It’s always
important to find common ground and assure it’s stability or that it alters according to the environment one currently inhabits with other similar organisms e.g. humans. Every human would without hesitation agree that red is red, fire hurts and that we die without air. And how do we know this?
Well then. Let’s work our way up in order to maintain continuous agreement about how reality is grounded. Can we agree on that? Excellent.
The strong interaction holds quarks, protons and neutron together. The weak interaction decays neutrons to protons thus altering an atom. Gravitation causes mass to attract mass and curves light. Electromagnetism exchanges electrons between atoms and can attract and repel certain materials. Potassium (K) and Sodium (Na) are atoms, and their electronegativity attracts one and other, generating an exchange of electrons and thus; a current. You with me? Good.
Receptors in brain and body accounts for all the five commonly known and several not commonly known senses. Stimuli is registered by a sensory organ’s transducers, action potentials are transduced via closing and opening of ion channels, allowing the alteration of K and Na gradients along, inside and outside the axon and does so in complex neural patterns which the brain recognizes as sensory stimuli, and eventually as concepts. This can be demonstrated to be the very real – albeit oversimplified – case. Hope you agree so far…
These phenomena and effects can be accurately predicted and repeated. Today, we know the basic mechanics of how we know and the connections between the different scales of matter, from micro to macro. Before there where instruments, particle physics and neuroscience were based on nothing other than assertions. Today, it’s not assertion, it’s not intuition, it’s not guesswork, it’s fact. And unlike one’s understanding, facts cannot be altered (unless other newly discovered phenomena forces revision!). Is this false? No? Perfect.
There is only one way to learn about the objective truths of the world, and that’s by the methods of science. Of course, politics, sociology and philosophy describe the world we live in as well, but tend to do so in constantly changing and subjective manners. However, even those fields have rules and laws. Yes, they are man-made, but since we’re all human, that tend to fit into our understanding accurately enough. I hope you have managed this far!
The conclusion is basically this: when you can observe objective, constant interactions of matter and energy limited to the human senses and measuring devices, and that it’s complementary with each other in their connection from the smallest to the biggest, do not dare to mix in ESP, ghosts, magic, alternative medicine and gods where they cannot possibly belong.
Thanks for joining me on this little journey through reality dear potential believer.
tion of faith. Now, believers can argue about the arbitrariness of definitions and preferred religious/spiritual conduct, but higher powers tend to be incompatible with each other and, therefore, truth and falsehoods should exist even in the realm beyond matter. By this, I mean that if a higher power does exist, there needs to be some consistency in how it acts and interferes with the universe, not necessarily a physical consistency, but some form of constraint on its abilities. After all, why would an entity with unlimited power downgrade by creating such a contingent and (perceptibly) finite world? Nonetheless, people who claim that this higher power operates within a framework of regulations, does so “outside” of the universe and requires people to believe – to have faith – in it, are slightly contradictory.
Believer Beware 