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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:50pm PT
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Gezzz, Dr. F, why would one want to lash out at you in anger? We all be discussing something that is way bigger than us all.
Denominations, religions....all how men put into a cubby or slot something bigger than they can figure out.
God is Way real
God is Pure Love, mixed with mercy, grace, peace, joy and purity and forgiveness.
God so desires for each created being to Know Him.
He gave us everything we need to have a friendship with Him.
Before one discounts God it would be wise to make sure he does not exist. Cause God says, "Come close to me and I Will come close to you." Better try it first before you say ...No God. :) Doncha think ?
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:52pm PT
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Dr. F,
You have done a lot of work on this subject. Obviously you care about this stuff.I do too.
I'd like to challenge you on a couple points.
1. Based on your other posts, you seem to have an image of what God should be like. You said,
"God would have made himself known,
God would have told us the earth is round, germs cause
disease."
"God appears to do nothing when he could of done something.
"God would have made us without disease, death, suffering. He would of designed the human body to live forever."
I know these seem like good attributes, but the problem is, you, Paul , have created them based on what you feel is good and "God like." You are trying to invent what you believe to be the best thing for mankind based on your personal feelings and logic. I think you have an ingrained feeling of what you think is "fair."
I would say the real beauty is arriving at a place where you learn, via science, or faith, or personal journey, or proof, or evidence, or other route, that we(mankind) are not the sole reason for the existence of the universe. We may look at things like suffering and disease and war and say they show evidence of an unjust creator or no creator at all, but that is simply from our shallow viwepoint.
Let me know what you think of this illustration.
You are a kid at the beach. You spend hours making a killer sandcastle. A big one too. Super cool, little driftwood gate, seaweed decorations, pebble people, the whole deal.
Peole walk by, admiring your work, especially the dirty band-aid drawbridge. They marvel at the beauty and detail. Then the urge strikes you to hop up and kick it all down. Totally fun....it was your creation anyway. The joy was in the creation. And it was your baby from beginning to end.
Ah, but some people walk by just as you smash it down and, agast, say...."What a little beast!" You ruined it. It was perfect. It was beautiful!"
My point is that they are wrong in thier thinking based on their views and their limited knowledge of the big picture.
I belive, as Christ and the Bible teach, that God is truly sovreign. It is all His. From beginning to end. We don't make the rules nor can we. There is beauty in that. And for the Truth and Joy and Peace I have found because of this I am grateful.
Any thoughts?
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:53pm PT
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In everything, we find there is a creator. Anything you take. Take for example a table. There is a creator. Somebody has manufactured it. Or a microphone, somebody has created it. Anything you take, you have to find out some creator.
That there is a creator is a postulate. [If you do not believe it, try proving it!]
Just like the postulate that there is only one line parallel to a point not on that line. It seemed to work really well until 1905.
Everywhere we found swans, they were white. From this we know that all swans are white.
Oops. Australia has black swan's, unknown to Europeans for centuries.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 21, 2009 - 11:36pm PT
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"In the Religious class system the higher ups .....the priests, the popes, the buddahs have a better grasp of it."
Mayhap in a religious system, but god is not religion or religious..... alot of it is stuff people make up. They know as much or as little as any other person. Jesus was actually not to crazy about quite a few of the "religious" leaders. God is the leader, people are people not better at all than each other.
Jesus says several times not to honor the rich and give them the best seat, and then snub the poor. "Seek god while he may be found". "Seek and ye Shall find...." :D
jess' trying to fill in some blanks that have been real and life changing for this gal. Joyfully, Lynne
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:02am PT
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micronut -- "Any thoughts?"
Nice analogy.
Dr F where have you gone? You're not hiding now?
This thread sure is goofy ..... hahaha
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 22, 2009 - 02:47am PT
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Funny how we expect to "prove" the divine and assume we can judge it based on our assumptions but what it "must" be like.
I'm sure the awareness of dolphins or infant children are much closer to that of Adult humans than Adult Humans might be to the creator of the vast universe and yet think of how the Babies and Dophins have so little chance to understand us or our motives.
So it seems to me, the narrow limitations of humans, and whatever foolishness may exist on the part of religion, has very little reflection on the likelihood of the existence of a Higher Power.
Peace
Karl
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jbar
Ice climber
Russia with love.
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Jan 22, 2009 - 03:50am PT
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So it's science then? Science is THE reality? I'd like to challenge the statement that we do not live by faith. Faith is what got us Pres. Obama. Faith is what you have in your climbing partner, your husband/wife. The sick have faith in modern medicine and their doctor. I look around me and wonder at how disconnected people have become from nature. We have become so "scientific" we think we can control the world. That is until a katrina comes along. What will happen to puny mankind when the climate changes? Oh, I suppose we will use SCIENCE to fix it? We think we know so much about the natural world yet we live in huge cities so that we can control our environment while we destroy real nature. Is science not based on postulation? What is a proton made of? Have you ever seen one? How about a neutron? Why is an electron negatively charged? What keeps electrons in orbit? Are you sure? What is "dark matter"? Show me some. I'd like to see it. What is it made of. Where did man come from? Show me the fossil record. I need proof. What happened to the dinosaurs? Prove it. For that matter how was our planet created, our moon? Speculation.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 22, 2009 - 10:51am PT
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Interesting, I thought Obama said we would restore science to its rightful place in society. I believe he said that during his inauguration speech. I think it's a good idea.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:36pm PT
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In the Rg veda the atom was first described billions of years before Aristotle.
The German scientists studied the Rg veda to understand how to split the atom. From this Rg Veda the knowledge of the atom and how to split it was reviled and the atomic age thus ensued.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:49pm PT
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I have never had a problem with science. I have a problem with the notion that science is the only proof and if science hasn't proven it, then it doesn't exist. Which seems to be the mentality of some here.
According to these articles, aristotle actually disagreed with the theory of atoms. Two other greeks worked out the theory of atoms.
"Around 440 BC, Leucippus of Miletus originated the atom concept. He and his pupil, Democritus (c460-371 BC) of Abdera, refined and extended it in future years. There are five major points to their atomic idea. Almost all of the original writings of Leucippus and Democritus are lost. About the only sources we have for their atomistic ideas are found in quotations of other writers.'
"Aristotle (384-322 BC) quotes both of them extensively in arguing against their ideas"
It goes on to say that an Indian Philosopher put forth the theory of atoms around 600 BC. Somewhat before the Greeks.
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/AtomicStructure/Atom-Theory-in-India.html
http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/AtomicStructure/Greeks.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanada
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:51pm PT
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Thanks Werner, I knew that I had heard mention of things like atoms in the Veda's, but didn't know how to find that info.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:07pm PT
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Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:12pm PT
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Dr F -- "The only reason it is said that science can not prove the existence of god is because he is a moving target.'
You are now becoming extremely foolish. First you propound there is no GOD.
Now you claim or lets say perpetuate "God is a moving target".
To say this contradicts that God does not exist.
"God is a moving target" Says he exists.
And you are a scientist??????
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:37pm PT
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Maybe Dr F you should put me in your science laboratory and dissect me.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:38pm PT
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In the Vedas, the smallest unit of matter is pretty dang small (atom-small) it's called an "Anu"
Interestingly, the smallest division of time in the Vedas is the length of time it takes light to traverse the length of an Anu. Even though those ancient guys recognized Atomic particles, they were well aware that those particles had a vibratory nature that ultimately transcended the "hard particle" appearance.
Kinda wild that the speed of light should have been regarded as both constant and the ultimate speed possible thousands of years ago
Peace
Karl
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micronut
Trad climber
fresno, ca
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:46pm PT
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I'm still trying tho get Dr. F to respond to this post from a couple days back. I'm curious what he thinks of it.
Dr. F, or Paul Rhoeul if you're still around, care to comment on this?
You have done a lot of work on this subject. Obviously you care about this stuff. I would challenge you on a couple points.
1. Based on your other posts, you seem to have an image of what God should be like. You said,
"God would have made himself known,
God would have told us the earth is round, germs cause
disease."
"God appears to do nothing when he could of done something.
"God would have made us without disease, death, suffering. He would of designed the human body to live forever."
I know these seem like good attributes, but the problem is, you have created them based on what you feel is good and "God like." You are trying to invent what you believe to be the best thing for mankind based on your personal feelings and logic. I think you have an ingrained feeling of what you think is "fair."
I would say the real beauty is arriving at a place where you learn, via science, or faith, or personal journey, or proof, or evidence, or other route, that we(mankind) are not the sole reason for the existence of the universe. We may look at things like suffering and disease and war and say they show evidence of an unjust creator or no creator at all, but that is simply from our shallow viwepoint.
Let me know what you think of this illustration.
You are a kid at the beach. You spend hours making a killer sandcastle. A big one too. Super cool, little driftwood gate, seaweed decorations, pebble people, the whole deal.
Peole walk by, admiring your work, especially the dirty band-aid drawbridge. They marvel at the beauty and detail. Then the urge strikes you to hop up and kick it all down. Totally fun....it was your creation anyway. The joy was in the creation. And it was your baby from beginning to end.
Ah, but some people walk by just as you smash it down and, agast, say...."What a little beast!" You ruined it. It was perfect. It was beautiful!"
My point is that they are wrong in thier thinking based on their views and their limited knowledge of the big picture.
I belive, as Christ and the Bible teach, that God is truly sovreign. It is all His. From beginning to end. We don't make the rules nor can we. There is beauty in that. And for the Truth and Joy and Peace I have found because of this I am grateful.
Any thoughts?
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 02:48pm PT
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Dr F always poses as authority.
"You get away from our cozy little planet, and the universe is rough place. There is no love out there."
You haven't even been out there and now your saying such nonsense.
And you're a scientist???????
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 05:00pm PT
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"but to claim they ..."
There's no they ....
You're totally lost wes and Dr F, you have no clue what you're talking about anymore.
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Gene
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 05:03pm PT
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Continuous loop warning!
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Jan 22, 2009 - 05:23pm PT
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The whole God/science conversation is a circular argument that I have never seen bear much fruit (new understanding for all involved).
Science hinges on observable or at any rate, measurable stuff. At the quantum level there are a lot of counterintuitive and seemingly impossible things going on - but there ARE things going on that directly effect matter, which itself might be merely energy, waves, etc. It's also totally mind boggling to get your head around Special Relativity, and the speed of light (what IS light, anyhow?) being a constant while time and matter are mutable. But this all involves stuff, or the effect of strange energies on stuff.
God is intangible so far as I can tell - is the quintessential "unseen." That means God is not a thing, or stuff in the way that our discursive minds are fashioned to understand. We cannot measure God so God cannot be considered "real" in the sense that we normally consider stuff which we can sense, measure, and "know." Hence, all efforts to scientifically "prove" God's existence will always come up short. To many, God is a kind of spiritual placebo. However, if you go on and say God is an idea, you have gone too far, for an idea is a thing, and as mentioned, God is "no thing." This is not rhetorical.
This all confounds the rational mind, which demands something to grab onto, and rejects as unreal anything that the mind cannot get hold of in the normal ways.
An interesting though inexact analogy is gravity, which has a profound effect on matter.
Interesting topic.
JL
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