What are some of the resources in finding answers beyond what science can look at?

Poetry.

The writings of Charles Fort should be read by everyone who is sceptical of scientific method.

If you are asking questions about the empirical world science is the only means of inquiry that can lead to an answer. For questions of a theoretical nature there is no means by which you can find a definitive answer—a definitive answer does not exist.

An answer is an answer and when one experiences things in life it gives answers. I am not asking empirical/theoretical. I’m talking about this life with all its mysteries.

With respect to making sense out of what we experience—any opinion is a potential starting point. With respect to figuring out how the world works—science is the only method. You use different methods for data gathering and data analysis depending on what kind of questions you are asking.

Answers for what, exactly? And who’s this group – do they have meetings? Also, in general, just because science doesn’t have an answer for something doesn’t make believing in god or seeking answers in mysticism an alternative. It’s a false dilemma.

Uh…what is there but the empirical and the theoretical? Life mysteries are either empirical or theoretical in nature.

Well, you can always look towards derivative modern-day cults for answers.

Lord knows science answers aren’t always exciting, so why not throw in some aliens and magic pyramids and call it an “answer”?

Psychedelics, meditation, introversion, self-analysis.

Look inside…

My parents and a very dear friend I have who always gives “advice” whether you want to hear it or not! ;)

Thanks @The_Idler

@Qingu I would like to know why you make such fun of something you really know nothing about? You poke fun at me, you are insulting, you think you know what I say couldn’t happen though it did and does happen. Why do you have such a negative reponse for what you have not experienced? What happened to you? There are Aliens, there are Pyramids. I don’t believe in magic.

@Summum “I don’t believe in magic” – why not?

@Summum Taking another stab at this I agree with your OP premise. You don’t believe in magic nor should you as magic is merely and illusion involving the art of deception so too can asking questions and giving answers. I would add that answers can only be as good as the quality of the question asked. I prefer questions that are open to many answers depending on the mindset of the parties involved and “Zen” type answers that are not even spoken…

“Most of the answers you receive, will not be expressed in words”

Sometimes questions are better than answers.

@Summum, I have a negative response to peddlers of bullshit. Don’t take it personally. I also take issue with people who claim, for example, that homeopathy works, that prayers heal people, that astrology is worth paying money for, or that aliens really traveled in DC-8 airplanes across galaxies to Earth, nuked volcanoes, and implanted evil spirits in the bodies of humans.

You claim I “really know nothing about” this stuff… right. Because it’s made up. Similarly, I don’t know about the magical powers of liquid metallic hydrogen fairies living in the Great Red Spot, as written by random internet person… because they don’t exist. Anyone can make this shit up and say “you can’t dismiss it out of hand because you don’t know anything about it!”

I also have a negative response towards plagiarism. Remember how you tried to pass off the copied-and-pasted text from the official Summum website as your own personal mystical experience? I think you are obviously a fraud, if not a troll.

snap

Ha ha. You said snap.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ifbooks.htm

@psychocandy :)

@Summum as close as I’ve come to delving seriously into the works of anything remotely similar to what you mentioned would have been in my younger days. I devoured Herman Hess, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Richard Bach, Richard Flanagan, Robert Pirsig, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the like. I’ll look through some of the suggestions you gave. Thanks.

The information here is considered more a branch of ‘enlightened physics’ than true dualism (since dualism is a transcendental concept that could never be measured by science).

That is one of my favorite websites. It shows how real brilliant scientist confirmed the existance of 6 afterlife dimensions and our own counting as one (7 in total not infinite). This is the actual scientific argument here. It’s a great website and I would highly recommend it to you but it is very big and you need to spend alot of time there to actually comprehend everything. I’m probally one of your few allies on here.

I know a brilliant scientist who confirmed the existence of eight afterlife dimensions. He used torsion fields and energy crystals to find the extra two. Here’s his website.

The thing about science is, there is always the possibility that the answer can change. We understand and accept things to the best of current ability. There is SO much we don’t know about and methods of thinking that we have not even come close to tapping into.

Five thousand years from now people will have so much more information and ways of processing it that they will think our knowledge was primitive – much like how we now scoff at the idea of the world being flat or the Earth revolving around the sun. To think we “know” anything to the point of absolute certainty is arrogant and unimaginative.

@Qingu Oh so you you’re going to be a disrespectful smartass? The person asked a question on a certain topic and I provided an answer to a topic.

Politics. Those folks always have answers. It’s too bad that the answers seldom apply to the questions that you ask, and are correct even less often than that, but… you asked.

I would say that in a contest between politics and mystics, the mystics might have a slight edge on “truthiness”. But I wouldn’t bet much on the proposition, and I would want a scientist to help evaluate the outcome.

Oh, this is embarrassing. I meant to say we scoff at people who used to think the sun revolved around the Earth.

The veracity of scientific method itself is outside the realm of scientific method. We need other tools when trying to make assessments. There were and there are thousands of thinkers dealing with

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science

@Paradox

He always is and thinks he knows everything there is. LOL Oh well some just can’t see despite their eyes. For those who have experienced things they know what I am talking about and it is those whom this question was asked. @Qingu is very insecure and has to call names and make fun of things he doesn’t understand. Sad

@Qingu

You have asked so many times before for a few places I find some of my answers so when I give them you still attack and make fun of them. What is it that will satisfy you and help make you respect other people? What happened to you to cause you to be so awful to people?

The problem is that you didn’t give answers, you copy-and-pasted a long essay and tried to pass it off as your own experience. That’s dishonest.

To say nothing of the fact that the essay you copy-and-pasted is, well, nonsense. But I’m not even talking about the legitimacy of the Summum cult here, I’m talking about your conduct. I have very little respect for plagiarism (and, weirdly, it’s something I’ve noticed cultists tend to do a lot when defending their claims.)

@Qingu

I used his words because he gave me permission to do so and I could not have written it any better but that is beside the point. The point is if someone does not agree with you then you babger them and treat them like they are less then you. Who are you to do that? You are no more special than anyone else but you sure act like you are.

I know I tend to be an ornery person, especially about matters of religion, but this isn’t about me and please don’t make it about me. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else.

The issue here is that you and Paradox are making a bunch of unsupported and, frankly, absurd claims. I attack these claims because I think truth is fundamentally important. Imagine if someone came on Fluther claiming that they had special knowledge that the history of astronomy was wrong and the sun actually revolves around the earth. Or—someone claiming that we should buy sugar pills to treat illness because the water in the pills was used to dilute materials that cause the opposite effects of the desired treatment. These claims would be factually incorrect, and I would be just as “mean” about it as I am with psychics and alien pyramids.

There are many people on Fluther who are more accomodating of such claims, and more power to them. In my opinion, I don’t think someone has free license to spout unsupported claims—or at least, you are just as free to do so as I am free to attack them.

And as for using the words of Amen Ra, the leader of the Summum cult who is apparently dead now—the “words” in question are a first person narrative. By “using” those words, you are passing his narrative as your own. That’s dishonest. It’s dishonest apart from the veracity of the words in question (which I seriously doubt) I don’t really see any way in which you could spin this.

@Qingu

I will tell you what you leave me alone and I will leave you alone. Who are you to say what I have experienced is absurd claims? You are exactly like those that persecuted the first explorers that said the Earth is not Flat. When the knowledge comes out and supports what I have experienced and it will in time what are you going to do then? We live in a 3 dimensional world and we are totally physical but there is so much more beyond that and science right now cannot measure that but there are many scientists trying to do so. You do not have to agree with me and yes this is about you and I will make it about you.

@Summun, how much coal did Santa give you this X-mas?

LOL I wish he gave me a lot because it is worth something now days. LOL

You are making this about me to feed your persecution complex and to move the spotlight away from the absurdity of your claims and onto the people attacking them. Along with plagiarism, this is also a tactic I’ve noticed is common with religious folk.

Me: There is no evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, and the Bible is largely Mesopotamian mythology.
Christian: OMG why are you so mean???

@Qingu

It is all above here how you treat others and in many of the questions. So no it is not about it but it is about how you are disrespecting others and saying that what the know and experienced cannot be. Who are you to say that? You have NO IDEA what I know and have experienced. So go away and play your little games on yourself. Give it up and treat others with respect. You’ve noticed and you are the judge and you are the jury. PLEASE

I have a pretty good idea that what you experienced was not identical to the first-person narration written by another person.

@Qingu

Well you keep judging others and making sure you are supperior. You tell others what they can experience and what they know. I hope you can justify yourself when you tell others how they can be and what they can experience in life. Just glad I’m not the judge too much responsibility for me. You take care and I hope you can find it in your heart to accept others and their knowledge and point of view.

@Qingu How do you know he copied and pasted it? It had to be a longshot to find the exact website which this information was allegedly pasted. Did he actually give away the link in his response?

Again you could not have read everything in that short time. You’re one of the most dogmatic people on here. Even more dogmatic than the people you criticise who believe in god. I will use this quote by Albert Einstein himself “Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance”. Oh you know it all now don’t you. You are making things up I never said now. Frankly if you want to talk about absurd I think your method of investigation is absurd. I forgot you don’t have to investigate because you already know anything ‘spirtually’ related is nonexistent.

It’s not hard to see if someone has C&P’d… you put what they wrote into Google and see what pops up. In this case what popped up was the main website of the cult he belongs to.

And you are deriving an un-nuanced position from one quote by Einstein. Yes, we should be open to new ideas, and to flaws in our own ideas. But that is different from countenancing every single claim someone makes.

For example, let’s say I claimed I am a ten-thousand-year-old Babylonian demon. Would you actually investigate whether or not I am a Babylonian demon? Would you actually think this could possibly be true?

Here’s a more pertinent example. Let’s say I claimed that you, Paradox, are a child molester. No evidence whatsoever, but I claim to have special mystical knowledge that you are a child molester. Would you be accommodating to this claim and say it needs further investigation?

Anyone can make claims. This does not mean we should go through life tentatively believing everything we hear, or everything we read on the Internet. Some claims do deserve to be dismissed out of hand. You can tell what they are because they are the ones made with zero evidence and/or in the context of pseudoscientific cults.

@Qingu I wasn’t aware I believed in every claim out there. I always thought of myself as being very sceptical. I never claimed that I believed there was any truth in most of the claims out there. I’m not a believer in astrology (my horoscope never matches me anyway), I’m not a young earth creationist, I accept evolution, I accept modern medicine over most alternative methods, I don’t even believe in any religion, I don’t buy the majority of conspiracy theories. It took alot for me to come to my beliefs on certain other topics however. I will decide for myself on how to be a critical thinker, I don’t need any ‘sceptical’ dogma or certain labels or categories to adhere with or oppose. I can decide for myself what is rational.

@Summum – When a deep intellectual thinker like @Qingu engages in a debate with you it’s a sign of respect. Otherwise, why bother. Debate is the fuel of progress.

@mattbrowne There is a difference between debating and hurling insults. I’m starting to see this ‘tolerant atheism’ now it seems. The very fact that someone would post such a pathetic link comparing it to what several scientists, real scientists on the level of what Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge were as well as many other respected scientists does show me that “hey, my mind is already made up, what you’re saying is pathetic so I will not give you a respectful answer or reason for my disagreement of opinion with you on this subject” so I will post a pathetic link like this.

My problem isn’t having a disagreement with my stance but the total lack of consideration in even to attempt a reasonable debate on this subject. There has only been a handful of sceptics that even attempted to debate me in a reasonable way. I’m not referring to this particular thread but several others I’ve seen this on. People like me have every right to be respected just like everybody else on here. If someone disagrees with a point I make in a post than give a legit reason that shows you at least made an attempt to investigate the points I make without resorting to this childish behaviour I always see when any subject related to paranormal phenomena gets brought up.

If these types of discussions are not welcome on here than admit it and I will eliminate my account on here than none of you will have to deal with my pathetic belief in paranormal phenomena anymore and with trying to get a reasonable debate on this subject instead of disrespectful insults.

@Paradox Amen to that and I agree. The absurd attacks are disrespectful and uncalled for. But I think it shows the persons maturity and it is very young, without restraint and full of bile.

You know, I did click on your link about the 6 afterlife dimensions and I couldn’t even find any relevant material on them.

This, in addition to the niggling problems of the entire concept of an afterlife (your consciousness is an emergent property of your physical brain’s activity) and the concept of extra dimensions (no, the extra dimensions in string theory do not work like this), are why I didn’t bother to investigate further. You made a claim that sounds like utter nonsense and only supported it with a link to basically nowhere. What would you do?

@mattbrowne @Qingu is by NO MEANS a deep intellectual thinker he is close minded and has shut out anything that he doesn’t agree with. It is really sad because he could have a great mind if he let himself.

[mod says] Flame off, people. Please remember to disagree without being disagreeable.