Brother Kaman

I read it as changing the rules to gain more membership, especially as they said in Africa. It is nothing new. Policies and even sins change with the times.

It is good that you have turned your back on the "Elmer Gantry" sort of religion and are off to pursue the truth.

Dan56 said: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Your parents made a baby, they didn't invent the process by which babies are created." So I can't take credit for baking a cake because I did not invent the mixing tools, bowl cake pan, oven or the cake mix?

The word "reality" can mean anything you wish it to, mererdog. After all thou art God. I could tell you what it means to me and it would be equally valid as I, too, am God but I don't feel up to continuing. You have had plenty of opportunity to know what I believe and as I explained (or tried to explain) to cuchulain, the fault is no doubt mine due to my inability to communicate. However, I am not too concerned with that because mine is not an evangelistic form of belief/spirituality. You obviously do not agree with me and I am ok with that and you have no doubt learned that I do not agree with you. Enough is enough.

We are all victims of our beliefs and prejudices. My frustration is my inability to explain it better for the member's understanding. I don't know how to make it more clear. I taught my first wife how to drive and she lived to get her driver license in spite of my desire to strangle her. I told her that it did not matter if she was driving forward or in reverse, just turn the wheel in the direction she wanted the car to go. I could not think of any simpler way of telling her how to steer the car. She would invariably turn the wrong way in reverse. I cannot explain to you or anyone else, the premise of creating your reality any better than I have done. I cannot stop you from backing the car into the trash can but I am sure you will get your license to drive in any event.

If that is your reality, I am good with it. There are blind people in the world and I believe here on the forum as well. Being blind is not a part of my reality. I can see fairly well with bifocals. There are many who share a reality of poverty. That is not my reality. I live a fair middle income life. I am not going to give any more of the billions of other examples.

Then these things become a part of that person's reality without any previous knowledge. I don't need to have prior knowledge of something to exist in my reality in order for that something to actually become part of my reality. This forum was not a part of my reality until someone told me it existed. Then the knowledge of the forums existence became a part of my reality. Ultimately, I visited this forum and then the forum became a part of my reality separate from the mere knowledge that it exists.

I am going to try this one more time and then I am not going to discuss this with you anymore. I am capable of reading information and seeing and listening to the television, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. My knowing that food poisoning exists is well within my reality. The food poison itself only becomes a part of my reality when I become poisoned. How can a broken arm be part of my reality if I do not break my arm? Your broken arm can be a part of my reality if I am aware that you have broken your arm.

The fact that if I consume food that carries botulism, salmonella or any other harmful bacteria and get sick or die from it shows that it is indeed a part of my reality, don't you think? One cannot perceive food poisoning for themselves without ingesting poisoned food. Until I am poisoned, food poison is not a part of my reality. If you became victim of food poisoning and I became aware that you were suffering such, then your food poisoning would become a part of my reality or at least my knowledge of your poisoning would be a part of my reality.

It can make all the noise it wants to but if I don't hear it, it is not a part of MY reality.

Everything in my reality is. If I don't smell the skunk, there is no odor for me. If I don't hear the thunder, there was no BOOM in the sky for me. If I did not read your post, there would be nothing for me to answer. I saw a picture of a T shirt on facebook with two holes in it that went completely thru the shirt. The question was asked: "How many holes does this T shirt have?" The answer the poster was looking for was 8. The correct answer would be that it is impossible to know without looking at the back of the shirt for any holes that did not go completely thru the shirt. Perception.

Light maybe the only part of reality. Maybe time is also a part of reality. Light and time are the only two things that cannot move backward. I forget the principle behind it but everything else can move backward and forward except for the two mentioned. One can roll a ball forward and backward on a table, but the time during which this happens only moves forward as well as the light that illuminates the ball and table if there is such illumination at the moment.

Or, everything is moving past us at a speed relative to each runner and bicyclist.

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is widely accepted by nearly all scientist, not just physicist, and states that reality is relative to the observer.

Religions evolve, although at a glacial pace. If not we would still burn witches and heretics. When I was but a young lad, the Assembly of God church in my home town (I was of such an age I had no choice but to attend) preached that the wearing of make up and pierced ears was a sin and those women that did such things were harlots. No more, no more. Some of the most heavily made up women I have ever seen are Pentecostal (non-denominational as in Assembly of God and others). It was considered a sin (both non-denominational and Missionary Baptist) for men to swim in close proximity to women. As soon as a sin becomes unpopular enough for a church to loose members, it is magically a sin no more. Many churches believe, though they do not openly preach it, that it is ok to kill abortion doctors because the doctors's sin is greater than that of their murderers. Ok, now I am ready to take the flack that I know will be coming.

We are, collectively, God inhabiting separate bodies here on earth and where ever else intelligent life may exist. That, of course, is just my belief.

Science and pseudo science are not the same. Nor is medicine and quackery.

The stores have self check out lanes not as a customer convenience but to save money on employee costs. When they pass those saving on to me I will use them. I have stood in a long line with two items rather than use self check out.

I doesn't really matter. Physics - gravity, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, etc. all function without belief.

My guess is you can be a Druid the same way Mormons, Christian Scientist, Jehovah Witnesses and the like can be Christians. Would be like saying you can't be a witch unless you have a black cat, a cauldron and cast spells. There are Muslims who believe other Muslim sects are not Muslims at all. I call myself a Doctor of Metaphysics and have a printed certificate with a pretty little seal on it to prove it. Does anyone else believe I am a Doctor of Metaphysics? Don't care.

Yes. Then they either waste away or become crusty cynics like myself who don't trust anything anymore except themselves.

There is no evidence that humans can carry on outside our bodies.

If I remember correctly, from the sci-fi books, an android is a robot that looks, speaks and acts as a human. By that definition, I believe it would have to be artificial intelligence of one sort or another. Like Data on "Star Trek, The Next Generation." Perhaps not quite that intelligent.

Yes. Someday, in the future, they will be so life like as to fool everyone but a doctor or a robotics engineer. Then bakeries will refuse to make them wedding cakes and the fight will be on.