Has anybody ever noticed that none of the usual apologists for the naive mommy-daddy Christian world view ever use the word Consciousness with a Capital C, or Light which is the Energy of Consciousness.
Which is quite strange because Consciousness and Light are the two fundamental irreducible elements/factors of our existence/being.
All of this IS Conscious Light.

That having been said please find some serious references re the nature of Reality & Truth.
http://www.consciousnessitself.org
http://www.dabase.org/Reality_Itself_Is_Not_In_The_Middle.htm
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-7.htm
http://spiralledlight.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/4068
http://www.adidam.in/nondual.asp
http://www.adidam.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-god

thanks for the links daffy
i used them almost immediately..
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?p=14942#14942

to help people comprehend the..'a course in miracles [acim]..teaching...that endlessly repeats the mantra ..i am not body..

your link put it well

so thanks

ps re previous post..''GUESS"..should read 'guest'
once we see life is the true miracle..the christ will rise..in us all
but first* we must comprehend..what he was trying to be teaching us..the last*..[time]

George, I suspect that age aids understanding of some topics. Just to clarify, I don't have a background in philosophy, but in the physical sciences and engineering. I'll try to find van Fraassen's book at the uni library, it sounds interesting.

My point about Einstein's theory (or indeed those of Copernicus, Newton/Leibnitz's integration of infinitessimals, etc) is that they are counterintuitive and met with great resisitance from those grounded in the dominant theory of their day. General relativity is still being tested today, hence the LHC exists.

AjPhillips, I'm afraid you're just concatenating complexity. Why is it easier to consider that I may have a defective form of perception than that my perception may be more acute than yours in some way? Your argument is simply that you prefer to hold the view that your perceptive/cognitive faculties are not just representative but normative and that this implies any variance must be deviant. Frankly, that's just silly and more than a little narcissistic.

Mac, I'm not recovering from any kind of insult to my cognitive faculties and I haven't had a "numinous" experience. I too had a religiously-based education (Anglican in my case) and rejected theism at an early age as incomprehensible in concrete terms. My adult life has been spent in the service of empiricism. My personal cognitive framework is sceptical/rational. I am naturally strongly given to abductive reasoning and a critical approach to problem-solving. I am not given to acceptance of consensus models without reflection.

In other words, I don;t think there is a genetic predispostion to a religious POV so much as an educative overlay on cognitive/perceptual frames and that can change based on observations. I'm happy to be wrong though.

Wm Trevor, your argument is circular: "I think theists are mentally ill, therefore theism is a mental illness". I'd also just like to point out that "extrinsic" is not synonymous with "correct".

Antiseptic,

<<I'm afraid you're just concatenating complexity.>>

How so?

<<Why is it easier to consider that I may have a defective form of perception than that my perception may be more acute than yours in some way?>>

Because we know that defects in perception exist. They exist in all of us. We can demonstrate this; we have no such certainty when it comes to the supernatural, and in fact, so far, throughout history, every time a supernatural answer had been applied to observed phenomena, a natural explanation was eventually found. What makes you think your experience will be any different?

Then there's Ockham's razor on top of that.

Moreover, it's not about whose perception is better (so I never meant to suggest that). The difference between you and I, it seems, is that I'm not so willing to jump to supernatural conclusions because I understand the above, along with the fact that evidence and reason, based on logical absolutes, is the only reliable pathway to true, given what we currently know. Nothing narcissistic about that at all.

<<Your argument is simply that you prefer to hold the view that your perceptive/cognitive faculties are not just representative but normative and that this implies any variance must be deviant. Frankly, that's just silly and more than a little narcissistic.>>

Sorry, Antiseptic, but it's going to take a lot more than presumptuous arguments peppered with grandiloquence to defend your position, I'm afraid.

"How so?"

Because you do not address the observation, but try to impose a further condition (it must be an hallucination) without providing any analysis other than that people are known to hallucinate! you may as well have said that I must be in space, after all, people are known to travel into space...

On the subject of the "supernatural", I have suggested nothing of the sort. You're projecting.

You say you like evidence and reason, but as I have shown in my response to mac earlier, you have no reason to assume that my evidence does not exist simply because you are unable to see it. you may well choose not to act on my claim and I'd say that's a reasonable, prudent course of action if my claim might lead you into danger, but that's a long way from claiming that I am somehow defective in my cognitive and perceptual capacities. There is no chance of a meeting of minds if one of them has already determined that nothing the other can say could possibly be correct.

"Given what we currently know" is just a deferral to received wisdom, conceptually no different to the most red-necked fundy's acceptance of whatever Oral Roberts says at the last tent revival. Unless you can falsify the basis for what I say, then all you can do is choose not to accept it as applicable to yourself, you can't demonstrate that it has no validity or is the result of some kind of physical infirmity.

I don't need to "defend my position", all I need to do is state it. what you do with it is up to you.

Fair enough, Antiseptic.

<<On the subject of the "supernatural", I have suggested nothing of the sort.>>

On reflection, you did only say, "some experiences".

<<...you do not address the observation...>>

That's because you didn't get as far as describing it (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=15301#264279).

<<...but try to impose a further condition (it must be an hallucination) without providing any analysis other than that people are known to hallucinate!>>

I didn't say that it MUST have been a hallucination. I suggested that, if you were appealing to the supernatural, then it would be more rational to entertain hallucination as the likely possibility, until it can be ruled out, since we can actually know that hallucinations occur.

<<...you may as well have said that I must be in space, after all, people are known to travel into space...>>

The difference is that I can know that you weren't because people don't just travel there as they please.

You're really not getting this, are you.

<<You say you like evidence and reason, but as I have shown in my response to mac earlier, you have no reason to assume that my evidence does not exist simply because you are unable to see it.>>

I've never asserted that it definitly doesn't exist. How could I? You haven't even said what it was yet.

<<...you may well choose not to act on my claim ... but that's a long way from claiming that I am somehow defective in my cognitive and perceptual capacities.>>

I said that we're ALL defective, and I don't know of a neuroscientist who would contradict me there.

Stop playing the 'wounded deer' card.

<<There is no chance of a meeting of minds if one of them has already determined that nothing the other can say could possibly be correct.>>

Couldn't agree more.

<<"Given what we currently know" is just a deferral to received wisdom...>>

Wrong.

It's acknowledging the limits of our knowledge so as to not assert too much.

That's all.

<<I don't need to "defend my position"...>>

I never implied otherwise.