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WBraun
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 05:19pm PT
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"... the theists cannot prove God."
I keep saying it, that is not true. God is proven.
Just because no one here knows the bonafide method. Take the bonafide method and you will prove that God exists.
All you guys keep talking about is religion, faith and belief.
You have no clue of the bonafide process except to keep speculating "well it might be this or that or ???? or whatever.
Useless .....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 16, 2009 - 05:27pm PT
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Bull sh#t. There is no "bonafide" method of proof.
The existence of natural evil mediates against the existence of a personal, loving god. Small pox, cancer, rabies, famine, tidal waves, earthquakes, death from old age are all examples of natural evil. None of these are the inventions of humanity.
The very fact that life and the continuation of life are predicated on the consumption of one sentient being by another mediates against the existence of a personal, loving deity.
To say we are like children and aren’t capable of understanding the reality of god is only a solipsistic justification for what is -- the horror that is our existence. To say the world is only a veiled illusion that we can’t understand is nothing but sophomoric, irresponsible arrogance trying to justify foolish belief.
There is no certainty regarding god because god chooses to be a mystery and in doing so he introduces and indicates the possibility of his own nonexistence.
And here’s some real arrogance for you: if there is a god he’s doing a real shi##y job.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 05:44pm PT
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Now that I think about it I suspect 10 years ago I would have agreed pretty much with Pip's post. One's beliefs are one's own business and are no one else's. It was one of our freedoms.
Then during the last eight years, for all that one could see, it seemed we were moving back toward a union of church and state. A union that abrogates that freedom. A freedom that was one of the foundations for our nation.
It used to work fairly well.
Now I am no longer so sure.
We would do well to re-dedicate ourselves to the things our founding fathers understood so well.
A theoretical aside. 'A quarter's falling to the ground is a different kind of fact than is the existence of a deity.' Not entirely sure.
Suppose everyone were so frugal that there was no recorded incident where a quarter had been allowed to fall. And so frugal that even the concept of dropping a quarter had never been entertained.
Now the two are the same. There is no data and no one has proposed a way to test either.
I am sure there are differences, but I think what we see here may be partly just a difference in circumstances.
Edit:
Still thinking.
Perhaps our problem is that we conceive of "a proof" as being a single step process. So we have always been looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing.
Where does "faith" exist? It exists as synaptic responses in the brain. All right, suppose we take a large group of people in all the major religions, carefully prepare them similarly and then produce a quantified three dimensional image of their brain activity. As a control the same group of people would have to undergo at least one similar test not associated with the subject treated here.
Do you suppose we would learn something if all the different religions, to a high degree of confidence, showed the same brain function? Or were different in a few distinct ways?
And then we could begin to test and see which stimuli were effective in producing this response and under what conditions.
None of the great bodies of knowledge were gained in a simple single step process. A "proof" if you will. Even General Relativity had clear precursors. Perhaps we have only to accept that this subject is no different.
This proposal is unusual I admit. Mind you, if there are cries of protest against this proposal, it would appear we already have a leg up on finding the answer. Possibly the most important test has been thus defined.
Very much enjoy your input Pip. You are both creative and knowledgeable. I would particularly like to hear your reaction to this last "wild" idea. Ideas gain value only through the testing of them.
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 05:58pm PT
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re: (moi)
> "the theists cannot prove God,"
(fwiw, that same sentance continued)
> "nor can the aethiests prove not-God. if either could,
> we'd all be quick of the same faith -- or better put
> -- not faith but of the same knowledge."
Werner,
> All you guys keep talking about is religion, faith
> and belief.
[...]
> Useless .....
sure. i don't doubt anyone's faith (or 'proof') -- with anyone, ever. for that goes hard against what little i can comprehend.
as i wrote
> this is not to demean any sincere form of faith. many
> of those most dear to me are theists for whom their
> beliefs are as real and powerful and immediate to them
> as their next breath, as oxygen. and many of them are
> wickedly smart, profoundly experienced, and very wise
> souls. they certainly remind me where i fit in the food
> chain.
i stand behind that.
and as you surely rate among the "many of them for whom... (et al)" next time i am in your zipcode, perhaps you will spare me a few momemts and help me better understand your vision. that would be truly a gift. truly.
in the meantime, perhaps my chipmunk vision (as i prattled above) will help you better understand, and in that perhaps almost endure, the many chipmunks around you.
all good things, great one
^,,^
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 06:29pm PT
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roehl this is for you ..... hahaha
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 06:40pm PT
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Werner,
can you define your 'bonifide' method for those of us (well, ok, just me) with IQ's of less than 80? something in perhaps a couple paragraphs of simple text?
and ideally, not your jumping out of a plane 5,500" up without a chute koan. for yes, i am certain in that case i would pray and hard to every entity i have ever heard tell of, and still have time to dream up a few more before i cratered.
have any less lethal insights? i am genuinely interested.
^,,^
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WBraun
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 06:45pm PT
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Study the lion, (Nrsimhadeva), in the pic above and you'll see.
Study the guy laying on his lap getting hosed, (Hiranyakasipu), and you'll see.
Study the guy on the left holding the garland of flowers (Prahlada Maharaja), and you'll see.
It might take you a few lifetimes, or a few days.
It's up to you .....
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dirtbag
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 16, 2009 - 06:50pm PT
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Nice painting.
This is a nice painting too.
Paintings aren't proof.
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jstan
climber
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Mar 16, 2009 - 06:56pm PT
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In our discussion of the Neanderthal I suggested that sub-specie's sustenance of the crippled child indicated already some 600,000 years ago our specie had inherited the need to feel protected in some way against events they saw around them. I asked whether that or perhaps the conscious realization that danger had to be avoided already existed in the fishes coming more than 200,000,000 years earlier. It is not unlikely we need to allow for the possibility the development of our present state and function evolved in such a manner over these time frames.
That such might be the case is supported by comparing Werner's image coming from when(?) 1000AD to those circulating today.
Why is Cosmic never around when you need him?
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 06:58pm PT
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Werner,
> Study the guy on the left holding the garland of flowers
> (Prahlada Maharaja), and you'll see.
> It might take you a few lifetimes, or a few days.
thank you. i'll try that. hard.
> It's up to you .....
that's the part that worries me. i yam to date wired to be a "figure it out" guy -- and i am certain that this is not the realm of "figuring it out" -- you just get it, or you don't. Blake would get it. Bahnsato would get it. me....?
ah, but something to think hard about. and i thank you for that.
^,,^
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Mar 16, 2009 - 09:14pm PT
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I just want to express my appreciation for jstan's voice of reason in this thread. Contrast his thoughtful, respectful posts with this from Werner.
All you guys keep talking about is religion, faith and belief.
You have no clue of the bonafide process except to keep speculating "well it might be this or that or ???? or whatever.
Useless .....
I'm sorry Werner,. I want to like you. But this is a thread-downer kind of statement. These are smart people you are talking to.
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 09:25pm PT
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jstan,
> In our discussion of the Neanderthal I suggested that
> sub-specie's sustenance of the crippled child indicated
> already some 600,000 years ago our specie had inherited
> the need to feel protected in some way against events
> they saw around them. I asked whether that or perhaps the
> conscious realization that danger had to be avoided already
> existed in the fishes
i remember that, and have thought about it much – though often in a glossy glassy conference room as yet another suit told me yet another story of the history of tampons (true, but another story. i suspect we Y chromosome types will never actually comprehend the fine points of tampons).
one thing i have learned in my years among the suits is to lean forward with my palm under my chin and two fingers over my lips. the suits forever fall for this as evidence that i am actually enthralled, or perhaps even listening.
this gives me all kinds of time to think about the things i'd actually like to think about. things like your Neanderthal caregivers.
~~~
at present, my best read is this: perhaps for the Neanderthals who carried that forever child, it was perhaps simply an act of simple and immediate compassion. at the absolute center of all of the world's great religions, and pretty much all of the little known religions i know anything of, that is that one core belief: compassion.
the Buddha (and certainly the Bodhisattvas), Mohammed, and even Jesus (especially in Luke -- Paul be damned) all said precisely the same thing: that compassion alone might set us free.
Tyndale translated 'agape' as "brotherly love." modern aramaic greek scholars translate it simply and always as "compassion.”
~~~
i kinda suspect that we are drawn to compassion. the great ones surely urge us to it. it, alone, might allow us to escape out of the prison of our own small heads and all it's own small thoughts. a very lonely place.
i kinda suspect that that is what we all seek to 'transcend'.
~~~
i am forever drawn to Bahnsato's lines:
"Love is the target,
Compassion the arrow,
Empathy the bow."
even if you miss the target, perhaps just trying to pull on the bow might set you free -- even if the arrow always ends up in the trees.
~~~
i kinda suspect that Tenzin Gyatso is not a theist -- at least not in the major western religions' sense of the word. but i suspect he is forever pulling on that bow. thwap.
way way out in the deep hinterlands, his followers -- those with his faded smoke-yellowed photo forever above their hearths -- are more theists, at least as we in the west understand it. but, to my small mind, way out there is at least as much Bon as Buddhist. for there is all manner of work to do, forever, out there -- and starvation and avi's are always close at hand. so kinda makes perfect sense, out _there_.
for out _there_ i (the atheist) also tend to carry a couple prayer flags from the heart sutras in my pack as i trundle up whatever piddly unnamed peak i am using simply as an excuse simply just to be there _there_. i'll tell you this -- it is one huge, beautiful, and chaotic neck of the woods.
~~~
i was once on a train roaring through the Punjab, in a first class car – something I almost never do (cash equals miles, cash equals days where you can actually be where you want to be.) but i got to the station late, and it was so brutal hot that i wanted (needed) A/C.
I sat across from this small elderly man in a perfect dark oxbridge linen suit; with a red silk tie and not a bead of sweat. (impossible) We smiled at one another for a few hours as we read whatever we were reading. and then we (ok, i) struck up a conversation. turns out he is a professor of theology at the University of Delhi (no small shakes).
So, well, after the standard "where are you from/why are you here? (excellent/excellent), I eventually I asked him to help me understand Hinduism. Here is what I comprehended (surely just a tiny fraction):
Q: So, um, how many Hindu deities are there, exactly?
A: How many people are there?
Q: What should I be reading, as everything I’ve read so far of the gods seems like absolute chaos?
A: Then you are reading the right things.
Q: Do Hindus find meaning in the chaos of all those Gods?
A: Hindus forever find themselves in the chaos of all the Gods.
~~~
at about at this point we had tea (chiyaa hoina dudh, for me, thank you) and soon changed the subject. thereafter, he suggested chess. he then promptly, yet politely, hammered the sh!t out of me. and every time i was surely doomed (surprisingly quick – as i had played quite a bit before), he’d turn the board around. then he’d re-hammer me. each time with that charming head-roll as the polite among forever do as they say in Yoda speak “oh my, i am believing that i have gotten -- how do you say? -- lucky…” i am quite confident he knew precisely how to say "lucky".
a truly outstanding soul. looked vaguely like Gandhi (albeit in a dark gray linen suit) – but then all small skinny men of a certain age in india kinda look like Gandhi.
being very skinny (if not all that short), i intend to retire in india. where i will look like a tall pastey Ghandi. good by me.
~~~
wish that fellow was just here just now as i try to figure out Werner’s most recent koan.
i am, at present, focusing mostly on the “the guy on the left holding the garland of flowers (Prahlada Maharaja).” but i suspect wikipedia won't cover me here.
yet i am still betting on, well, focusing on, that compassion/empathy thread. pull that thread and the whole tapestry unwinds. well, either that or you end up with one hell of a knot. pull on anything Hindu and you always end up with a knot. i am coming to suspect they intended it that way.
well, “Hope alone makes the heart beat.” (Wm. Blake)
^,,^
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Mar 16, 2009 - 09:29pm PT
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Hey Rokjox, you still living out at the Spahn movie ranch?
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Mar 16, 2009 - 10:16pm PT
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Pip: "the Buddha (and certainly the Bodhisattvas), Mohammed, and even Jesus (especially in Luke -- Paul be damned) all said precisely the same thing: that compassion alone might set us free."
But why do so many really seem to need transcendental trappings to ennoble something that is already noble enough simply being what it is? Compassion derives from self-consciousness and the internal mirroring of the thoughts and feelings of others, regardless of whatever elaborate fantasies various pre-scientific cultures might have posited about omnipotent parent-figures and imaginary superfriends. But whatever gets you through the night, y'know, it's alright I guess, as long as it doesn't turn into a rationale for persecution, which is sadly the norm with most codified faith, eventually.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Mar 16, 2009 - 10:49pm PT
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jstan, "all major religions" .......one thing I have tried to make clear in all my posts over the past year is that "grouping" is not realistic. I am not a "Major Religion". I am lynne and merely a jesus follower....and one that loves him and tries her best to follow and act upon his teachings.
Jesus had an historic and real life on this planet. What do you do with what he said and did ?
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 11:11pm PT
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cintune,
OK, so a small child is lost and frightened and face-plants at the base of an escalator at the local shopping mall.
so you do you what?
[1] say "Darwin is gonna have her for breakfast."
[or]
[2] walk up, pick her up, and tell her it will all be OK and we'll find Mommy soon.
simple scenario. pick one.
~~~
> Compassion derives from self-consciousness and the internal
> mirroring of the thoughts and feelings of others
or, maybe, compassion is that one small moment of escape from "self-consciousness"
~~~
though, in fairness, i did recently pick up this tiny lost and suddenly wounded child in a shopping mall. ('fookin Xmas, 'fookin sweetheart who talked me into the flourescent lights -- never again.)
and in a heartbeatt the rent-a-cops arrived and suddenly i was a creepy middle aged guy carrying a 3 year old. first time i realized i actually was a creepy middle-aged guy. took 45 minutes and 3 actual police dudes with actual guns to un-wind that one. it didn't go easy. not even Mom said 'thanks' though once my sweetheart arrived -- every thing was deemed "OK". breasts suck on a long run, but apparently work just great in shopping malls.
~~~
so maybe you're right. maybe compassion has no place in Modern Amerika.
^,,^
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 16, 2009 - 11:53pm PT
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Rokjox,
> Touch some kid and you may get busted for a sex crime.
> As a result, I don't want nothing to do with anybody
> else's kids any more.
lighten up, dude. breath into the paper bag. one... two... three -- ommm... mahni... padne... ommmm...
a child is crying. so what do you think -- 'a child is crying' or 'lawsuit'? quick, pick one.
~~~
i'd do the same again in a heartbeat. sure, the $6.25/hr rent a cops were a PITA. and even the real cops were, well, not inspiring. but i knew. and the child knew. her name was Emma.
though, granted, it is far easier with breasts and nipples that actually work. bottom line is: don't be a dope -- avoid shopping malls at all costs. (every 3 or 5 years or so i loose track of that. now i'm good until, ummm, at least 2012).
have you considered benzodiazepines -- in moderation. perhaps one of the slow onset, slow cook ones, like klonopin?
^,,^
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Mar 17, 2009 - 08:48am PT
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Pip I think this is where the qigong art of non-rivalry might have come in handy.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Mar 17, 2009 - 09:06am PT
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I really like your approach, Lynn.
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