Dr. Stephen Braude, The Veil of Stupidity |485|

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Dr. Stephen Braude, The Veil of Stupidity |485|
by Alex Tsakiris | Feb 2 | Parapsychology
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Dr. Stephen Braude, has seen science’s veil of stupidity descend on the study of PK.
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I think parapsychology will prevail as a field of study for certain curious people to the very end of time. There are spirits in our midst only too eager to engage with us. Give the old Ouija board a try and you'll see! But for the true Christian it is no more than a diversionary waste of time possibly leading to personal spirit pest companions that one will need to inevitably rid themselves of. In hindsight such person may conclude that delving into such things was beneficial only in making them aware of the Father of Spirits, a desperate prayer to whom engaged an Angel to combat the demon(s) and help them out of their predicament. Either this or employ the services of an exorcist. Better by far for such person to use their time making themselves useful helping the less fortunate or less able. Thus they may find themselves at death in a much more pleasant extended consciousness realm than we are in now.
 
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Dr. Stephen Braude, The Veil of Stupidity |485|
by Alex Tsakiris | Feb 2 | Parapsychology
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Dr. Stephen Braude, has seen science’s veil of stupidity descend on the study of PK.
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I was surprised toward the end I think I remember he mentioned that in organ transplants the spirits tend to hover around the recipients which does't seem to fit with his take on the afterlife.
It seemed like you didn't want to push him on the afterlife and nde's or what he considered better evidence but still marginal.
 
I thought that was an interesting interview, and I am reading his "Dangerous Pursuits" book.

It was interesting that he seemed to come across rather defensively, and I it would seem from the preface to his book that he has suffered a lot of academic sniping and unpleasantness because of his explorations.

I do think that parapsychology can get bogged down over issues of proof (which is really a mathematical concept anyway). I have always felt that the super-psi argument should have been laughed out of court, not taken seriously.

His book presents an argument that fear of psi lies at the root of this. Someone did a study of parapsychologists and showed that some seem to make unforced errors in their work, which then lowers the statistical confidence of their results to just below they p<0.0.5 threshold - so they are publishable but relatively easy not to believe!

David
 
I was surprised toward the end I think I remember he mentioned that in organ transplants the spirits tend to hover around the recipients which does't seem to fit with his take on the afterlife.
It seemed like you didn't want to push him on the afterlife and nde's or what he considered better evidence but still marginal.
I think I pushed pretty hard :)
 
I think parapsychology will prevail as a field of study for certain curious people to the very end of time. There are spirits in our midst only too eager to engage with us. Give the old Ouija board a try and you'll see! But for the true Christian it is no more than a diversionary waste of time possibly leading to personal spirit pest companions that one will need to inevitably rid themselves of. In hindsight such person may conclude that delving into such things was beneficial only in making them aware of the Father of Spirits, a desperate prayer to whom engaged an Angel to combat the demon(s) and help them out of their predicament. Either this or employ the services of an exorcist. Better by far for such person to use their time making themselves useful helping the less fortunate or less able. Thus they may find themselves at death in a much more pleasant extended consciousness realm than we are in now.

I have given the Ouija board many tries over and I did see. My issue with the "true Christian" is that there is zero spiritual freedom in that program. In affect, they say, "Read this book, go to church, this is all that you need to know." If you question anything about their book, they refer you back to the book, and when they are stumped, they say, "Have faith."

Granted, there are many great people who are Christian. Alex has had several on his podcast. However, that line of "Christian" thinking, to me, is intellectually lazy. I would say "plain stupid," but I don't want to be offensive because you certainly seem to be a kind person.

For me, raised in a family so incredibly Christian that we couldn't even celebrate Halloween, I would say that Christians were a diversionary waste of time possibly leading to hypocritical "people" pest companions that I would eventually need to rid myself of. To this day, I consider myself far from Christian. Everybody else in my family is still part of that Christian cult, but I am not. How did this happen?

An other worldly entity to me is not a shadow person, bigfoot, a grey alien, or a spirit that can move objects. Instead, it is the majority of lunatics that believe they are good and wholesome because they went to the same institution as all the other good and wholesome; and read the same book.
 
Great interview. Love Braude's outlook on psi lab experiments. "Let's see you get and erection" LOL.

That said, his insistence that it could be super psi has long escaped my understanding. Seems arbitrary. Could be lot's of random stuff; slippery slope.
 
OK, I find 'God' an utterly weird concept - at least as it us usually defined.

Let's take evolution, and suppose we take the conclusion that evolution required an intelligent designer (which I consider essentially a fact). Now, if God were infinitely powerful, He could just create the organisms that He wanted on Earth in one massive act of design - rather than operating over billions of years. Furthermore, the Cambrian Explosion suggests to me that whatever entity designed life on Earth created a range of new formed as a sort of experiment - "Hmmm I wonder which of these lifeforms will flourish?". Doesn't that suggest an entity with only finite powers. As so often happens in science, if you substitute ∞ into an equation you often get back nonsense.

Therefore, do you think God has only finite powers, and if so what is it about Him that defines as God?

David
 
OK, I find 'God' an utterly weird concept - at least as it us usually defined.

Let's take evolution, and suppose we take the conclusion that evolution required an intelligent designer (which I consider essentially a fact). Now, if God were infinitely powerful, He could just create the organisms that He wanted on Earth in one massive act of design - rather than operating over billions of years. Furthermore, the Cambrian Explosion suggests to me that whatever entity designed life on Earth created a range of new formed as a sort of experiment - "Hmmm I wonder which of these lifeforms will flourish?". Doesn't that suggest an entity with only finite powers. As so often happens in science, if you substitute ∞ into an equation you often get back nonsense.

Therefore, do you think God has only finite powers, and if so what is it about Him that defines as God?

David
I understand all the problems with the word, but it's a shorthand way of getting that what we're talkin about. jeff long cuts through a lot of this clutter
 
Therefore, do you think God has only finite powers, and if so what is it about Him that defines as God?

I would say that what defines God is the conscious and reasoning capacity of that Great Spirit. This is also what defines us as children of God. We can reason and invent complex devices, something no animal can do. So we must have something within us that comes from and belongs to the Creator. Jesus tells us to, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God." So we must also have within us an mostly untapped resource to maybe cause things to happen outside of natural Law. "Ye are Gods" said Jesus, "These things and more shall ye do". But what we truly are manifests best when we return "Home" to our Creator. Many near death experiencers describe possessing, "all knowledge" while they were there.
 
David, could you please give a short explanation of what "super-psi" is compared to "regular psi" ?

I read the definition here: https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/super-psi-hypothesis

...but I lack the paranormal education to understand it.
Well I think a simple example would be to suggest that if someone has a precognition of a plane crash, you could eliminate the retrocausation (crash at time T caused precognition event at an earlier time) by assuming that a person could have so much psychic awareness that he/she could predict that there would be a crash - awareness of relevant metal fatigue, for example.

It is often used as a way of claiming that mediums achieve what they do without there being genuine life after death. For example, they become aware psychicaly of all relevant information so that they can infer what the dead person might wish to convey wre he still alive!

Stephen Braude seems to consider the concept to be flawed as well but his discussion doesn't seem to reach a clear conclusion!

David
 
My issue with the "true Christian" is that there is zero spiritual freedom in that program.

I'm afraid I must argue with you on this Shane. I became free when I first truly believed Jesus' instructions. I no longer worry about death because for me there is no such thing. I no longer lament my misfortunes though I've had plenty. I know they are all part of this life experience I've agreed with God to undertake; right to the bitter end without ever a thought of suicide. Acceptance of life no matter how hard at times thanks to Christian Faith is a freedom in a form all on Its own.
i've had the freedom to meddle in the occult, I've had the freedom to mess around uncommittedly with women when I was younger, until I crossed paths with one who was subject to occasional frightening demonic possession. This sort of freedom is an imprisonment in a form all on its own I'd say. All was part of an intercessional development of wisdom, I've concluded in retrospect.
 
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