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Shack
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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That's not really what I'm saying or implying.
The crux is whether or not God established all the "natural laws" and has set this all in motion (at some point),
or whether evolution can account for the beginnings of life.
What has happened since and how God may affect us today,
is once again, another can of worms.
Why would how long ago "creation" happened,
affect whether God is actively participating in life as we know it?
Not sure where your going with that, sorry.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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I don't know enough about the hard science of evolution, but I was under the impression that Darwinean theory was trying to account for, well, how hings evolve, not how trying to nail down a definitive starting point, along with the conditions by which present life arose.
By demanding that we somehow supply a starting point implies that there WAS a starting point. The Sufis would say the Big Bang has happened an infinate number of times, that it's the equiivalant of the universe breathing--an infinate cyucle of contracing and expanding.
What makes anyone think there was a beginning to anything?
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Ah Yes Yes John
Maha Vishnu
And we know the method of creation. There was water and in that water Maha Vishnu is lying there. From Maha Vishnu in His sleeping condition there are so many universes are created in His exhaling breathing process and when He inhales all the universes are annihilated. In this way this material creation is coming and going.
Bhutva bhutva paralyite.
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Sally OConnor
Social climber
Canada
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Why would how long ago "creation" happened,
affect whether God is actively participating in life as we know it?
Not sure where your going with that, sorry.
I agree, Shack. I don't think God created the universe and then said "well my work here is done" That's just my opinion though, not pushing it on anyone else.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Fingerlocks that is absolutely right, although you lump it into a huge mess with no accuracy. Those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. This is true for both victims and perpetrators. Now guess who said that? Middle age Christians knew very little history. Who in the world today doesn’t know theirs? Until that is changed expect more problems.
Anyway, Christians from both Europe and Middle East ruthlessly killed even their own kind for many years during and after the crusades; all in the name of the Lord, or so they proclaimed. But the rest of the world looked on in horror. When they first took Jerusalem from Islam they, among other atrocities, killed every Jew (man, woman and child) in the city who fled to a synagogue in terror after seeing what they did to their Muslim captives. They burned these Jewish people alive and they weren’t even really fighting! The men who did this, covered in the blood of their victims gave thanks and credit to the Lord for what they did. The bad part is it didn’t stop there. The doctrine born from this era culminated in even more brutal events right up to the 20th century that you and I both know must be categorized as the work of Satin not God.
However, even though Christians did these things, it was not biblical. None of it! And most certainly not the spilling of blood. Even more basic than the subject of belief being rooted in the spirit not the mind which I challenged Largo with in my last post is the subject of sacrifice. According to the New Testament scriptures no more bloodshed was ever needed. Yet the crusaders who owed money to their Jewish creditors who funded they reneged their deals and killed the Jews to atone for killing Christ. Absurd! If they didn’t kill them they charged other Jews ransom for their lives to pay off the ones they owed. Double absurd!
They were driven by doctrine alright but it was anything but biblical. So sure blame Christians for it. They deserve it, and it’s their responsibility to make up for it the best they can. But you can’t hold it against their God.
Hey while you’re up creating your own religion here’s a stat for you. There are over 30,000 registered religions just in the state of California. Or there were when I read up on it back in 1990. Probably more now in light if whatever it was you read a while back. There’s even a Church of Monday night Football. I casually thought about joining for a while. I’ll bet there are some climbing based religions too. Wasn’t John Salathe a devout Christian from a sect with actual mountaineering related traditions? Shoot I’ve been waiting to here about one as a vehicle to take back Cave Rock with. I might even donate money.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Largo, ah yes, now that you put it that way I understand you better. Maybe we're not so far off on this point. The revealed truth about creation to modern man is clearly not at full stature. Maybe it was to Moses but certainly not any creationist or scientist that I know of.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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My final thoughts on this. I’ve said all along that I felt much of the gusto driving people to believe as they do comes not from an investigation of the truth, but from emotional and existential needs. Furthermore, that our relationship to the Divine is often based on the basic human family model, with an all-knowing dad and a benevolent mom and us kids being extra special in their eyes and protected from all evil and so forth and so on.
And so how does all this fit into the “I had to be created by God at a certain time in history” discussion? Try this on for size . . .
Consider the example of the “illegitimate” child—not a serious issue anymore with so many single parents, but at one time the “bastard kid” was quite the issue. The thinking was that the child had not been planned for, was a mistake, was unwanted, and was “created” by accident. Many unplanned-for kids from past eras were basically shunned as "les than" and tossed on he scrap heap of humanity because of the aforementioned reasons. Of course this mindset has recently been largely junked because of basic distortions in the logic.
For starters, the parents only had sex, they did not “create” the child. Nature does that all on its own. Moreover, those that begat us don’t ultimately determine what our life is or the values we adopt or the stoke we derive from what is ours—our very life. Our life, and what we make of it, is largely our own affair, though many never fully realize this.
Now if we take the “illegitimate child” model and transpose it onto “God” and “creation,” we can again see at work the old, faulty thinking derived from the “bastard child” model and the misconception that our efforts toward developing values and stoke for our life count for nothing, and without God having created us at a certain time and place, we’re nothing but bastards, lost to the scrapheap of humanity.
You see where I’m going with this. People working of the old bastard child model require “God” to have intentionally created us, at a certain time and place (so our original “creation” resembles a typical human “birth”), out of nothing. If God didn’t do as much, this thinking goes, we were a “mistake,” or worse, a random “accident,” and therefore have no meaning since, according to the old bastard child model, values and stoke for life are not things inherent in life which we perpetuate for ourselves and WITH God, but are things entirely given us from our “parents.” Otherwise these things are not “real” or “authentic” or holy. This last thought is the one that many adopted folks have debunked entirely by making for themselves wonderful, meaningful lives, regardless of how they came into the world.
In the bastard child model, things divine are not inherent to human life—and there’s nothing in my experience that suggests there is any truth to that whatsoever.
JL
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Ouch!
climber
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Noah's Ark Located in Montana
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Sally OConnor
Social climber
Canada
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I saw that boat once, up here
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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It seems to me that the main problem here is simply that evolution opens the door (a 'gateway theory' if you will) to other questions about the origins of life, the universe and everything. The fundamental tenant of science as I understand it is 'We don't know.' So when evolution and the big bang theories begin to make the literalist Christian creation story more myth than history without offering a complete alternative creation story all on its own, people get a little edgy. That is ultimately the thing with science though, is that elements will always remain unknown and people who are comfortable with the scientific method are comfortable with that fact.
The vast majority of christians understand that the bible is not literal and contains a huge amount of metaphorical truth and lessons on morality. They know that god's role in this world is not necessarily one they can fully understand and that god can still be the great underlying force in the universe and also believe that the Earth was created more than 6,000 years ago. Only rigid fundamentalists or people who have not taken the time to really become educated on the prominent theories of the origins of life seem to be the ones who really have a problem with it.
When the now infamous Jody was arguing the creationist perspective one of his arguments was 'look at this diagram of the eyeball..look how complex and beautiful that is. That can't of just accidentally happened.' Life is intelligent. Every new creature and plant on tis planet accidentally happens in one way or another. That is why children of the same parents don't look the same. Twins can look completely different. Procreation is a big crap shoot with certain genetic tendencies born from each batch but the same fundamental blueprint.
Scientists are fully prepared for the Big Bang to be wrong. Fundamental creationists are not ready for Genesis to be anything but a literal, historical account. I personally think that says something about the merit of each argument right there.
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Sally OConnor
Social climber
Canada
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"Scientists are fully prepared for the Big Bang to be wrong. Fundamental creationists are not ready for Genesis to be anything but a literal, historical account. I personally think that says something about the merit of each argument right there."
Some creationists are not fundamental and don't see Genesis as a literal historical account of creation. I believe there is some merit to the notion that even if there was indeed a big bang, something other than chance made it happen.
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Ouch!
climber
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"I saw that boat once, up here"
That musta been when #46 and Bigfoot took a charter for a bunch of Swedes up on a lake by Winnepeg. They fed #46 some lutefisk and he got seasick.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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There is no concrete, peer-reviewed scientific proof god or any oter extra-terrestrial "intelligence" exists to do any designing. One would imagine an entity such as your christian god, at least as you folks posit him, would certainly be capable of delivering such proof; say, appear on all media simultaneouly in all languages for a brief status report. Or any number of other easily imaginable scenarios. But he doesn't, what a surprise! So, a big problem with "intelligent design" is it completely lacks a designing intelligence of any kind.
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WBraun
climber
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Healyji
Someone who is Superior than you even in this material world and you have a challenging attitude will not even acknowledge you, will not even respect any of your demands. Otherwise you would have to be superior!
Yes, you will never see the lord with your attitude.
As he states:
nāhaḿ prakāśaḥ sarvasya
yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ
mūḍho 'yaḿ nābhijānāti
loko mām ajam avyayam
"I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent. For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible."
The real constitutional position of the living entity is that of subordination to the Supreme Lord, who is pure knowledge. When one is deluded into separation from this pure knowledge, he becomes controlled by the illusory energy and cannot understand the Supreme Lord. The illusory energy is manifested in the duality of desire and hate. Due to desire and hate, the ignorant person wants to become one with the Supreme Lord and envies the lord.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Healyje,
So, you ask for proof. If you seek it you will find it. There’s no conclusive scientific or historical proof that I know of, however there does exist a lot of evidence. But I think the proof that convinces is neither of those types. The proof I’m talking about is usually personal and always, at least in part, transcends the rational realm. You are trying to fit something that is trans-rational into a rational field. That would be like trying to impose imaginary numbers in a purely real number statement. You’d have to drop the i and your statement may easily turn out incorrect. I gather that you haven’t seen the i, so you’re simply not aware of it. There’s no shame in that, and I in no way look down on you. Rather I respect you for being honest and unafraid to tell me what you think.
However I have seen proof. Other people have seen it too. I assure you it is more concrete than you think. I can’t give it to you though. No one can give it to you but God. He doesn’t decide for you mind you, but he gives proof to you as an intimate personal gift. It is up to you to accept it if you want. My guess is it has never been presented in a way you understand that’s all. Why? I don’t know. I’m not talking about an alter call or some evangelist telling you to accept Jesus of go to hell. I’m talking about an interaction between you and God (and not some other spirit); a simple one on one interaction. No coercion, no manipulation least it might be disingenuous.
I heard of Jesus experiences before I had some of my own and I thought they were pure fantasy, something subconscious and not necessarily God, or not the God they were pigeon holing it to be. And I in no direct desire on my own wanted it. I was doing just fine IMO. Who wants to be a freak? I was even raised and trained specifically to not want it. I know it doesn’t make sense to you because it didn’t make sense to me either. Now it does and I can only attribute that to God. This happened because I was willing to change if I actually found something that was worth changing for. I wasn’t really hoping that would happen per say I was just trying to find the truth. And while I was searching it ran me through like a flood. I am nothing special believe me, and I don’t know you other that you're fairly well edumakated but can’t imagine that you’re incapable of finding it too.
If you want to continue to rebuke the validity of the bible go ahead, but I suggest you read it further. But like I alluded to before if you read it for the sole purpose of rebuking it, well I imagine you’ll only become more successful at it. However if you read it like you would any other book written by someone knowledgeable I suggest you open your ears to it. If you find something valuable… treat it like the treasure it is.
Do what you want. I completely understand your position. I just happen to know better and I’m not for one second ashamed to tell you. Respectfully of course.
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WBraun
climber
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"There’s no conclusive scientific or historical proof that I know of, however there does exist a lot of evidence."
FALSE!
All the conclusive scientific or historical proof exists, one must take the dive. One must not row his boat out in the ocean and look at the sea and return and say I have not seen anything.
Happy diving .......
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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You mean I know of conclusive scientific and historical proof? Please tell me what it is.
One can surely go in the ocean and see nothing. There are vast oceanic deserts out there you know (sorry to disturb your analogy). I’m not saying there isn’t. I just don’t know of any that will be conclusive for a guy like Healyje. I did search for that kind of proof in books like Search for Messiah by Mark Eastman, Evidence Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and Jews and Jesus by Zola Levitt. In my opinion they contain none of the concrete proof. Interesting reading yes, strong evidence sure, proof no.
I studied Mathematics, took more than 20 classes in that discipline, and my criteria for proof is very strict. I was surprised to find it when I did, but indeed I did find it.
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WBraun
climber
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It's a different sort of looking and a different sort of proof. It is true that the Lord, the Absolute Truth is not like a material object that can be known by sense perception or experimental knowledge. But that does not mean God can not be known. However He doesn't reveal Himself to the athiests. So we have a slight problem.
If one is an athiest no matter how hard he looks he won't see God... But God is there nonetheless. He is eaisly seen by His devotees.
But even atheists can perceive the "self", the "consciousness" that might be a start.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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You are what you eat
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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I think there is a lot of convincing arguments for the Big Bang but none of those arguments go far in saying this was the first and only event of this nature. My sense of it is, as I've said before, that the most recent Big Bang was preceeded by an infinate number of other ones--in other words, we're looking at an everlasting CYCLE. The idea of a "beginning" and an "end" is totally untenable to my experience.
JL
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