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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 12:04am PT
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Wait, Paul, I have one more thing to say if yo' still out there....and I do appreciate your imput.
All our ST debates need to be just that, "debated". So ignore finger pointing and discourse that does not apply to the topic of discussion. No animosity should be present in a debate.
This is what made it happen for me. I had heard about God all my life. It wasn't happenin' for me. He was not there. No one could prove Him to me.
I finally met Him as a Friend...or maybe a paramedic. When I needed help I looked and listened to those around me and what they offered. Someone finally offered the Bible, God's manual...His words to how to live life and meet Him and become His Child. I really really looked and listened. Then I said I'll believe but yo gotta keep up your end too, Dude in the Sky....and all that you promise in your Word. He said He would, and I believed him. 30Plus years later...and it is good.
LRL
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 12:26am PT
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TGT writes
"John begins with " in the beginning was the Logos"
The KJV reads as "the Word" but it more properly but incompletely translates from the original as "the Reason"
The word Logos, with its roots in Greek Philosophy, has had a spectrum of meanings throughout it's use. Hard to pin down. From the inward intention underlying the speech act, to something like reason, to divine wisdom.
They didn't have very scientific analogies to use in their cosmologies in the year 100.
So the world could be created from God's intention (like a dream) or from Vibrating energy (which could be dream stuff as well)
It's worth noting that in much of Indian Philosophy, the universe originates from the primordial vibration of the "sound" Om.
Remarkable to me that many of these ancient traditions should consider the world so much more ephemerally (and vibrationally) than it would appear to the senses.
Peace
Karl
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 01:13am PT
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Interesting thought line Karl. This doesn't even take into account the possibility/probability that God moves in and exists in multiple dimentions. The thought of the multidimensionality of God is hard to wrap your brain around. We lowly little humanfolk love to think in our shallow little three maybe four dimensions.
Things like suffering of the poor, the beginning and end of the universe....the afterlife, all take on new meanings when we realize that many, many if not nearly infinite dimensions exist outside of our human experience.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 02:21am PT
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Hi Micronut
I don't see any reason why many dimensions couldn't all lie within the consciousness of a supreme being.
Angels would seem to exist in another dimension. What's the difference between an Angel and an Alien?
More food for thought. God or no God, just the physical dimension of this universe is so vast that it takes billions of years to traverse at the speed of light. The likelihood that our particular form, density, and manifestation of life is only a small cross-section of staggering possibilities. We're living in carbon-based meat suits, but who is to say the essence of life couldn't exist embodied in a myriad of other ways.
No matter how you look at it, the more you look at it, we are surrounded by mystery upon mystery. We are comforted thinking that we know so much, but that has been a common conceit for decades. What would we know after 50,000 years more of technology and evolution. Look how much is changed in just the last 3,000.
What of civilizations that have been doing this for a million years? The ones that have destroyed themselves must be a different league.
Peace
Karl
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SammyLee2
Trad climber
Memphis, TN
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Jan 17, 2009 - 09:51am PT
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I have read all 204 posts on this. Gee Whiz, and finally compelled to say something.
The fact is, I don't KNOW if God exists or not. Something created this universe (and me) but is that some devine being that loves me? Kinda not feeling the love right now. Maybe it was something else, a not-god, that did the creating.
Karl, really, a true Baba as Skipt says, and I have hit the rock for several days in the valley. One day he said, "You are not your mind". I still puzzle over this, though I am now convienced that he is at least 1% correct.
My best friend, as a child, was a Jehovha's Wittness. I was raised as a Methodist. I was invited to many JW events that no non-beliver normally would have been. I have seen with my own eye, the selection of the 144,000.
Later, as an adult, when the JW's came to my house, I would invite them in and talk. If I have the time, I still do. As a rule, I do not believe in a God that cares. Yet I still respect those that do. They may be right and I may be wrong.
I do not expect anyone to accept what I believe nor do I expect anyone to change my beliefs. Thank God (or whatever) for that freedom. It is worthy of disscussion.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 12:45pm PT
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Well it's a worthy question Sammy.
What would it mean for God to Care? Is there a divine being that feels all the pain in the world and suffers from that? Would that be caring?
Or does the Supreme see everything in it's perfection (that's still invisible to most of us) and whose Love is on such an unfathomable dimension that it's beyond our conception and expectation, stuck as we are in meat suits in a very heavy world.
It's harder for us to Judge God than it would be for a 2 year old to judge the actions of it's parents. Why does Daddy leave every day? Why can't I do what I want?
The Sun shines down on this world and provides the whole energy for life. If you get to know about Sunlight, you can use it to grow food, stay warm, and many other things. If you don't understand sunlight, you can get burned. Does the Sun care?
I'm not making a strict analogy here. Whatever created this universe has unfathomable intelligence.
It could be that, like Jesus said, as we judge others we are judged. Our own consciousness, in the image of God, has the power to punish us or reward us through our own inner process. That's why I try to be compassionate and understanding. Good for others, good for me, and life is happy and tends to go well (even when it would seem otherwise to an outside observer)
Culture, politics and time distort the practice of every religion and obscure our dim image of unimaginable God. You can bet Christianity doesn't resemble what Jesus and the disciples were up to, at least in terms of outside practices. That's why the truth is within, and change is of the Heart.
Peace
Karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 17, 2009 - 05:16pm PT
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Food for thought and discussion
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rockermike
Mountain climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 18, 2009 - 01:40am PT
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GIGO
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DanaB
climber
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Jan 18, 2009 - 07:55am PT
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How does prayer cure cancer?
Why doesn't it do so consistently and reliably?
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jan 18, 2009 - 08:03am PT
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I think the argument would be that it transcends, Cancer.
"Vibrational" hence the Vibes...
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DanaB
climber
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Jan 18, 2009 - 08:21am PT
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I don't understand.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 01:19pm PT
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Dr. F wrote
"Then I became a skeptic, realized that life is just the same without god, nothing changed as I foresake the hypocrisy of all religions. "
I'd agree with half your post. I do believe God doesn't need us to believe in God, that the quality of our heart can be fine with or without God. (but that if we embrace a lot of Love in our hearts, the inkling of God's presence becomes almost too strong to ignore)
It's just that regardless of your assessment of human needs based on some theoretical image of "God", that God exists and you can't think God away by ignoring it, anymore than you can think the atoms in your body away, or the air in the environment.
So thinking or not thinking of God doesn't prove much about God, except perhaps to show that he's not some uptight hater in the sky with his panties in a bunch ready to punish those who don't stroke his ego.
Our existence is a mystery. Best to alway keep an openness to explore the possibilities of truth and fulfillment outside, and inside, the boxes of Religion, Mysticism, Science, and the rest.
"But of course its all in your head, which is OK" How do we know this? I find that when I change myself, that everything in life changes around me, and that when people in my life change themselves, that everything changes around them.
Of course people respond when we drop the "it's all about me" routine and shine some love, but what I'm talking about is more butterfly effect and would challenge the boundary of most definitions of mind, much less "head"
peace
Karl
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 01:27pm PT
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Weschrist's attempt to explain Christian beliefs is interestingly thought out, but I think flawed and without much actual substance.
First off, Wes, I'd be interested to know if you came up with this through your own study and thought or if it came from another source. Not that it matters. Just curious.
A few questions....
1. Premise 1. Considered by who?
2. And based on Webster's definition of delusional (a: something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b: a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary ; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs) I think you would have a difficult time persuading any educated person to believe that faith in a true and omnipotent God is either provably False or Psychotic from a medical or other definition.
3. If you cant prove Christians are False or Psychotic, the Delusional label can't be used in your argument.
4. Since your argument is based on the concept of Delusion....the rest isn't really worth discussing.
I don't mind sharing my beliefs here, and I really enjoy discussing this stuff in any forum....I'd be interested what you think of these two pretty basic questions.
1. Where do you think you will go when you die?
2. Why do you think you are here on this Earth?
Not that any of us can prove these things, I'm just interested in how to keep this dialogue going and think this is a pretty important place to start.
Here's a couple nice wintry photos to liven up all this text....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 19, 2009 - 01:31pm PT
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"We sacrifice the intellect to God."
-- Ignatius Loyola
"Reason is the Devil's harlot, who can do nought but slander and harm whatever God says."
-- Martin Luther
"Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor."
-- Sigmund Freud
"The various forms of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as equally useful."
-- Edward Gibbon
"To such heights of evil are men driven by religion."
-- Lucretius
"Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him. But all the woman-children that hath not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourself. "
-- YHWH (Numbers)
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 01:36pm PT
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All Religion and Spirituality has a certain element that could be dangerous, but is somewhat unavoidable:
The Spiritual world is more subtle than the physical world that can be measured by science at this time. Thus, it's outside of physical verification.
To simply cross the denial created by our physical experience of the world (which is also demonstrably an illusion as science describes reality) we have to work on subjective levels and use faith and suspension of disbelief to even consider that things might be different than they seem.
Any big willingness to see the world differently without empirical proof runs the risk of brainwashing/suggestiveness/manipulation, and you're bound to get some bathwater with your baby.
Nobody said it was easy, but ask yourself, how many happy and fulfilled people do you know in life? (and we're all friends with a bunch of fun hogs)
I look around and don't see many really peaceful and fulfilled people outside of the ones I know who have made a point of Spirituality (not dogmatic fundamentalism)
From this, it seems to me that whether there is an afterlife or not, you better take care of your mental and emotional state if you want to be happy. If you do, you might just run into a higher truth without having made that the main point.
PEace
Karl
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 01:44pm PT
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Weschrist, what did you think of my attempt at rebuttal to your Delusion Proof? Any thoughts?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 19, 2009 - 02:01pm PT
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"(As to religion)...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."
-- Bertrand Russell
"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence."
-- Bertrand Russell
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 02:25pm PT
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Paul, those quotes you keep posting aren't much of a case against the Christianity you seem to be pretty against. Are these types of things what keep you from believing in God? They kind of seem like complaints more than aguments in a case against Faith.
You ever heard of a guy named Lee Strobel? Or a book called Evidence that Demands a Verdict? Good read for athiests and Christians and anybody in between. He was a PhD who set out to discredit the Bible and its beliefs with sound scientific/logic premise. Spent ten years digging into the validity of the Christian Faith.
He was looking to shed light on C.S. Lewis's postulate that Jesus was either,
1. A Liar
2. A Lunatic
3. Lord (God Himself)
Jesus had(s) to be one of those three things based on what He claimed. Which one do you think he was?
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 02:34pm PT
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DR,
Which "Science" and "Churches" are you talking about.
Do you have a scientific study or two you'd be able to quote or post a link to?
All Churches? Or just the ones used in the study?
Those are pretty big statements. Some validity would be helpful to your stance here.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 19, 2009 - 02:34pm PT
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"You can't think the atoms in your body away or the air in the environment BECAUSE THE HAVE A DISTINCT EXISTENCE HERE IN THE REAL WORLD THAT HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN."
You can't think atoms or air away because they exist on their own. Atoms have been "proven" very recently in human history and even air has been a mystery until the past couple hundred years.
All the horrible things people say about the abuses of religion have some truth in them.
The same could be said for science, which has given us the tools to foul our environment on a mass scale, and the weapons that could well obliterate our life on this planet before any "judgment day" gets a chance.
The real problem is the twisted illusion humans have assumed as their very identity, our egoic distortion, whether it's a religious person or atheist. Corrupts the application of science and religion and politics, regardless of the system.
PEace
Karl
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