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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 13, 2009 - 12:42am PT
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Oh, Jan gets it relative to motivation, but he misses the morality of the masses by a mile. The question here is about outlandishness that passes for motivational claptrap fed to the masses. Just that Werner sits here with his vedas side-by-side with christians and their bible, each secure in the absolute truth of their respective ancient myths says it all.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 12:46am PT
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Jan is female
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 12:59am PT
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American society still slaughters billions of animals to eat them.
What kind of morals and ethics are those?
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:03am PT
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You wouldn't enjoy Sweden, Werner. Every dish has meatballs.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:03am PT
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Hahaha
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:31am PT
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Werner might like the imported Norwegian beer @ $10.00 a glass. They also import propane from Denmark................to thaw out more meatballs for dessert.
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Dec 13, 2009 - 01:43am PT
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Warbler!
The soul is comprised of the intellect and the emotions. I was referring the emotions that result from physical pain(sensory). The emotions of love etc. are from the soul. What I meant to say was that some occur from the body and others from the intellect.
The soul is the site of personality, the will, intellect and the emotions.
The body is were the physical senses or touch tastes pain and our conscious of such things as the world we live in(material world).
And as I stated the spirit is were we communicate with God.
The soul is were the spirit and body are merged.
Through his body man is in contact with the outside sensuous world, affecting and being affected by it.
The soul stands between these two worlds, yet belongs to both. It is linked to the spiritual world through the spirit, and the material world through the body.
"Formed man from dust from the ground" refers to body "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" refers to man's spirit as it came from God; "and man became a living soul" refers to man's soul when man's body was quickened by the spirit and was brought into being a living and self-conscious man.
I was attempting to show Jennie that God created man unique from the angels. The angels were created as spirits, man was created predominantly as a living soul. His soul represents him and his individuality. It is the organ of mans freewill, were spirit and body are fully merged. If mans soul wills to obey God, it will allow the spirit to rule over man as ordered by God. The soul, if it chooses, can suppress the spirit and take some other form of satisfaction as lord of the man.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 02:10am PT
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Jennie and Warbler
I guess we all have to go to Sweden now for dinner along with all the rest of the crew here .....
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 13, 2009 - 02:18am PT
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Yngwie
Yha, my Grandmother was 100% Swedish, she was a Johnson, to be sure!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 13, 2009 - 02:27am PT
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What we think about the history and cosmology of the universe makes little difference in our hearts.
I've noticed, having studied the mystical paths of every religion to one degree or another, that they all include techniques for calming the mind and detaching from the internal dialog that incessantly talks to ourselves in our heads.
Personally, I've found vast peace and benefit in reducing and talking control of the inner chatter. I think it would be a worthy goal for atheist and believer alike. How you going to listen to God if you're tied up with your own inner drama and trauma? Scientists and agnostics all still have to live with their brain contents. Happiness is still experienced within, God or no God.
Meditation can be tough to get established in but I encourage those who are interested to try. It has scientifically documented benefits and there are Christian forms as well.
Just the practice of being present "Be here Now" mindfulness, can bring us to a calmer and more real center where we have the presence of mind to consider these matters intently.
Otherwise, whether Angels have Souls or whether we started with a big bang...at the end of the day, it doesn't touch your life or heart.
Peace
Karl
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Dec 13, 2009 - 02:42am PT
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Karl- "Meditation..."
Great suggestion, something I need to start doing more often!
"I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways." Psalm 119:15.
"Give ear to my words O Lord, consider my meditation." Psalm 5:1.
Peace and Love
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slayton
Trad climber
Here and There
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Dec 13, 2009 - 03:13am PT
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For any that might be interested (and I suspect that many of you are already familiar with it) check out Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. Initially it was an interview of the author by Bill Moyers on PBS and was later put in book form. From an historical perspective there is discussion about certain tenets of the Christian faith that were borrowed or incorporated from early religions (and how those earlier religions borrowed from earlier. .. . .). It also talks about (as Jan mentioned) the need for a new mythology based on who we are today as a society. Something that speaks to us on a level below the easy chatter of dogma.
Joseph Campbell is the author of many other books concerning comparative mythology. It was absolutely eye opening for me when I discovered his work and started reading it.
Cheers
Sean
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MH2
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 04:02am PT
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Now what if "free will" isn't really what we think it is.... our ideas of how consciousness works, and our conception of free will may just be a misunderstanding.
What evidence do we have of free will?
The same sort of evidence we have of love.
In the case of free will, offer a person a choice, say the healyj 2-choice food preference. Repeat the test as often as desired. Hopefully with the same starting conditions. If the person always makes the same choice, there is no evidence of free will. If they occasionally change their mind, that would be evidence of free will.
Unlike consciousness, which I can only think of as that which goes away under general anesthesia, I think I understand something about free will. I could be wrong. But to take a further example, a roll of dice isn't predictable, but we don't choose to call that free will. A person's behavior may have similar mechanical underpinnings, but for practical purposes it can't always be predicted and we choose to call that uncertainty free will.
Free will isn't a thing; it's a phrase. It can't be studied as reliably as an electron. When we talk about it we should avoid reification.
To me free will does not mean that we can do anything we want, just that when presented with a dilemma, say whether to go climbing or not, it appears to us that we have a real choice. Whether that choice is mechanical or pre-ordained is a whole different question that goes nowhere in my opinion.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Dec 13, 2009 - 04:12am PT
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Interesting
Some Religions seem to have issues with free will.
Some religions talk a lot about free will and then offer prophesies of what will happen in the future. How's that possible if people's free will hasn't been expressed yet? If God or some prophet already knows what everybody will chose, then how free is it really?
Funny thing though, even if we don't have free will, even if time is an illusion, we at least seem to have free will and consequently must act as if we had the choice.
Does using free will jump us over into parallel universes where the echoes of our choice become manifest? Are there numerous destinies that could be chosen? That's pretty far down a rabbit hole to wrap our brains around.
Peace
karl
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MH2
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 04:37am PT
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the answer is we ignore the missing pieces in our perception...
What we perceive is a model of the wall, built on the expectation that it is continuous, which is a combination of what we are sensing and what we have experienced. The brain doesn't waste anytime worrying about something that isn't there in this case. But since you might have to perform an action that requires knowledge of the wall, your internal model of the wall serves as a way of planning the action.
Or could we simply say the brain extrapolates and interpolates parts of the visual field?
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html
I don't know that any deep conclusions should be drawn from the many ways in which vision doesn't work like a camera.
I think it was Descartes who said something along the lines of,
"You think the eye is the organ of vision? No. You see the world only with your innermost being."
But more reliably, he said,
"The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once."
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MH2
climber
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Dec 13, 2009 - 05:04am PT
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Does using free will jump us over into parallel universes where the echoes of our choice become manifest?
One dodge around quantum weirdness is that all possible events occur. When the physicists fire a single photon at the famous double slit the photon goes through both openings, but into mutually inaccessible universes, but leaves a ghost of itself by interfering with itself. I might not be doing justice to that.
If all possible things happen it would mean not only a bunch of universes like bubbles of beer foam, but exponentially expanding and replicating beer foam.
But you wouldn't need free will to get there. The vast numbers of continuously branching Karl Babas would just be taking all doors open to them, willy nilly. Unless by mental or soul power you can control elementary particles.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 13, 2009 - 06:22am PT
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Ok, maybe try this from the other way around...
Exactly what about living on this bountiful planet, today, right now, with no gods of any kind is so frightening to you?
Exactly what about the unknowable is so frightening to you?
Exactly what about dying, and not continuing past that moment in any form whatsoever, is so frightening to you?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 13, 2009 - 08:43am PT
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None of these things is frightening to me, but all of them seem inadequate to explain the size and beauty of the universe or the potential of human beings.
Looking at a picture of a brain is interesting, but reading about electrical activity in the brain in response to various stimuli is more interesting. Learning what people can do with the power of their minds whether intellectually, musically, artistically, or by affecting their own body chemistry, is even more interesting.
The power of healthy self love and love of others, including those who aren't fond of us, and every living thing on this planet, is still more interesting.
Why exactly then, would anyone want to settle for a simple reductionist, mechanistic view of our lives, the power of our minds, our planet, our universe, the mystery of death and all the other things which are unexplained so far?
It's like asking why would one eat a gourmet meal, when you could get all the nutrition you need, by more efficiently swallowing some pills?
Life isn't just about function, but also about love, and beauty and meaning.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 13, 2009 - 08:43am PT
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“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Dec 13, 2009 - 10:34am PT
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Jan - why do those things have to be separate?
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