Originally posted by apathist Good! And for the Clarke quote:
Anything really amazing is really amazing. Kinda tautological, Mr. Clarke.
Except that is not the insight that Clarke provides. The insight he provides is that advanced technology is amazing to the uninitiated. Your version was just a cheap copy with no real insight.
Originally posted by twhitehead I too am reluctant to use it. But when a scientist talks of having a spiritual experience while looking at Jupiter through a telescope, I understand what they mean and do not automatically take it to be a religious experience. I would typically not describe it that way myself.
Yes, difficult to argue with that. In a strictly non religious sense, spiritual should be freely used to describe a profound experience.
These religious chaps have stolen words like spiritual or faith from my general vocabulary.
Originally posted by FabianFnas I don't understand how Houdini did it, but it has nothing to do with supernatural.
But what happens with the soul after the death *is* supernatural and cannot ever be understood, nor be treated with science. Right? 😉
Then there is the distict possibility what we consider our 'souls' is just a human construct with no reality at all. Nothing to hang an immortality tag to, nothing to worry about being burned in hell and so forth. Be happy with the years you are given since there is most likely nothing more. You die you turn to dust. You live on in your children and works.