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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Sep 13, 2010 - 02:42am PT
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As I've said many times, the single biggest problem arises when people try and approach the "God" subject as though it were another math equation, and when this tact bears no fruit, or the wrong fruit, they blame the subject and never once question that just maybe, quantitative efforts to bottle the divine are themselves the problem. Second problem is the illusion that the measurements of anything lay outside of their own minds. The idea that measurements exist outside of mind is itself not an example of the idea, but is simply more mind stuff. Astonishingly, this is lost on many who simply fire back with - that's right, more ideas (mind stuff), meticulously phrased.
Ain't it something . . .
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Sep 13, 2010 - 02:27pm PT
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17 is a unitless number. "God" is a indefinitive word.
Are we talking 17 miles or 17 gallons or 17 volts? It matters. Are we talking Poseidon (ancient Egypt) or Jehovah (ancient Hebrew) or Diacrates (hypothetical Intelligence behind everything that Einstein, e.g., speculated about as a possibility)? It matters.
jstan wrote-
"If I say it is a fact there is no god, I can be challenged successfully. It is not possible to prove a negative. This is the weakest position one can take, not the strongest."
Compare:
(a) There never was a Quetzalcoatl (feather serpent God of Central America), I CANNOT be challenged successfully regarding this claim. -Not on "reasonable" grounds.
(b) There never were Mesopotamian Gods (e.g., Ishtar, Jehovah, Marduk) any more than Mediterranean Gods (e.g., Apollo, Artemis), I CANNOT be challenged successfully regarding this claim. -Not on "reasonable" grounds.
(c) If I say it is a fact to 100.0% certainty there never was a Diacrates, I COULD be challenged successfully. But who is saying that? Nobody.
Nine times out of ten, talk of "God" on this thread has to do with Jehovah (God of Abraham) - the specific Guy in the Sky who ordered Aaron to tell Moses to have the people stone to death the Sabbath Breaker. (Num 15)
Granted, this is accounting of facts, experience, education, opinion, attitude, decision-making, judgement, reasoning, all the above. It's time we had a genre of belief or branch of belief - modern, innovative, reasonable, science informed, lifeguidance minded whose focus was better practices in the practice of living - one that preserved the best traditional belief systems and their institutions have to offer (e.g., comfort, solidarity, in hard times, celebration of life through ritual, etc) but "discontinued" their absurdities. I know changes are underway, sometimes it just seems so inefficient.
.....
Wes, videos like that do make me wonder things - like where our species is headed long term, if it has any durable future.
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jstan
climber
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Sep 13, 2010 - 03:00pm PT
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"where our species is headed long term, if it has any durable future."
Given enough time all specie eventually become extinct. You have your answer. It is just a matter of our behaving intelligently and extending our time here.
What we are seeing locally here in the US is an extremum.
When a society is headed downward, some people are attracted by the proposition of being the "first" to hit bottom. Particularly when they have never before experienced real and long term privation.
High unemployment may become a fixture in the US for the foreseeable future. Decades ago we ceased making many of the investments required to keep us at the leading edge of technology and educating our people so as to make it happen. Almost everything we do now has become a commodity. If you make a commodity you must compete. The cost of American labor has become unsustainable and must move down closer to the global mean.
A Spanish firm is going to build a solar facility for SCE.
Chinese firms have a good chance of building rapid rail in California. If the winner is not Chinese it will be French or German.
German firms are becoming very important in solar power.
On all of these there will, of course, be extended discussion as to domestic content. ie. grunt labor probably
More than a few young Californians may, in time, come to think their future involves jumping off El Cap.
Here ST is, arguably, at the leading edge.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Sep 13, 2010 - 04:49pm PT
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Hashbro- Thanks for the refresher in EOG (evolution of god) theories, in your piece the emphasis having to do with cheating.
Also of interest, EOH (evolution of heaven) theories and their role of motivating us (e.g., even into our 50s, 60s and beyond) when otherwise, for instance, many would feel they have had enough. Together they make for a powerfully appealing narrative to serve (a) as mental software and (b) basis for institutions of life support (e.g., religions) - to get H. sapiens through. Through the day. Through their reproductive years. Through their entire course of life.
A "science" of God, religion and belief is emerging tho slowly. For an instance of this, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg
I wonder if Andy Thomson would follow me up Crescent Arch. I should invite him, he'd be fun.
.....
jstan- Nicely put.
It is interesting to hear political candidates and parties in these pre-election days blame each other for lame economic numbers and loss of jobs. -When by and large it has nothing whatsoever to do with partisan sides or shenanigans and everything to do with saturated resources (e.g., land and fossil fuels), over-population, a flatter global playing field, end of drawdown (economic) growth. Why pay out $30-100k to an American engineer when you can pay out $3-10k to an Indian engineer for the same quality work? America will get used to the new rules in the 21st century - really it's got no choice - all the while our political leaders will go on per usual and blame the other side for it. What a show and Joe Q Public eats it up. See ya at the Tea Party.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Sep 13, 2010 - 05:00pm PT
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Fructose being called a NutJob?
I thought Pate had that one sown up.
Me, I have been called a Devil and a Communist. (by Bluering The Birther)
I like the company I am in.
And as W.C. Fields said, I would never want to be a member of a group that
would want me as a member of that group.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 13, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
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Well said! Really should be the end of the thread...
haven't you heard, skept? the goal is to surpass "why are those republicans so wrong on everything" in time for the holidays. i think a special award should go to the person who posts "this is my last post" the most number of times.
scarface, we've been over that territory before. the suspicion is rampant that pate and HFCS are the same poster, trolling each other, as it were. each has denied it vehemently, and yet each seems to reserve the kind of tenderness for "each other" which ordinarily you'd see in only a trolling individual on ST. their claim of being separate would be much more credible is they'd get at each other's throats once in awhile.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Sep 13, 2010 - 06:31pm PT
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Pate, love ya, brah.
Truth is, the suspicion is "rampant" only in your own conspiracy-seeking, misinformation-spewing, paranormal-dwelling, crazy-quilted thinking.
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 13, 2010 - 06:54pm PT
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that's post number three for that photo of huffcuss and his granddaughter. don't you have some photos of other family activities?
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Sep 13, 2010 - 08:19pm PT
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the goal is to surpass "why are those republicans so wrong on everything" in time for the holidays
Sorry, I was posting drunk when I wrote that...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Sep 14, 2010 - 01:13am PT
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Fructose-
Excellent video about the brain's predisposition to religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iMmvu9eMrg
Thanks!
What I found equally interesting was how that information was interpreted to fit the belief system of the atheist speaker. He was completely unable to see that his prior atheistic belief system colored his interpretation of religion. While some religions have been deliberately created by people for their own benefit, it is really being paranoid to say that is always the case.
One can just as easily say that because the brain is predisposed to religion, religions naturally evolved systems of belief which were extremely beneficial in helping the majority of people on this planet survive difficult lives. Thus religion has been of great benefit to humankind.
I would remind the smug atheists at those conferences that they do not represent the majority of people on this planet, and no doubt would feel differently if they did not live in educated middle class comfort provided by a society founded on religious idealism. They are as much a product of their environment, in this case fortuitous circumstances, as the exploited religious peasant in a third world society is, or even a poor American.
And none of the talk by either atheists or religionists really tells us if there is a God or not, nor does it deal with what are the causes of the extraordinary phenomena that some people experience that do not fit into either the religious or atheist model of reality.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Sep 14, 2010 - 11:57am PT
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The problem is that even a relatively small number of people who choose to behave like the child can affect the functioning of the whole.
Seems we may have reached critical mass on that score.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Sep 16, 2010 - 06:48pm PT
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Wonder
climber
WA
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Sep 17, 2010 - 01:33am PT
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We were gods
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go-B
climber
Psalm 34:8
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Sep 17, 2010 - 09:00pm PT
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Psalm 118:8, It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man!
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Skeptimistic
Mountain climber
La Mancha
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Sep 17, 2010 - 10:22pm PT
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From the Satanic bible:
3. For I stand forth to challenge the wisdom of the world; to interrogate the "laws" of
man and of "God"!
I have lots of these...
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go-B
climber
Matthew 25:40
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Sep 19, 2010 - 04:19pm PT
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Mark 8:36, For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
I've lost track...
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Sep 20, 2010 - 01:05pm PT
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Dalai Lama posted on FaceBook today:
As long as we observe love for others and respect for their rights and dignity in our daily lives, then whether we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in the Buddha or God, follow some religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Sep 20, 2010 - 03:11pm PT
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Psalm 118:8, It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in man!
go-B, why should I believe anything that the pope, you, or any other person who supports a belief in God, says, since you are all corruptible men who are not to be trusted?
And the funny thing is that those words were written by man.
Dave
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Sep 20, 2010 - 05:59pm PT
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the dalai lama is a pushover, pushed out of tibet, standing for passivity and compassion in a world where the passive and compassionate will alway be taken advantage of by a cynical, aggressive and sinister power elite. his failure to articulate that, and his lack of moral critique of that elite, remarkably like that of the other "holiness" we are subjected to, makes him not only incredible but suspect in the bolstering of that elite.
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TripL7
Trad climber
san diego
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Sep 20, 2010 - 06:44pm PT
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Dave- "And the funny thing is those words were written by man."
Written by men with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit(God)!
"Why do so many people believe in God? (Serious Question?)"
I wonder what inspired/caused JDF to ask/post this question four years ago(Sept. 30th)? I now believe he was serious...deadly serious. NOT trolling.
I believe JDF was seriously searching for meaning, something to hope in/for, something to cling to, believe in and help him through his suffering. What did we(collectively)share with him...Hope? Or was it the Dr. Kevorkian(Dr. Death)answer to terminate his illness/end the pain that is being pushed here, that finally won him over..."(Serious Question?)".
If so, congratulations...you succeeded!
And perhaps we failed!
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