--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, ruthsimplicity <no_re...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Nelson" <nelsonriddle2001@> wrote: > > > > Wouldn't an opinion based on sufficient experience and > > observation be as good as a fact? > > I don't know about "as good as fact" but sometimes it is > all you can get. For example, lawyers give opinions based > the state of the law as applied to the facts. It is still > an opinion and can be wrong, but their experience leads > you to rely on that opinion. > > Other opinions are given based on knowledge of probabilities > of something happening. These opinions are well grounded in > knowledge of facts and often justify reliance. I bang my head > on the wall, odds are my head will start to hurt. My blood > pressure is high, odds are that a diuretic will lower my blood > pressure. By lowering my blood pressure, odds are that I > reduced my risk of a stroke. > > The nature of spirituality is that we are short of facts. No > one knows what happens when you die. There is no heaven or hell > test nor any reincarnation test. There is no test to show your > consciousness is something separate from your body. All you have > are many many opinions. Your opinion may have been held by others > historically, but that is just more opinions and myths collected > from the past. There might be mental experiences that are > interpreted as spiritual, but there is no test to show that it > means anything spiritual. So, in my opinion, based upon the lack > of evidence, is that there are no spiritual experts so no one's > spiritual opinion is more valid than another.
Thank you for weighing in, Ruth. That was really the purpose of my little troll, if it had one. I find this stuff *liberating* to think about, not challenging. So many of us spent so many years bowing to and following the words of "authorities," but just a *little* thought reveals that none of these so-called "authorities" have any more *basis* for their authority than we do. And that's liberating, not scary. > But I have a caveat. Someone may hold a religious view that is > subsequently shown by science to be unlikely. For example, that > the earth is the center of the universe. In that case, I believe > that the opinion that the earth is the center of the universe is > not as valid as scientific evidence about the universe. Technically, I'm not sure we know that Earth is not the "center of the universe." Sure, it's just one tiny planet out on the rim of a double- spiral galaxy in the middle of galactic nowhere, but if the universe were big enough, maybe it could be somewhere near the Brahmastan of that universe. :-) Not that that would mean anything. > There never is absolute proof of anything, but "odds are" the > earth is not the center of the universe. Yup. The only thing I think we can say with absolute certainty is that if there is intelligent life on any planet in the universe, there is an Elvis Fan Club there. :-) > I personally believe that people cannot levitate. Interestingly, I have *seen* levitation, many times, but I make no assumptions as to whether it can be done physically. I know only what I and hundreds of other people SAW, and that could be explained by having "seen" into a "parallel dimensional" kinda reality in which the levitation was taking place, whereas it wasn't in this physical dimension. That, in fact, is how I've come to consider the experience, because it explains *other* odd exper- iences I had around the Rama guy. It could *also* have been some kind of placebo belief-based experience, although I don't believe in that as an explanation because there was never any suggestion as to what one was "supposed" to see or experience. Or it could be as Vaj has suggested, and some siddhi that allows the person who has mastered it to project a kind of Jedi "These are not the droids you're looking for" brain-fog on people and "make" them see things that aren't really there. I am open to *all* of these possibilities. The only thing I'm not open to is that I and all these hundreds of others didn't experience what we experienced. We did. Now we're stuck with trying to make sense of what they might have been. We *could* have taken the "easy way out" and decided, "Oh...I didn't really experience what I just exper- ienced. I'm going to forget about it entirely and go back to my life the way it was, because that life was unchallenging." Many people did. Many people do this every day. Me, I prefer to deal with the exper- iences themselves and try to make sense of them, whatever the fuck they were. > My opinion is based on the knowledge of how the laws of nature > operate. I would rephrase that as, "My opinion is based on a consensus of opinion about the laws of nature and how that consensus group believes that they work." If you're honest with yourself, that is a more accurate statement. Your "knowledge," based on science, is no more authoritative than the "knowledge" of those who think that everything is the result of horny gods and goddesses from Brahmaloka who run everything on Earth as a result of their whims. The scientific approach is more *likely*, but it's no more "authoritative" than any other IMO. > I could be wrong, but my opinion is at least grounded in some > fact. Again, I would say that it is based on things that *appear* to be "fact," given your experience and the experience of others SO FAR. If you had had the same range of experiences I have, would you still consider them "facts?" > I can't prove that levitation cannot happen. And I can't prove that it does. And I wouldn't try to. I've taken some time to explain to you my think- ing about levitation. It's something I've seen with my own eyes, many times, but I don't know what exactly that it WAS that I saw. I probably never will. I have taken the position of not "writing off" that experience as illusory, and instead trying to DEAL WITH IT, to ponder it and try to figure it out. Even though I'm pretty sure I never will. :-) > That isn't the nature of proof. But I do not put a lot of > stock in claims that are inconsistent with how the natural > world operates. *Seems* to operate. For *most* people. In all honesty, Ruth, the one thing I'd love more than anything else (if I had the ability to pull it off, which I don't) is the opportunity to sit with each of the people here who don't believe that levitation could happen and levitate for them. But here's the kicker. I would NOT do it in a group, and I would NOT do it in any "scientifically vali- datable" way. I'd do it one on one, so that they could experience it, but have nothing to "fall back on" to either explain what they'd experienced, or "explain it away." In other words, I'd put people in the same position I'm in. Then I'd just sit back and see how THEY deal with it. It's a BITCH having had experiences that you can neither explain or "explain away." It calls upon you to exert a certain level of self-honesty that most people never have to deal with. If you believe that physical levitation is not likely and you've never seen it, no problem. But if you believe (as I do) that physical levitation is not likely and you've seen it hundreds of times, problem. But a delightful one... > When it comes to the ultimate question: are we more than flesh > and blood, I am not going to say that anyone's opinion is more > valid than anyone else's. Too much a mystery. > > When it comes to movies, music, art and the like, which are > totally a matter of personal taste, I look for opinions from > people who have taste similar to mine. No opinion would be > "wrong" or "right." > > And that's all she wrote. Exactly. In the world of beliefs and in the world of movie reviews, the most we can hope for IMO is "resonance," finding someone whose opinions are similar to ours.
