KenBrace

Burning paper has nothing to do with spirituality. Being able to burn paper because of the physical development of the spirit does. Maybe but I see no evidence of this.

In comparison to our man-made ethics I'd say the "universe" is quite immoral. In nature, everything eats everything else to survive. The male body is a regular killing machine. It creates millions of "could be" humans just to kill them off and recycle what's left over. The weather doesn't think twice about wiping out thousands of people. Yes, nature is quite immoral. Morality is the result of we humans trying to figure out which actions to avoid and which ones to take part is so as to make ourselves and the people around us happy. But that's just us. The universe doesn't care what we think about ethics.

Just because you don't have complete control of your surroundings (is that even possible?) doesn't mean that you don't own yourself/you aren't yourself.

There's just one problem with that. You are your body. Not owning yourself basically means that you don't exist.

This...

Have you ever met Liping?

Religion "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." Science "the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment." They are not the same things.

You study under Master Zhou's system?

Good luck finding a legit system.

Science is most certainly not a religion. Regarding the tests, do you have any idea what exactly is involved?

What sort of tests do they put them through? If the most powerful government in the world accepts chi as a reality then why does the majority of the scientific community disregard it as non-sense? Why is this not in science text books? Why aren't we seeing scientific papers regarding chi and it's baring on the natural world?

This gospel reveals a more "taoist" version of Jesus. Whenever I bring this issue up with Christians they usually shrug it off quite easily not realizing that part of their Bible is missing. They are trusting the decision made by Catholics years ago regarding which gospels remained.

This is too funny.

I seriously doubt they take the notion of chi very seriously. More than likely they view it as a traditional/religious practice with no real significance that has the ability to make money. Because of this I doubt they test masters to make sure they're "abilities" are legit.

The chinese government tests qigong masters therefore nationally acknowledges the existence of Qi?

We're not talking about scientific studies here. We're talking about claims being reviewed by skeptics under more controlled conditions.

I'm not opposed to other masters because their name isn't "John Chang". I'm simply stating that there isn't really any evidence for Liping's legitimacy which is very relevant to the OP.

First off there is no such thing as "proof". There is only evidence to support claims. You cannot easily shrug off what Chang demonstrated unless you simply don't want to believe it. It's enough for any reasonable person to say "Wait a second. There's something going on that can't be accounted for." I've investigated the practice enough by now to know from personal experience that it's not just more newage non-sense. Wang Liping does not have the same credibility as Chang. Where are the demonstrations of his students? Where is a video of him performing his feats while under the scrutiny of skeptics? We have nothing. Only books and anecdotes. Believing in Liping takes a leap of faith. There is evidence for Chang's legitimacy so it's not blind faith.

Picture Albert Einstein before he had put together his Theory of Relativity. He saw a grand horizon that would change our outlook on the universe. I suppose you could say that he found what he did by "following his heart" but his heart was to use logic and reason to figure out problems. In the same way you could say that I'm following my heart by practicing Mo Pai. But I'm not only following my heart. I'm looking at it from a rational basis. What are the results I want? I know that there is a larger aspect to reality that I've been completely blind to my entire life. It's something big and I intend to find out exactly what is going on. This is also related to death. My goals may evolve as I learn new things but I'm like a scientist on the verge of a new discovery. Depending on what the scientist discovers, he may change some aspects of his life. Why do I think Mo Pai is the path to take? Because John Chang is the only high level master I've seen that can demonstrate abilities under the scrutiny of skeptics like he did. I've reviewed the footage thoroughly and have looked into the various illusions that could have been used. There is simply no way that he faked those demonstrations.

I disagree with all of this. "Following your heart" will lead you down a path of delusion, disinformation, and falsehood. You need to follow reason. Does X practice claim to accomplish the results I want? Does X practice has good evidence supporting its claim? If yes, then train using that system's methods. Spirituality and logic are not separate.

Most certainly yes. Mindfulness is simply training the mind to have more control over itself. It teaches the mind to be aware of its inner workings. Inner power develops physical energy within the body which gives rise to the kinds of abilities demonstrated by John Chang.

There might be some truth to that. But I guess we'd have to define "master". Buddhist monks can sit in full lotus for hours but they're aren't masters of inner power. They are, however, masters of mindfulness.

"Trust your heart" is bad advice in my opinion. You should trust login and reason, not your heart. We have religion because people trust their hearts. We have delusion because people trust their hearts. If more people used reason instead of feelings to determine the truth then we'd be in a better world.

But personal anecdotes aren't very reliable. There are tons of fakers with huge followings. The followers would of course write extravagant things about their experience with him, but the truth is that he's a faker. And it's not so much "physics" as it is a fraud test. Place the individual under controlled conditions and see if he or she can still perform their feats.

He accepted Liping as legit but came to the realization that there might not be any real grounds for this belief. So he asked to find out if there was any.