Dr. Chris White Optimistic About Science Spirituality Crossover |402|

I should add that it is only by reading the mere 250 or so total pages of the Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that a person may discover true Christianity. For some reason the Gospels appear to be yet uncorrupt. Maybe there are Divine consequences for attempting such. One may also discover how far off this base some "Christian" sects have wandered.
 
There is a huge amount of mainstream scientific data that supports spiritual beliefs (9),

(All the controversies in the history of science show that the best explanation of the evidence is an opinion. The mere fact that some scientists may disagree does not prove who is right. In this post (below) I am not trying to prove anything scientifically, I am only trying to show that mainstream science provides solid grounds on which to base spiritual beliefs.)

Many Nobel Prize winning scientists and other great scientists believed that science supports spiritual beliefs(1)

Quantum mechanics provides evidence that consciousness is fundamental, that consciousness produces matter and therefore consciousness cannot be produced by matter. Double slit experiments, quantum entanglement, and the quantum Zeno effect support this interpretation (2).

Evidence from cosmology supports the belief that the universe was designed and created(3) (Multiverse theories don't explain this evidence.(4)).

Mainstream chemistry rules out all natural explanations for the origin of life(5).

Mathematics (information theory) also rules out a natural origin of life(6).

In addition to mainstream materialist science there is also the scientific work of psychical research(7) and parapsychology(8) which have provided evidence for the afterlife, and ESP.


Notes
1) Many Nobel Prize winning scientists and other great scientists believed that science supports spiritual beliefs.

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

Nobel Prize winners Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Brian Josephson, Sir John Eccles, Eugene Wigner, George Wald and other great scientists and philosophers such as John von Neumann, Kurt Gödel, Wernher von Braun, Karl Popper, and Carl Jung believed consciousness is non-physical because of the evidence:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

Many scientists believed the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes, Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and other scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, and Louis Pasteur.
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers


2) Quantum mechanics provides evidence that consciousness is fundamental, that consciousness produces matter and therefore consciousness cannot be produced by matter.

Max Planck
(Nobel Prize for Physics)
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_plank


Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize for Physics)


Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize for Physics)
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_heisenberg


John von Neumann
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_neumann


Double slit experiments, quantum entanglement, and the quantum Zeno effect support this interpretation
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/summary_of_evidence#summary_evidence_quantum


3) Evidence from cosmology supports the belief that the universe was designed and created.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articl...by-subject.html#articles_by_subject_cosmology

The Cosmological Argument for a Transcendent Designer of the Universe. The discovery that the universe is expanding, the discovery that the universe came from nothing, and the discovery that natural laws are finely tuned to make life possible, all demonstrate that the universe was created and designed by an intelligence outside the universe. The evidence for intelligent design in the origin and evolution of life shows that the designer continued to play a role in the universe long after its creation.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-cosmological-argument-for.html

4) Multiverse theories don't explain this evidence.

Multiverse Theories Fail to Explain Our Finely Tuned Universe. Intelligent Design is a Better Explanation.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/08/multiverse-theories-fail-to-explain-our.html

Guillermo Gonzalez on the Fine-tuning of the Universe to Support Life
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/04/video-guillermo-gonzalez-on-fine-tuning.html

Opposing the multiverse by George Ellis. "Martin Gardner (2003) puts it this way: 'There is not the slightest shred of reliable evidence that there is any universe other than the one we are in. No multiverse theory has so far provided a prediction that can be tested. As far as we can tell, universes are not as plentiful as even two blackberries.'"
http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/2/2.33.full

The multiverse argument for the existence of paranormal phenomena.Proposing a multiverse does not help the materialist cause, it hurts it. If there are enough universes to explain the existence of our "improbable" universe as the result of chance, then there should be enough universes for one to exist with a God, spirits, Sasquatch, intelligent designer(s), UFOs, alien abductions, psi, etc, etc.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-multiverse-argument-for-existence.html



5) Mainstream chemistry rules out all natural explanations for the origin of life

Video: The Origin of Life: An Inside Story 2016 Lectures with James Tour.
A chemistry professor explains why everything we know about chemistry shows that life could not have arisen by natural means.

Video: Life could not have formed by natural means. Biomolecules naturally react to form tar.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/09/video-life-could-not-have-formed-by.html


6) Mathematics (information theory) also rules out a natural origin of life
https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/steve-meyer-on-the-information-enigma-in-evolution/

Information Theory: Chance and natural law cannot explain the origin of life.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2014/09/information-theory-chance-and-natural.html

7) In addition to mainstream materialist science there is also the scientific work of psychical research ,,,

Pierre Curie (Nobel Prize for Physics):
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_pierre_curie


Charles Robert Richet (Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine):
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers#researchers_richet


Mrs. Piper: Evidence for Survival After Death:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2009/05/further-record-of-observations-of.html

8) Parapsychology

Selected Psi Research Publications:
http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

Proof of ESP: 1871 - 1997. Beating the Odds at Ten Million Billion Billion to One:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/04/proof-of-esp-1889-1997.html


9) There is a huge amount of mainstream scientific data that supports spiritual beliefs.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articl...subject.html#articles_by_subject_id_overviews


Most of the data used by proponents of intelligent design comes from mainstream science:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articles-and-links-arranged-by-subject.html#articles_by_subject_id

Jim, this is a pretty extensive list! Thanks for sharing this. Glad you liked the book!
 
It's kinda funny that it's taken us this long to maybe in a way agree with Albert Einstein when he said, "The Universe is an illusion albeit a persistent one." So now we're coming around to the idea that there is maybe an Author of this illusion we call Creation. Is it such a great leap now to possibly consider that this Intelligent Creator is concerned for the creatures he has placed in it? Is it possible to communicate in some way with this Creator... if during the course of our lives in this illusion we should find ourselves in need in some hopeless way? Dare I now say that prayer works? No I won't. But I will say it's worth a try for anyone without other options.
I think I agree with this, though of course here we run far beyond the science to more speculation and emotional response to the universe. But the scientific view of the universe is so wild nowadays that -- well, why not posit an intelligent Something behind it all, and why not suppose that It would respond to individuals in distress?
 
It is also an error to say Disproved Nihilism ≅ Proved Abrahamism (not that you are insisting on that here garry):)

We have to remember that Abrahamism is also a discredited religion, bearing an imperious, cruel and consistently misleading model of Intelligence which underpins the Universe. This definition of God has failed over and over again as a reliable faith, much less as a hypothesis. And the people of the Western part of our globe chronically suffer as this horrid model of God is bound up and placed upon their shoulders as a burden. They live quiet terrified lives, squeezed until every last drop of money is extracted from them. All with a false smile of blessed assurance on their theatrical faces.

As bad as Materialistic Nihilism is, Abrahamism is even darker and more sadistic. And given the choice of Atheism or going back into Hellianity, I choose Atheism any day.
I like this response, because yes, religions have caused a lot of suffering and problems. (Of course, many religious people today recognize this and revise their notions of God, their doctrines, and their practices.) But you're surely right that it's more difficult to affirm the western monotheistic God of the Bible than it is to entertain the (more generic) notion of a divine intelligence. This recognition was in some ways a starting point for my book, which aims to understand how non-religious people are (re)constructing notions of a sacred cosmos using (of all things) scientific ideas.
 
This you may find a surprise or maybe not, but I agree with you, I too am not an advocate of much of the old testament also because of its consequences. But the acknowledgement of the existence of an aware intelligent Creator does not make me a fan of religion. My beliefs are based on actual personal and sometimes quite miraculous experiences. A benevolent unseen being out there somewhere is aware of me.
As someone who studies religious or spiritual experiences I'm interested in hearing more about your experiences. What happened?
 
I like this response, because yes, religions have caused a lot of suffering and problems. (Of course, many religious people today recognize this and revise their notions of God, their doctrines, and their practices.) But you're surely right that it's more difficult to affirm the western monotheistic God of the Bible than it is to entertain the (more generic) notion of a divine intelligence. This recognition was in some ways a starting point for my book, which aims to understand how non-religious people are (re)constructing notions of a sacred cosmos using (of all things) scientific ideas.

And brilliant in this refoundationing as well. Common journeymen.
 
As someone who studies religious or spiritual experiences I'm interested in hearing more about your experiences. What happened?
If you are interested, I have written about many of my spiritual experiences:

https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/02/joy-during-meditation.html#joy_trip
https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/mystical_experiences

Jim, this is a pretty extensive list! Thanks for sharing this. Glad you liked the book!
I'm sure your book is excellent but unfortunately it is out of my price range. What I wrote in that post came from my own blog and web site.
 
Hi All

As a newby I would just like to throw in my 10 cents worth, just a little for now.

The only explanation for all the weirdness that I can come up with is the following:

The world(the universe and everything) is just made up of thoughts
Thoughts are more real than ourselves
We can give birth to thoughts though rarely totally original
Thoughts outlast us to infinity
Something other ( Greater) than ourselves also gives birth to thoughts
We as humans are one mind one thought
Substitute spirit for thought
Substitute Archon for something governing ( could be groups or collective thoughts) or guiding thoughts forcefully
Substitute akashic records for all thoughts past,present and future
Thoughts can manifest as "matter"
The only change we can make is to attempt to change our thoughts and thought patterns

We need to try and totally discount the material explanation and cast off the spiritial explanation ( too much baggage ) to be able to
get to the bottom of things
 
I think I agree with this, though of course here we run far beyond the science to more speculation and emotional response to the universe. But the scientific view of the universe is so wild nowadays that -- well, why not posit an intelligent Something behind it all, and why not suppose that It would respond to individuals in distress?

Why do we fall for the trap of thinking that science is the arbiter of truth about the nature of reality? If we properly distinguish between 'real' science and the opinions of scientists we can see that what 'Science' provides is not the same thing as what scientists think or claim. I learned long ago not to defer to 'scientific' notions of my paranormal experiences. To 'science' I was mad and to 'religion' I was bad. I decided I was neither. I was right.

I do not think it is fair to see either 'religion' or 'science' as cogent wholes. Each is a complex set of disciplines. Was it Dewey who said that there was no such thing as Religion, only religions and the religious? I likewise do not think there is any such thing as Science - only sciences and scientists. All else are political and cultural constructs.

Long ago sciences and religions were fused together. We labour under the legacy of atheistic materialism and struggle to reunite them in our personal discourses. We are conditioned to accept the premise of materialism - which gives us Science (good and rational) and Religion (bad and irrational). Neither exist independent of the cultural forces of materialism. If we remember that, we can start to think more sensibly.

While the sciences have come to play powerful roles in our lives they are only beginning to have a potent impact on our psyches - and there is considerable alignment between some forms of psychology, mysticism and deep spiritual practices and interpretations of reality that are metaphysical in character. Obviously the presently patently materialistic sciences will have to catch up - they are excited about the dung while the mystic is riding the horse. So while I do appreciate the impact on my physical existence of the materialistic sciences, it is the sciences that impact my subjective experience of reality that matter most to me. And still, they have to catch up with the deep wisdom of the mystical traditions.

The one thing that materialism has done has been to send us back to the mystical with a new awareness, new way of thinking and new language. I have an acquired disability that has imposed upon me profound change for which I am deeply grateful - and which may not have come with such power without the illness that struck me down. But that does not mean that I praise the illness. In a way materialism is a sickness of spirit, and it is wrong to see the cause as just the failure of religion. It was more a crisis of the human psyche across the board of cultural forces. Siedentop's Inventing the Individual offers a useful insight into the complexity of it all.

Finally, Chris, your book is way too expensive. It looks as though it has been priced as a work by an academic not expected to be popular beyond the campus. Even the Kindle price is cruel. I will probably have to pay the price, but I have to register my protest as a matter of principle.
 
But I suspect that his point was not that the Good Samaritan was a Christian. I heed that parable well, as it refutes what the church actually says.

Here is another parable (I love parables) - pardon my goofy ones... but here goes...

Two men sat in a room with a bowl full of M&M's on the table in front of them. Beside the bowl was a sign which read 'Indisputably delicious'. When the first man read the sign, he picked up a handful of the multi-colored candies and started crunching on them. He was hit with the sudden realization that the enticing M&M candies were, rather than filled with chocolate, filled with excrement. Whereupon, before he could think, he was asked by his counterpart 'Are the M&M's good?' In his embarrassment over having dove into the mass of M&M's with august, the man thought to himself that it must take a bit of getting used to (an acquired taste). So foaming at the mouth with apparent chocolate, he said 'Yes, umm (crunch crunch), very fulfilling, very enlightened, very good!" So the second man proceeded to dive into the cache of M&M's for himself. He paused for a stark moment and then smiled weakly, and gave a gentile thumbs up to the first man. "Mmmm, good, yeah (crunch crunch).'

A third man entered the room and inquired as to what the two gentlemen were eating. He saw the colorful array of candies and suspected that, since the two men appeared to be enjoying the bowl of candies, that they must be extraordinarily good. He grabbed a handful and stuffed them into his mouth and sat down to enjoy. The previous two men looked at him and asked, 'Are they not good, (crunch, crunch) the best you ever had? Is your life not way better now?' The third man looked crosseyed down ward and said in a shaky voice, 'Uhmm, (crunch, crunch) yeah, very awesome!"

Then a fourth man entered the room and was inspired to find so many men eating wonderful candies, and yet a bountiful supply of them still remained. So he sat down, as the other three men watched. He grabbed a handful and began munching. Suddenly he stood up and spat the entire mouthful out. "Those are not candies, that is candy coated shit! My gosh, how can you eat that stuff?' Whereupon he left the room in haste to wash his mouth out in the restroom.

The three men looked at each other, until finally one said 'Well, he never really ate the candy.' And they continued to munch merrily along, examining all the beautiful candy shells colors in their bowl.
 
Hi All

As a newby I would just like to throw in my 10 cents worth, just a little for now.

The only explanation for all the weirdness that I can come up with is the following:

The world(the universe and everything) is just made up of thoughts
Thoughts are more real than ourselves
We can give birth to thoughts though rarely totally original
Thoughts outlast us to infinity
Something other ( Greater) than ourselves also gives birth to thoughts
We as humans are one mind one thought
Substitute spirit for thought
Substitute Archon for something governing ( could be groups or collective thoughts) or guiding thoughts forcefully
Substitute akashic records for all thoughts past,present and future
Thoughts can manifest as "matter"
The only change we can make is to attempt to change our thoughts and thought patterns

We need to try and totally discount the material explanation and cast off the spiritial explanation ( too much baggage ) to be able to
get to the bottom of things
hi B welcome! I'm with you right up to the last 2. who is the one who "changes" a thought?
 
Why do we fall for the trap of thinking that science is the arbiter of truth about the nature of reality? If we properly distinguish between 'real' science and the opinions of scientists we can see that what 'Science' provides is not the same thing as what scientists think or claim. I learned long ago not to defer to 'scientific' notions of my paranormal experiences. To 'science' I was mad and to 'religion' I was bad. I decided I was neither. I was right.

Valid concern Michael. I equate scientists, and have used scientists, much like accountants and financial career specialists.

The CFO and accounting group:

1. Are often the highest academically qualified personnel in the building​
2. Employ structured and accepted method to catalog the natural expression of the business (money)​
3. The are trained in the methods of ascertaining changes to this understanding through incremental hypothesis and deductive inference​
4. They are impeccable in discipline and track every bit of minutiae in GAAP and General Ledger - they publish authoritative reports​
5. They are the center of primary sourcing and underpinning knowledge when I am seeking the answer to a question.​

They do not have the first clue how to run a business.

They do not understand the true nature and function of the business, how it actually engages with the market, which aspect of entry is employed, what customers think and do and how the explosive revenue statistics are generated. They do not grasp why an expense exists or what would happen if it did not exist, how value flows emerge and are harvested, nor how people are impacted by the decisions made.

If you put an accountant in charge of your business mission - the business will fail. Plain and Simple.

1 through 5 above are necessary but not sufficient.

That begs the question then: Is science necessary but not sufficient? :)
 
I do not think it is fair to see either 'religion' or 'science' as cogent wholes. Each is a complex set of disciplines. Was it Dewey who said that there was no such thing as Religion, only religions and the religious? I likewise do not think there is any such thing as Science - only sciences and scientists. All else are political and cultural constructs.
nice one! That's going to stay with me for a while :-)
 
As someone who studies religious or spiritual experiences I'm interested in hearing more about your experiences. What happened?
Hi Chris. Well, over the course of life I have been religious as a child and an atheist as a young man and finally spiritual as a retired person. Retirement provides time. Time to contemplate life and the purpose thereof, if there is one, and if anything comes next when one's body is spent. Like many others, the stories which gradually emerged about people who temporarily experienced the death state and returned to life on Earth affected me profoundly. "So our lives here are not for nothing." I thought as some stories brought the subject person all the way to the presence of the Creator. The feeling while there although beyond description was nothing less than total bliss and happiness for such person. Not unlike many on Earth I had experienced a life which left a lot to be desired. " I wanna go there!" I said to myself. The only path through life to get there I could think of was that laid out by Jesus Christ in the Gospels. Acceptance of His sayings and abiding by them I understood is rewarded by the bestowing of an Angel which we may quite confidently consider an "Agent" of the Creator for our protection.
This Angel provides the Christian with intuition. Intuition to make good decisions such as what to invest in and what not to, so as to preserve a probably hard earned modest fortune. I have experienced this.
One day last summer this Angel caused me to lose consciousness and took over my body an instant prior to hitting a pickup truck at over 30 km per hour which had failed to notice me on my electric bike. I never felt the impact although my bike was destroyed as well as my bike helmet. I regained consciousness in the ambulance on the way to the local hospital. After several tests I left the hospital later the same day with no significant injury to speak of, not even a concussion, not even a bloody nose.
One hot dry summer day I was watching the clouds slowly drifting by while taking a break on the back porch from gardening. Don't ask why but I asked, "Dear Father in Heaven, if you know I exist, will you show me a pair of eyes in a cloud?" Well, nothing happened, that afternoon. The next day found me once again taking a break on the back porch with no thought whatsoever of the request of the previous day. For some reason something told me to look skyward, and there it was; a pair of perfectly formed round openings in a cloud as if eyes. The cloud vapor had been moved from the "eye" centers to the circumference edges. No way it could have been natural. Because this incident happened without my direct intent at that moment the cause was independent of me.
I'm no better or different from anyone else in this world except maybe for my faith, Chris. Thank you for your open ear. Kind regards, garry
 
hi B welcome! I'm with you right up to the last 2. who is the one who "changes" a thought?

Thanks Alex

If I was really sure where thoughts come from I could reply with a bit of certainty.
My gut feeling is that its a mix of ourselves (own individual thought ),thought triggered by chemical and hormonal action in the body,thoughts triggered by the physical "other" in ourselves (bacteria virus etc) the group mind or thought ,thought entities, current prevailing
thought, and a little bit of "God" thought (though not too much of that esp currently).
Im pretty certain that most of what we think is external to us
 
Valid concern Michael. I equate scientists, and have used scientists, much like accountants and financial career specialists.

The CFO and accounting group:

1. Are often the highest academically qualified personnel in the building​
2. Employ structured and accepted method to catalog the natural expression of the business (money)​
3. The are trained in the methods of ascertaining changes to this understanding through incremental hypothesis and deductive inference​
4. They are impeccable in discipline and track every bit of minutiae in GAAP and General Ledger - they publish authoritative reports​
5. They are the center of primary sourcing and underpinning knowledge when I am seeking the answer to a question.​

They do not have the first clue how to run a business.

They do not understand the true nature and function of the business, how it actually engages with the market, which aspect of entry is employed, what customers think and do and how the explosive revenue statistics are generated. They do not grasp why an expense exists or what would happen if it did not exist, how value flows emerge and are harvested, nor how people are impacted by the decisions made.

If you put an accountant in charge of your business mission - the business will fail. Plain and Simple.

1 through 5 above are necessary but not sufficient.

That begs the question then: Is science necessary but not sufficient? :)

Hi Ethical Skeptic
I became disenchanted with science when I worked with some top scientists in their field at sea and saw just how very human they were
There was so much back stabbing fighting for grants, fudging of results and general bullshit that I now look at their work and think
straight away "really buddy, pull the other leg"then start looking for grains of truth in the mud.
The whole climate change thing is a case in point, I saw with my own eyes in the ocean piles of plastic where I saw coconuts before
and know we are poisoning our lands,sea and sky with man made toxins but the experts are telling us its all CO2 (a natural gas).
A few farts from a volcano will make more CO2 than us.
Science is just a method ,dont listern to anybody that spreads a fear that you yourself cannot have agency over.
We need to employ a bit of common sense even with the results from so called experts
 
Why do we fall for the trap of thinking that science is the arbiter of truth about the nature of reality? If we properly distinguish between 'real' science and the opinions of scientists we can see that what 'Science' provides is not the same thing as what scientists think or claim. I learned long ago not to defer to 'scientific' notions of my paranormal experiences. To 'science' I was mad and to 'religion' I was bad. I decided I was neither. I was right.

I do not think it is fair to see either 'religion' or 'science' as cogent wholes. Each is a complex set of disciplines. Was it Dewey who said that there was no such thing as Religion, only religions and the religious? I likewise do not think there is any such thing as Science - only sciences and scientists. All else are political and cultural constructs.

Long ago sciences and religions were fused together. We labour under the legacy of atheistic materialism and struggle to reunite them in our personal discourses. We are conditioned to accept the premise of materialism - which gives us Science (good and rational) and Religion (bad and irrational). Neither exist independent of the cultural forces of materialism. If we remember that, we can start to think more sensibly.

While the sciences have come to play powerful roles in our lives they are only beginning to have a potent impact on our psyches - and there is considerable alignment between some forms of psychology, mysticism and deep spiritual practices and interpretations of reality that are metaphysical in character. Obviously the presently patently materialistic sciences will have to catch up - they are excited about the dung while the mystic is riding the horse. So while I do appreciate the impact on my physical existence of the materialistic sciences, it is the sciences that impact my subjective experience of reality that matter most to me. And still, they have to catch up with the deep wisdom of the mystical traditions.

The one thing that materialism has done has been to send us back to the mystical with a new awareness, new way of thinking and new language. I have an acquired disability that has imposed upon me profound change for which I am deeply grateful - and which may not have come with such power without the illness that struck me down. But that does not mean that I praise the illness. In a way materialism is a sickness of spirit, and it is wrong to see the cause as just the failure of religion. It was more a crisis of the human psyche across the board of cultural forces. Siedentop's Inventing the Individual offers a useful insight into the complexity of it all.

Finally, Chris, your book is way too expensive. It looks as though it has been priced as a work by an academic not expected to be popular beyond the campus. Even the Kindle price is cruel. I will probably have to pay the price, but I have to register my protest as a matter of principle.

Hi Michael
First come the mystics, then the followers who ruin the mystics, then the archons or rule makers who mess up whats left.
We can only try to live a good life with as little harm to those around us as possible and try to connect with "God" ourselves
directly.I guess its possible to do that within a religion but very difficult
 
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