Thread: Can an Atheist Open Their Third Eye?

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

I don't know.



There is truth in this sentence.
For all I know, you're God; and you're here to test me somehow.
I don't know.

And being "almost sure" is by no means equal to being 100% sure. That's just arrogant.

It's only arrogance if it's done to enflate ones ego, or to try and promote yourself as better than someone else.
It's not arrogant if you are trying to make judgments about the world you live in based on evidence.
I want to make the most of my life, and the evidence i see points to the religions of the world being false.
This helps me lead a life that is more in tune with reality, and so i can use my time more wisely.
It is no more arrogant that it is to cross the street when the lights are green!
Sure... maybe we cant ever know for sure that a green light means its safe... BUT for the purpose of living in the world, we have to make certain judments based on the available evidence.
If we did not, we'd never do anything.
The fact that we are communicating this way is based on lots of percentage assumtions of fact our minds are making every second.
Language itself works on the principle that you "arrogantly" (in your argument) assume that the words we use share the same meaning.
The internet, the electrical grid etc. etc. are all based on scientific facts, sure they may not be 100% perfect, but they are reliable enough to call fact.

I get your point, but also do you realise that you made a definitive statement in "there is truth in this sentence"?
How can you know for sure?

It is good to question the validity of things.
But not to the point where validity itself loses any meaning.
You then become lost it an infinite regress.

I'm still waiting for someone to answer my question from #33 which was:

How come none of my biology teachers ever mentioned this third eye the whole time I was at school?

Also, I have a question for Timothy Paradox: I'm wondering if you are agnostic about the fairies living in my underwear drawer?

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

Also, I have a question for Timothy Paradox: I'm wondering if you are agnostic about the fairies living in my underwear drawer?

Yes. I have only 5 senses that allow me to receive information, and a brain with limited to process all that information. For all I know, beings from another parallel dimension; or being I simply can't perceive - really DO live in your underwear drawer.

No need for aggression. I'm just stating my views.
And yes, I am aware that I made a definite statement. By doing so I possibly proved my first statement to be true; as you seem to be aware that I can't be sure of that.

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

Yes. I have only 5 senses that allow me to receive information, and a brain with limited to process all that information. For all I know, beings from another parallel dimension; or being I simply can't perceive - really DO live in your underwear drawer.

No need for aggression. I'm just stating my views.
And yes, I am aware that I made a definite statement. By doing so I possibly proved my first statement to be true; as you seem to be aware that I can't be sure of that.

Not being sure,
need not lessen the power of High-Probability or Extreme Certainty.

I am an Atheist, It's not a 100% certainty. But assessing the evidence available with an open and critical mind, I'd conclude that there is a very high probability that none of the gods cited in human literature exist outside of the imagination of thier belivers. The evidence to back up the claims of these religions, is incredibly weak in contrast to the evidence against them.

I'm an Agnostic Atheist.

We can never know for certain, but that does not mean that we should live in uncertainty if the available evidence is overwhelming. We should simply acknowledge that there is an inevitable uncertainty in existence... but leave it at that, because to take it further creates an infinite regress that in itself becomes meaningless in day to day life.

ps. didn't spot a shred of aggression in either mine or Dream Queens post.

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

Yes. I have only 5 senses that allow me to receive information, and a brain with limited to process all that information. For all I know, beings from another parallel dimension; or being I simply can't perceive - really DO live in your underwear drawer.

No need for aggression. I'm just stating my views.
And yes, I am aware that I made a definite statement. By doing so I possibly proved my first statement to be true; as you seem to be aware that I can't be sure of that.

Well, listen up because this could be important. I can tell you that I believe these fairies do exist and since you admit there's a chance they could exist then I feel you should know that these fairies have told me telepathically that if anyone who knows about their existence doesn't spend an hour a day on their knees praising them in song they will go to a dark room and have needles stuck into them for eternity when they die.

So now you know about the fairies this could happen to you when you die if you don't do the daily praise ritual. Since you admit there's a chance they exist I think you ought to take part. It's not really worth the risk of not doing it. Unless of course deep down you don't really think they exist....

Do you want to meet up sometime and we can sing our praises together?

Dreamqueen is clearly being condescending.
Good thing her immature behavior shows us all who the real idiot here is...

Tell me, what are you really trying to say? No, no; don't use indirect communication because culture and society demands it. Say what you really think of me. Don't lie.
I think that you believe that I believe (uuuh?) in invisible beings, but I don't. I just refuse to rule out the possibility. See the difference?

And why do you confuse believing something exists with obeying or submitting to it?
Even if they did exist, which I seriously doubt; I would not bow to them.

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

Dreamqueen is clearly being condescending.
Good thing her immature behavior shows us all who the real idiot here is...

Tell me, what are you really trying to say? No, no; don't use indirect communication because culture and society demands it. Say what you really think of me. Don't lie.
I think that you believe that I believe (uuuh?) in invisible beings, but I don't. I just refuse to rule out the possibility. See the difference?

And why do you confuse believing something exists with obeying or submitting to it?
Even if they did exist, which I seriously doubt; I would not bow to them.

You're the one calling people immature and idiots, chap. Lighten up. It's only a debate.
Seemed to me she was making a light hearted metaphor.
Her point does hold up... if you are willing to be open minded about one set of highly-unlikely statements, then you have to be willing to accept them all.
You can't pick and choose... well at least if you are picking and choosing, then you are contradicting your original point. So it's a lse lose situation either way.
Because you can only pick and choose based on viability and evidence.

The crux of the matter is that yes, we can never be 100% certain. Yet, we can still live in relative certainty.
It is all a matter of relativity.
Relative to evidence that the sun appears to rise,
the evidence for God (or gods, Zeus included) is very weak to the point of being worthless.

So ok, you win on the "you can never know for certain" argument.
However, accepting that nothing can be known for certain..
we will have to accept relative levels of certainty.
At which point the only yardstick is evidence.
The gods of current and past human religions have weak evidence.
So in our relative model of certainty they can be considered "highly unlikely"

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

Dreamqueen is clearly being condescending.
Good thing her immature behavior shows us all who the real idiot here is...

No surprise here. You have had to resort to name calling because I've backed you into a corner.

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

No surprise here. You have had to resort to name calling because I've backed you into a corner.

You can't back me into a corner, and I can't back you into a corner; because opinions are not wrong or right in this kind of debate.

And "winning" is not the goal of this discussion. Can you reason with me instead of act like I'm an idiot by using pointless metaphors?

And I don't pick and choose. Everything could be true. Everything.
And yea, I know that Zeus; or those fairies dreamqueen seems to care so much about (you believe in fairies?? Nutter. ) most likely don't exist.

The uncertainity things was the only point I was trying to make. That's all.

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

And yea, I know that Zeus; or those fairies dreamqueen seems to care so much about (you believe in fairies?? Nutter. ) most likely don't exist.

How is believing in fairies any more nutty than the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree?

Anyway, at least we are on the same page in that we both agree that Gods and fairies most likely don't exist

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

You can't back me into a corner, and I can't back you into a corner; because opinions are not wrong or right in this kind of debate.

And "winning" is not the goal of this discussion. Can you reason with me instead of act like I'm an idiot by using pointless metaphors?

And I don't pick and choose. Everything could be true. Everything.
And yea, I know that Zeus; or those fairies dreamqueen seems to care so much about (you believe in fairies?? Nutter. ) most likely don't exist.

The uncertainity things was the only point I was trying to make. That's all.

Yep everything could be possible or impossible.
Without evidence its all meaningless.

So yes life could be an illusion, you could be swaying in a mental hospital imagining all this, which of course would make you arguing your point utterly pointless.

But we have to accept the boundaries of the reality we live in, and judge things by relative means. Which is why you keep typing and trying to make your point, you've established boundaries of likelyhood based on evidence based upon your experience. Sure you dont rule out that you may be a mental case hallucinating your entire life... but its of such a low likelyhood that it becomes meaningless, because there is no evidence supporting that conclusion.

In this world, with the means available to us to logically and intelligently observe our world... Fairies in the underpant draw are on a similar level of meaninglesness (due to lack of decent evidence supporting them) as the Gods of human religions, or as to your hallucinating your entire life.

So, whilst its an interesting Philosophical exercise to remain open minded to all possibilites, when it comes to making useful lifestyle choices in the real world, it is best to choose evidence over unsubstantiated belief. Life is a valuable thing, basing choices on low-probability-low-evidence conclusions, is the biggest gamble you could ever make. You'd not gamble your house on virtually no evidence, so why would you gamble your life and existence?

I think you're on the right track Timothy, Just dont get so caught up on one philosophical detail that you start siding with the domatic religious loonies. They prey on people who give them any tiny philosophical loophole to shoehorn thier bigoted nonsense into being taken seriously.

I agree with you that life is mysterious and unfathomable.
But I also think that intelligence, requirement of evidence, and open (but not gullable) minds are vital.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

So, whilst its an interesting Philosophical exercise to remain open minded to all possibilites, when it comes to making useful lifestyle choices in the real world, it is best to choose evidence over unsubstantiated belief. Life is a valuable thing, basing choices on low-probability-low-evidence conclusions, is the biggest gamble you could ever make. You'd not gamble your house on virtually no evidence, so why would you gamble your life and existence?

I think you're on the right track Timothy, Just dont get so caught up on one philosophical detail that you start siding with the domatic religious loonies. They prey on people who give them any tiny philosophical loophole to shoehorn thier bigoted nonsense into being taken seriously.

I agree with you that life is mysterious and unfathomable.
But I also think that intelligence, requirement of evidence, and open (but not gullable) minds are vital.

This is such good advice. *sigh* I only wish someone had told me this when I was young.

I'd like to quickly add that failure to believe in something does not automatically mean you believe it is 100% impossible. Just because you don't believe in an idea based on lack of evidence, it also doesn't mean you won't reconsider if and when new evidence comes to light.

I don't think I've ever met an atheist who said absolutely that "I don't believe in the concept of a god and I never will". Even the people I know who might use definitive statements such as "There is no god" only say it because it's easier and more eloquent than "there's basically an infinitely small chance of there being a god according to all our existing knowledge and evidence..."

Also, there is no reason why atheists cannot be open minded. The only requirement for most is that you provide evidence/reasoning to back up your position.

Originally Posted by Photolysis

I'd like to quickly add that failure to believe in something does not automatically mean you believe it is 100% impossible. Just because you don't believe in an idea based on lack of evidence, it also doesn't mean you won't reconsider if and when new evidence comes to light.

I don't think I've ever met an atheist who said absolutely that "I don't believe in the concept of a god and I never will". Even the people I know who might use definitive statements such as "There is no god" only say it because it's easier and more eloquent than "there's basically an infinitely small chance of there being a god according to all our existing knowledge and evidence..."

Also, there is no reason why atheists cannot be open minded. The only requirement for most is that you provide evidence/reasoning to back up your position.

A breath of fresh air

Yeah, I always enjoy your posts, Photolysis. Well said

Nobody can know with 100% certainty whether or not God or Zeus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. We also can't rule out that there isn't a tiny teapot orbiting the sun which is too small to be detected with even our most powerful telescopes. But personally I think the chance of any supernatural deity existing is so infinitessimally small that I'm just not prepared to spend time trying to communicate telepathically with any of them.

I can't actually help the fact that I don't believe any deities exist. If I said there was an invisible parrot sitting on your shoulder and it had been there all your life and you'd better believe it would you be able to? I could pretend I believe in a deity eg the Judeo-Christian God, but apparently that's not good enough because "God knows your true thoughts" so I'd go to hell anyway.

Maybe when I die I'll get them to bury me in a fireproof suit just to be safe.

On second thoughts... Nah. I think I'll just take my chances

Originally Posted by Ishi

I'm an atheist but I'm very interested in opening my third eye (and my root as well as to not create an imbalance). Will my lack of faith prevent my chakras from opening?...

No, you're fine.

Originally Posted by Beeyahoi

No, you're fine.

Might I ask what sacred well of wisdom you tapped into in order to acquire such knowledge about the imaginary third eye and invisible chakras?

Or did the answer just bestow itself upon you magically, perhaps from your second brain?

lol

Actually, first thing one have to do is to define what the Third Eye is. I check Internet and found quite a few interpretations. The pineal gland hypothesis looks quite interesting - it connects mythology to our knowledge.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Physical basis: the pineal gland?

Some researchers, including Rick Strassman, have suggested that the third eye is in fact the partially dormant pineal gland, which resides between the two hemispheres of the brain. This concept is supported by the pinealocytes, one type of cells within the pineal gland, having a strong resemblance to the photoreceptors of the eye. Additionally, the pineal gland is said to excrete dimethyltryptamine (DMT) [4], which induces dreams, near-death experiences, meditation, or hallucinations. Various types of lower vertebrates, such as reptiles and amphibians, can actually sense light via a third parietal eye—a structure associated with the pineal gland—which serves to regulate their circadian rhythms.

It may be that methods for opening third eye are actually stimulating this part of the brain producing visions and psychedelic experiences.

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

How is believing in fairies any more nutty than the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree?

Anyway, at least we are on the same page in that we both agree that Gods and fairies most likely don't exist

I don't necessarily believe in the cosmic jewish zombie either.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Are you an Agnostic about Father Christmas?

Or do you just accept the evidence is hugely in favour of it being a myth?

Being "open minded" is one thing.... but being so open minded your brain falls out is another.

It all falls down to semantics in the end.
Sure, no one can ever REALLY know if Zeus is real or not, but come on, lets face the facts... we are more Atheist than Agnostic about it in real terms...
or do you say a little prayer to Zeus each night (along with every other god) just in case? of course you don't.

I can see your point, but i think it is taking the point too far.

And you say im human... well, what if i tell you i'm not, and i'm God himself...
Do you hold onto your Agnostic view and have to accept that you will never really know?
or do you just do the sane thing and accept that the evidence really strongly points to me just being another human?
Because if you do the latter, that's what i'm talking about when it comes to Atheism.

And i dont only agree with you that its possible i dont know the truth, i am CERTAIN i dont know the truth!
That dosn't make me agnostic about God... that dosnt mean i cant draw conclusions based on the evidence.
Sure it may not be the ultimate answer... but its the best answer based on the facts available, and requires no faith.


Oh and one last point... when people refer to God in this thread... can you please refer to WHICH God you are talking about?
Because the arguments against The Christian God are very different from those against the Hindu Panthion, or the Tibetan demi-gods.

Because either you believe in ALL gods, non of them, or one of them.
Make it clear what exactly you are arguing about!

Maybe they are just talking about the God that could be their that we have no real understanding of.

How come none of my biology teachers ever mentioned this third eye the whole time I was at school?

How come none of the teachers 60 years ago talked about Pluto not being a planet?

How come 100 years ago no one understood nuclear fission?

A lack of understanding of something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I don't know how but I have foreseen the future, so... be that as it may.







To all atheists, a healthy disbelief is wonderful. But a lot of you take it so far as to make it like a crusade.. It's not.

Enough. .__.

This is BD not R/S. I'll repeat again that this is not a discussion about God in any other regard than whether the belief (or lack of) affects chakras.

There will be no more off-topic discussion about religion that does not directly relate to the original topic in the context of the above bolded, and also no discussion of the validity of chakras -- if you want to do so, make your own thread.

I've already posted in this thread for it to stop, which seems to have been ignored.
Please don't let it happen again. In the least, your post will be deleted.

Also, the sarcasm in many of the posts has become cynical and borderline insulting, please keep note of that.

Any comments about this post can be sent to me via PM as to not further trash the thread.

Give us a forum where we can discuss the supernatural as free thinkers and skeptics!

I have emailed you cloud.

BUT, can we not have an area of beyond dreaming, or the rest of the forum where we can have an OPEN (inclusive of skeptical thinking) debate on these subjects?

Beyond dreaming is an area that all "out there" concepts get moved to regardless of the views of the person who starts them.
There is such a thing as an atheist and skeptical thinker, who still wants to debate and discuss such subjects.

The rules in BD prohibit being critical of anything!

I suggest a second beyond dreaming area of the forum, where such rules are not implace. An open free speach area, where people can think for themselves and its not all a bunch of back patting and mindless yes men all agreeing.

You know, sometimes actually disagreeing and having to prove your point strengthens the subject! because you actually have to THINK about what you are saying.
Who ever grew or developed from being told they are right all the time?

I bring this up so that those who agree will message you too.

Its offensive to those of us who want to talk about these things but want to actually DISCUSS every aspect, pros and cons.

Give us a forum where we can discuss the supernatural as free thinkers and skeptics!

Originally Posted by ClouD

Enough. .__.

This is BD not R/S. I'll repeat again that this is not a discussion about God in any other regard than whether the belief (or lack of) affects chakras.

There will be no more off-topic discussion about religion that does not directly relate to the original topic in the context of the above bolded, and also no discussion of the validity of chakras -- if you want to do so, make your own thread.

I've already posted in this thread for it to stop, which seems to have been ignored.
Please don't let it happen again. In the least, your post will be deleted.

Also, the sarcasm in many of the posts has become cynical and borderline insulting, please keep note of that.

Any comments about this post can be sent to me via PM as to not further trash the thread.

To quote Basil Fawlty....

"THAT'S EXACTLY HOW NAZI GERMANY STARTED!"

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

To quote Basil Fawlty....

"THAT'S EXACTLY HOW NAZI GERMANY STARTED!"

You are acting foolish, go to the religion forum, philosophy forum..

That's the way this section of the forum is set up, if you want to argue go to the other forums right down the list..

That's not how nazi germany started, not even in the most diluted manner.

People seem to throw around Hitler and Nazi germany around for everything these days, we really forgot what that entailed already?

P.S. This is a privately owned site with the right to infringe your speech.


KEYWORD PRIVATELY OWNED.