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Bronwyn
Trad climber
Not of This World
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Dec 15, 2009 - 09:53pm PT
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I have no interest in taking down the majority elected government, especially since I am part of the majority who voted for it.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 10:10pm PT
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I'm pretty amazed the inherent problems which arise from competing claims of supremacy and authority are basically ignored by the religious and spiritually inclined. On one hand it comes across as hubris and righteous conceit and on the other as a delusional denial of the obvious.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2009 - 10:13pm PT
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Karl -- "After all, Jesus never used the word "God" even once"
Yes, Father, because Jesus was son who dovetailed his whole being, all his actions and consciousness to his father.
Thus they became one but simultaneous different. The supreme father maintains his original identity (individuality) along with Jesus maintaining his identity (individuality).
Just like two snowflakes both are snow but each flake is different.
It's a beautiful thing, instead they waste all their time arguing about nothing.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 15, 2009 - 10:33pm PT
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...instead they waste all their time arguing about nothing...
More like waste all their time dying about nothing. It may be 'nothing' to you, comfortable in the authority of your absolutes. But it speaks volumes about the problems other's face trying to define or validate relative [spiritual] supremacy. You can simply say c'est la vie, it's up to the individual and god, but competing authority on spiritual boundaries is also is a root cause of war.
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Dec 15, 2009 - 11:15pm PT
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BASE!
Just read about your Mom's improvement, and I am realy thankful for that. I hope she continues to improve. You are blessed to have each other. It has been a good day! Thanks for sharing the good news!
Sincerely, Trip~
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Dec 16, 2009 - 12:59am PT
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healyje- "but competing authority on spiritual boundaries is also is a root cause for war."
What about the metaphysically grounded Darwinism, shaping social Darwinism/sterilization, and its effect on shaping the Nazi movement in Germany. How about Richard Weikarts book "From Darwin to Hitler" which shows that Nazism was inspired by two main currents, social Darwinism on the one side and Nietzsche and atheism on the other. The result being evolutionary ethics, eugenics and racism in Germany. The combination of the will to power and the survival of the fittest were recruiting slogans for the Nazis.
How about Mao Se Tung in China? And Stalin in Russia? Millions upon millions of deaths. And what about Pol Pot in Cambodia? Over two Million tortured and slaughtered within a three year period! How about Cho Hesque(sp), Kim Jung Il, Fidel Castro etc, etc.
Your comprehension of history seems to be over-looking the crimes of the last century in the name of atheism!! Take a look at the "Communist Manifesto" and look at these communist regime's. They say explicitly that they want to create a new man and a new utopia, free from the shackles of traditional religion and traditional morality.
Their body count is in the tens of millions. An ocean of blood and a mountain of bodies produced in the name of atheism all in recent history.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:03am PT
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What makes any belief or scripture more authoritative or supreme relative to all the others?
I would say (I know others may disagree) that the scripture that is more authoritative is the one that speaks to you individually. That's why there are different scriptures and interpretations of God anyway - because not all humans think alike.
Granted, most people go along with the majority in their culture; that's why we have a geographic distribution of religions. However, in our new globalized culture, there is no reason for a modern educated person to be so limited, should they choose to follow a particular tradition or belief system.
Increasingly however, modern people are choosing from multiple traditions and there are whole religions based on combining several - Unitarian-Universalists, Vedanta, Bahai - to name a few. In these churches, they read from the scriptures of at least 6 or 7 religious traditions, sing hymns from 6 or 7, and use prayers from all of them on alternate worship days.
Of course you can do the same at home - or not - as you choose.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:12am PT
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jstan-
My comment was definitely not directed at you.
What I really appreciate about your comments and Ed's is that they represent a different way of thinking than I have been exposed to for a long time and as such are always thought provoking.
If one only hears opinions the same as one's own (a particular danger if a person is a teacher with diligent students), then it's easy to make unwarranted assumptions and not progress any further, especially in an isolated environment like Okinawa.
It's good to have one's world view challenged from time to time.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:23am PT
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healeyje-
I'm not familiar with the term 'Starship Troopers'?
I've been outside the U.S. for 30 years and I don't watch much television?
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:26am PT
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I don't know of any other God but the God of the Bible, the Alpha and Omega the Great I Am, And His Son Jesus through whom all things were made. Who is Holy and Righteous and above all things, who is Love, and who loved us so much that to bridge the separations that sin caused sent His only Son to the cross that we could be redeemed and forgiven. We are all Gods creation and equally His children through Jesus. God told us His plan from the beginning to the end in the Bible. When we see His heavens and earth, who are we? Our Lord God is mighty and wonderful from everlasting to everlasting, worthy to be worshiped and praised with thanksgiving in our hearts! And that doesn't come close!
Daily Readings from the Life of Christ (vol.1) By John MacArthur
http://www.gty.org/Radio/Archive
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:27am PT
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I would say (I know others may disagree) that the scripture that is more authoritative is the one that speaks to you individually.
That's all very pastoral, but that idea that scripture and belief are merely subjective is vehemently rejected by millions, including people in this thread as Gobee just testified above. They are not in any way open to the suggestion or idea of other gods or scriptures, and we won't even go into highly spiritual cultures with no written scripture.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:27am PT
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You can make "world view" sound quite hoity-toity if you say "weltanschauung" instead. Those Germans do love their compound nouns.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:31am PT
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base 104-
I am so glad to hear about your mother!
As I noted before, leukemia is a really debilitating disease for the sick person and all who know them. One thing I learned from my friend's ordeal with the disease was to never ever give up. Except for the head oncologist, everyone in the Japanese hospital where he was, said no one could survive with total liver and kidney failure but he did and has been in remission for 8 years.
If your mother has the will to live, there's always hope.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:46am PT
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Ed-
Thanks!
healyje-
I still don't get it???
My students work in ultra air conditioned rooms or on special planes, with headsets on and computers in front of them far from the front lines, thank to our excellent satellites.
And the worst that ever happened to their group (not any of my students as it turned out) was when one of their planes was forced down in Hainan a few years ago and they had to destroy their own equipment as fast as they could. After that they stayed in a resort for a while and ate a lot of good Chinese food until they were flown home.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 16, 2009 - 01:54am PT
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Rent the movie, to be recruited into military intelligence you have to display psychic 'apttitude'.
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago
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Dec 16, 2009 - 03:50am PT
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Base!
If I could go back to, say, Jr. Hi. I think I would major in astrophysics or astronomy. I have always been amazed at the stars, the galaxy's, Milky Way and such things as the speed of light. I have always loved science and microscopes/biology etc. Including neuroscience, and the study of the human anatomy. We had cadavers in 3-4 of my classes (college) and in several post-grad courses I have taken. Just fascinating. Life!
I realy don't fully understand the hoopla, or conflict, or threat that someone like 'roadman' seems to loath. But then I don't have any agenda as far as trying to turn the current situation of science in the classroom around and teach it from a "creationist" viewpoint.
I am not 'compromising' my beliefs, I just feel that it is a matter of faith and something that should be taught in the home and at church. I look at it as a matter of a marvel of a Grand Designer. He will explain the particulars, such as is if wheather the speed of light is a constant outside of our galaxy?
And what period of time, or how did time translate from His day, such as "A day is like a thousand years..." etc. I have no doubt He created it. Maybe He created it with age. Convincing others this, is not my focus! The reason He came here is my focus. It was not for me to become wealthy. This is a temporal place. He was concerned about our eternal existence.
I believe some day I will be able to explore those galaxies...maybe! Not sure, it doesn't say so in the Bible. But it is fun to think about.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 16, 2009 - 05:11am PT
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The tooth fairy and ghosts comment was in no way an insult - it may strike a nerve - but tooth fairies and ghosts are way on the conservative side of what some people ardently believe. And that simply gets back to the problem, does the mere holding of a belief make it a 'reality'. Do you accept tooth fairies, ghosts, and UFOs, Yeti, Aliens, and all of history's gods with the same veracity? Where is that line? Who defines it?
Again, does simply believing something make it real? If not, at what point upon the the continuum of belief does something become real? Skipt dismisses ghosts, others do not. UFOs have a devout following, others do not belive. A 5 year old might believe in the tooth fairy, adults typically do not. A 6,000 year old Earth; many believe it literally, they do not equivocate, others do. But as a geologist, which is more believable - tooth fairies or a 6,000 year old Earth? Is a hindu belief more credible, valid, or believable than a scientology belief?
At what point do beliefs become believable or unbelievable? Where does authority or supremacy of belief or interpretation appear on that continuum?
I have no problem exiting the conversation given it seems almost entirely immune to common sense and is clearly afraid of the most basic boundaries of logic and believability. It's as if one man's 5.5 is another man's 5.11 with no possible or plausible intrusion of objective measure of any kind - it's all good and valid - you just have to believe.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Dec 16, 2009 - 06:02am PT
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First, sorry your Mother, you, and your family are going through hard times. I've spent time visiting in an ICU and attending to two family funerals in the past month so you definitely have my sympathy.
In the end I don't try to compete with great philosophers, but do align myself closely with Russell:
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
--Bertrand Russell / 1947 pamphlet / Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?
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