DiscussMormonism.com

Nevo wrote:

Jaybear wrote:by the way, you did not answer my question. Do you believe its possible to find buried treasure by looking at stone in hat?

I wouldn't say that I have a positive "belief" that such things are possible. I tend to be skeptical of psychic claims, and skeptical of extraordinary/supernatural claims generally. But can I say that I am absolutely certain that it could never under any circumstance happen? No. I'm not that smart.

Wikipedia reports that remote viewing is now widely regarded as pseudoscience—and rightly so I suspect. But I am surprised that professed remote viewers ever get anything right at all. Are these apparent "hits" always due to inadvertent cuing, etc. Can "anomalous cognition" be definitively ruled out in every case? What of the unusual brain activity supposedly displayed by some psychics while in an "intuitive state"? Do any questions still remain about psychic phenomena or is it completely settled that it's spurious? (I don't know. I'm asking.)

Bottom line: I don't know enough to confidently rule out the efficacy of scrying or water dowsing or remote viewing, or whatever, in every case.

Please don't believe anything you read on Wikipedia about psychic phenomena. A group of debunking terrorists have hijacked most of the topics on Wikipedia that have to do with psychic phenomena. One example, among many, is that of Etta Wriedt. If you go to the Wikipedia entry for her it labels her as a fraud: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etta_Wriedt, Why? Etta Wriedt was a direct voice medium. When she was in, I believe, Norway someone broke unannounced into one of her seances and stole one of the trumpets that was being used for direct voice. This person found a chemical on the inside of the horn and concluded from this that Wriedt was a fraud. If a person goes back to the origin article that was the basis for this excerpt, the author admits that there was no explanation for the voices that came out of the horn. The following link -- http://www.survivalafterdeath.information/mediums/wriedt.htm -- while brief, gives a more balanced report. Just a warning not to trust everything that you read on Wikipedia, especially when it has to do with psychic phenomena.

Oliver reportedly tried to translate the Book of Mormon via a dowsing rod.

Tap out morse code?

Jaybear wrote:

Nevo wrote: I wouldn't say that I have a positive "belief" that such things are possible. I tend to be skeptical of psychic claims, and skeptical of extraordinary/supernatural claims generally. But can I say that I am absolutely certain that it could never under any circumstance happen? No. I'm not that smart.

I am not sure we disagree, other than the words we choose to use.

I don't believe that its possible to find buried treasure by looking at a rock. I recognize that its possible that I am wrong. Its happened many times before. If at sometime in the future, someone proves otherwise, I would reconsider my beliefs.

I'll chirp in here and state that I don't believe in the supernatural. Given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced, I'm pretty confident that there is no evidence of the supernatural or magic. So if Mormon claims are true, they can't be based on magic or the supernatural and must have a scientific (and/or technological) explanation.

Tobin wrote:I'll chirp in here and state that I don't believe in the supernatural. Given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced, I'm pretty confident that there is no evidence of the supernatural or magic. So if Mormon claims are true, they can't be based on magic or the supernatural and must have a scientific (and/or technological) explanation.

I assume you have read astrophysicist Bernard Haisch's books and are aware of the Goldilock's principle (everything in the universe is just right in order for the universe to even exist).

Tobin wrote:I'll chirp in here and state that I don't believe in the supernatural. Given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced, I'm pretty confident that there is no evidence of the supernatural or magic. So if Mormon claims are true, they can't be based on magic or the supernatural and must have a scientific (and/or technological) explanation.

Tobin, given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced is a visitation by an angel from outer space in one's bedroom, supernatural?

Tator wrote:

Tobin wrote:I'll chirp in here and state that I don't believe in the supernatural. Given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced, I'm pretty confident that there is no evidence of the supernatural or magic. So if Mormon claims are true, they can't be based on magic or the supernatural and must have a scientific (and/or technological) explanation.

Tobin, given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced is a visitation by an angel from outer space in one's bedroom, supernatural?

No, it is damned inconvenient.

For the record, I believe Tobin is telling the truth about the space being visitation....it's the girlfriend I think he's inventing.

I realize that this thread has run its course and I want to thank those who have participated and who challenged me in almost everything that I said. I just want to say that when we believe that everything can be explained by brain function (that we are simply biological machines), as I did for 20 years, and that there is only a material world, we, in my opinion, severely limit ourselves in the range of possibilities open to us. Besides my interest in consciousness, I am also interested in intuition and creativity and what their source might be. I find these particularly interesting when they arise in very young children, as early as 2 and 3 years of age. It can have to do with gender, where a child is certain that the gender of his or her body is wrong, to a child remembering a past life, to a child having phenomenal skills in art or music which cannot be explained by any kind of environmental exposure. There is so much going on in the world that we cannot explain. Perhaps these abilities will at some time in the future be explained by brain function, but I think we make a grave mistake if we limit our exploration to that possibility. I personally find it difficult to understand why there is so much resistance to considering the possibility of an afterlife, as well as how many aspects of our current life could have been pre-arranged and known to prior to our incarnation. Regardless, we have free-will to follow our intuition about the direction we take with our life (to follow a pre-conceived tentative plan our not). And the wide diversity of creativity that exists in the world? I see no way in which biological machines can be the source for all of this.

I remember years ago reading Niibley's The Myth Makers and his attacks about the 1826 trial and the comments he made about the lady who tore the pages out and brought them to Utah. According to Wes Walters she did nothing wrong as Nibley's intimates. My old friend Wes was lucky enough to find documents showing the trial took place.How many times did he scry and not have the desired outcome? If he was sincere and thought he could but nothing happened one would think he would give the money back. Or he knew he could not but needed the money. I remember I had a copy of an account book Wes sent me by a merchant in Palmyra. It has entries where Joseph and Hyrum did some hoeing for him. Another account entry shows they bought cider liquer. For drink or sale? I can imagine what the apologist response will be.

Tobin wrote:
I'll chirp in here and state that I don't believe in the supernatural. Given what we know about the universe and how far we have advanced, I'm pretty confident that there is no evidence of the supernatural or magic. So if Mormon claims are true, they can't be based on magic or the supernatural and must have a scientific (and/or technological) explanation.

We usually can't have a long thread around here without Tobin the troll chirping in.