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WBraun
climber
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So even in the laymans dictionary the references point.
absolute
1. Perfect in quality or nature; complete.
2. Not mixed; pure. See Synonyms at pure.
1. Not limited by restrictions or exceptions; unconditional: absolute trust.
2. Unqualified in extent or degree; total: absolute silence. See Usage Note at infinite.
3. Unconstrained by constitutional or other provisions: an absolute ruler.
4. Not to be doubted or questioned; positive: absolute proof.
truth
1. Conformity to fact or actuality.
2. A statement proven to be or accepted as true.
3. Sincerity; integrity.
4. Fidelity to an original or standard.
5.
1. Reality; actuality.
2. often Truth That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.
You will say the fundamental Christians are behind this too?
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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one person's reality or truth may differ from another's as their experiece in life differs. if you want to distill it down to a single absolute truth, it very definately cannot be the fundamentalist christian version of 'truth', at least not without dismissing, disrespecting, and excluding more souls than you are going to include.
are you willing to do that?
(yes, i know judy is)
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WBraun
climber
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Ultimate truth has to be the same for everyone, their relationships will differ.
Matt you should discontinue calling Jody judy, it will hamper your evolutionary knowledge.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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This thread is like life. All over the place.
Like life, smoke and mirrors everywhere and nobody knows what is true.
Life is slippery enough and then God is really up for grabs.
I posted this recently on another forum but it seems right for here too.
+++
It could be that what you believe, in the end, isn't nearly important as the quality of your heart. All religions are probably wrong to some degree, and even if there was a completely "right" religion, we wouldn't understand it truly anyway.
The question isn't so much "Is there a God?" anyway. Even according to physics, the world is all composed of the same energy. One thing comprises us all. You could call that God, if you can't stomach an old man in the sky. The question is the nature of that Reality. It is what it is, regardless of what we think about it. No matter how you slice it, the world is not as we see it.
and whatever we believe, we don't believe it very often. Most of the time we are living, eating, sleeping and otherwise separated from our concepts and ideas. It's who we are in our hearts that we carry around with us constantly.
My experience is that God is a supreme concious intelligence and that our essential nature, our soul, is also conciousness. Thus we are created in the image of God.
No faith is required for this. Quiet your mind utterly and be deep inside yourself and you will see for yourself. Thus, if you seek (honestly and without prejudging the results) you will find. Beyond your changing mind, beliefs and concepts, you are a pure awareness that is inherently loving peaceful and fulfilled.
I've seen the light in folks from all religions, all countries, and those without religion as well. Dogma doesn't save anyone. God doesn't know what religion you are. God sees directly to the heart.
Peace
karl
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Lg
Trad climber
NorCaL
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See kids...see how Jody can turn a negative into a positive? Where do you live btw, out on the bayou? It looked like it in the first pic.
Patanjali (from Yoga, not religion) lists 13 'distractions and obstacles' which hinder, two may be relative, maybe not.
Samsaya: doubt or indecision. The unwise, the faithless and the doubter destroy themselves. How can they enjoy this world or the next or have any happiness? The seeker should have faith in himself and his master. He should have faith that God is ever by his side and that no evil can touch him. As faith springs up in the heart it dries out lust, ill-will, mental sloth, spiritual pride and doubt, and the heart free from these hindrances become serene and untroubled.
Pramada: indifference or insensibility. A person suffering from pramada is full of self-importance, lacks any humility and believes that he alone is wise. No doubt he knows what is right or wrong, but he persists in his indifference to the right and chooses what is pleasant. To gratify his selfish passions and dreams of personal glory, he will deliberately and without scruple sacrifice everyone who stands in his way. Such a person is blind to God's glory and deaf to His words.
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Lg
Trad climber
NorCaL
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Man Karl, we were on some weird mind link or something. I forgot to include something in my last post, but you touched on it anyway. From Iyengar:
As a breeze ruffles the surface of a lake and distorts the images reflected therein, so also the chitta vrtti (fluctuations of the mind) disturb the peace of the mind. The still waters of a lake reflect the beauty around it. When the mind is still, the beauty of the Self is seen reflected in it. The yogi stills his mind by constant study and by freeing himself from desires. The eight stages of Yoga teach him the way.
Iyengar also mentions that in his experiences, for an ordinary man or woman in any community throughout the world, the way to achieve a quiet mind is to work with determination on two of the eight stages, asanas (poses) and pranayama (controlled breathing).
Of course there are variations to this: sitting near a stream, or the ocean, or in the woods or how 'bout on a ledge in the middle of a mountain? Close your eyes softly, can you see the white light?
Once, I had just run back down to the base of Charlotte Dome after topping out with a bud. I was so elated and alive. I stood at the edge of a drop off, overlooking the valley below and beyond. Then after a few minutes of intense concentration, I was able to see my Self spin from my physical body out into the void. Hovering high above the canyon, I was able to see myself standing in tadasana (mountain pose) near the edge of the drop off.
The sun was beaming and the wind blowing, but while in that state I didn't feel any heat or wind on my skin. It's kind of scary....has only happened a couple times. As my guru did say, "....and then you will see your Self watching you." I didn't understand it for a long time...
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Well, since the conversation has apparently moved on from Terri I'll jump back in here.
So Werner or Karl, how do you respond when confronted with Jody's 100% absolute, for sure reality in which you obviously are going burn in hell? For that matter Jody, how do respond when confronted with Werner's (and Karl's I quess) 100% absolute, for sure reality that you are probably going to go through a whole bunch of lifes/hells on a cosmic gerbil wheel? How do resolve these two absolutes? What makes one any more correct or even likely than the other? Or might both simply be a comforting [human] means of emotionally dealing with life's hardships and fears.
Fundamentalism? To be blunt, I see [inflexible and dogmatic] religious beliefs as highly fundamentalist in definition and practice when they are: anthropomorphic, misogynous, exclusive (if not racist), narrow, intolerant, rote, simplistic, dismissive, arrogant, abdicative, and largely devoid of any real personal responsibility. And I find it particularly disingenuous when Christians conveniently disassociate themselves from all the embarrassing major debacles and failings of their collected whole. Get the right book in front of such people and they're capable of doing most anything (to each other and to those that don't share their beliefs)...
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Most religions try to make the case that they are best. Some take a step beyond that and say that they are the ony true religion. That attitude has justified a lot of wars and killing (since the enemy is going to, or will be saved from, hell) If there were one true religions, it's followers would be head and shoulders above the rest in love, wisdom and compassion, and everybody with an open mind can see no such path exists. Every path has idiots and saints.
Part of the exclusivity of religion is salesmanship amplified over generations and part of it is our desire to be "right" and "special" gone overboard. Missionaries and the theology of Paul (who never met Jesus) have boiled too much of Christianity down to a simple formula of "Accept our guy, then you're in the club and no worries." That doesn't mean that Christianity doesn't bless people and transform their lives.
But I understand how folks buy the party line and mostly accept it. I try inject a more realistic perspective without attacking the faith of those with traditional dogma. It's better to have faith that's somewhat misplaced (and that includes me) than no faith (which is also untrue)
So like I said above. It's your heart that matters, not the concepts that you cling to. We're all bound to miss the point in this world where the truth is obscured so thoroughly. Maybe that's part of the point of this world. Just like climbers sacrifice comfort to embrace a desperate suffering adventure, souls come to this dark world to have an experience without their native spiritual insight.
So I've made a deep study of Christianity, benefited greatly from the teachings of Jesus and have decided that those teachings aren't incompatible with my own experience.
God is beyond our human experience so we project an image analogous to our understanding. Most folks see God as kind of a fair but very strict boss or parent but with a big stick. I'm sure God will forgive his followers for thinking that he behaves worse than any crazy dictator or mass murderer in the world's history. The more I see, the more perfect and beautiful it is.
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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This is the fear, a bonafide fear.
The rise of Christian Fundamentalism. As in the days of D.L. Moody, modern Christian Fundamentalists sincerely believe that the U.S. has turned its back on God, that this once one nation under God has lost it way. The way to reclaim our lost Christian heritage, they say, is to return to the fundamentals of the faith. In order achieve their objectives, Christian fundamentalist leaders are actively working to curb the rights of gay and lesbian peoples, other religionists, and all things New Age (they seem to consider the ancient religions of the East to belong in this category!).
That above is not true fundementalism.
THE DRUNKARD
There was a story of a man who was drinking. In India drinking was considered a great sin, so his friend advised him, "Because you are drinking, you will go to hell!" He replied, "Oh, my father also drinks." So his friend said, "Then your father will also go to hell!" And he replied, "Oh, my brother also drinks." - "Then he will also go to hell!" In this way he continued to say my father, my brother, my sister, my this, my that. And his friend was replying, "Yes, they will also go to hell!" Then the man said, "Oh, then this hell is like heaven! Because if we are all drinking here, and we can all drink there, what is the hell? - That is heaven!"
MORAL: This is the mentality of the atheist who has no idea of the kingdom of God. His idea of pleasure is simply a relief from suffering.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Nice post, LG.
And Jody, you've certainly got "God's eye" with that camera. You'd be a rich man from those photos if you knew how to promote same. Awesome.
JL
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Chatsworth
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2005 - 12:55pm PT
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Our Father, Who art in Ventura!
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Ca
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No John, he captured an image of a big ball of heated gas as it becomes visible as our big ball of heated metals rotated to expose it. We may have decided that this looks good to our eye but god is no more visible here than in the dead, starved, child covered in flies. And whether their is a god depends not on some stupid dirivative book written thousands of years ago, discounting which book that happens to be, and which culture spawned it.
And Jody, do all the beings on all the other planets in the universe also go to heaven because they haven't been exposed to the word of YOUR god? God I hate arrogance!
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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ShortTimer wrote:
"No John, he captured an image of a big ball of heated gas as it becomes visible as our big ball of heated metals rotated to expose it. We may have decided that this looks good to our eye but god is no more visible here than in the dead, starved, child covered in flies. And whether their is a god depends not on some stupid dirivative book written thousands of years ago, discounting which book that happens to be, and which culture spawned it.
And Jody, do all the beings on all the other planets in the universe also go to heaven because they haven't been exposed to the word of YOUR god? God I hate arrogance!"
Shorty--
My sense of it is you need one of four things: A road trip, some "strange," some whisky straight from the bottle, a little sweetness sprinkled into that Ring 'o Fire your camping in.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Well, I don’t believe there are any routes in the valley. Those guide books, are all bullsh#t, there’s no such thing as rock climbing. It was fabricated in the mind of some mad man who wrote them.
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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Chatsworth
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 7, 2005 - 02:59pm PT
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Buhhda, is the path! Walk it this life, or waste your life with a cross.
When are you guys going to figure it out, climbing is your problem.
It can never bring you peace, you use it only as a distraction to ease the pain that is life.
Buhhda will bring you peace.
You will not have to climb to be happy anymore.
I am really trying to help you people.
Soon I will post the four noble truths, then you will understand.
Relax.
Juan
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WBraun
climber
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So Juan (The man who cried wolf).
Which is the real you?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Don't know about that guidebook analogy Werner. What if Roper wrote a guidebook for the valley in Hebrew 2500 years ago? Lots would be applicable and lots wouldn't.
I mean, guidebooks are infallable right?
"Find ye the sticky sandals and 3 cubits to the summit trust not the wyde crack:
Thread is getting long. Why not start new ones on the various topics?
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Just kind of a joking crude analogy Karl....that's why the smiley is there.
Yea Juan, kill it.
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