Is any purported work of sacred scripture the word of God?

[bobevenson]

Humans are masters at deceiving one another...

In Ouzo, the end of the game is reached when a player makes a bid that is passed all around; it will be a wise bid only if he understands the ploys and artifices of each and every player.

[marjoramblues]

uwot:

As I said to Greylorn Ell, some of the tales he tells are amusing, although the mouthpiece, even by it's creators admission is deeply unpleasant. So I might get round to it, but it's not top of my priorities right now. Why do you ask? Have you read it?

No, I haven't read it.

Why do I ask ? Well...it sounded like you, and your sharpness, were intrigued enough to take it on.
I find all of this very puzzling. So, had hoped - as did GE and probably a few others - to be further delighted and enlightened.


Given GE's previous:

My first book, written under my real name, was a metaphysical story that did rather well, especially in foreign language translations, and remains a popular internet cult classic. Two of its chapters have been filmed, republished, excerpted by a respected philosopher, and used in philosophy courses about the nature of consciousness.

Just a little bit curious.
However, I too have other 'things to do' - even if more down to earth; mundane even.
'Portraits of Reality' - will there be cartoons ?

[R2D2]

http://youtu.be/HQJ3sqkdCRE

Thank you for the lively post! They have been very entertaining...I get more out of reading your post than my textbook! I appreciate all the brilliant minds...

@ Haxhammer Are you the forum Nazi....My posts are basic because like I said they are
coming from my professor in my intro to phil class. Mind your own biz...if you don't have anything
of value to post than shut your troll mouth

@Soren...I don't have time to banter with ignorant cry babies...Im a single mom going to college full time and working....so arguing about bs is of no interest

[HexHammer]

@ Haxhammer Are you the forum Nazi....My posts are basic because like I said they are
coming from my professor in my intro to phil class. Mind your own biz...if you don't have anything
of value to post than shut your troll mouth

Problem is, if you can't figure out these simple things youself, you can't really achive greater philosophy, then again, that's not my problem.
You will only be able to parrot things, and not able to think abstract like the others here in this forum.

[Blaggard]

@ Haxhammer Are you the forum Nazi....My posts are basic because like I said they are
coming from my professor in my intro to phil class. Mind your own biz...if you don't have anything
of value to post than shut your troll mouth

Yes Hexhammer is the forum Nazi he gets to tell everyone to stop spouting nonsense and start spouting reality as if he is the final arbiter on all that is true, it's his job, you will get used to him over time. If not you will at least become inured to his self righteous banter to the point you stop caring about it.

We are all mortals who just parrot things, he is the only person who ever learnt how to think. It's what he does, he is thinking for you so you don't have to parrot thought. You should thank him really.

You will only be able to parrot things, and not able to think abstract like the others here in this forum.

Which apparently is just you, since you have decided to become judge jury an executioner on what constitutes real thinking rather than avine speach reminiscent of the order and clade Psittacopasserae and sittaciformes.

[HexHammer]

Yes Hexhammer is the forum Nazi he gets to tell everyone to stop spouting nonsense and start spouting reality as if he is the final arbiter on all that is true, it's his job, you will get used to him over time. If not you will at least become inured to his self righteous banter to the point you stop caring about it.

We are all mortals who just parrot things, he is the only person who ever learnt how to think. It's what he does, he is thinking for you so you don't have to parrot thought. You should thank him really.

I'm sure this is your special way of saying that you love me dearly!

[Blaggard]

Yes Hexhammer is the forum Nazi he gets to tell everyone to stop spouting nonsense and start spouting reality as if he is the final arbiter on all that is true, it's his job, you will get used to him over time. If not you will at least become inured to his self righteous banter to the point you stop caring about it.

We are all mortals who just parrot things, he is the only person who ever learnt how to think. It's what he does, he is thinking for you so you don't have to parrot thought. You should thank him really.

I'm sure this is your special way of saying that you love me dearly!

I don't mind you at all, but you do seem to be a dictator on fact.

Like I said on another thread I have nothing against people who can speak their own minds, but I am not that pleased with those who tell others how to speak their own minds.

[HexHammer]

Like I said on another thread I have nothing against people who can speak their own minds, but I am not that pleased with those who tell others how to speak their own minds.

That sounds very deep, but I'm afraid it's actually very shallow.

This is a philosophy forum, not cozy chat forum, philosophy = love of wisdom.

So, if people speak straight out of their stupid asses, then it's not philosophy, but mere cozy chat, I'm only trying to help people do proper philosophy while you don't mind if people stoop it down to mere cozy chat!

[Blaggard]

Like I said on another thread I have nothing against people who can speak their own minds, but I am not that pleased with those who tell others how to speak their own minds.

That sounds very deep, but I'm afraid it's actually very shallow.

This is a philosophy forum, not cozy chat forum, philosophy = love of wisdom.

So, if people speak straight out of their stupid asses, then it's not philosophy, but mere cozy chat, I'm only trying to help people do proper philosophy while you don't mind if people stoop it down to mere cozy chat!

Well that's a straw man since I never claimed what you say, all I have opposition to is of course people who are dictators, you might like to read my post again. I know English is not your first language and that's no one's fault, not even the Romans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE

[HexHammer]

Well that's a straw man since I never claimed what you say, all I have opposition to is of course people who are dictators, you might like to read my post again. I know English is not your first language and that's no one's fault, not even the Romans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE

I know very well what you have written, but you don't.
Now you just try to get out of your own mess.

[Greylorn Ell]

...I suspect that Greylorn Ell's thesis is of the latter sort, with some maths thrown in, that I doubt I am equipped to understand and probably wouldn't persuade me anyway, given that Greylorn Ell hasn't, to my knowledge, convinced anyone handy with an equation that there is anything in it.

One of the book's contributors, Paul R. Martin, is a retired mathematician. He and I speak weekly, trying to expand my theories. He's written an excellent essay on the implication of codon structure to conventional explanations of biological evolution, as a result of reading my chapters on the subject. I can point you to his website and that essay if you are interested.

Because I spent the theory's early development phase in the company of critical people-- astronomers, EEs, physicists, etc, all of them proficient in mathematics, there are fans of the theory with similar skills. Several have died, so I should say, "were" fans. Or perhaps they still are. I've no way of knowing, since I've found the current state of psychic mediumship to be untrustworthy.

Whether or not you are equipped to understand it has less to do with your formal education, more with your ability to honestly consider and study unique concepts that diverge from current beliefs. It is a book that anyone who has a vested interest in his current beliefs should fear to read, because if they understand it, they must doubt their beliefs. That's a frightening proposition for all kinds of dogmatists.

Greylorn

[uwot]

Whether or not you are equipped to understand it has less to do with your formal education, more with your ability to honestly consider and study unique concepts that diverge from current beliefs. It is a book that anyone who has a vested interest in his current beliefs should fear to read, because if they understand it, they must doubt their beliefs. That's a frightening proposition for all kinds of dogmatists.

If I have a dogma, it is summed up by Richard Feynman's offering that I keep quoting: 'It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn't matter how smart you are, if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong.' I don't 'believe' even that. Epistemologically, there is no option, logic and mathematics are provable, but in themselves, they are not about anything. As Einstein said: As far as mathematics is about reality it is not certain. As far as it is certain, it is not about reality.' Or as Bertrand Russell put it: 'Mathematics can be categorised as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about.' For all I know, Pythagoras was right and 'all is number', but I happen to think that, even though they are fallible, the only source that we can hope to inform us about the external world is our senses.
Don't get me wrong, maths is a sharp tool, it's the only way to go if you want to get to the moon. I think you need to be cautious though in assigning any ontological status to any of the concepts it makes use of.
We can use our creativity to construct any number of stories that are coherent, and consistent with the things we see and hear, to use Kuhn's terms, we can create a paradigm. As far as I understand, that is as true of the maths we apply to our observations as it is to the metaphysical stories we make up to make it all comprehensible.
Then as Popper noted, we can protect it by generating any number of conditional clauses, which is what people with a 'vested belief' might do. Personally, I have no fear of people presenting their beliefs, if there is nothing in them that is demonstrably, or even theoretically false, there's little point arguing about it. People do though, even blowing each other up or gassing millions of innocents for the sake of a story.
By the same token, if a story doesn't make any claim that will make a difference to anything we see, hear or touch, what is there to persuade anyone that it is a better reflection of reality than any one of thousands of others?

Marjoramblues; if you have read this far, well done. I hope that goes some way to explain why I haven't yet read Greylorn's book. I still might, but if he could point to a phenomenon that is objective and repeatable and a mystery to science, but which his theory explains, I would be in much more of a hurry to acquaint myself with it.
Whaddya got, Greylorn?

[Blaggard]

I find him condescending and uneducated in the relative fields to make any sort of argument, but I fully admit that may just be me. Maybe I am just not meant to understand his supra genius. I just don't think it's worth spending a lot of time on people who think that everyone else is an idiot for not believing what they do, this has lead to so many travesties in the past and utter inanities, that one I think, if he is wise, should avoid prophets and Messiah like figures in the search for some sort of logic if not truth.

I am pretty sure there are people who know something that breaks all previous paradigms, I am just not sure such people go about it by whining at people, writing books that are conjecture and contain no evidence or reason other than their own beliefs, and not actually putting in the leg work to prove it because they think their supreme knowledge does not need to go through the process of peer review like every other person did that overturned a paradigm, because clearly everyone else is a moron. Whenever I see someone say all other people in the field are nit wits, or idiots or whatever, it sends a clear signal to me that they have not engaged them, and so hence we should not engage them if we are to use common sense...

[marjoramblues]

uwot:

Marjoramblues; if you have read this far, well done. I hope that goes some way to explain why I haven't yet read Greylorn's book. I still might,...

Well, u know wot, it was of optimal length to prevent optical glazing.

As for reading maths and equations to understand whatever, I'd be as well off blind.
It is not that I am blinkered, or averse to being shaken or stirred by new theories...
But I would need a very patient translator. So that I could nod and hymn in the right places, or not.

Sentience by sentence.

[uwot]

I find him condescending and uneducated in the relative fields to make any sort of argument, but I fully admit that may just be me.

In fairness, Blaggard, he's not the only one who has suggested I need to do a great deal of study, so that I might be qualified to comment.

Maybe I am just not meant to understand his supra genius. I just don't think it's worth spending a lot of time on people who think that everyone else is an idiot for not believing what they do, this has lead to so many travesties in the past and utter inanities, that one I think, if he is wise, should avoid prophets and Messiah like figures in the search for some sort of logic if not truth.

Greylorn is a character who has written a book that to him explains life, the universe and everything better than anything else he has read. No doubt, it is consistent with what he sees and hears. It is probably a mystery to him why more people do not understand and appreciate his vision, though some of his efforts are half hearted, viz the website. Thank you for the research, marjoramblues. He's a cantankerous old scrote, granted, but there is nothing that I have seen that makes me think he deserves a kicking.

I am pretty sure there are people who know something that breaks all previous paradigms, I am just not sure such people go about it by whining at people, writing books that are conjecture and contain no evidence or reason other than their own beliefs, and not actually putting in the leg work to prove it because they think their supreme knowledge does not need to go through the process of peer review like every other person did that overturned a paradigm, because clearly everyone else is a moron. Whenever I see someone say all other people in the field are nit wits, or idiots or whatever, it sends a clear signal to me that they have not engaged them, and so hence we should not engage them if we are to use common sense...

It's a good rule and a useful academic filter, but this is a public forum, people are free to say what they wish and deal with the consequences.

Well, u know wot, it was of optimal length to prevent optical glazing.

I'll try and keep it brie

As for reading maths and equations to understand whatever, I'd be as well off blind.
It is not that I am blinkered, or averse to being shaken or stirred by new theories...
But I would need a very patient translator. So that I could nod and hymn in the right places, or not.

You and me both.

Sentience by sentence.

That's too clever for me, I'm afraid.