Peanut Gallery

Hi Panda Yes, Casper is a caricature of a ghost. The difference between Pinhead and Casper is ... ?It's your assertion that Pinhead is really a supernatural being rather than a caricature like Casper --- so the onus is on you to demonstrate this.A caricature is not intended to be taken as real.Enjoy.

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Coyote et alAmusingly you are the one dodging again.So why can't you provide objective empirical evidence to support bluegenes' claim?If it is a "strong theory" as he claims, this should be easy. If you can't then it is not a theory, but wishful thinking, wishful thinking of the confirmation bias kind.So why are you not skeptical of his claims? Confirmation bias? Curiously, I have not made any claim in this regard, and thus I have absolutely no need to provide substantiation for a claim that I have not made. Is that clear to you?Can you substantiate that the IPU is real? Can you substantiate that the IPU is made up? Is it fair for me to ask you these questions if you have not made either claim?Bluegenes on the other hand HAS made a claim, a rather extraordinary one, imho, and has failed to support it. You have failed to either assist him ... or question his claims.Do you accept his claims without question, because you like them, they fit your world view, and you can ignore the logical inconsistencies, sit back and feel comfortable attacking someone who does question them.Enjoy.

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Hi Bluejay, thanks for your post. Which is why these "theories" are unusable and unsupportable, inevitably being supported by subjective interpretation of anecdotal circumstantial evidence fit only for confirmation bias. No, sorry, I disagree. It's wishful thinking based on confirmation bias.At best it is an untested, and essentially untestable, hypothesis. The position even that it is a theory is not supported enough to be acceptable: scientific theories are based on objective empirical evidence at the start, then they make falsification tests, and only after several falsification tests have been passed does it qualify as a theory. One could also just as easily and with just as much logical reason, regard this as a test of the hypothesis that Thor is actually described properly as an "intelligent entity at the other end of thunderbolts" -- rather than being a god\supernatural entity responsible for thunder\lightening\rain\etc. In this case we can see the hypothesis that god\Thor is personified in this way is false, not that god\Thor is falsified.In other words each such test refines our understanding of what god/s are like or not like, and this is the scientific process, even though it can never result in a clear decision. I've enjoyed your posts on this thread, and thanks for your participation.Enjoy.

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Hi Mr Jack Let me help you out of your confusion; if you actually believe that there are no supernatural entities, then you cannot logically believe that you can make one up: thus to claim that something you have made up is actually a supernatural entity is rather amusing self contradicting delusion.Enjoy.

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Hi Panda, A caricature has intentional exaggerations.Caricature Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

quote:

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1. a pictorial, written, or acted representation of a person, which exaggerates his characteristic traits for comic effect
2. a ludicrously inadequate or inaccurate imitation: he is a caricature of a statesman
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009

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Other words could be used, however I feel that the connotations of caricature are more appropriate here.Thesaurus.com

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Main Entry: caricature
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: exaggerated description in writing, drawing
Synonyms: burlesque, cartoon, distortion, farce, imitation, lampoon, libel, mimicry, mockery, parody, pasquinade, pastiche, put-on, ridicule, satire, send-up, sham, takeoff, travesty

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Portrayals of private eyes in detective fiction are caricatures.Enjoy.

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Still confused Panda? No, you cannot logically believe that he must exist because you have made him up and don't believe in supernatural beings, and therefore you cannot claim that it is a supernatural being rather than a caricature of one.Enjoy.

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Hi Coyote, and yet ...
... you cannot seem to bring yourself to present any evidence to support bluegenes. Amusingly, you seem particularly obtuse to the fact that I have not ,and do not, claim that they do exist. Curiously, all I ask for is the objective empirical evidence that would support the claims made by bluegenes, evidence you seem unable to produce as well....... so you keep harping on me to substantiate a claim that I have not made.Why is that?Enjoy.

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Hi onifre, just a clarification please What evidence is that - I seem to have missed it. The lack of objective empirical evidence to support the various claims made by bluegenes means that his assertions are not demonstrated to be anything other than his wishful thinking based on confirmation bias, as such, he has not "made the case" that these assertions are anything more than fantasy.Enjoy.

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Hi onifre, Curiously, that is your opinion, not evidence. Is it? Or are you just assuming that this is so in order to conclude that this is so? And if you are not the person that has the experience? There are lots of claims of various ways and experiences, how can you dismiss them as non-existent?Again, an open-minded skeptic, imho, is one who is willing to consider the possibility of a(ny) claim but skeptical of accepting it as anything more than just a possibility on faith alone, without any kind of supporting objective, empirical, testable, evidence, and is willing to be undecided until that evidence is presented. (Message 728).Enjoy.

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HI Bluejay, thanks. Science works from objective empirical evidence to form an hypothesis of how things work, but not why they are so. Science can only work with falsifiable concepts to eliminate invalid concepts of how things work. We can show that the concept that this is how "Thor" causes lightening and thunder etc does not match physical reality. To me this is more like a caricatured strawman of the god/s than an actual description: it would need to be established what the original believers said about the god/s rather than assume that saturday morning cartoons capture them properly. Here I have some trouble just accepting this on face value. There are several ways that information comes to an individual: they can observe it directly, they can imagine it, they can be told about it by someone else, they can read about it, etc etc etc.There are a myriad number of ways that information is conveyed, to the point where most of the information we have about how things work is conveyed in these ways rather than by personal direct observation or personal imagination.Now it can be argued that in the end it comes down to observation or imagination, but that is assuming that these are in fact the only sources for everyone, not demonstrating it.If you were told a concept by a supernatural being posing as a human (as many people believe happens), then how would you know? If you dreamed some concept that turns out to be accurate, did you imagine it or did some spirit cause you to have that dream (as many people believe happens), then how would you know? If you are gently nudged by positive\negative (hot\cold) feelings by ancestral spirits in how you behave (as many people believe happens), then how would you know?Without some means\method\etc to test an eliminate these possibilities, I cannot arrive at a finite conclusion in this regard by logic alone.In other words, it has not been demonstrated that there are only two ways. Unless your Thor hypothesis is a strawman of the original god/s, so that the strawman is falsified while the original is not.One of the problems I have is that people seem to think that god/s (a) should be describable in simplistic terms and conversely (b) that simplistic terms like this are full and completely accurate descriptions. This rather means that any human description is necessarily a strawman at some level of relationship to any actual god/s - to be treated with skepticism regarding accuracy.If you experience something you do not, can not, understand, how can you accurately describe it without eliminating parts you do not understand enough to describe and simplifying it to your personal level of understanding?Enjoy.ps - love the new Avatar.

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Hi Panda ROFLOL, too funny, but curiously, not my position. It appears that you keep reading your opinion into my argument and assuming the consequent. ALL supernatural beings would include ones where you can show people believe in them. You need to start with the right end of the question. If you start with fictional characters then you need to demonstrate that the supernaturalness actually applies. However, if you start with a believed in supernatural being then you just need to demonstrate that it is fictional.Fictional characters can be shown to be fictional characters, but I seriously doubt that anybody would rationally consider them as anything but fictional characters, especially when they are advertised as such, and thus providing a long list of fictional characters, as long as you want to waste bandwidth, does not address supernatural beings where you can show people believe in them being fictional.This is like masturbating instead of participating in actual sex with someone else, and claiming that it is the same. Can you show that pinhead is not an exaggeration, a parody, of supernatural beliefs but actually represents a supernatural being?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : ...

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Hi onifre, Would you agree that there are many claims of supernatural communication, either in religious experiences, dreams, or with spirits pretending to be people?Enjoy.

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Hi onifre, Indeed. Thanks. Why should I accept one claim rather than another?Enjoy.

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Hi onifre, semantics, semantics, semantics, Amusingly, you just asked me again if I would accept the claim that there are only two sources. You can equivocate on the wording if you want, but it is the same question, with the same answer.Curiously, I have seen absolutely no evidence or reason not to consider the possibility of other means, so I personally will remain open-minded in that regard, while also still being skeptical of claims not supported by objective empirical evidence.If someone is going to claim that there are only two possible sources, then I would need to see objective empirical evidence supporting that claim.Now, rather obviously, if someone that claims these other sources of communication provided objective empirical evidence of such communication that would

1. demonstrate that supernatural communication existed, and
2. demonstrate that supernatural concepts could be the result of such communication

Conversely, just assuming that there are only those two means\sources is assuming the conclusion (that human imagination is the source of supernatural concepts) is true in the premise (Begging the Question):

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The truth of the conclusion is assumed by the premises. Often, the conclusion is simply restated in the premises in a slightly different form. In more difficult cases, the premise is a consequence of the conclusion.

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Thus it would seem rather imperative that anyone making the claims that bluegenes made would at least attempt to show that the claim is true, not ask that it be accepted at face value on their word.Enjoy.

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Hi onifre, ah. That would be what the claims by others of supernatural communication would imply. To communicate? there are several species capable of communication, some even displaying imagination and objective cause-and-effect observations, but this is not your real question here. Another alternative is that they can receive communication about an event without direct imagination of the event nor direct observation of the event.What they cannot tell is whether or not any of these communications come indirectly from supernatural sources. Thus they can experience communication of supernatural beings without knowing the source, without imagination and without direct experience of the supernatural.Most information we get is indirect, not directly invented nor directly observed. This is, after all, how you and I have seen claims of supernatural communication on this forum, yes? It is also how most scientific knowledge is acquired, yes?Now you may say that it comes down to some person somewhere imagining or experiencing the supernatural, then I would say that this would a reasonable conclusion, but that I cannot tell whether communication from such a source is one or the other, nor can I provide evidence to differentiate them.Another possibility is that we can deduce what occurred from evidence even though the event was not imagined nor directly experienced. The yucatan meteor at the end of the cretaceous period would be an example of communication of an event that does not come from imagination nor human experience.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added

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