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Fingerlocks
Trad climber
where the climbin's good
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2005 - 06:53pm PT
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Going back to evolution, here is a quote I found on the BBC website in an article about Bush:
“In Kansas, the board of education has been re-evaluating the way evolution is taught - a sign that more conservative politicians and officials want to reflect the theory of intelligent design.
Many scientists insist, though, it is just that - a theory.”
No, that is not what scientists insist. Instead, they would say that “intelligent design” is not even a theory. Scientists mean very particular things by the word “theory”. They don’t just mean “notion”. Usually the BBC is not this sloppy.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Ouch,
About trivializing, God is omnipresent and omnipotent; he can (if he willed) clean up all our problems all at once. There’s no such thing as wasting time for someone with his abilities. It’s not like he couldn’t help someone else because he was too busy helping my wife with smoking.
Well I can’t fully answer why God does or doesn’t work on the big problems like we want him to. I don’t know if I have the best answer for you, but I’ll tell you what helps me with that dilemma. He’s the boss not me. And we all have our own challenges to deal with, no one is immune. I believe in God very strongly and I just watch my step father die a very painful and pitiful death. I didn’t feel like he did my family any favors with that… and I did pray, a lot.
Sometimes it’s a matter of obedience; God will reward it with a blessing. But if you simply wish for something good to happen and not do what he’s telling you to do that’s a problem. How is he going to train your ears, and even more importantly your character if he never withholds a blessing? He’s not a magic lamp. There are examples upon examples in the bible where he flat out delivers someone from a problem simply because they chose to believe in him, and they don’t even get their feet dirty in their own problem. There are even more examples where he lets people face a monumental problem and he infuses them with courage and strength to go through it, and the implication is if they fail to trust him game over, which happened sometimes. Read about King Saul. Other times he lets them get hung, cut in half, tortured or stoned to death. All the while they were trusting in him and considered champions of faith. How does that make sense? There are many lessons and I could go on for days but I think the basic one is that no matter how bad we may have it, we should be thankful for the good and no matter how good we have it, we’re still a stupid little human with big problems and without God we’re in a world of hurt. So God won’t miraculously deliver us from everything, but he will once in a while if it will make us more apt to do the right thing.
One of the moist important themes of the bible is that we are all supposed to be like family. The Israelites were to treat the alien among them as one of their own, as a fellow Hebrew. It was the law. And that is how we are supposed to be. We’re not doing that, therefore we suffer our own engineered consequences. One key to all this is repentance. The definition of repentance is twofold. Recognize that you have done something wrong to someone else (often we think of only God with that word but that is not complete it applies to everyone including yourself), then go back to the point where you did wrong and willfully make an effort to change. It’s good to ask him to help you and that is where you can receive the courage strength or whatever gift you need to pull it off. Sometimes, or maybe even most of the time, one can still fail in changing. But then there’s the notion of perseverance, another key of character development. Forgiveness is another key too. We are supposed to walk in forgiveness, just in case our brother messes up we can help him better with that attitude. Hey, this stuff is not easy because we are all wrapped up in out own selfish little worlds. But this is what God has called us, all of us, to do.
Look, more than he wants to save us he wants to change us. It’s about how can we help him, not how he can help us. He’s a good guy, if you truly desire to help him, then he will run quickly to help you, he will move those mountains for you or with you.
All that said if you really want a good answer, ask him yourself.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Hey Largo, infinity can be quantified. hold you fingers two inches apart. Now count how many points in space there are between them. Still two inches and still infinate. That is if you assume infinte smallness exists.
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Fingerlocks
Trad climber
where the climbin's good
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 9, 2005 - 06:59pm PT
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Degaine, well other than chickens and eggs being much too large to do this, yeah, that's about it.
It is maybe not a good idea, but people are kicking around some weird ones. So far, this kind of stuff figures more at cocktail parties than physics meetings.
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Ouch!
climber
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Wonder how it would shake things up if it turned out Jesus was gay. He did only hang out with guys and it was common for even the great warriors to have boy friends when on long campaigns.
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WBraun
climber
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No Ouch! never ever gay
One of the stringent bona fide qualities of a bona fide liberated soul is they are free from sex desire and lust. They are not like you and me in consciousness.
And Christ was 100% bona fide.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Hey Jay--
That example was one an old philosohpy teacher of mine bustd out in class one time, but he used the example of an arrow moving towards a target.
At any point in the arrow's trajectory one could keep adding another number or zero to the fraction "quantifying" the space between the arrow and the target. And since you can always add another number, it follows that the space between the arrow and the target is infinate and that the arrow never reaches the target. But verily, the arrow DOES reach the target so the math does not in fact quantify the space at all(the "infinate equation falacy").
I've heard some really fancy explanations for this whopper, and yet the arrow does strike the target.
JL
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WBraun
climber
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Yes, very good, the "arrow" does strike the target when it is aimed "true".
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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okay Largo, how about calculate the area under the curve y = 1/(x^2) an above y = 0 from x = 1 to infinity. That is an infinite curve yet it has a finite area. Just another example.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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you know what ouch, funny thing is that we all (believers), including men, are called the bride of Christ. Shake it up... he's way ahead of you.
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WBraun
climber
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Gross military science is dependent on material weapons, but finer than that is the art of throwing arrows saturated with Vedic hymns, which act more effectively than gross material weapons like machine guns or atomic bombs. The control is by Vedic mantras, or the transcendental science of sound. It is said in the Ramayana that Maharaja Dasaratha, the father of Lord Sri Rama, used to control arrows by sound only. He could pierce his target with his arrow by hearing the sound only, without seeing the object. So this is a finer military science than that of the gross material military weapons..."
And I know we are not talking about weapons .... but....
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malabarista
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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The reason I can't subscribe to any Western idea of god is that god is conceived of as a personal God. Look at the world, it is brutal. The only God that fits is an impersonal one, the moving power of creation. Any personal deity I'd have to think was a jerk. As an impersonal force for instance, we all respect the power of Nature. If "Nature" was a personal God, we'd be pissed at "Nature" when our friends were killed in a storm.
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WBraun
climber
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"we'd be pissed when our friends were killed in a storm."
Yes due to the illusionary energy that has overpowered your consciousness. Thus we are under the illusion that we can be greater than this controller.
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Ouch!
climber
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If God can't control nature, he ain't omnipotent.
Where does nature begin and God step aside?
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WBraun
climber
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He controls it perfectly ..... but not how you "think".
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Ouch!
climber
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Right Lois. Religion, like single issue voters, trivialize the thing until it's essence is buried in an avalanche of meaningless icons and slogans.
To those in a position to exert influence, religion and politics are about the same thing. Power and Control.
Their power grows exponentially with the dumbing down of the masses with the invention of TV.
Check out this jerk and his bullshit politics/religion
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-falwell-statement,0,3767187.story?
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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Sorry forgot to address this Ouch, I overlooked it at first,
“Jay, if I get your drift, when you read something that strikes your fancy, is the writer speaking directly to you?”
Yes and no. For me the revealing was clearly different from the normal mode of communication (or communion). There are similarities that I use to recognize him though, make sure I’m not hearing myself or something or someone else. If I were to draw a line where they are clearly different, revealed is communication of new understanding (i.e. revelation). Communion would be review which brings more wisdom than understanding, which is lacking IMO and yet another reason why he doesn’t just zap up into immediate perfection.
“For this to be the case, would not the writer have to have you in mind when he wrote it?”
Yes, he has you as an individual in mind. The unique thing about the bible (so far as I know and supported by the scriptures) is that the words are living. They judge you as you read them, in a sense they read you back. You can take that judgment and apply it or you can rebel against it. That is your decision. Can God talk to you outside the bible? Absolutely! He speaks through people, situations, books, media, all kinds of mediums. But he likes to use the bible because it’s very easy for you to get a copy and read in just about any language. Did you know it’s been translated into over 20,000 different languages!
To share something practical… Mohamed Ali once said in a famous interview that he was a prophet and that he talked to the real God every day in prayer. So do many people. They talk to God all the time. I’m not impressed by that. The real spiritual man will listen much more that he will talk. I suppose I’ll shut up soon myself, but I just wanted to make sure your questions didn’t go unanswered. Good questions actaully. Challeging eachother makes us sharper, if we persue an answer that is.
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Sally OConnor
Social climber
Canada
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I have sat back for a few days, enjoying the read. Everyone has written such great things. I have to say that Jay's testimonial really had an impact on me cuz I had a very similar experience. Jay, I also like what you had to say about how sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad but what God is looking for is faith. Forgiveness and love are right up there too. I certainly don't claim to be the best person cuz i believe all this, but believing all this makes me try to be the best I can.
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Ouch!
climber
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Sally, I for one, never doubted for a second that you are a good person. A very nice person, even if you do speak in a foreign language.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Hey, Jay--
"Infinate smallness" was one of the "howlers" I remember stumbling across in logic classes (never was paying much attention, so my memory is poor now). Infinate is by definition measureless, and small is nothing but a "measurement relative to a dimensional perspective." For instance, from the physical dimensions of a human perspective, an ant is small and El Cap is large. From a planetary perspective, El Cap is a grain of rice and the Milky Way has some size on her.
You see, math and figures are meaningless unless they related to stuff or qualities of stuff. There is no math that deals with space minus stuff or the effects that said space has or has had or will have on stuff. You can generate all kinds of meaningless numbers about "space," such as there being an infinate distace between the arrow and the target since space is "infinately small," but such numbers don't keep the arrow from hitting the target.
So it would seem that stuff and space are totally interdependent in this dimension. Perhaps it's not the case in other dimensions, but here, it seems to be the case.
JL
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