Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.


Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Mailbag: Why I Am Not a Supernaturalist

Following my predictable banning from the Fruitcake Factory (aka The Temple of Thelema forums), a relatively new regular engaged with me briefly in private message correspondence regarding my lack of belief in the supernatural (by the way, to be fair to Eshelman, he tolerated the presence of critical questions on his forums much longer than I thought he would, even if he refused to answer them. So, credit where credit’s due. I definitely made my point).

In the thread right before the banning took place, I was explaining how I didn’t start off life as some rabid materialist: for a time, I even believed in supernatural things. And, as I said on the thread, one of the reasons I don’t believe in this stuff anymore is that I wised up and realized that daydreams and subjectively trusting how it all feels to me doesn’t demonstrate the actual existence of “powers” or “other worlds.
This prompted a question from my interlocutor: “How did you go about ‘wising up’? What was your process of ‘realization’?


He follows this up with speculation about me, musing that perhaps I was “not able to manifest results and so [I] determined that results are not manifestable.” Ah, classic believer script "you aren't doin' it right!"...
The question he asked, though, is a really good one, and one I’m not sure I’ve written about on the blog before. My response to him resembled an answer I gave to a similar question elsewhere on those forums, so for this post, I’m editing my responses together to give as comprehensive an answer (and hopefully as instructive an answer) as possible.


Read on for my answer to this question.


How did you go about "wising up"? What was your process of "realization"?
When I said that I believed these things, I meant that I thought they were true because I thought I was personally experiencing “results” from them.


For a period of several years, I engaged in practices including Enochian (scrying the aethyrs and invoking beings for practical workings), invoking deities, charging talismans, the middle pillar, banishings, and some consecration-type rituals (Opening by Watchtower and Reguli were among my favorites).
I didn’t just jump into these practices. I spent a substantial period of that time performing the basics. Banishing rituals (the LBRP more times than I can count, eventually switching over to the Star Ruby for a boatload of times) and meditation (Liber E-type exercises) were the bread and butter of my practices, along with Resh. I also engaged in regular study of the Holy Books to “enflame myself with prayer.”


I experimented with “developing” my psychic abilities to “scry” and explore “astral” realms in the “Body of Light.” I made a fairly comprehensive study of the Enochian system (mostly Golden Dawn, but I did enough reading to see where the “mistakes” in their system are), including drawing and coloring my own Enochian tablets.


I worked very slowly and diligently, and I produced results. Or so I thought. On many occasions, coincidences followed my workings that seemingly fulfilled the purpose of the operation.
I’ll give an example of a typical working method: I would determine the sort of angel that would be useful for my purpose and dig an appropriate name out of the corresponding Enochian tablet. I would banish, open the temple in the appropriate element, recite the necessary calls, and recite a summons in Enochian. A lot of people say that Enochian is the most "powerful" system of magick, and they say this for good reason: if the rite is properly performed, an angel appears every single time. Once the angel appeared in the circle, I would converse with it and make a request before giving it a license to depart. I got a lot of the things I asked the angels for, sometimes through coincidences that appeared "miraculous."


When I say that angels "appeared," I mean I could "see" them in my imagination and could have conversations with them, in which I actually didn't know what they were going to say next (in a very similar way to creating a character in a short story or novel and just "watching" the imagination to see what this character would do in a certain situation, not knowing beforehand how the character will act: made up characters really do have "personalities" of their own and do take actions -- sometimes unexpected actions -- powered by the imagination of the creator).
The best analogy I can come up with for this stuff is that I was doing something akin to an actor slipping into a role: in order to act effectively, an actor has to at least partially convince himself that he is the character he's playing. Something very similar happened: I threw myself into my magical performances, and I had to -- for the duration of the operation -- convince myself that I really was a magician conversing with a spirit being.


But did I really believe that playing make believe in my attic was causing coincidences to occur? Looking back on all of it over a decade later, I can only speculate how seriously I believed that there was actually something supernatural going on. My practices were certainly fun and weren’t hurting anybody, and I think I had kinda talked myself into a murky position of saying, “Gee, physics says everything’s made of energy, so who’s to say that my vibrations of these mystical words aren’t subtly influencing that energy and “nudging” manifestations of reality in the direction I want?” You know, the kind of dafto nonsense that I would laugh at today. On another level, though, I think I was perfectly aware that my “workings” wouldn’t hold up to any kind of real scrutiny, so I sort of compartmentalized the supernatural stuff. In other words, I told myself all kinds of silly lies and platitudes to keep up the fun game playing.


So, to answer your question in a really roundabout way, I believed in this stuff because I thought I was causing results to happen. Visions, explorations of “other worlds,” and coincidences within the “mundane” world.
So why did I stop believing all of that?


I eventually wanted to be sure that these beliefs were actually accurate and not just some security blanket to make me feel better. I started to care about truth, to be blunt about it. And I knew the best way to do this was to subject my beliefs to critical scrutiny, for the truth has nothing to fear from investigation.
The thing that prompted me to embark upon that investigation was looking around at the world and seeing how incredibly common self-delusion is, particularly in “spiritual” matters.


For starters, every single religion is populated by people who claim they have “experiential knowledge” of certain metaphysical claims, and these metaphysical claims are all mutually-exclusive with the metaphysical claims made by people in other religions. There are lots of people who have “personal experience” of the Catholic god and lots of people with “personal experience” of the Baptist god and lots of people with “personal experience” of the 1816 Revised Council Baptist god, lots of people with “personal experience” of the Hindu pantheon, etc., etc.
There are other people who have “personal experience” that all these gods are true and are different ways of expressing One Truth. This metaphysical claim is mutually exclusive with all the other metaphysical claims listed above.


All of these mutually exclusive positions are supported by “personal experience.”
Now, it’s obvious that all these different claims can’t be right at once. In fact, only one set of these metaphysical claims – at most – could possibly be right, which means that everyone else is deluding themselves (or is being misled by demons or something).


Further, lots of people think that they can work magic to affect the physical world (whether they call this magic “prayer” or “spells” or whatever). Of course, this magic is either trivial (“I prayed to St. Anthony and found my lots keys! Huzzah!”) or stuff that probably would have just happened on its own anyway (“We prayed for Grandpa, and his cancer went into remission! Huzzah! What’s that? Cancer naturally goes into remission all by itself without prayer? Go away.”) Certainly, there’s no reason to think that any of this magic is causing anything to happen (a study a few years back, funded by a group that was trying to prove that prayer works, demonstrated that praying for sick people has no effect, except that the ones who knew they were being prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications).


When we combine the magic-stuff with the mutually-exclusive-metaphysical-claims stuff, we really see the problem. People attribute their undemonstrable prayers/magic to their metaphysical claims, the ones that conflict with each other.
Basically, this demonstrates that nearly everyone is deluding themselves, and nobody has any way to know which set of metaphysical beliefs, if any, is correct. Which means that every one of these people is accepting claims supported by insufficient evidence.


Now I guess this wouldn’t be so bad if this “spiritual” stuff were nothing more than a harmless hobby, like using silly putty on the comic pages. You know, something you just do for fun and then set aside when you live the rest of your life. But it’s not. Beliefs inform actions.
Routinely, people do awful things because of undemonstrated beliefs. As an obvious example, religious folks flew planes into two buildings back in 2001 because they thought their invisible buddy wanted them to do it. People think their invisible buddy “hates fags” so they oppose homosexual rights. They think their invisible buddy wants them to oppose reasonable science education, sex education, history education. They horribly oppress women, give donations to odious rings of child-abusing con-men, tell people that it’s their duty to stay in loveless or abusive relationships and lots and lots of other insane-o things. And all that is without mentioning the crusades and the dark ages and witch burnings, quaint little historical episodes that drew their direct support from spiritual texts…thankfully, the enlightenment dragged the Christian religion kicking and screaming out of the dark ages, which is precisely why no one is trying to burn Thelemites at the stake for practicing “magick” and why no one is trying to stone unruly children, which is what the Bible says to do to them. Unfortunately, no one’s bothered dragging our Muslim neighbors out of the dark ages, which is why we still sometimes hear about women in Islamic countries being executed for the crime of letting themselves be raped.


Irrational beliefs lead to terrible consequences, and even the relatively harmless religious moderates, like the fluffly new agers, lend credence and cover to these noxious beliefs by approving the idea of accepting claims without sufficient evidence. I know that many supernaturalists aren’t *directly* harmful (although a lot of them are), but they support irrational worldviews that make a virtue out of having low evidentiary standards. Sure, many of those supernaturalists might agree with me that the people I discuss in the above paragraph are doing awful things, but they fundamentally agree with those other people that it’s okay to accept claims because one feels like it or because one (thinks) that one has “experienced” these claims as true.


If you hold supernatural beliefs – or “paranormal beliefs” or whatever you want to call them – you are an enabler.
[Incidentally, it’s no help to your position to bring up Hitler and Stalin, both of whom were dogmatic believers in irrational things.]


Please be aware that I’m not trying to present a consequentialist argument. I’m not arguing that irrational beliefs are wrong because they lead to bad actions. I’m saying that the bad actions comprised one reason for my turning a more critical eye to these beliefs, and that critical evaluation led to the realization that they’re not supported.
So that’s more or less the background. Once I realized that it’s easy to delude oneself – and that we are forced to conclude that literally everybody, except for maybe one group, is deluding themselves – I had to make sure that I wasn’t one of the people deluding himself. And to do that, I couldn’t just accept claims because I “felt” they were true or because I got the warm and fuzzies when I did a practice or because some coincidence happened that seemed to fulfill a (vaguely defined) “goal” of a magical operation. After all, that was the same kind of evidence that the deluded people were using.


So that forced me to think about what “real” actually means. What do I mean when I say that something is “real” or that a claim is “true”? Basically, when I say that I think a claim is true, I’m saying that it’s demonstrable in some way that distinguishes it from nothing.
As an example, let’s say we’ve got someone who is completely colorblind. How could you prove to him that color exists? This is a fun example, because some dumbass believers sometimes compare non-believers to the colorblind (“You just can’t experience what I’m talking about! So trying to ‘prove’ this claim to you would be like trying to ‘prove’ color to the colorblind!”)


But, unfortunately for the believers, it’s easy to prove that color exists. Just put the colorblind guy in a room with five boxes, each painted a different color. Then put a ball in the red box, leave the room, and let the colorblind guy mix up the boxes. Then come back in the room and immediately tell him which box has the ball in it.
If you could do that over and over again – which you obviously could – you will have proven to the colorblind guy, beyond all shadow of a doubt, that there is something enabling you to detect where the ball is each time. That’s because color is a real thing that has real effects in the real world. It’s detectable and demonstrable, and you don’t have to see it yourself to be able to know that it’s demonstrable.


And that’s the thing about these supernatural claims. There’s no evidence that demonstrates that they are anything at all. Trust me, I’ve looked. The history of investigations into these “paranormal” phenomena is failure after failure after failure after failure. Meanwhile, if some of these paranormal things actually existed in the way that practitioners claim that they do, it would be child’s play to demonstrate them.


Look, it’s great that you’re holding out hope for some of these claims – and as soon as there’s evidence, I’ll be the first one to say that I was wrong – but how many failures do there have to be before you admit (at least tentatively) that there are better avenues to investigate? If I claim that throwing an egg off your roof will instantly make you a millionaire, how many eggs do you have to splatter on the ground before you say, “Gee, this claim probably isn’t true”? A hundred eggs? A thousand? Sure, you can’t categorically prove that my claim is false, but how many failures before you say that it’s probably not worth the time to keep investigating, especially since it flies in the face of everything we already know?


23 comments:

  1. A good blog-post Los. Who is the more dysfunctional human-being? The one who needs the crutch of believer-scripts or the one who does not? That is the question.

    There have been, "great men" who were, "of faith" who impacted, positively on human culture e.g. Luther King, Isaac Newton, Prince, the founding fathers, Ghandi and William Wilberforce (anti-slavery activist) to name a few. There were other, "men of faith" who impacted very negatively on culture e.g. Anti Abortionists, the many cult-gurus, Ivan the Terrible, Bin Laden and various power-abusing tyrants and so on.

    The question for Thelemites to ask is, in terms of True Will does, "supernaturalism" hinder it? I think you have demonstrated that it does and furthermore have shown that most (imo) so called Thelemites are idiotic self-restrictors.

    Thankyou

    By the way I, and I'm sure others intend to review your past posts so it may be a good idea for you to check out any recent comments.

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    1. You write: “There have been, "great men" who were, "of faith" who impacted, positively on human culture e.g. Luther King, Isaac Newton, Prince, the founding fathers, Ghandi and William Wilberforce (anti-slavery activist) to name a few. There were other, "men of faith" who impacted very negatively on culture e.g. Anti Abortionists, the many cult-gurus, Ivan the Terrible, Bin Laden and various power-abusing tyrants and so on.”

      As you suggest, people can do positive and negative things with or without “spiritual beliefs,” which shows the flaw with the idea that “spirituality” or religion is inherently some “good” thing that is necessarily “advancing” the human race or aiding our “spiritual evolution” and all that crap.

      Spirituality tries to take credit for (what we might call colloquially) “human goodness,” but really there are lots of people who do positive things for society because they want to, and they’d be doing it whether or not they held spiritual beliefs. “Good” people tend to do “good” things, and “bad” people tend to do “bad” things, whether or not they are “spiritual.”

      But I think an important point that cannot be stressed enough is that it takes religion – or something like religion, *some* kind of dogmatic position accepted on faith – to make good people do bad things. Normal, healthy, well-adjusted people who would otherwise cooperate with others…religion is pretty much the only way to get them to do things like hate gay people, hate people with different beliefs, vote for censorship, vote against women’s reproductive rights, fight against reasonable education policies, kill abortion doctors, quietly encourage and applaud the killing of abortion doctors, etc., etc., etc.

      Anyone reading this who holds some kind of supernatural belief…you are an enabler. You are contributing to the problem, no matter how benign your beliefs are or how harmless you are.

      At this point, religionists sometimes ineptly try to raise an objection like “But what about Hitler and Stalin?!” as if they were relevant at all to this point. First of all, Hitler was most certainly a supernaturalist. But second of all, both of them were *believers* -- believers in their wacko religion-like ideologies that substituted the state for God. They were sloppy thinkers who put far too much stock in their precious feelings about things…sound like anyone we know? It’s clear too that both of them drew on the credulity and tendency for obedience inculcated in the masses by countless generations of religious devotion. Stalin took over church buildings. Hitler had his soldiers wear belt buckles that read “Gott Mit Uns,” God on Our Side. In no way was it atheism that motivated them, since atheism is a *lack* of belief. It was their *beliefs* that motivated their actions, including their beliefs in nutso political ideologies.

      Please be aware that I’m not trying to make a consequentialist argument, nor am I affirming the real existence of moral “good” or “evil.” I’m talking practically, in terms of the kind of society I’d prefer to live in.

      Helping most people snap out of their religious delusions wouldn’t lead to some “better world” in the idealistic sense. The world is always going to have things that we can label “problems.” But I’d prefer to live in a world in which more people embraced reality, for the simple reason that that would be a world where we’d have a lot less of the silly, stupid “problems” and more time to address significant issues.

      You write: “Thankyou”

      You’re welcome. I’ve been enjoying your comments and your enthusiasm. Feel free to keep up the commenting and feel free to point others to the blog, particularly people who might disagree with me. Unlike some other people I could name, I’m quite eager to have conversations with people who disagree with me. Nothing would please me more than being shown where I’m wrong about something.

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    2. You write: “By the way I, and I'm sure others intend to review your past posts so it may be a good idea for you to check out any recent comments.”

      Yeah, I get an email when someone makes a comment on a post, but 1) I don’t always check the email address associated with this blog, 2) sometimes the emails slip into the spam filter and I miss them unless I look there, and 3) I’ve been kind of busy in “real life” for a while (the good kind of busy, I'm happy to say).

      So, long story short: don’t take it personally if it takes me a while to respond to something. If you really want my attention and none has been forthcoming, just nudge me politely after a while.

      Best,
      Los

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  2. P.S. I love that colourblind experiment. Oh, and here's an interesting youtube link, a four part short- movie on how Geller manipulates the gullible

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnDHPOWXFVI

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  3. Yes some excellent added points made in your response to my replies!

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  4. Explaining away supernatural forces is easy because they aren't provable and, as you said, probably don't exist. But you can't explain away as dismissively the first cause. At least in scientific terms. By definition whatever pin hole exploded into manifestation was beyond our comprehension because our comprehension says that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. It was supernatural, in at least as much as we define that something doesn't appear out of nothing. So if there is no all or God or whatever, then I think we need to start looking into creating all kinds of shit out of nothing because it's obviously a completely natural and provable occurrence. And it would come in handy. Actually it would be whimsical. Magical if you will... Lol. Your entire premise is based on the fact that shit can *literally* appear out of nothing.

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    1. Reordering your points….

      You write: “Your entire premise is based on the fact that shit can *literally* appear out of nothing.”

      No. I do not take it for a premise that the universe came from nothing. I also do not take it as a premise that it is impossible for the universe to have come from nothing. My official position on origins is that I don’t know where the universe came from.

      The best evidence that we have currently indicates that the Big Bang model is most likely correct, but the Big Bang was not a creatio ex nihilo. It was an expansion of a singularity into the current state of the universe. Where did that singularity come from? Did it come from nothing? Did it always exist in some form or another? I don’t know. Nobody knows, as far as I’m aware.

      You write: “Explaining away supernatural forces is easy because they aren't provable and, as you said, probably don't exist. But you can't explain away as dismissively the first cause.”

      I’m far from convinced that there was necessarily a *first* cause. For example, perhaps there have always been Big-Bang-type expansion events, with each universe eventually collapsing and causing the next. [By the way, it’s no use to object that this possibility implies an infinite regress and that therefore we could never arrive at the present moment. We measure time in this universe from *our* Big Bang event.]

      There are a number of philosophical arguments that purport to reach the conclusion that there must have been a first cause, but even if we accepted these arguments as both valid and sound, this “first cause” might well be some natural law of the universe (pre-universe?) and not anything intelligent.

      And even if there were a first cause and even if this first cause were intelligent, it might not necessarily still exist.

      You write: “By definition whatever pin hole exploded into manifestation was beyond our comprehension because our comprehension says that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. It was supernatural, in at least as much as we define that something doesn't appear out of nothing.”

      See above. Based on the information we have now, I don’t think “supernatural” is a proper description for whatever gave rise to what we call the universe.

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    2. I understand and I don't presuppose that it necessarily implies intelligence. The probability that intelligence or non intelligence created the big bang is the same (at least as far as we can percieve) Your universe collapsing and manifesting into another idea is perfectly reasonable. I guess I am arguing semantics. I would just happen to think that by our own scientific understanding there is something that is completely unexplainable so why don't we adapt, at least slightly, understanding to try to account for this. I do apologize if I misunderstood your stance on creation out of nothing while reading your articles. On a side note, I really thoroughly enjoyed your write up on the lbrp.

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    3. "The probability that intelligence or non intelligence created the big bang is the same (at least as far as we can percieve)"

      I don’t know about that. All the evidence we have seems to indicate that intelligence is complex and the product of physical brains. Now, it would be an argument from ignorance to claim that therefore intelligence *must* require a physical brain, but if we’re talking probabilities, it seems to me that all the evidence is all the way over on one side.

      Furthermore, evidence suggests that complex things (like intelligence) arise from simpler things. I guess a complex intelligence could have pre-existed the Big Bang, but that would fly in the face of what we know so far, and it would open up an even more baffling mystery: where’d that intelligence come from? In other words, proposing the existence of some kind of intelligent cause for the universe doesn’t really answer anything – it just produces way more questions.

      All that is to say that I think the evidence currently favors something non-intelligent as the cause of the Big Bang.

      “I guess I am arguing semantics. I would just happen to think that by our own scientific understanding there is something that is completely unexplainable so why don't we adapt, at least slightly, understanding to try to account for this.”

      I’m not sure that origins is unexplainable. It’s simply currently unexplained. Whether or not it’s unexplainable is a separate question.

      What do you have in mind for “adapt[ing]…understanding”? I’m open to hearing suggestions, but what you’re saying here is pretty vague.

      "I do apologize if I misunderstood your stance on creation out of nothing while reading your articles. On a side note, I really thoroughly enjoyed your write up on the lbrp."

      No need to apologize. The comments section exists to discuss things related to the post and to clear up misconceptions. I welcome people to raise reasonable objections to what I say and to be willing to have open and honest conversations about our ideas.

      And thanks for the kind words on the lbrp post. I’m fond of it as well. One of these days, I’m going to get around to doing an article on the Middle Pillar ritual.

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    4. If the intelligence that existed before though was lesser than it is now and was in the process of evolving before the big bang occurred it would be congruent with nature's process of gradient intelligence. But of course that still doesn't do much to answer where the beginning or the end are. But that's kinda always been my intuition that everything is just kinda "god" evolving. My question of most theories has always been if there is a super intelligence that is "perfect" then why the hell would it need to create anything? Creating is done based out of a need and needs are not perfection. This has always led me to believe that the intelligence was not perfect and was in the process of evolving.

      " What do you have in mind for “adapt[ing]…understanding”? I’m open to hearing suggestions, but what you’re saying here is pretty vague."
      Yea that was pretty vague huh? What I mean to say is that science shouldn't be a dogma either. I've seen you comment on South Park before so I know you've seen the "science dammit" episode. Even if somehow we could get everybody to convert to the same spiritual/origin/creation theory we would still find reasons to screw each other. We all need to take a deep look at ourselves and fix what's really wrong with the way society functions because our problems may be outpacing our technology.

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    5. Part 1 of 2:

      “But that's kinda always been my intuition that everything is just kinda "god" evolving. My question of most theories has always been if there is a super intelligence that is "perfect" then why the hell would it need to create anything? Creating is done based out of a need and needs are not perfection. This has always led me to believe that the intelligence was not perfect and was in the process of evolving.”

      Well, I guess that could at least be an internally consistent idea, but an intelligent creator (even an “evolving” one) would have to be awfully complex to start with (in order to have the power to create our complex universe), thus making it a particularly poor solution to the question of origins.

      In the context of your question about “perfection,” it’s worth noting that Thelema holds that all things come out of Nothing. In fact, according to the Book of the Law, the universe is a manifestation of Nothing (Nuit) in the form of (+1) and (-1) [self/non-self, and all the various dualities that comprise existence]

      Thelema posits that Nothing gives rise to something in order to enjoy the appearance of imperfection. The Goddess Nuit (a symbol of the infinite possibilities contained in absolute Nothingness) can’t, all by herself, experience anything because experience requires a separate perceiver and perceived. But she can create beings that *believe* they are separate [self/non-self, perceiver/perception, (+1)/(-1)] and thereby can experience all things and gain enjoyment thereby. “I am above you and in you,” she says in the Book of the Law. “My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.”

      This is the Thelemic solution to the “problem of evil.” “Evil” only exists from the perspective of our individual selves, which believe that they are separate from the universe. From the perspective of Nuit, all experience is enriching and joyful, no matter how “bad” it might seem from one limited perspective. One way of conceptualizing the Great Work in the Thelemic framework is the process of identifying ourselves with Nuit and thus releasing ourselves from sorrow. This release does not mean that we don’t feel pain, sadness, and all the rest, but it does mean that we recognize that pain and sadness have no ultimate substance and cannot affect the True Self, which (being one with Nuit) has created the universe to enjoy the fullness of manifestation, with all of its (temporary) pleasures and pains. Existence is a rich feast. “Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains.”

      Of course, all of the above are metaphors, not literal truth, but these ideas attempt to explain how Nothing can be the basis of all things, since Nothing doesn’t have to be explained or justified.

      “What I mean to say is that science shouldn't be a dogma either.”

      I agree with you there, but I don’t think that very many non-believers at all treat science as dogma. Even Richard Dawkins – whom South Park made fun of in that episode – isn’t “dogmatic” about science, as far as I can tell.

      Obviously, you’ll always be able to find an odd exception or two, but the vast, vast majority of reasonable people I’ve known see science as a tool, as a methodology that enables experts to constantly refine their conclusions.

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    6. Part 2 of 2:

      “We all need to take a deep look at ourselves and fix what's really wrong with the way society functions”

      Yes, I’m in complete agreement here again. I think one major thing that’s “wrong” (to speak figuratively…see above on the so-called “problem of evil”) is precisely that people tend to be dogmatic, unskeptical, unreflective, and uninquisitive. People tend to deal in absolutes, they’re far too enamored of what they call “intuition” (which is usually just an induction that sometimes leaps waaaay too far), and they tend to lower their evidentiary standards when it suits them.

      These problems cannot be blamed solely on religion (as I mention above in the comments, Stalin furnishes an example of a dogmatic, wackaloo non-theist), but I think it’s fair to say that religion is a major symptom of this kind of uncritical thinking.

      I would never claim that eliminating religion would automatically improve the world. True, it would solve a number of problems (take, for example, conflicts where religion is the only significant difference between hostile groups, such as in Ireland), but as you say, people are going to continue to “screw” each other, religion or no.

      What I do think would improve the world is encouraging people to refine their critical thinking skills. I *would* like to see lots of people abandon their religion, but I would like them to abandon their religion for *good reasons.* I don’t simply want people to realize that their religions are bullshit: I want them to understand *why* these religions are bullshit.

      And that brings us right back to my post that we’re commenting on. As I explain, I personally went through a process of evaluating my beliefs and trying to figure out what’s actually true – as opposed to just what I wanted to believe was true, what was most comfortable to believe was true, or what it subjectively seemed was true. I do think the world would improve if more people evaluated their own beliefs critically and turned that kind of critical eye to *all* of their beliefs. Lots of really harmful beliefs crumble under the weight of impartial analysis.

      So to bring this all the way back around – and to tie it in with my “enabler” comment above – I don’t think that most of the people who believe in supernatural claptrap like “remote viewing” are directly harming anyone, just like I don’t think people who hold out hope for some “intelligent designer” are directly doing anything terrible, but I do think that these sorts of beliefs are symptoms of (and *encouragers* of) sloppy thinking, the kind of sloppy thinking that, when applied to other areas of thought, causes many major problems.

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    7. "Well, I guess that could at least be an internally consistent idea, but an intelligent creator (even an “evolving” one) would have to be awfully complex to start with (in order to have the power to create our complex universe), thus making it a particularly poor solution to the question of origins."

      It would have to be at least close to as complex as the current universe yes. But isn't that how evolution works? Very small genetic changes over a long period. Why would we expect a large evolutionary jump? Obviously there are situations that can speed up that process, like climate change or technological revolution. But in most cases things tend to evolve in small changes over generations. As we've seen recently, even the difference between neanderthal man and home sapiens is not as huge a gap as we thought. It was actually the mixture of neanderthal genes from Europe with the homosapien genes when they migrated out of Africa that enabled us to be as intelligent and durable as we are today.

      "In the context of your question about “perfection,” it’s worth noting that Thelema holds that all things come out of Nothing. In fact, according to the Book of the Law, the universe is a manifestation of Nothing (Nuit) in the form of (+1) and (-1) [self/non-self, and all the various dualities that comprise existence]"

      Very interesting. Does that imply that everything is a "reflection" of nothing then? Nothing/something being similar to cold/hot or whatever. I can't wrap my head around that though as much as I try as it brings me back to matter is neither created or destroyed. Or is it like the negative veils of existence? I think a negative existence would make more sense to *me* as it still has a value.

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    8. " So to bring this all the way back around – and to tie it in with my “enabler” comment above – I don’t think that most of the people who believe in supernatural claptrap like “remote viewing” are directly harming anyone, just like I don’t think people who hold out hope for some “intelligent designer” are directly doing anything terrible, but I do think that these sorts of beliefs are symptoms of (and *encouragers* of) sloppy thinking, the kind of sloppy thinking that, when applied to other areas of thought, causes many major problems."

      I agree with that up to this point:it has also produced some of our greatest thoughts. Now could those thoughts have been better? Maybe. Were there some terrible ones? Absolutely. There are very few things that can actually be *proven*. We can prove a great number of things beyond reasonable doubt. And we can say lots of things are statistically significant or that there are high probabilities. And it worked fantasticly for us to conquer the earth. But when you look at it on a universal level our sample sizes shrink and our data becomes more unstable. 100 years ago we probably would have thought dark matter was supernatural. How do we know that things work the exact same way on the other side of the universe. We can merely detect gravity and frequency over time lapse. It has taught us a great deal and we know vastly more than we did 75 years ago. But it's still really only a fractional fleeting snapshot of the past. It goes back to what I was saying about science being dogmatic. What science has discovered is constantly changing. What has been proven is either proven to be not true and replaced with something else or is refined in to something even more correct. Just like evolution. One day they say the world is flat and then one day they develop the means to say "well Holy shit it's a sphere" . If Issac Newton wasn't into the occult it could have taken another hundred years to discover gravity. Maybe what I mean is that I find that sloppy thinking is mainly derived from arrogance and pretense. And closed mindedness. When someone is dead set that they are right, no matter what about, sloppy thinking can occur. A whole string of "probably" rights can lead you widely astray. And it's not because those "probably" right answers are necessarily wrong. Sometimes they are just not the entire truth. And I don't think science is immune from that.

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    9. [This hypothetical creator] would have to be at least close to as complex as the current universe yes. But isn't that how evolution works? Very small genetic changes over a long period. Why would we expect a large evolutionary jump?

      Whether a hypothetical creator “evolves” is entirely irrelevant to my point, which is that a creator who is similarly complex to the current universe is much more unlikely than a complex universe developing from simpler forms via natural processes.

      The current universe seems to have developed from a Big Bang event into expanding space into the formation of stars into the formation of planets around some stars into the development of life on at least one of those planets, etc.

      All of that development makes sense, even though we aren’t sure exactly what kick-started the process. But to propose that something even more complex than the current universe existed from the very beginning strains credulity.

      At best, it's an unnecessary and unjustified assumption.

      Does [Thelemic metaphysics] imply that everything is a "reflection" of nothing then? Nothing/something being similar to cold/hot or whatever.

      Sort of. Thelemic metaphysics holds that everything *is* nothing, ultimately. If we could count up everything in the universe, according to this theory, it would balance out to zero.

      Another way to look at it is the idea that reality is continually “popping” into existence out of zero. Every event is a union of some possibility (+1) with a point of view capable of experiencing that possibility (-1). But it happens so quickly that we can never directly apprehend a given event, only the representation of the event in our memory. This is the basis of the structure that builds up the idea of a “self” and the various “veils” that obscure that self.

      I can’t go into a whole lecture here in the comment box, but if you want some reading material, I can point you in some interesting directions.

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    10. It goes back to what I was saying about science being dogmatic.

      So let’s go back to that.

      What exactly are you claiming? That science is a kind of dogma? That there are substantial numbers of scientists who are dogmatic in some way? That *I* am in some way dogmatic or closed-minded?

      I disagree with all three of those formulations of what you might be trying to say.

      First of all “science” isn’t some thing that does stuff. Science is a method. When you talk about something being “dogmatic,” what you’re probably trying to talk about are the attitudes of people who use science or people who support and favor science along with, more broadly, evidence-based inquiry and skepticism as a whole.

      Which scientists or skeptics, specifically, do you think are “dogmatic”? Let’s see five prominent names with specific examples of their supposed dogmatism.

      My strong suspicion is that you’re vastly overgeneralizing and misusing or misunderstanding the word “dogmatism.” I can’t think of a single prominent scientist or skeptic who is “dogmatic” in any reasonable sense of that term.

      Let’s use me as an example of a non-dogmatic skeptic. I don’t start from any particular assumptions or premises. There’s no claim that I hold as inviolable or unquestionable. And I am willing to change my mind – on any subject -- upon being presented with evidence. I don’t know of a single prominent scientist or skeptic who substantially differs from me on those points.

      As you yourself point out, scientific knowledge is constantly being *refined* by new data. How can you note, in one breath, that the consensus of scientists *changes* when new evidence is discovered but then claim, in the very next breath, that scientists are “dogmatic”? Something isn’t adding up here.

      It’s worth nothing that the last thread I started on the Thelemic Fruitcake Factory Forums was called “What Would It Take?” and it asks a very simple question: what would it take for you to change your mind about any given supernatural claim? I was able to explain very specifically what it would take to change my mind. Everyone else dodged the question and attacked me instead of answering.

      Which response is indicative of a “closed mind”? Which is “dogmatic”?

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    11. "As you yourself point out, scientific knowledge is constantly being *refined* by new data. How can you note, in one breath, that the consensus of scientists *changes* when new evidence is discovered but then claim, in the very next breath, that scientists are “dogmatic”? Something isn’t adding up here."

      Dogmatic not in the sense of clinging to beliefs in light of contrary evidence but in the sense of not thoroughly questioning all sources of knowledge. Probably not the right usage, sorry. And that was a generalization. It was not directed at people who actually try to solve a problem in a rationale manner because they are questioning every angle of the given problem in attempt to solve it. It was not directed at people that actively research and try to form rationale thoughts to explain truths. The term dogmatic was meant to refer to any number of people who form their beliefs and present them as fact based on unfounded or corrupted evidence. You know as well as I do that there is outright bad or psuedo science out there. There is also corrupted science that is skewed because of political or monetary influence. The medical/pharmaceutical or agricultural sectors for instance. Isn't it funny how lobbyists on both sides of an argument can produce exactly the opposite scientific studies to support their stance? And how often do you see terrible "facts" of science on Facebook or something like that. Most people simply do not fact check on their own and take what they are told as the truth. And then they present it as science.

      "It’s worth nothing that the last thread I started on the Thelemic Fruitcake Factory Forums was called “What Would It Take?” and it asks a very simple question: what would it take for you to change your mind about any given supernatural claim? I was able to explain very specifically what it would take to change my mind. Everyone else dodged the question and attacked me instead of answering. "

      First I would like to point out that I am not saying that I believe that there is an intelligent creator. I simply do not know. And I'm am certainly not trying to stick up for people who irrationally believe that there is one . All I am saying is that I do not think that the evidence points as strongly in the direction of non intelligent creation as you do although I certainly enjoy your discourse on the subject.

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    12. "Which response is indicative of a “closed mind”? Which is “dogmatic”?"

      Obviously the response you got was the more close minded, dogmatic one. I never meant to imply differently.

      Here is my closing argument. I am skeptical of everything, including being skeptical. I am skeptical of making any assumptions whatsoever until I am comfortable in saying that all the presumptions that the assumption are built on are in fact as correct as possible. I have given various examples of some of the different theories that I have thought, but ultimately I don't cling to any of them. They are just thoughts and I don't intend to portray any of them as the truth. I am just trying to play devils advocate because I do not agree that you can be certain that the chances of creation being intelligent or unintelligent are either more likely than the other. There is no actual data pointing to one side or the other. There are only assumptions built on assumptions etc. And taking any compounded circumstantial evidence that is extrapolated across that great of a distance and time frame is irrationale, no matter what your conclusion. Even more so if you propagate it as fact. So to answer your question: I don't know that there is or is not any supernatural force in this universe. I don't portend to. So to change my mind from not knowing to knowing would take what every good scientific approach takes: Empirical evidence.

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    13. I am skeptical of everything, including being skeptical.

      Me too. Thus far, the evidence indicates that skepticism is the mode of thought that is most conducive to accepting as many true claims and as many false claims as possible. If I ever come across evidence that indicates that skepticism is not the best tool for the job, I’ll use the best tool that evidence suggests.

      Unless, of course, you mean that you're skeptical of using evidence in general, in which case I'd be interested to hear what other method you propose for judging factual claims. Coinflip?

      I do not agree that you can be certain that the chances of creation being intelligent or unintelligent are either more likely than the other.

      I never said I was certain of anything. We were talking about likelihood.

      There is no actual data pointing to one side or the other.

      Sure there is. We know that non-intelligent physical forces exist and are the causes of things. However, there is no evidence that shows that there are non-physical intelligent things entirely separate from the physical (such as minds without brains).

      That doesn’t absolutely show that the origins of the universe are non-intelligent, and I can’t say I’m certain of anything. But we were talking about likelihood. Which is more likely as a cause for X: something we know to exist or something that nobody has any reason to think exists? Which would you bet on to win a race: a horse or a dragon?

      Again, nobody’s making any claims of certainty or absolute knowledge. But before we can accept even the possibility that Y can be the cause of X, we have to confirm that there is such a thing as Y. So far as we know, there aren’t non-physical intelligences, which makes postulating them as a cause for the universe kind of pointless. We can't evaluate the probability for something that we're not even sure is real.

      Anyway, you never answered my question about which scientists or skeptics are “dogmatic.” I’d be interested to know what in the world you meant by that and what are some examples of prominent scientists being “dogmatic.” Specific examples and quotes, please.

      But, of course, if you’d rather just stop – since you abruptly announced that these are your “closing remarks” – you can feel free to do what you like. I've enjoyed our conversation, and I thank you for your contribution.

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  5. The Interlocutor's Response:
    http://www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13662

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    1. Ok, I'll get to it in due time.

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    2. I did address the question in the post above. It was a two part response, sorry for not labeling it as so. As for how I judge factual evidence, i am not skeptical of evidence in general. I'm skeptical of the sources of that evidence sometimes. And when I am I try to cross reference with other sources.

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    3. "Sure there is. We know that non-intelligent physical forces exist and are the causes of things. However, there is no evidence that shows that there are non-physical intelligent things entirely separate from the physical (such as minds without brains)."

      But how do we know that those forces are not intelligent? We can say that dark matter or gravity exist but we really may not know as much as we think. Isn't the reason string theory has gained traction is because it explains why gravity is not as strong a force as we previously calculated it should be? String theorists postulate that gravity loses force because it travels between different "dimensions". At least my understanding of it.

      I wasn't trying to abruptly end our discussion, I thought you may be getting tired of the conversation and was going to start a new one on a different topic.

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