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Post by toby on Jul 1, 2012 8:57:55 GMT
Hunny posted.:-Sit in a crowd of people, pick someone at random and stare at the back of their head relentlessly.
Toby comments.:- This is very possible, when I was a Lad I used to win bets with my friends by making a girl turn and look at me, I could do it anywhere even in a car being driven. Have not tried it for ages though (being married).
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Post by toby on Jul 1, 2012 9:42:49 GMT
Deyanna posted.;-It seems to me there is no conceivable way the metal in his hands would just bend before our eyes and with no one has much as touching it. (apart from him, but he never touched the part that was bending!).
Toby comments.:- It's a metal with an extremely low melting point, they showed how it was done on Candid Camera when they served cups of coffee with spoons made from this metal and when folk stirred their coffee, the spoon was gone.
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Post by toby on Jul 1, 2012 9:57:30 GMT
Deyanna posted.:-How to expand and tap into that very high percentage that lies dormant? Have some people found a way to at least tap into parts of their brains that most of us can't? being psychic comes to mind.
Toby comments.:- They say that the Apache Leader Geronimo was an adept and he used the hidden part of the brain on demand and he demanded the useage by yawning. This enabled him to outwit the US Cavalry at every turn, to avoid every ambush they laid for him, to know which areas were safe and whhich were not. He only lost 1 man during all the fighting with the US Cavalry in all those years, his contempories describe how he used to do what they called a yawn, opened his mouth very wide and during this time his spirit was freed and could do what he wanted, he was in control of what he was doing, it was not random.
I also read a different review that mentioned the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are able to survive because they can harness hidden powers of the mind. I think we all could do this from when we were born which is how the human race managed to survive in a massively hostile environment, but we don't need to ! so the power lays dormant and unknown. Folk living under continued stress do develop certain attributes so the strongest of them survive.
So-called ,'Magicians', are merely folk who practise to learn how to focus the mind, all the spells and incantations are merely to help focus so the magicians will is done. Similarly a Gypsies crystal ball is used to focus, they cannot see anything inside the crystal ball.
If you read about the Salem Witch trials then you will learn about the Magistrates who replicated one of the spells and had startling results which nobody can explain, and they were not seriously trying !
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Post by Hunny on Aug 2, 2012 17:03:48 GMT
Just imagine.. What if... There really is NO God? What if all we have is here and now? Nothing more. Zilch. No after-life of any kind, no spirits, no angels, good or bad, no hell, nothing. And if that is so, then why do so many people in this world waste so much time on - religion, and praying to a God that may no exist? What if all the millions, if not billions spend on Churches, temples, Mosques, Cathedrals, the Pope, (or whoever is the head of any particular religion) be all for nothing? What if when we die we finally realize this? What does that say about us as human beings? Does it perhaps suggest that we are willing to believe just because others do? Or because it seems like the 'right' thing to do, or because we know no other way? Any thoughts on this? The day we find intelligent life on another planet is the day we will no longer be able to think of ourselves as the supreme species alone in the universe, as if the whole thing exists just as a home for us. Religions should fall apart on that day (I don't know how long "believers" CAN continue to make excuses for the overwhelming number of incongruities in their "holy" book before they finally cant rationalize it as real anymore). But regardless of what people believe or don't believe, that day will show us that we aren't the center of everything, that we aren't the end-all creation of evolution - a more advanced species could or will evolve from us and make us just one of the long chain of apes that preceded us. And that's just on this planet.. You see...as HORRIBLE as humans actually behave, with their predation and war and callous amassing of wealth and making others suffer, if you compare it to the way the OTHER animals prey on each other for food and position and resource, you see that we're just a species of animal too. And actually.. just another animal (not the last or most advanced that could develop). And given the size of the universe, the likelihood of a billion other inhabited worlds, even if we obliterated ourselves, nothing so important would be lost. Nothing more important, that is, than we deemed the coyotes as being when we tried to extinguish THEIR species... You see, we suffer the illusion that our technology is amazing, and that this makes us amazing. Well it may seem that way to us now, but given we're only 200 years into the industrial revolution and there's endless thousands of years that still may ensue, an i-phone could be in reality only slightly less primitive a tool than a stick being used by chimps to get ants out of a hole. All the life on Earth may just be no more significant than moss on a rock, when you consider that this planet has a 4 billion year history, and out of that it only took 70 million to produce us, after a dominant life form was extinguished. If the dinosaurs were capable of pondering, they must have thought it was all for them too... And maybe it is, while you last... --> are we important enough a species to warrant eternal life as "god-like"? Oh, I doubt it. I don't see anything about us to suggest that conclusion. Is there life after death? mm, well we all want that assurance don't we? I don't know any more than anyone else does if there is - though scientifically, we do seem to be the universe itself becoming sentient. That is...the entire universe and all the matter in it possesses a quality scientists call 'consciousness', and we are temporary conscious entities that form of its matter and evanesce in it. So..is consciousness -which the universe seems to actually be made of- something which cannot be destroyed? Thus will your consciousness still exist after your body ceases to function? I guess it's possible. ...But that kind of goes in the direction of the universe itself being "god" or made by a "god"...and I have a little trouble with assigning beliefs about something we know nothing of (i.e.,where the universe came from and is, etc)... we don't know, we haven't a shred of a clue. So I cant conjure up a God idea to wish upon. I can't go farther than what we know, as to making conclusions. It'd be NICE if there was a god and an after life, but those notions are from a myth devised by cavemen (really, cavemen... So..is it unnerving to have to face the inevitability of death then, with no God? Yes. It is. But I just cant make that leap the cavemen made! And in the end, I can gather what scant information we possess, but still there's no way to know for sure what is what, regarding Gods and the meaning of life. In my heart of hearts, I would like it if there was re-incarnation...for that idea makes us all equal, and due a second (and more) chances. And I'd like to come back as healthy, wealthy, smart, talented and beautiful (not that I ask much ) I would though. Maybe I will just wish for it, just in case thought does create..
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Post by sadie1263 on Aug 2, 2012 19:49:50 GMT
Seriously.......people think we are Supreme Species now? ? Wow......I have some plants that are smarter than some people.
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Post by chips on Aug 2, 2012 23:55:56 GMT
Interesting thread with some well thought out comments but most seem to avoid one important fact.
You can explore religion and pick it to pieces, involve your own facts and theories just as I have done over 70 years but in the end it all boils down to faith.
During my time on this planet I have witnessed many terrible things but I was always strong, never giving in to emotion because there were people who depended on me being that way.
Then in 1990 I lost an adult daughter followed not long after by the death of my only son. Whatever way you look at it, I'd lost two of my babies and the pain was unbearable. Both times I went through the usual grieving process, anger, looking to place blame, self blame. A bit like boating down a fast torrent until eventually the white water subsides and you enter a calm still backwater where all is peaceful and serene.
It was in that backwater I realised I didn't have to know why, all I needed to have was faith. Life was being played out as it should.
I gathered my thoughts together and determined what I believed in.
I don't push my beliefs on anyone nor do I expect them to interfere with me.
I'm happy with my faith
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Post by sadie1263 on Aug 3, 2012 2:00:45 GMT
Oh Chip......can't fathom having to go thru that. My youngest son was involved in a very serious car accident last year. There is no reason that he and the 3 others in his car should have survived. There were serious injuries involved and my son and one other are still recovering from their injuries. One boy will never play sports again and my son has a metal plate and pins for an ankle now, plus knee damage that will be a problem from now on. But they are all walking, breathing miracles. I struggle with the anger I have over the person responsible for this accident and with my gratitude over the gift we received and my guilt for even being angry when so many people don't survive every day.
Maybe I'm just programmed this way........but I have to give credit for that miracle, and many others that I have seen, to someone and for me that is God. I believe God can be many different things....to different people. Your life experiences and your upbringing probably shape that. If you feel the need to honor that connection by going to church every day or week or with the way you live and treat other people.....or just in quiet moments with your own thoughts, if it is in a book, or words, or in the beauty of a tree or a rainbow, that is also personal.
I believe people that don't believe in God or in a God, can still be extremely spiritual people.
One of my favorite quotes:
What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do. —John Ruskin
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Post by sadie1263 on Aug 3, 2012 2:18:42 GMT
And seriously......only someone with a sense of humor would have thought up an ostrich or that giant pit in an avocado........
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Post by chips on Aug 3, 2012 11:29:37 GMT
The odd song strikes chord
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Post by Hunny on Aug 3, 2012 14:26:27 GMT
Oh I remember that song. We played it in the school band at the time...
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Post by Big Lin on Aug 3, 2012 19:41:01 GMT
It's not actually just anthropocentric religions (did I spell that right?) that might face problems if life on other planets is discovered.
Neo-Darwinian biologists are also facing problems because it's becoming increasingly a debate within them about how to respond.
The 'official' line of the neo-Darwinists is that life is a lucky accident and that Earth just happened to be the planet that won the cosmic lottery ticket. Jacques Monod has argued that view consistently and believes that DNA is unique to Earth and could not be replicated by chance on other worlds.
For me actually (and a number of other Christians I've talked about this subject with) it would actually STRENGTHEN our religious faith. God is the God of the whole universe and I don't believe He would only love and cherish one planet.
Yes, I believe He sent Christ to Earth but how do we know what He may have done on other worlds?
If you believe in chance then intelligent life on other planets is LESS likely than if you believe in a God who can create anything anywhere in the universe.
So I think extraterrestrial life actually is a good argument in FAVOUR of the existence of God.
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