Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 12:46am PT
|
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:37am PT
|
Dr. F,
I think you are just being baited into a typical religious response... they are not going to exam the basis of their thinking on this matter, they know they are right, they even have god on their side, and nothing you can argue will change their minds.
They believe.
Nothing you or I or anyone could say to make them question their faith, they have conviction.
Now next to a scientist, who is uncertain, and admits to limitations in their knowledge, their models, their theories, the admitted imperfection of our understanding.... well gee, it wouldn't seem like such a great deal to give up your faith for some rickety science.
In the stupid 2x2 analysis of deciding on believing or not, there is only one rewarded outcome and it's not for those who don't believe...
the two states "believe" "don't believe" vs. "god exists" "god doesn't exist"
If you "believe" and "god exists" then you've spent effort and you are rewarded.
If you "believe" and "god doesn't exist" you've spent effort but obtain no reward or punishment.
If you "don't believe" and "god exists" you haven't wasted your effort but you are punished.
If you "don't believe" and "god doesn't exist" you haven't wasted your effort and obtain no punishment or reward.
In that analysis the only way to get the reward is to believe, and hope god exists... at worst god doesn't exist and you don't get anything... but if you don't believe and the dude wants to know why, well, he's gonna put the hurt on you...
Most americans will go with the potential reward, especially if there isn't a big outlay for it...
this type of analysis is almost always flawed, but illustrative none the less...
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:44am PT
|
Ed said: "I think you are just being baited into a typical religious response... they are not going to exam the basis of their thinking on this matter."
Yes, this just ends up in a circle jerk, a waste of intelligence and time. But Ed did point out the sticking point: "thinking." What if you could detach your awareeness from thinking for one day? What do you suppose you might experience?
JL
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:48am PT
|
I think I did that more than a few times in my past... with a little chemical help...
it's not what you're saying, but the experience was more being than thinking
|
|
Klimmer
Mountain climber
San Diego
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 02:03am PT
|
I've already stated my belief. Theistic Evolution. Science has to move toward God, and those who believe in God have to move toward science. The complete truth is revealed together, not seperate. God doesn't put empirical evidence all around us to fake us out and lie.
Many great scientists were also men and woman of faith. We stand on the shoulders of giants and many of them believed in God and had faith.
Men of Science, Men of God
Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible
by Henry Morris
http://www.amazon.com/Men-Science-God-Scientists-Believed/dp/0890510806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256277215&sr=8-1
Good book. It isn't a book on Creationism it is a book with short biographies of many of the fathers of science who believed. Are any of you going to trash their contributions to science and at the same time trash their faith? They are who they are: Men of Science, and Men of God.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 02:18am PT
|
Pascal said the heart has reasons that the mind does not know.
And he deeply believed in the existence of God.
Atheists must now regroup and bring their guys to light ......
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 02:55am PT
|
Bertrand Russel
atheist
http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a better place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 03:01am PT
|
Ed said: "it's not what you're saying, but the experience was more being than thinking"
What do you believe I am saying, Ed?
JL
|
|
Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 08:44am PT
|
Let not your heart envy sinners,
but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.
Surely there is a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.
(It's always sunny in ST)
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 09:15am PT
|
Klimmer-
I just spent a couple of hours browsing through Amazon and came across many books seeking to reconcile Christian belief with science. My favorite title among these was a book by Michael Dowd titled: Thank God for Evolution: How the Marriage of Science and Religion Will Transform Your Life and Our World.
Others include:
Creation or Evolution: Do We Have to Choose? by Denis Alexander
Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution by Karl Giberson
Beyond that, there are loads of books seeking to integrate quantam mechanics and issues of faith and there is a whole new field seeking to explain religious experiences called neurobiology.
Clearly mainstream Christianity is seeking to come to terms with science. The discussion on this thread however, has mainly represented the opposite ends of the spectrum on this debate, and very little opinion from the middle.
Meanwhile in one of the quotes of Bertrand Russell that I remember, he stated that although he was an atheist and could not believe in God, he was puzzled by the high quality of so many of the people who did.!
|
|
Rankin
climber
North Carolina
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 10:30am PT
|
I agree the discussion here is polarized, but where is the middle ground? Science and faith don't meld because they are opposites. Some people base knowledge on tangible experience and others....well, they don't. Sure, the religious minded have learned to not put their hand on the stove when its hot (could be wrong about that), but they still insist on having answers for things that are unknown and are probably unknowable. The books Jan points out illustrate the difficulty of basing knowledge on speculation rather than science. The religious must continue to rationalize their mistaken dogma with more speculation or deny the science, as many do now. I know where I stand, with my eyes open. The truth is, it takes more strength to admit what you don't know than believe in a guess...
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 11:05am PT
|
I think what you are saying, JL, is that the way we perceive reality is through an elaborate mental model that patches together a very utilitarian view of reality.
We can learn to "turn off" that model and experience reality not interpreted by that model, but just as it is.
If we do that, we find that that reality is vastly different than the one we think we experience everyday.
|
|
Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 11:18am PT
|
Exactly Ed !
And that reality is what the mystics at least refer to as the spiritual realm. Religion and dogma belong to the elaborate constructive quality of the brain. Beingness, awareness, pure consciousness, universal consciousness, emptiness, nothingness, the Cosmic Buddha, the Great I Am, the godhead behind God, whatever you want to call it, belongs to what is left when the verbal structure is removed. While non verbal, it is nonetheless hyper aware and intelligent.
|
|
Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 11:36am PT
|
I like and understand what you Ed and also Jan just said. It's fun to let your brain roam in those directions and hopefully I can add to the discussion when I can claim a few quiet moments.
But this is my simple reality, the one I live each day. I wake up, like I just did and say, "Hi jesus !" He says, "Good morning, lynnie." Then depending on what's happening ..... I ask, "what up today, Dude.?" And our diagogue begins. That's it. In general terms it can be described as Ed and Jan did, but in specific reality it's a simple relationship.....jesus and me. :D
|
|
TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 12:50pm PT
|
Dr.F- "What intervention? Prove it!"
My presents on this earth for the last 52 years is all the proof I have.
As pathetic a life as I have lived, for I have let many people down and I have been a hypocrite, failed in many ways in my estimation. It is all I have to offer you Doc.!
My testimony is my life. If you choose to not believe it, I can fully
understand. For that is the exact reason I kept it to myself for so many years! Who was going to believe a little boy at 8yrs. old?
Let me try and give you a little better understanding of the time the place and the situation.
We had a very difficult life, struggling to make ends meet. My father was a carpenter.
Let me tell you a little bit about my father. He was born in Sept. 1903. In Porthood, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It hasn't changed much in 100 yrs. except then it was an island unto itself.
Very isolated, had to take a ferry to get to Nova Scotia. Now they have a causeway. Rugged, to say the least. But also very beautiful.
I spent much of my early youth there, kindergarten. When we moved to New York at the begging of first grade, they, tested me on the 3 R's , reading ,writing, and arithmetic and wanted to advance me to the second grade. They felt I was at that level at least. That my friend was a testimony to the quality of education in Cape Breton at that time.
You see... I'm just trying to say, kid's stayed in school just long enough to become literate. Even when I was there, a male was needed to help with the subsistence farming and fishing that was the primary means of life. Schooling was taken very seriously! And teachers where highly respected.
Well, back to my father, he was the oldest out of 12 children and as you can imagine, with that many mouths to feed he was direly needed at home which was often the case (my mother was from Belle Cote' a french town a little north of Port Hood, and she only went as far as the 4th grade for much the same reasons.)
So my father was called to farm the field's at the age of eight. Up well before dawn and worked until dusk. So, the day before his fourteenth birthday, when his father handed him an envelope with a one-way ticket to Toronto, Canada 1,000 miles away, and simply said your a man now and turned and walked away.
Well... it devastated him. It's the only time he spoke of his to me in his life, and he cursed his name.
When he told me that story at 85 yrs. old, with tears in his eyes (I never saw my father cry until then), I realised why he was having such a hard time relating to his Heavenly Father. He was brought up a Catholic, but thought little of the church. But he began every day on his knees and ended them there as well.
Well, he took the train from Nova Scotia to Toronto,. He told me it dropped him off in the middle of that huge metropolis, and he walked all day and into the night until he got to a farm, the only kind of work he new how to do, where he worked until winter.
He then decided to cross the border into New York (undocumented), made his way to NYC a place called Hells Kitchen, year 1917, and at the wise old age of 14, began his apprenticeship as a carpenter.
My earliest memories of my father were of him on the roof of the last house he built for us in Seattle, he built four homes that we lived in there.
The last one finished @1953. He put up his car for collateral on a lot, split the lot in two, sold the other half paid off the lone. And worked all day on his regular carpenter job, and evenings and weekends for the next 8 yrs. to complete the four homes of ours.
Moved back to Cape Breton in 1955, for reasons unknown. I remember that long journey at 5yrs old. from Seattle, it was the first of many.
Eighteen different houses/apts. and many different places spread out from Cape Breton, to New York, to Cali, to Utah, to Cali, and for my mother and father, back to Cape Breton him 78 yrs old.
Where they bought an old run down farmhouse for $8,000.00. Where cow's and other critter's had taken up residence(my mother said she was devastated when she first saw the place). And rebuilt the entire place all by himself, at the age of 78.
He told me that his only real desire in life was to provide a home for my mother, bought and paid for. He was a man's man as people like to say, and he was the father that I came love and respect.
I asked my mother once, "how do you remember your life in one sentence"? She thought about it for only a few brief seconds and said "Pack and unpack, pack and unpack"!
I remember when we packed and left Cali, to move to Utah when I was thirteen, everything we owned, tied to the top of our car.
My best friend comes over to say good-buy, takes one look at the car, and begins to sing "there once was a family of a man named Jed", the beverly hillbillies theme song, it was apropo.
So when I got home that afternoon at eight years old, I made the decision at the wise old age of eight years old, that my mother and father had enough to deal with.
I decieded not to pull them into such a scenario, it was better to leave things be as best as I could and weather this storm, not alone mind you, and so I did. Faith? Mine grew stronger over those next thirty day's.
So when I walked into that room and the door closed behind me, to face that man, I knew I was not alone, I had my Lord and my Savior standing beside me, I was fully aware of that!!
So I never told anybody, because, who would believe or understand? Then when I was around thirty years old, I started sharing my story with believer and non believers alike.
To me it was a good story. I never thought about it any other way.
Until a few years ago, after telling it to a Christian lady, for whom I have very high regard, said as a response to the story "well, it isn't all that bad".
Isn't all that bad I thought?? As far as I was concerned it was all good!!
Granted there were some issues to deal with. But I was covered in the power of the Blood of Jesus, from very near the beginning of that story!
And it is that Power, of which I am not ashamed, that's what I am telling you about here today.
That Power, does not love you one iota less than I, Dr.F, not one iota. In fact His love is so deep for you that He grieves for you. Much like a mother for a child that is lost.
So what more can I say Doc.??
Unbelief is all around!
Even in the church. Or they believe and just don't like the content of my story. Makes them uncomfortable I guess, or maybe they don't see it the way I do.
It's a story about the power in the name of Jesus, you call it what you like!! I can fully understand.
That's the reason I kept it to my self for so long, who is going to believe an 8 y.o. boy's story.
And so here we are 52 years later, things hav'nt changed much have they? Disbelief in every direction.
Sincerely, -7-
|
|
TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:08pm PT
|
navblk- "I'd be careful with that, it's not what the scriptures"
I am not sure what you are pertaining to? Careful with what? I logged off at about 9:30pm last night, and just logged back on now!!
So please kindly refresh my memory!!
Thanks!!
|
|
TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:15pm PT
|
Dr.F-
At the point when I called out "JESUS PLEASE HELP ME"!!!
An I was filled with a PEACE that transcends anything that mere words,or drugs, or chemicals, or chanting could describe.
F!! Did you read the story??
|
|
TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
|
|
|
Oct 23, 2009 - 01:51pm PT
|
Dr.F!
Like I explained to jstan previously!
The middle aged guy being interviewed by journalist who was describing how he and his two sisters were having investigated for the murders of numerous young boy's, was a serial killer (he specifically states that they were all about 8) was the boy in my story!
See: "Investigating Father" Court TV 2005 Nancy Grace: producer.
I never forgot that man's face(the father) or his wife's face!
Contacted the D.A.'s office here in San Diego, they got in touch with the office that was investigating the case, back to me so and so forth. The investigator on my end here in San Diego was the head of the dept. at the time (70 investigators under him) Said they believed he was the man etc.
things take time.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!