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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 26, 2010 - 08:23pm PT
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Any applied linguists at the Taco?
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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May 26, 2010 - 10:30pm PT
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An apology from Fritz.
WesChrist: I am sorry! I became Pate-like last night after I perceived that Jeff Lowe was being ignored in what I know is a very rare post of his to ST.
I like what you post.
I went Pate-stal when I believed active posters on this thread were ignoring a man who I really respect.
Jeff Lowe posted. He was ignored.
Last night on the http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1177667&tn=60 thread: Jeff Lowe, in his Jello persona, posted a pleasant, but complicated message of understanding.
For those of you too young to appreciate Jeff as an icon of American climbing, here is a link to his Wiki bio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Lowe_(climber);
Jeff used to be more active on Super Topo, but due to debilitating illness: he rarely posts here.
I was impressed and moved by his post.
The Jeff Lowe post.
May 25, 2010 - 08:52pm PT
My friend Connor e-mailed the piece below to me today. I think it's a bit of wisdom from a man who some ST'ers would brand as foolish just because he espouses a personal belief that can be classed as religious. Really though, it seems to me he just points out the obvious inutility of thinking you are correct in your thinking, and everyone else who thinks differently is wrong. In this respect, the scientific way of doing life can be juxtaposed with the spiritual paths, and on the material plane, be shown to be superior. Ergo, all religious people are deluded fools. I am in no way religious, but I've seen and experienced too much to think that science has all the answers now, or can ever find all the answers.
Ohhh, well then...I guess I've just outed myself as the fool that I really am - one who has more questions than answers - and one who feels more enlightenned when he listens to the ramblings of fellow humans of all persuasions, than when he's trying to impress upon those he feels are intellectually inferior to him; their intellectual inferiority - and his own superiority - in tones that are designed to inhibit growth in the minds on either side of the divide.
-FoolishJello
By TENZIN GYATSO:
Published: May 24, 2010 New York Times
WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.
Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.
Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance — it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.
Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one’s own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.
An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world’s other great religions.
A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus’ acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.
I’m a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I’ve long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.
Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I’ve learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I’ve come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too — as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who “delight in the welfare of all beings.” I’m moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.
Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.
Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah’s creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.
Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.
Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World’s Religions Can Come Together.”
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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May 26, 2010 - 10:55pm PT
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Hey. I believe in Jesus, as the son of God. Redigulous, eh?
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EvolveOrExtinct
Social climber
SinCity
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May 26, 2010 - 11:18pm PT
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I think a big reason that religulous discussions can be so touchy is the stakes that are involved.
More than anything, I think religion is a balm on our soul to soothe the ache of mortality. If there is no god and nature truly rules all then the implication is that our soul is a construct of a bunch of neural synapses firing in our unique pattern, that upon death will expire into nothingness. Smartest of people will subconsciously convince themselves to believe in something otherwise irrational to calm our fears of being so finite.
I call it the god proposition bet. (this idea is somewhat plagiarized, Im not that smart). If we are willing to "bet" our soul that god does not exist by not believing in him and being blasphemous or what ever else you all wanna say are gonna send me to hell and then god doesn't exist, I got to do what I wanted and paid no cost for it. The converse is someone who is willing to "bet" compromising their life on earth by tempering the things they might have done otherwise but would send them to hell and by being a devout worshipper for the "pay-off" of eternal life in heaven. I think a lot of people, as I previously stated, accept the god side of the bet without even consciously thinking this so they can rest at night knowing if they die they will still be.
Me personally, I am a gambler and I will always take a good bet, one with very favorable odds and the odds of a lifetime of compromise (~100 years) verses an eternity in heaven or hell says I should take that bet. Problem is, I cant do it because the compromise is to ignore my intellect and rational thought that I base ever moment and every act of my life on.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 12:17am PT
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EOE wrote-
"I think a big reason that religulous discussions can be so touchy is the stakes that are involved."
Yeah, religious discussions, too.
With the word religulous in the vocabulary, it is understandable that many (e.g., atheists, humanists, freethinkers, the post-religious) would extend it either (a) as a synonym for religious or (b) to describe a religion, or religions, at large.
religulous adj. 1. religious ideas or religious practices that are ridiculous 2. anything religious
Yeah, Wes, I'd say there is good reason for atheists, naturalists, free thinkers, the post-religious to get involved:
Thanks for posting the link. Informative.
Of course, Almighty God in Christian culture means Jehovah, not Marduk or Ashtar or any other ancient Mesopotamian God. Certainly not any abstract hypothetical God modern philosophers and sophisticated theists or theologians like to bait and switch to.
This regulation (law) is actually in the North Carolina constitution and yeah, it is archaic and religulous and needs to be rewritten.
But of course the I'm cool and in-beat Christians at the Taco (e.g., Micronut, Bluering, Klimmer, Trip, a few others) don't get why the post-religious secularists (like me) have their panties in a bunch.
Get involved. Take up the charge. Be the change you seek in the world. If America goes down the drain as many project, it will be because its democratic institutions were so impotent at modernizing, adapting.
So what else is religulous? How about the dyscrasia (or dysmania) that exists in American culture today (in people's conversations, for example) resulting from the powerful mix of ol'time religious indoctrination (under Jehovah and the Abrahamic narrative) and scientific illiteracy. People can't even talk to each other in informed discourse because of this dyscrasia. It devolves right away into calls of leg-humping, etc. This thread is chockful of the evidence of it. Shameful.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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May 27, 2010 - 12:53am PT
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evolve--
seems to be a lot of people's religious motivation--just to play it safe. blaise pascal was one of them. the bumperstickers tell atheists, "you'd better be right"--sort of gives the lie to the shallowness of their own position--they don't "believe" because it does them much good or makes the world better, they just believe in order to play it safe, in case the fire-and-brimstone talk might be true. so there's a converse--you'd better be right if you're basing your precious existence on such trivial fears. if you're wrong, you may actually be wasting your precious time and missing the potential to spend it better.
i like that "desiderata" poem some anonymous philosopher posted on a church out east, and it seems to have stayed there, an intrinsic wisdom which is its own proof:
"you are a child of the universe. like the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here."
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 02:26pm PT
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The fact is-
The mix of religious supernaturalism (whether ol' time or new-age) and scientific illiteracy makes a mess of it. A tragic mess. They're like two bad characters, the villains, in a film that the good guys are tasked to overcome to save civilization and to get the girl. Except in this film, there's no girl so, really, for many, what's the point.
Supernaturalism + Science Illiteracy = Religulousness.
Case in Point:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1176467&tn=140
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brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
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May 27, 2010 - 03:15pm PT
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hahahahaha!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 27, 2010 - 03:20pm PT
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scientific illiteracy
--
This is tossed out there as though scientific literacy, or quantified datum, is the end all per true knowledge and wisdom.
Spiritual illiteracy displays an equal modicum of ignorance, and typically manifests with people trying to force all spiritual or transcendent themes into either material forms their left brains can grock onto, or old style religious mores they can "prove" to be false.
There is also a pretty telling degree of narcissism and a marked lack of humility in some who really should be asking questions about things they don't know, but instead swear that they do know - they know for a fact that all things spiritual are bunk, lies, mere ideations, feelings, beliefs, sensations, or things with qualities. If I was a math teacher and got those answers on a test, I'd say: Show your work with the unqantifiable in order to vouchsafe your answers.
JL
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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May 27, 2010 - 03:37pm PT
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Me personally, I am a gambler and I will always take a good bet, one with very favorable odds and the odds of a lifetime of compromise (~100 years) verses an eternity in heaven or hell says I should take that bet.
You are making two bets. The first bet that you don't mention is the bet that the religulous people are even close to right about what God would do with you once you die here on earth, if you are wrong and there is a god.
I am fortunate enough to be a fairly open minded atheist. I think that there are no gods of any sort. I can't be sure. I also think that if I am wrong, so are all of the idiots who speak of hell and suggest that they know what God would do with me.
I'm betting that there is no God but also betting that if I am wrong then God is fair and will be a bit understanding of my situation. Plus, So many religulous people are much more evil than me that I can't imagine being near the beginning of the line to get into hell.
Dave
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 03:38pm PT
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This is tossed out there as though scientific literacy, or quantified datum, is the end all per true knowledge and wisdom.
Only by idiots. Another: "Science doesn't explain everything." Talk about setting up straw men. Talk about faux caricature. Counterproductive.
Maybe if more people experienced a few years of physics through biology in coursework as opposed to the Creation Science Museum, they'd have more respect for science, science education, the Scientific Story and could see why many people experienced in the sciences are saddened by the scientific illiteracy in societies around the world.
Science is only a tool. Don't make it into something it's not and then blast it for that. Out of science is also scientific knowledge, scientific education. Which leads to something else. Efforts to live up to that scientific education. (Which is not spoken of at all as a value by any Abrahamic religion.)
But no worries in the long term. Millions more have carnal knowledge of the sciences today than they did even just two generations ago. Times are changing. Old authorities are becoming irrelevant.
"Spiritual illiteracy displays an equal modicum of ignorance..." Agree. And when modern civilization has a new "practice of living" model and has new language to describe this, to cover it, we'll be more ready to talk about it in the internet forums. (P.S. Some are even working on it when they're not climbing.)
"...they know for a fact that all things spiritual are bunk, lies, mere ideations..."
Another caricature. Another strawman. No one I know "from my camp of decision making and beliefs" or "from my school of thought" thinks such a thing. Religulous.
re: "material forms"
"Material forms" is such anathema to those raised on the "indulgence" of ghostly spirituality and living forever. Tell me, any attempt at all over the course of your life to just come to grips with material form and finite mortality? Au contraire, "finite mortality" doesn't mean life's just a joke and pointless as many a supernaturalist believes.
"Material forms" are what give us our functionality. It is an insult to our nature to think or believe otherwise. Read carefully: Now that was decision-making, an example of decision making, in the new practice of living (based on good science) and is an example of taking a stance in the practice of living. What it is not: It is not forcing this decision making on anyone else. Trying to "force" beliefs (cf: decision making) on others is Abrahamic religion's specialty.
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go-B
climber
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May 27, 2010 - 03:41pm PT
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grock?
If you choose not to choose, you still have made a choise!
Ignorance of the law is not an excuse!
If you can't be a good example be a warning!
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brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
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May 27, 2010 - 03:44pm PT
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Largo wrote:
There is also a pretty telling degree of narcissism and a marked lack of humility in some who really should be asking questions about things they don't know, but instead swear that they do know - they know for a fact that all things spiritual are bunk, lies, mere ideations, feelings, beliefs, sensations, or things with qualities.
You beat me too it in a much more eloquent way.
Some people need to get off their high horses.
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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May 27, 2010 - 03:53pm PT
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This is tossed out there as though scientific literacy, or quantified datum, is the end all per true knowledge and wisdom.
It may or may not be the end all of true knowledge. On the other hand, spirituality has nothing at all to do with knowledge. It is only related to feelings, mythology, belief. If anything spiritual could be measured, proven, predicted, it would no longer be spiritual. So science may actually be the end all per knowledge and wisdom but spirituality can never be that. If there is a God and things of a mystical nature, they can only fill in the blank where science leaves off, or vice-versa.
True enlightenment can be achieved through science but not through religion. To think otherwise would be to disregard all known scientific data and treat it as illusion. If all that we already know is illusion then so the discussion is also an illusion and is therefore futile.
Dave
[edit to add] they know for a fact that all things spiritual are bunk, lies, mere ideations, feelings, beliefs, sensations, or things with qualities.
No true scientist would ever say that there is no life after death, God, etc..., because it is impossible to prove that something does not exist. I might say that the evidence makes me thing the probability is low but no amount of evidence can lower the probability.
On the other hand, to say that magic, which is when things happen that cannot happen, is bunk seems fair. After all, if something happens then it cannot happen and is no longer magic.
Magic is bunk. God is unlikely. The sun is in fact warm on my face. I don't think it is arrogant or self-centered to say these things.
To say that I am wrong about God because your parents told you I was wrong or because you hear voices in your head is arrogant and self-centered. Telling me you know what God will do with me when I die is arrogant. Telling me that any of you religulous nuts knows anything about the true nature of God is the most arrogant thing I can imagine in the entire world. It's almost obscene.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 04:07pm PT
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"...pretty telling degree of narcissism and a marked lack of humility..."
And maybe some would have a different perspective if they had a life time of experience in the sciences, had some science span, valued science education, valued trying to live up to it, and were appreciative over decades of all the things scientific wisdom has given us, from contact lenses to ipads.
In the modern attitude, it is b.s. that decision making cannot be made, that stances cannot be taken and that these stances and decisions cannot be expressed in regard to new practices in living (as an alternative to old) without calls of narcissism or inhumility.
EDIT
Obviously... many of you are supernaturalists. I am not. One day soon there will be a practice of living (with its own language) that marks and celebrates this quantum difference in reason and belief and practice. And you and I will be free to go our separate ways.
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brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
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May 27, 2010 - 04:10pm PT
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HFCS Wrote:
And maybe some would have a different perspective if they had a life time of experience in the sciences, had some science span, valued science education, and were appreciative over decades of all the things scientific wisdom has given us, from contact lenses to ipads.
In the modern attitude, it is b.s. that decision making cannot be made, that stances cannot be taken and that these stances and decisions cannot be expressed without calls of narcissism or inhumility.
Stop Whining.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 04:16pm PT
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Bbock- I paid attn to your exchanges on your thread with Ed Hartouni and others. I really haven't anything to say to you, any more than to Klimmer or Go-B. Keep to your Jehovah-based theistic evolution, at least you're not a young earth creationist, and happy trails.
Oh, and feel free to take the last word.
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brotherbbock
Trad climber
Alta Loma, CA
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May 27, 2010 - 04:18pm PT
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You got it! I'm outtttttttttttaaaaaaaaaaa here!!!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 04:32pm PT
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Rector wrote-
"I am fortunate enough to be a fairly open minded atheist. I think that there are no gods of any sort. I can't be sure. I also think that if I am wrong, so are all of the idiots who speak of hell and suggest that they know what God would do with me."
-damn straight!
Really, to even think it in this 21st century day and age, it is religulous! -that an Intelligence behind the Cosmos- behind the Whole Shebang- would require belief in Him as a main criterion for a post-death judgment. Religulous.
EDIT We've all heard of (a) stuffed animals, (b) children holding on to stuffed animals for comfort. There should be a name for "stuffed God concepts." When those new fields relating to belief and the practice of living develop, perhaps they will have a name for this.
To the religious supernaturalists: Reframe it: It is not a sign of hubris but maturity when many declare they have reached a point in their education or development or decision making where they no longer need "stuffed gods" to hold onto.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2010 - 04:54pm PT
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Rector said-
"No true scientist would ever say that there is no life after death..."
Sorry, Rector. This line actually has religious influence (or supernaturalist belief) all over it. The sciences (and scientists) have plainly shown that life is a function of biochemistry, DNA, cellular metabolism and on up- to tissues, brains and individuals. This overwhelmingly indicates that there is no ghost or "ghostly" spirit in the body machine. (As archaic religious institutions maintain and teach.) Perhaps the more science span one has across many sciences, just as Carl Sagan had, the more this is clear, compelling. Those 100 trillion cells of the ani-material body are doing something: ani-material functionality. That is what makes insects go. That is what makes cheetahs go. That is what makes humans go. That is what makes all evolved biotic organisms on the planet go. Otherwise, it's a kind of animal apartheid.
EDIT
And in regard to spirit, spirituality. It depends on how one defines them. I'm not about to let the religulous supernaturalists keep these beautiful words, to surrender to them these beautiful words. You can simply distinguish between carnate spirit (carnate meaning of the flesh) and ghostly spirit.
The carnate spirit dies with the body. Yeah, and life is STILL worth living.
EOE wrote-
"our soul is a construct of a bunch of neural synapses..."
Thanks for not saying "just" a construct... Such a bad habit it is- started and maintained at every turn by supernaturalists. We're constructs of neural synapses plus a lot more...
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