I was taught to believe that there is only this, as in this life, then we die and then there is nothing. There is no God, there is no reincarnation, no other nonsense, what you see is what you get. Pure atheism really.
Thank you for answering my question. And that
is a set of beliefs. It is called a
natural world view. Naturalists believe that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. The supernatural doesn't exist; only nature is real. I am a naturalist.
I see you're bringing out the big intellectuals to back up your stance. I'm cool with that but I'm happier that my mind isn't so cemented that I am determined to always seek proof even when proof isn't there.
We are all standing on the shoulders of giants. How many times a week do you think Dawkins name-drops Darwin? The late Hitchens often quoted Ingersoll and Spinoza during his debates. And physicists today still reference Einstein in their talks. Knowledge builds upon knowledge. As long as we formulate our opinions in fresh, new ways, they are our own. I have read posts on this forum that quote Yoda and Voledmort as appeals to authority.
Rowntree;1986736556I said:
On to my experiences, as a six year old I wrote a story from which was entirely made up. The same story turned out to be an entirely factual historical event in which I named people, places and years. Now, somebody like yourself would just say that I had obviously read or heard about this somewhere else like my teacher did and just dug it out from the back of my mind somewhere. I can honestly say that this isn't true but I have no way of proving it just like I didn't to the teacher although he didn't have any idea where I'd got the information for the story, I didn't get it from him and certainly didn't at home or anywhere else - I didn't read any books above the usual nursery rhymes, I wasn't allowed to watch television except for Playschool or Rainbow. The latter argument is just coincidence but to me there were too many coincidences all together for it to just be coincidence. The other thing, I used to have a bedsit which had a trapdoor in it with some stairs leading up to it. There were footsteps going up these stairs for a couple of hours one night and there was nothing there, there wasn't just a creaking, there was one step after another going up but not down and then starting all over again. I have no explanation for that. Likewise all of the people in the house had no explanations for their experiences there. I don't even know why I'm bothering to say this to you as you'll just have it down as hocum pocum. I generally agree with your points but these things mean that I can't be so dismissive just because a scientist or two thinks that they have everything figured out.
Even reading this back it seems ridiculous but it is as it is. I don't have the answers, I could try to reason that it's this or it's that but none of the reasons people have thrown at me have added up any more than these things make sense in any rational way.
What do you believe the explanation is for being able to write a story that mirrored a real life event at a young age? What do you think accounted for the sounds on the steps? You told me what happened but did not assign causes. Or have you not attributed meaning yet? If not, then are you OK with the notion that you don't know why but some day scientists may be able to explain these things as a part of the natural world? Are you OK with uncertainty? Can you resist assigning supernatural causes just because you need answers? I'm OK with uncertainty. There are millions of things I have no answers for. And I am OK with science being uncertain. We don't know what causes cancer--yet. Two hundred years ago, cancer was believed to be caused by demons. This was before we understood cells, bacteria, viruses and disease. As we learned more about disease we became less likely to assign supernatural causes to illness. Now even the Pope believes that the cold is due to a virus, not a supernatural demon or curse. But if you were to visit an island (if any still exist) undisturbed by modernity, you would find primitive people believing that cancer is caused by demons, spirits, etc. Can you entertain the idea that we too--in the future--will look back on today and see that our supernatural explanations for things were due to the lack of knowledge and tools to explain them through natural laws?
David Hume (sorry a name-drop) has a great little test for deciding whether something is a miracle:
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.
Rowntree;1986736556I said:
a scientist or two thinks that they have everything figured out.
Science is not a static endeavor. It is dynamic, changing , growing , modifying, and dismissive. Scientists are curious by nature and relish the challenge to solve problems. But they are also open to being, and expect to be, proven wrong--as par for the course--time and time again. Scientists are not ego-driven as much as they are truth-driven. If a scientist has a so called
cemented mind, he or she is in the wrong profession. And I will close by saying, I do not have a cemented mind either. I am always open to new information and ideas.