Was magic actually more common back then or did ancient people just have more active imaginations?
>>471235
More things qualified as magic
It wasn't magic, it was technology stolen from the Goa'uld.
Black magic was/is psychological manipulation and hypnosis.
Nice fedora thread.
Half of what you losers call "science" is just low level secular magic.
>>471283
>psychological manipulation and hypnosis
what do you think hypnosis is?
How do i cast magic missile
>>471235
This pic is false though
Some miracles got recorded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PxvTluMpTQ
>>471419
>God used to make and destroy whole galaxies
>now he makes zoo animals say things
"the origin of consiousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind", postulates that we heard the voice of god and saw shit because our brains were different back then, and that its rarer now (ie schizophrenics). is it true? im not god, dont know
>>471312
Try use magic bazooka, Abram
>>471235
"Magic" encompassed a bit more than it does today.
>>471283
>>471434
The focus with moving eyes can be did with the chip and the detector of move, just job of electronics.
The eight limbs can be just the mutation induced by bad state of ecology and, or, a poison weed.
>>471696
I suppose you also think that some 30,000 people, including reporters for an anti-theist newspaper, and people several miles away just imagined the Miracle of the Sun, despite not expecting anything about the sun.
>>471747
https://youtu.be/asy1zSHZ4tA
>GUYS GOD IS STILL DOING AMAZING MIRACLES
>>471770
>1 guy on a stage = the fucking sky
And again, seen by people several miles away.
>>471786
Have you read any skeptical accounts of Fatima?
You should.
>>471786
This man's miracles are much more impressive and have much more reliable evidence (eye witnesses and video). You should follow him if you value miracles as evidence
>>471789
Several of them acknowledge something happened, and others don't explain what happened.
Does anyone have that image where zeitgeist claims about different religious figures compared to Jesus are shown to be false?
>>471810
"there are many factors that prevent us drawing the simple conclusion that a divinely-inspired miracle took place. Firstly, there were many representatives of the press present at the Cova, both journalists and photographers. There are many photographs of the crowd witnessing the vision; but in spite of the presence of cameras there is no photograph of the event that is even vaguely authentic... What were the photographers doing? How could anyone miss a scoop like that? Secondly, it is clear that only a proportion of the crowd, probably less than half, actually witnessed the miracle... Thirdly, the accounts of the miracle, of the 'dance of the sun,' are simply not consistent... these contradictions must raise some doubts as to the objective nature of what was seen." (Pg. 78-79, The Evidence for Visions of the Virgin Mary, Kevin McClure, Aquarian Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, 1985).
>>471815
1) Has the guy who wrote this even looked at a black and white photograph? The sky is way too bright to discern anything. As you can see in the picture, even away from the sun is far too bright to make out much. Pointing the camera at the phenomenon would have just been blinding, and nothing would have been captured.
2) I agree that only a large part of the crowd witnessed it, but that people saw it several miles away would point against mass hysteria. That observatories couldn't see it indicates that it was not a physical phenomenon.
3) Something so shocking would, of course, mean that a narrative of events would be confused, but they generally report seeing the same thing, which is remarkable given how many were seeing at the same time.
>>471843
Do you know how cameras work? You can expose for the sky or the ground, typically not both. If you expose for the ground, the sky will appear blown out. If you expose for the sky, the ground will appear silhouetted.
Are you suggesting that no photographer thought to expose for the sky? Despite the fact that an alleged miracle was happening in it?
>>471864
Can you find an example of such a photograph (of that age exposed for the sky)? I am having no luck.
An anti-theist paper reporting it is really one of the big clinchers for me; because I don't see why they would want to lie. Not sure if they had a photographer there or not though.
>>471843
>it was not a physical phenomenon.
Then it didn't happen
>>471747
>what is the historical method
>>471903
Perhaps if we look at it that way, it didn't, but I would say that the visions were certainly inspired. Though, yes, that would mean that it didn't happen, and that the miracle is only that it appeared to people.
>>471927
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/fatima-did-70-000-people-witness-a-miracle.149860/page-5
Post 89 onwards
>>471469
Well I'd be happy if it was true. It's pretty bro-scientific stuff but sounds cool as fuck.
>>471943
People weren't looking up into the sun until the miracle was actually being witnessed, because there was nothing in the predictions about the sun. They were expecting to see the Virgin Mary, if anything.
>parting a sea is magic and delusion
>an explosion of nothing making everything from stars to kittens is "science"
ok atheists.... great religion you got there.
>>471312
Like that
>>471312
Buy some roman candles or make your own.
>>471975
>Meessen observes that Sun Miracles have been witnessed in many places where religiously charged pilgrims have been encouraged to stare at the sun. He cites the apparitions at Heroldsbach, Germany (1949) as an example, where many people within a crowd of over 10,000 testified to witnessing similar observations as at Fátima.[25] Meessen also cites a British Journal of Ophthalmology article that discusses some modern examples of Sun Miracles.[26] While Meessen suggests possible psychological or neurological explanations for the apparitions he notes, "It is impossible to provide any direct evidence for or against the supernatural origin of apparitions".[25] He also notes that "[t]here may be some exceptions, but in general, the seers are honestly experiencing what they report." [25]
>>471235
Mgaic is science that had no context other than "it just works"
>>471235
A lot of it was just hallucinations, but to them it was real since they didn't know what a hallucination was.
Nightmares for example, it's a creature that stands on your chest in your sleep, this is most likely sleep paralysis but they thought it was a real creature.
This is where the word meaning "bad dream" comes from.
>>472183
Hallucinate a flood?
>>471235
technology and approach to technology was different
magic is a form of science that deals in altering consciousness at will
many signs point to ancient humans having a internal scientific progress over external scientific progress. however i think its always been only a small percentage of humanity that knew actual magic, and an even smaller percentage that use it in a non-exploitative way.
stories of an ancient advanced civilization in our past as a species suggests a time when humanity had reached a level os sophistication in the science of consciousness that we do not have now in contemporary times
>>471235
>Was magic actually more common back then or did ancient people just have more active imaginations?
Ancient peoples had a different standard of reason and evidence than those living today.
If you take the perspective of someone living today looking back, its all too easy to diminish the understanding those people possessed, but if you reverse the perspective, you see everything very differently.
The expansion of consciousness by definition negates 'past miracles' because the knowledge we attain can change our understanding or surpass it somehow, which would mean if there were spiritual entities that existed, they would have to keep coming back to prove somehow they exist every time we have a leap in consciousness.
Skeptics of the future will state that even getting the figures on camera, or using sensitive science equipment to confirm their presence wont be enough, because people of later times can fudge the evidence, so therefore it doesn't count.
Muggles were a mistake.
>>471235
>Was magic actually more common back then or did ancient people just have more active imaginations?
Magic was way more easier in those days.
Now there's the Paradox.
If you do magic in front of a non-believer, the spell will blow you head off.
Also the Technocracy will catch you.
>>474037
If you look carefully, a lot of Jesus's miracles happen in private where there couldn't be many witnesses or perhaps none. The gospels are written from an omniscient narrator's perspective but that's obviously impossible considering it was written by who knows decades later
>>474040
Ur a wizard arry
>>471892
>An anti-theist paper reporting it is really one of the big clinchers for me; because I don't see why they would want to lie. Not sure if they had a photographer there or not though.
I'm not sure why you'd consider it as such. Even an anti-theist can't escape the fact that Christianity is a hugely influential part of our culture. You can say they didn't expect anything, but that simply wouldn't be the case as Christianity is a value that's drilled into our heads from a young age, and more so then.
We live in an age that actually believes that holding placards with religious writing upon them and chanting spells at public demonstration has the power to alter reality in a way that is beneficial to the spellcaster and that punishes his adversaries. They base it upon a an understanding of the will of occult powers and a knowledge of the times in which and the conditions under which they will be favourable, such as the knowledge of being on the "right side of history".
This is quite magical stuff, if you think about it this way.
>>471249
the chevrons are locking, better hurry up.
>>472183
>literally a mare in the night
>>472129
Try again
>>471892
http://petapixel.com/2015/05/23/20-first-photos-from-the-history-of-photography/
>>473980
>floods are magic
haha holy shit
>>471747
People have testified to seeing solar miracles at many sights, including places associated with individuals the church has condemned as fraudulent.
Its has if when you get large groups of people staring at the sun they start seeing things...
>>479227
>sights
sites
>>471235
God no longer has to perform miracles to win converts, so he doesn't. This is what happens when there is no market competition. OT is pretty clear, YHWH used to do miracles to prove how he was superior to all other gods. Now that there's no other Gods, he coercively makes you believe, either by thread to damnation or suppressing your religion.
>>475757
I'm familiar with them, but I wasn't speaking purely about the miracles of Jesus, the Christian God, or even just Abrahamic faiths. When I meant ancient peoples, I was being more broad than that.
My views on these specific texts is that whatever messages they tried to get across, the Hebrews gleaned facts about the origins of their faith, that it was pagan or henotheistic at first, the roles that 'God' played on their behalf, and many of the stories that came since. They are highly edited documents, and that is before we get to the various offshoots of Christian/Gnostic schools that had competing versions of the main events, from Genesis to who Jesus was, and what the overall purpose of it is.
If it turns out that the Hebrew/Greek texts were actually influenced by older beliefs in the region, that even further throws everything out of whack... for all we know there could have been a decent theology that became corrupted in time by people who wanted to super-impose their own interests on it, or that it was always meant to be a mystery belief that only a select number of people understand.
>>471302
>Half of what you losers call "science" is just low level secular magic.
In other words you are butthurt because it has been explained.
>>479500
>God no longer has to perform miracles to win converts, so he doesn't.
Which conveniently stopped as soon as we began to demand testability
>>479530
>If it turns out that the Hebrew/Greek texts were actually influenced by older beliefs in the region, that even further throws everything out of whack
Could you elaborate on this?
>>471747
>Despite not expecting anything about the sun
Does exclaiming "Look at the sun" or something to that effect among a religious crowd not constitute raising expectations?
No one reported seeing the same thing.
It's most likely a simple case of religious mass hysteria compounded with burning images into your retina, especially considering that no fucker is going to look directly into the sun.
>>478873
why?
Define magic.
>>482659
Magic doesn't follow the laws of the universe, it breaks causation
>>471283
ALL magic is manipulation and/ or hypnosis.
>>471308
Hypnosis as defined by Dave Elman in his book, "Hypnotherapy" (a.k.a. the Green Bible), defines hypnosis as "a state of mind in which the critical faculty of the human is bypassed, and selective thinking established."
In more common, workable terms, we treat hypnosis as the bypassing of the critical faculty, while we treat hypnotic trance as the stabilization of that bypass into a state.
>>471469
This is "more or less" correct, and explained by the hypnotic process.
Consciousness & Subconsciousness.
>>471434
I would possibly consider her being a reincarnation, if she wasn't that deformed.
>>471770
It's well known that "pastors" in America are using simple stage hypnosis techniques.
>>471727
I'm surprised you even took the time to reply seriously to those videos.
>>485094
>It's well known that "pastors" in America are using simple stage hypnosis techniques.
Just like it is well known that all miracles are fakes
>>485214
>all
I am very skeptical of generalizing that way. I've no doubt that there haven't been any "miracles" that have been beyond scientific explanation, however that doesn't mean that we won't encounter such things, especially in the wake of exploring space.
>>485372
>such things
Magic unexplainable by science? Why? Space isn't made of anything different than earth
>>487244
>Space isn't made of anything different than earth
We don't know everything about everything brah.
That's basically all I'm saying.
It *might* happen that there's something beyond our comprehension forever somewhere out there.
Or it might not.
>>487305
The closest thing I can think of is dark matter, dark energy, or black holes
>>471727
Or you know, the eyes in the statue are concave. It's a really old trick
>>471235
>Was magic actually more common back then or did ancient people just have more active imaginations?
Likely neither, they just had different creative outputs. If you compare accounts of magic to what we create in the forms of games or fantasy writing/film, most of the older stuff isn't that far out there
>>488288
I think the biggest issue is they forgot to mention that it was fiction and they mixed it with real events... Maybe it was just war propaganda
>>471425
God made a donkey talk in the bible. Also a dog because paul asked him too.
Also
>Im
>>471434
I feel like this was done by demons like demons help magicians disappear and appear things out of thin air.
>>480433
>religious mass hysteria
Oh, for fuck's sake. Every time somebody pulls this phrase out in an argument about miracles and apparitions I know I've won. That's all you've got? 'Mass hysteria'? It's literally just you saying "Well, something happened that's very odd and inexplicable, but it can't be divine or supernatural because I don't believe that."
>>488048
hello reddit
>>492003
Mass hysteria combined with people seeing shit, because they are staring at the fucking sun, seems a reasonable explanation.
You are just saying "I want it to be odd and inexplicable because I believe in miracles".
>>492016
Why hello there.
>>492019
I'm saying the very concept of mass hysteria is a fucking modernist sack of shit. Mass hysteria DOES NOT EXIST. It was made up to cover secularism's ass.
All the posts further up the thread, about 'similar ncidents of mass hysteria' in other cultures, centered around other belief systems? They're not mass hysteria either. They're spooky shit. /x/ stuff.
>>492035
One of the greatest sins of the 'Age of Reason' was to banish the presence of the supernatural in history to the fringes of study. The Ancients and the Medievals were well aware of the reality of weird shit and its tangible impact on the world. Why can't we acknowledge it?
>>492003
>i dont know therefore God
I agree that it wasn't mass hysteria but its possible that what occurred was due to natural phenomenon such as an parhelion or maybe even an optical effect.
>>492047
Because the Ancients and the Medievals were full of shit.
>>492060
Aquinas wrote about this stuff precisely because it was real. It was a real problem in the middle ages that needed addressing.
It STILL needs addressing, to this very day. Did you know that the Catholic Church forbids people going to palm readers, or playing with tarot cards? They know this stuff isn't a joke or a hoax. If you can't trust the oldest institution in the Western world, who can you trust?
And beyond any appeal to authority, how is any of this stuff, these supernatural events that seem clearly documented and seem to provide evidence, just dismissed out of hand? All that it boils down to is 'muh feels,' and how does that make those people any better than theists?
>>492069
Yes, and he turned out to be wrong.
This is also the reason why the supernatural isn't part of science, because 99% of it consists of stuff that is flat out wrong, while the other 1% is stuff we can't know in the first place.
>>492069
They forbid palm reading and tarot cards because they are rivals in selling woo-woo.
>>492069
>And beyond any appeal to authority, how is any of this stuff, these supernatural events that seem clearly documented and seem to provide evidence, just dismissed out of hand?
Because there isn't evidence. Try making tarot cards work under lab conditions.
>>492077
Once upon a time, what you call 'science' was merely called 'natural philosophy,' and was just one of many categories of knowing.
Also, you only think he turned out to be wrong because the life you lead has caused his knowledge to not be useful to you. You live in a world insulated from the harmfully supernatural, and are able to carry on in ignorance of it.
This is in no small part thanks to the efforts of those who take these things very seriously. The Church is prominent among these.
>>492069
You do realize that tarot cards are essentially ascribing meaning to an arbitrary set of symbols that people use to fucking gamble with in Europe? That the Major and Minor Arcana got those names specifically because they sound cooler and not because they were originally named that?
Where is the evidence that sorcerers cause temporary infertility? is it not far more likely Aquinas was blaming a medical disorder on magic?
>>492102
>Once upon a time, what you call 'science' was merely called 'natural philosophy,' and was just one of many categories of knowing.
Not exactly. The scientific method emerged from natural philosophy. That does not mean that any old bit of "natural philosophy" and science are the same thing.
>>492113
The trouble with that sort of thing is that what evidence we do have could go either way. Actual hard facts could support either reading. Our modern inclination is to call it a medical disorder, but why should we assume this is the correct reading of evidence?
>>492102
>ou live in a world insulated from the harmfully supernatural
This is a common line from Catholics, especially when talking about things like meditation and even yoga!
Things like meditation do not expose you to the supernatural, they put you in an altered mental state, which can be dangerous, but it has nothing to do with demons, and everything to do with modern psychology. Prayer can do the same thing and the stories of saints being harangued by demons seem every similar to the damage you can do to yourself paying around with meditation
>>492102
>Also, you only think he turned out to be wrong because the life you lead has caused his knowledge to not be useful to you. You live in a world insulated from the harmfully supernatural, and are able to carry on in ignorance of it.
Nor is it useful to anyone else. And yes, science indeed does insulate itself from unfalsifiable nonsense, because paying attention to it is a complete waste of time
>>492128
perhaps because we have an observably causation with various medical disorders.
And dont play the Hume card with me, it would be impossible to function without induction, and as long as you realize that it isn't a path to absolute truth its valid to use it
>>492132
>Things like meditation do not expose you to the supernatural
That's not what the Hindus think. You sound like the average bourgeois Westerner.
>>492136
We don't even need Hume anymore for this. Dynamic systems theory shows us just as well why your idea on causality is completely flawed
>>492150
>You sound like the average bourgeois Westerner.
Ah well I guess I should just take any religious figure at there word about what their rituals and practices do
OR I could use comparative religious studies and scientific tests in order to figure out the commonalities.
Here is a fun fact, the esoteric practices of Buddhism were picked up and used by Shinto, only substituting Shinto deities and twicking it for their theology. Indeed there are a variety of practices that are taken from one religion and adapted by another for a similar purpose.
>>471469
Most explanation of historical mysteries are just basic science and mental illness
God chose a time period whereby undeniable evidence didn't exist, but word could be documented
if God had chosen 2015 to reveal himself in his son, with video technology, then everyone would believe and it would be pointless
>>492164
I love Sagan. I'm a big believer in his project of finding ways to fully understand the world. The original Cosmos is great.
What I most want to overcome is the total dismissal of the supernatural from the study of history. Yes, it's often the case that there's a perfectly natural, secular explanation for so many things across history, across our present world as well. However, I believe there should be an openness to acknowledging that the supernatural, the truly inexplicable, is possible. It should be a last resort--it shouldn't be the easy explanation--but it should be there, and it shouldn't be totally overlooked.
You see this in the grandfathers of history, the writers like Herodotus and Livy. They often tried to explain away the supernatural aspects of the records they presented, but they still were there, and they did not wholly dismiss them. I feel like in the aftermath of the Enlightenment we have totally closed off the possibility of the inexplicable from our reading of events. I think that's intellectually dishonest.
>>492214
How convenient
>>492214
Yes! God decided to test us, not based on our willingness to do whats right given all the facts, but by our ability to suspend disbelief when someone claims to speak for him (but only the right people(
>>492234
>
for believers, God's existence is clear. if you need photographic evidence, then you weren't meant to believe, though you may believe at some point in the future
That sounds almost like Calvinism
>>492222
I was under the impression you were shilling for /x/ but that's fair enough.
>I feel like in the aftermath of the Enlightenment we have totally closed off the possibility of the inexplicable from our reading of events. I think that's intellectually dishonest.
I agree wholeheartedly.
>>492222
History is the study of what probably happened in the past. As as discipline it cannot even begin to assign anyweight to the supernatural.
You are looking for the study of the occult, or theology, or a similar "discipline".
>>492254
I definitely am not shilling for /x/. Let us say, rather, that I sympathize with /x/. Poor fuckers, I think they're right to be suspicious about many of the stories they're told. How often do we find that the myths we grow up with are just that? We begin to suspect that everyone is lying to us.
I agree with /x/ in its appreciation for the supernatural in world affairs, especially where religion is concerned. However, I guess I'm not as paranoid as they are. Maybe I'm too bluepilled, as /pol/ would say. But I think that it's possible to draw a line where you're too suspicious, too paranoid, too eager to fall for the outlandish stories of history. It takes good judgment. It takes prudence, and a well-formed conscience.
>>492274
You are mistaking history for mythology. That isn't even to dismiss what mythology says, but it isn't history. You have the wrong discipline.
>>471434
The milk miracle was explained, the others are easily explainable too.
Cathokic Church has a lot of miracles, Lanciano and Sokółka come to mind.
>>471999
Nice bait. I assume you're talking about the Big Bang? Then you misunderstand it completely.
t. not even atheist, Christian
>>492069
Tarot etc. is forbidden because by playing it you try to do magic. Even if it doesn't work, what matters is that you still tried to do it.
>>492234
Catholicism says that fideism is wrong. Faith means trusting God.
>>471235
I suppose the ancient people witnessed alien technology they confused for magic. I am an atheist but there are parts in the bible and various religions that sound just too far fetched to have been made up, those people had to haven seen something but what exactly that was is a great mystery.
Imagine if David Blaine existed in ancient times. He'd be considered the Jesus of today.
Did religion arise because of cavemen eating mushrooms and tripping balls
>>495609
>too far fetched to have been made up
Yes, Christianity is so ridiculous and obviously false that it is actually true. Give me a break
Back then, nobody asked for proof.
Someone told them something happened and they went, "oh, wow. That happened."
>>495609
I don't think so matey. You only have to look at the vast numbers of mythologies humankind has dreamed up over the years to know that we are pretty good at making up bullshit.
>>495609
Or maybe our view of human history is simply woefully incomplete due to shifting terrain and age.
>>498002
It's incredibly narcissistic to think that all of humanity was that naïve until now.
The earth started with 10 Billion Magics
whenever magic is used, some of this is depleted
when it is all depleted, magic will no longer exist
all of it was depleted
>>498173
well a lot of them were dumb as shit and believed retarded crap like lightning and thunder being a war in heaven.
see - all mythology and religions
>le fedora tip
>>500759
why don't we just consume a mana potion
>>500768
mana potions just contain the Magics already in the system
they don't add more
>>500768
God was going to make those on the seventh day, but he got tired and forgot
>>500809
Why did god rest...?
That always confused me
>>492047
Settle down gyp
>>501365
Because man made him in his image
>>471235
>was magic real
Gee, I don't know
>>471811
>muh zeitgeist
>>476839
yeah, i got my fair share of abuse.
I want to believe in magic, but the truth is, I just don't.
>>506533
I believe in baby rapists and red rooms, I believe in serial killers and pedo rings, I believe in doomsday cults and freemasonry, I swear to god I believe, but I just haven't seen one shred of evidence that magic works.
I'm just one of those people, I have to see it to believe it.
If magic is real, how come you can't cast fireball?
You can't even summon a flame from the palm of your hand without dousing in it in alcohol.
Some things just twist your perspective, you know?
You've got to believe in something or you just lose your grip on your sanity.
If magic were real we would be able to see it in controlled laboratory conditions. The ancients had different standards for proof and less advanced tools for checking the veracity of a statement. It wasn't their fault, but it is foolish to continue their mistakes now that we have access to those tools.
>>506588
I agree, but first you must admit that the scientific method has 3 blind spots:
a) non-repeatable phenomenon
b) non-observable phenomenon
c) unverifiable phenomenon
>>506601
err, i kinda made that third one up. I tend to work on the rule of threes, things just sound more climatic when they come in threes.
>>506601
If magic exists, it must affect things in ways they wouldn't be affected if magic didn't exist. It could therefore be measured, even if only indirectly. Miracles are a slightly different story, since in general they are one-time events that don't reoccur. But even then, careful study of modern miracles generally finds alternate explanations that don't require any supernatural element. Like the crying Jesus statue that was actually the result of faulty plumbing.
>>506621
there is blood in your plumbing?
I'm superstitious, but I try to be as skeptical as I can. I try to let go of my beliefs, but when I do I can feel something gnawing at my brain, like a rat chewing on the frayed ends of my sanity.
I appreciate metaphore.
non observable phenomenon occur in nature all the time. We don't know how animals behave when they are not being observed, we assume they don't know that they are being watched, that we have been careful, but we never know for sure if they know they are being observed.
>>506623
It wasn't blood, it was stagnant sewage water. Still dark, but a very different liquid.
>>506635
that sounds like a rationalization. Who runs sewage pipes through a wall on a one story building.
If they had taken apart the statue and found some sort of device embedded in the statue I might have believed it, but you can see how that sounds just as cucku as a supernatural explanation.
It will take around twenty thousand years or so until human can manifest enough magic power to be scientifically verified accepted.
At that time we could use these magics for FTL travel.
>>506652
I don't think the pipe ran through the wall, but the leaked water did travel up by capillary action, the way it runs up a paper towel with one end dipped into a puddle.
a sufficiently advanced scientific explanation sounds just as crazy as made up supernatural one. Scientists rely on their reputations and their composure to back up claims they have no way of explaining to the layman.
Scientists often make fantastic claims, like using a nuclear reactor to turn sodium into gold, with no physical evidence to support their claims.
>>506660
Thats a long ass time to wait.
>>506663
I might buy that.
But without a sample of the liquid there is no way to be sure.
>>506672
>like using a nuclear reactor to turn sodium into gold,
I've never heard about anything like this.
>>506663
also, that would mean that the statue would have to be porous, correct? and wasn't the statue made of porcelain, which is neither porous nor absorbent?
Jesus dying on the cross represents the concept of God as some kind of magical sky daddy behind everything dying. The idea is that it's supposed to be up to us now and that emphasis on humanity is what Christianity has that the other Abrahamic religions don't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation
>Nuclear experiments have successfully transmuted lead into gold, but the expense far exceeds any gain.[7]
>>506697
Lead is not sodium. To get gold from sodium, you would need to combine two nuclei and have them stick. Nuclear reactors currently don't work by fusion, they work by fission, which is why the heavier nuclei of lead can become the lighter nuclei of gold.
I think fusion is used to make some of the elements very far down in the periodic table, the ones that decay almost instantly, but I may be wrong on this.
>>506688
>I had a close look at a nearby washroom and the connected drainage system that passed underneath the concrete base of the cross. I removed some stones from the drain and found it was blocked. I touched the walls, the base and the cross and took some photographs for documentation. It was very simple: water from the washroom, which had been blocked in the clogged drainage system, had been transmitted via capillary action into the adjacent walls and the base of the cross as well as into the wooden cross itself. The water came out through a nail hole and ran down over the statue’s feet.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428714-000-miracle-buster-why-i-traced-holy-water-to-leaky-drain/
Figured it would be better to go to the source.
>>506713
I know, but I couldn't find the article. Its got to be over a decade old by now.
The point is, they don't have any physical proof of any of those claims, save those that occur through natural processes like the decay of uranium, which can be weighed and measured.
>>506729
The creation of other elements can be weighed and measured though. You have no residue of those nuclei before you turn on the machine, and when you turn it off there is residue.
I'd posit that we've replaced a lot of what constitutes magic with movies. Through them we can will into existence any kind of magic world and ability and present it to a wide audience that experiences it as a 'real' event and can then incorporate it into their real life by thinking about it, talking to friends about it and so on.
Movies are not like simple stories or literature that can be dismissed as lies and fabrications of an author because for all intents and purposes they present an objective persepctive - 'how can you deny it, here it is in front of you on the screen'.
This is compounded by an ingrained trust in the image as truth. Not everyone can see or believe the sun miracle, but everyone can watch a movie.
For me movies are where humanity's treasure trove of imagination is located right now, the one medium that transcends ordinary experience by facing us with the extra-ordinary and asking us to believe
>>506750
No, it really can't, not without some sort of scientific expertise. The amount they created was infinitesimal, such that it couldn't be quantified.
It could have easily been explained by an error in measurement, yet nobody asked for their results to be quantified.
There was also some big hoopabaloo in the movie "What the bleep do we know?" when they made the claim that there was an object that could be observed simultaneously existing in two places at once.
I guess what I'm saying isn't that "magic is real" so much as "science can be wrong", and therefore, "science could be wrong about magic" Its not likely, but its certainly possible.
>>506774
>No, it really can't, not without some sort of scientific expertise.
Wait, so you're saying the results are invalid because you needs to understand nuclear physics to understand why it happens?
I don't know shit about agriculture, but that doesn't stop farmers from understanding how to manipulate crops for greater yield.
I guess what I'm saying is that science isn't infallible, and its a waste of time trying to prove that something "doesn't" exist from an epistemological point of view.
>>506804
Again, I'm talking about the sodium reaction, which I can't find a reference for, but I remember it clear as day, it was in my chemistry textbook.
what do you do with a word?
spell it, or cast a spell
>>495615
Simon Magus and other tried that shit and were laughed at
>>506816
I have no problem believing uranium turns into lead or whatever. Thats been quantified, verified, substantiated, all of that.
But turning sodium into gold, or lead into gold, most of the utterly fantastic claims made by scientists that can't be verified by the laymen, these really irritate me, because there should be something, some shred of evidence to support their claims, yet we just accept it, as if it were nothing.
We have more blind faith in science than medieval peasants had in god.
So thats where I'm at, basically.
I've lost my faith in science but have no proof of magic. I know horrible things exist and I don't see any sort of spirtual counterbalance. The world just seems like this horrible place that is totally fucked up and devoid of mystery. One or the other would be bad enough, but both together is god damn unbearable.
Fuck history and the "lessons" it teaches us. Fuck kismet and the wheel of fate. All either ever does is grind us into dust.
>>506829
You plant a tree, you expect it to bear fruit.
>>506859
Francis Bacon and other occultists were behind modern English (and science for that matter)
>>506840
>yet we just accept it,
Again, I have never heard of anyone claim this, the instant I read it I voiced my objection, and clearly you also rejected it however you initially came across it. I don't see where the blind faith came up anywhere in the transaction.
Take the very worst yet sincere posts on /showerthoughts/ on then play centuries of chinese whispers. It still happens today with 'miracles' and stupid rumours like getting high of banana peels, 9/11 truthers or antivax but far, far worse.
>>506723
Nice! Thanks
>>506922
>chinese whispers
This is actually a really good hypothesis. I wouldn't be surprised if many miracles propagated themselves in such ways.
