "no-o-o-o-o-" or something like that. Sorry. I do think because I was so involved in questions about the supernatural that this was probably more than just a physical effect, but I don't know. Sorry to have misled you. {...Although breaking something with one's voice isn't to be lightly dismisssed either.}The other experience, of causing pain to someone, remains in my mind the effect of my concentrated fear that accidentally got directed at her.But here's another one that may possibly be related. When I was in college -- years ago -- a bunch of us went to hear a psychic read messages in sealed envelopes. I was off to her right in a crowded room and while we were waiting for the crowd to get settled I decided to test her psychic powers by concentrating all my attention on the side of her face I could see. Very challenging attention maybe as I was very skeptical. She was just sitting there, this big lioness of a woman as I recall, quietly waiting for the hubbub to stop, almost motionless, but then she turned her head very slowly to the right and looked right at me. Hey, I don't know. Coincidence maybe.As for the readings she did I don't remember anything. Nothing very convincing apparently. But I never forgot her turning like that to look in my direction.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-23-2006 12:13 PM

S'funny you should say that. I was on a motorcycle once. It was the old days when I was wild. Careering down a residential street and 100mph or so. Way up ahead in the distance a car pulled out to head in the direction I was going in. I pulled out to the other side of the road with the intention of blasting past him. No sweat.That is, until I realised that the car wasn't pulling away very fast and was drifting over towards the white line in the middle of the road. Something wasn't right and I was now bearing down very fast on him. Then it became clear. He was intending to take a right hand turn (we drive on the left in Ireland) into a side road just a little further up from the one he'd pulled out of - which was why he was so sluggish. Just as I realised this, he began his turn. At 100mph on a bike you don't turn, you veer in long arcs. Simple computation told me that I was going to T-bone right into the side of him.NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!As I said it the car front end lurched downwards on its suspension. The driver must have looked in his side mirror mid-turn and literally slammed on the brakes. I can still see his front end bouncing back up from the sudden stop. I roared safely pastI've had quite a few accidents, some at high speed. I've seen most of them coming but have never ever been positive that I was going to die. And never thought of it much until now.

Now if we could claim/prove that your yelling like that is what made the car stop, directly at your command, we might be onto something about the power of the human voice, and Hal could start practicing it. Of course it might have been angels looking out for you. They have to work awfully hard for us before we are saved. After too I'm afraid.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-23-2006 12:56 PM

Hal, do not try this at home I yelled loud - but not THAT loudThis message has been edited by iano, 23-Jan-2006 06:03 PM

Musta been angels then.

Correct. If you can set up a test where any of the things mentioned can be replicated and independantly confirmed, you might just be on to something worth investigating. But until then it looks like a series of coincedences, gross stupidity, dumb luck and perhaps a driver of a car with a bit more sense and concern than might be expected.Thank GOD for a driver that was smatter and more christ-like than the bike rider.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion