--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "lurkernomore20002000" <steve.sun...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > Lurk, > > > > The guy has not been observed long enough to declare a miracle. > > And, as we know, bribery is the life blood of India. > > > Sounds like a pretty harsh, even bigoted judgement.
Based on the Indians I have known and worked with in the business community, I don't think it's harsh. Their first reaction when attempting to get a contract or resolve a problem with the current one was always to offer a bribe to the person they thought could make the outcome happen that they wanted to happen. They were often surprised at the real outcome, as if they had no reason to ever expect a bribe being rejected. > So, Indians are likely incapable of a honest inquiry about this? I would go further and say that people who are heavily invested in the *idea* of miracles are the *last* people on earth who want to "investigate" one. In many cases they are the last people who ever want to encounter one in real life. The way that they maintain their faith in the miracles is to always keep them in the realm of ideas, and the phenomena themselves safely in the realm of things that happen to other people. As I have pointed out many times, the TMO could "prove" that something extraordinary (beyond expenditure of pure muscle effort) was happening in "yogic flying." They could do this simply and "once and for all" by picking their best flyers and filming them with slow-motion- capture cameras while "flying" on a water mattress. If the "flyer" can get off the surface of the water mattress, then it's not muscle effort. Done deal. Fait accompli. Has there ever been any interest in doing this? Of course not. If it *didn't* happen, they couldn't keep saying that something extraordinary was happening in "yogic flying" beyond simple muscle effort. And such a realization would be the first chink in their armor of belief. My point is simply that rational people (such as your- self, Lurk, and I'm serious about this) often ascribe motives to *irrational* people that they do not have, such as a desire to find out the "real truth" about things they are heavily invested in, belief-wise. I have not found such a 'tude to be present all that often. My experience is that they more often react like JohnR does every time someone suggests that he prove Jyotish by making one or two *concrete, non- vague, easily verifiable predictions*. He declines, every time, for one reason or another. He -- and people like him -- will *always* decline any real opportunity to "prove" the things they believe to be true. They cannot take the chance that these things they believe in might be proved untrue. Just my opinion.
