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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 12:10am PT
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Then why are you being an idiot?
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 12:17am PT
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There's nothing to win or lose here.
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:45am PT
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We got a higher thread count.
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 02:55am PT
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Yes you have some numbers .
Generally the gross materialists have the need to quantify in order to grasp hold although they know there are things that they can not quantify and thus they become frustrated .....
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:02am PT
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interesting seeing how philosophies of materialism evolve as agreements holding together a physical universe dissolve in thought
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:46am PT
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I did feel as though something was dissolving as I read this thread.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Dec 15, 2010 - 03:49am PT
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LOL
;-)
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MH2
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:01am PT
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"Sarcasm is a difficult thing to put across in this medium"
Yah, like, 'cause most posts are serious, right? Who would expect sarcasm?
I myself am blameless. Always straight-up and considerate. I would never compare Go-bee to a child who believes in Santa. That would be disrespectful to the child.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:05am PT
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What if he's right?
I guess what I mean is if you meet the Buddha on the road do you give him
five bucks? I only gave him three the other night and now I feel bad,
especially as I was coming out of a performance of the Messiah.
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MH2
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:09am PT
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"What if he's right?"
What if who is right about what?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:11am PT
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Exactly, that's why I try not to knock anyone's belief.
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MH2
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 04:15am PT
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Sure, but are you serious?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Dec 15, 2010 - 08:23am PT
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Ironically enough, you will not understand this paper Werner:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10626367
I've posted this before... Perhaps in this very thread, as it certainly does apply.
Curious, Werner... Do you have tourette's?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Dec 15, 2010 - 11:11am PT
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Who is this Malemute, I think I like him.
Expressing himself in terms of AND and OR gates. Even posted to my electrical thread way back when to help counter all the b.s. it attracted.
Climbers with more than a dollop of brain power, imagine that.
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 12:39pm PT
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What little I have read regarding Buddha tells me he was not interested in anything like what we call a religion. He talked about what is good sense in the relationships between people.
If I met him I would shake his hand and listen to what he had to say.
Instead of fearing such a meeting, as we are taught to do in what we call a religion, I would look forward to it.
Such a meeting would be an unparalleled chance to learn.
The transmogrification of what Buddha was trying to do that has occurred over the past millennia raises a question someone here may be able to answer.
Did Abraham suffer the same fate? On the face of it the old testament seems not to be a credible document.
I would also be interested in the time frame in which Buddha's counsel has been changed. Is this a new phenomenon among us?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:09pm PT
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Carl Sagan:
"Those who dismiss the gods tend to be forgotten. We are not anxious to preserve the memory of such skeptics, much less their ideas. Heroes who try to explain the world in terms of matter and energy may have arisen many times in many cultures, only to be obliterated by the priests and philosophers in charge of conventional wisdom."
Demon Haunted World, p310
As Lucretius summarized:
"Nature free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods."
Sagan: "Except for the first week of introductory philosophy courses, though, the names and notions of the early Ionians (scientists like Lucretius) are almost never mentioned in our society."
We embrace what we love. It's clear from this thread that a few have no passion for science or the Scientific Story, no love affair with science education.
God Hypercrates help us.
EDIT
Or, China.
China help us.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:17pm PT
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what i find amazing and disturbing is how so many atheists denounce christians in the crudest terms and mock their beliefs...yet, will line up to kiss the dalai lama's hand...why no ridicule over his claim to be the 14th reincarnation of a boddhisatva? or his belief that it's wrong to kill insects because they might contain the souls of your ancestors?
why the attacks against christians and the simultaneous defense of muslims?
claiming christians are bigots is no different than claiming muslims are terrorists...and anyone who is proud of mocking jesus should have the balls to criticize mohammed or shut up
now, on to my main point
i watched a nova special on fractals last night and heard an interesting comment:
"...natural selection has hit upon a design..."
if ever there were a statement that begs dissecting, this is it
are we to assume that the fractal geomoetry that is the basis of all known life systems was a one-time accident? that a single mutation created the system? what are the odds of that?
or are we to believe that the system grew out of a series of mutations that eventually became the fractal system? what are the odds of that?
are not fractals powerful evidence of "design" in the system?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:35pm PT
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are not fractals powerful evidence of "design" in the system?
No more so than is a Fibonacci Spiral:
See, the thing is, 'Evolution by the process of natural selection' is NOT a random process... 'Natural selection', the mechanism directing evolution, acts as a gate, for the most part allowing practical changes (achieved through random mutations) through, and useless or detrimental ones generally don't get through. That is not random... It is a 'selection' process, that's why it's called 'natural selection'.
Because 'natural selection hit upon a [good] design' is no surprise, it's happened often... Two eyes for binocular vision to better gauge distance, flight for efficient transport, photosynthesis to harvest the sun's energy, etc... If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Natural selection tends to build upon what works well. That's how it works. Every living thing on the planet is not an individual random compilation of traits... They are related to others, and can be traced back along their family tree to predecessors that had many of those traits as well. Just like us.
jstan... Agreed on the message of Buddha, just as I doubt that Jesus would approve of much of Christianity today, and would be dismayed that his message has been so twisted, and that he has been deified.
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jstan
climber
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:42pm PT
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"why no ridicule over his claim to be the 14th reincarnation of a boddhisatva?"
Using the word ridicule and the use of ridicule itself are generally counterproductive, but I dealt with your complaint just before your post.
"why the attacks against christians and the simultaneous defense of muslims?"
I can recall not one incident of the sort you hypothesize. Have you an example? Please cite.
"anyone who is proud of mocking jesus should have the balls to criticize mohammed or shut up"
Mocking, like ridicule, is a generally counterproductive activity. For discussion to be productive and not simply an effort to persuade one's self that they alone have the indelible truth
animus has consciously to be reined in.
:"...natural selection has hit upon a design...""
If you look at Darwin's work you find your answer. In any number of areas numerous designs are dug up. Indeed DNA researchers today attempt to project the time scales for the appearance of new designs based upon known values for mutation rates.
This is a new science and though we have already come far along that road, we still can go further.
Edit:
In an earlier post as to what existed before the Big Bang I wondered why it is we humans, as individuals, always seem to be in a stone age. Chandrasekhar and Oppenheimer already by 1939 had shown that in a massive stellar collapse time for the internal observer is so slowed the collapse of a Black Hole's progenitor can take billions of years while to those of us sitting outside drinking a beer, the collapse can be over in a nanosecond. The questions we ask today were dealt with seventy years ago.
On further thought I think climbing experience is relevant. We are very interested in routes not yet done as we are very interested in discovering new things like natural selection. But once the route is done or the new knowledge is found what follows is a slow diffusion limited process. We may possess the knowledge needed for our survival but not use it. Simply because it does not interest us or it requires us to give up something comfortable.
In the final analysis it seems hard to believe such an unnecessary death is made adequately comfortable in this way.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Dec 15, 2010 - 01:51pm PT
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Bookworm, I thank the Cosmic Governance everyday I was blessed to live in Christendom over Islamadom. I don't think I would've survived being born in Islamadom. I certainly wouldn't have ended up a middle aged rockclimber.
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