What Makes A God?

Mr. Writer, could you please explain to me why you feel that this;

people who have never had an "experience of God" comprises a valid data set, yet for some reason the numbers of people who have reported subjective religious experiences of "God", regardless of the particular religion or lack thereof, somehow are not valid?
Not a very scientific approach, is it.

The first step in wisdom is knowing oneself.

 

You may wonder why I keep going back to the speaking in tongues stuff.
It is not because I am proselytizing for any particular belief system or any such thing, although I do admit the most knowledge and familiarity with Christianity.
The main reason why is because the gauntlet keeps getting tossed down, "show me some evidence!" and speaking in tongues and other "gifts" are really about as straight forward as you can get.

The source material describes the phenomena and further states that "these signs will follow those that believe" and it has been reported consistently throughout Christian history and continues to this day. Ya know, when I read that, the first thought I had was, "cool, I want to see some of that stuff" I mean if this book is true then it should still be happening to those that "believe", simple logic. That was the premise I approached it with, not with "it's all bullshit". I was reserving that for if I didn't come across anyone doing that stuff, and that is not the case.

You ask for some evidence, well there it is, right in front of you.
Nobody is attempting to hide it or whatever. It has been shown that testing in the lab can easily be done on subjects with no hindrance to the phenomena, unlike most other types of this stuff, kundalini for example.
Speaking in tongues can literally be "turned on and off" with no preparation or ritual whatsoever. It is as natural as normal speech, yet not completely under the direct control of the person, or at least the subjective reports and EEG data indicate that.
Sure there are idiots and random "wanna-be" fakers just as there are in any community, but there are also a considerable number of people who exhibit theses things genuinely and sincerely.

So needless to say I am a little dismayed you, Mr. Writer, completely failing to recognize the phenomena for the rich opportunity it does provide for maybe gaining some toe hold into researching this crap scientifically.
Oh well....you have spelled out your motivation and agenda rather clearly, so I guess championing science isn't really the rally cry, but rather crush religion is the battle cry.....kind of a shame.

 

In a heartbeat. Without a moment's hesitation. Happily. Gladly. With a profound sense of wonder and humility, and a renewed love of science and reason.

I highly doubt that. I suspect it would take more the form of a rude awakening that would eventually humble you but one that you would resist for quite a while, as these discoveries would verify that this knowledge has been known LONG before the age of science and reason ever came about its merry way and short-lived existence up to this point. It would be difficult for you to face this.

 

Speak for yourself... Why would you resist these studies?

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985Natur.318..419C

Oh apparently Astrology is big business. I didn't realize this before, definitely puts things in perspective. Interesting...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/aug/17/20030817-105449-9384r/

 

What, and Science ISN'T big business? Much bigger business, in fact?

I'm not very impressed with those studies. Studying Astrology needs to be done in a case by case way, not by lumping together a bunch of Sun signs and seeing if their lives turn out the same, or by having Astrologers guess which chart matches which person. This is a retarded approach, to be frank.

 

Ya know, I understand and agree with some of your ideas, but seriously dude???

there has to come a point when you acknowledge the information before you and not just stubbornly deny it.
In that respect you are doing the exact same thing you accuse Mr. Writer of doing.

From what I gathered, that research WAS a case by case study, just done simultaneously.
The reason they chose subjects with as close of birth times as possible was to attempt to control as many variables as possible and quite frankly is/was a nod to accepting astrology as valid, otherwise it wouldn't matter.

It would do you a world of good to learn more about what is good or bad science. Learn how to construct a hypothesis, create an operational definition controlling for variables, conduct the experiment and then interpret the results.
A very invaluable lesson in learning to evaluate science is if you know/understand how to construct a research proposal and carry it out.

 

To make the claims that one study debunks all of Astrology which has existed for thousands of years and without which Science wouldn't even exist is rather lame to say the least. To declare "case closed" from one or two studies is arrogant and doesn't declare anything.

What traits were they looking for, specifically? Did they take into account the person's Sun Sign, or their entire chart? Did they take into account whether the subjects were aware of what their chart is or not, or whether they are in to the ideas of Astrology or not?

 

Can't answer some of those questions without reading the actual research proposal and operational definition of the experiment.
But you honestly don't think that a study that followed 2,000 subjects over the course of DECADES of their lives is valid info?

Without having the original research at hand, I will have to make the assumption that, yes, they covered all the astrological bases and as I said, it looks as if the experiment was designed in order to give astrology the best possible chance of being confirmed.

They went to this organization; http://www.geocosmic.org/, to help construct the experiment and pick the astrologers who would participate.
WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT!!!!?????

They gave astrology every benefit of doubt and every chance to be validated, but in the end there is no more correlation beyond chance.

 

Yes, but from a scientific viewpoint, the data is questionable because a person already familiar with intimate knowledge of you compiled it.
While intriguing, it fails the rigors of science, but you already know that.

Now if you had an unknown third party do your chart and it achieved a high degree of correlation with the other one, well then you may have some more compelling data.

 

Well we can't assume, here. It needs to be spelled out very clearly in the study whether they took into account their Sun Sign or their ENTIRE CHART. There's a huge difference there. And since no two people have a directly similar chart, of course their lives are going to play out in different ways. Not to mention their geography, upbringing, etc. being other factors to take into account.

And Astrology isn't meant to determine the course that your life takes. It's meant to be a symbolic way of showing you different aspects of your psyche, and you can do whatever you want with that info. In the same light, I am subject to the laws of physics, but the laws of physics in no way determine the course that my life is going to take, is it? It plays a factor, however. But doesn't ultimately determine.

 

No, we can assume that the group employed to help construct the experiment would have made sure all astrological bases were covered, if not, go bitch at them about it, I provided a link to the site.

uhmm, did you miss the part where they tried to correlate the chart readings with psychological profiling?
pretty much exactly what you say they didn't do.

Why do I get the impression that you, like Mr. Writer, want to just deride a topic with little or no actual knowledge of it.
Writer does it with Christianity, you do it with science.

 

It was an astrological soft ware program. the interpretations were not hers. So yeah I knew that and wouldn't have offered it for comparison if had been influenced that way. The descriptions are stock in the program and come up whenever you have the combinations displayed. Something else I did consider was the sheer volume of stuff that was provided and wondered considering that volume if we could say we are bound to come up with coincidence. Fact is the coincidence was substantial over all. I didn't include the stuff that was wholly subjective and showed things where others could make comparisons from what they know of me.

 

okey-dokey then
have you ever had your chart done by a person and if so was there a lot of correlation between the two?

 

It is, something you've made clear SEVERAL times. But at least it's a method that produces actual results. Astrology produces results NO BETTER THAN CHANCE? That's not even worthy of being called a field, that's a SCAM!!

The scientist appealed to astrologers themselves in the first study, I don't know what more you can ask for. Maybe, just maybe what's retarded in all this is the 'discipline' of Astrology itself.

 

exactly.
they went to the astrological society mentioned to have THEM, the astrologers, help construct the experiment and set the parameters and controls. They even picked the astrologers who would be doing it.
again I ask, What more do you want?

you really are grasping at empty straws on this one China.

 

No. I've heard astrologers talk to each other and there is correlation in what they discuss to life in general. There is a lot of correlation in the general descriptors of my sun sign. I am personally not that interested in it to have my chart done. The reason I have one is someone else wanted me to have it.

 

Matching charts up to psychological profiling is no different than giving a psychologist a bunch of case studies with no names on them and asking them to say who's psychological profile is who's. it says nothing about the legitimacy of psychology.

And the link didn't work for me, but i was under the impression that the 2,000 people study and the psychological profiling study were two different studies. Regarding the 2,000 people, nobody has exactly the same chart. And even if they did, it would be like taking two people who have some other similar psychological trait and expecting them to live out the exact same lives.

 

Enjoy exploring the roots of the pseudoscience you have already decided is true, despite failing every basic scientific test ever thrown at it. Why is it that the question of "How do we know these things?" in astrology is a mystery among astrologers? Why don't we know where and who and how someone decided what it "means" to be born under a particular constellation? Is this not a giant red flag for you?

Why is it that you are so unaware of how crucial a role that the esoteric actually played into the formation of Science, only for Science to get full of itself right away and declare that all esoteric studies are obsolete? This is no different than a teenager rebelling against his parents, while not realizing that he wouldn't even exist if it weren't for his parents. They can be called obsolete all that the teenager wants to call them that, but the parents are the Foundation for the teenager's very existence.

With this being said, if you are denying what came before Science, then you are denying Science itself. Magick practitioners evolved to a point of creating the Scientific Method, only for the next wave of thinkers to take that method and also attempt to kick Magick itself to the curb.

As an example, it would be silly for a Rock 'n' Roll fan, musician, or scholar to declare that Blues, R'n'B, Country, and Ragtime are obsolete even though all of these things lead to the formation of Rock 'n' Roll. They are literally the foundations of Rock, and without those genres, Rock never would have evolved into Metal, Punk, and other genres.

 

You're correct. There were no results before the 1800s and the Age of Reason, dating all the way back to Ancient Egypt. We simply made no evolutionary progress before Science came around

 

Perhaps I need to repost this:

"It's not Astrology, it's Seasonal Biology" ...calling it by a more "Scientific" name doesn't make it not Astrology.

http://scholar.ac/seasonal_biology.html

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20101105221553data_trunc_sys.shtml

https://promega.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/seasonal-biology-comes-of-age-could-daylength-affect-personality/