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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dr. F.
It's always good to be known as open minded!
:)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Let us not forget that the Palestinian Arabs are descended from the same father as the Israeli Jews - the patriarch Abraham who had two wives.
strictly speaking, I think you meant to say that there is a presumed lineage to Abraham, we don't know if the guy actually existed let alone who his kids were... it is just a story passed down and eventually retold in the book...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jan, if you have the time, watch Sam Harris at Berkeley, Nov 2010, I'll get the link and post it in a moment. I'm curious to know what you think in general about it and also your reflection on the response from the woman in the Q and A section and, in turn, Harris' response to her, and, for that matter, on anything else you find interesting or noteworthy.
I mean, if you want. :)
I'll go find that link now. And post it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0GvH-3Nm70
P.S. I thought the lecture was very good. Certainly worth the time. (Thanks Internet.) I suppose, to you, no surprise. :)
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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jstan
I do hold god responsible, definitely. Do you want to know why?
Yes I would!
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WBraun
climber
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go-B has never said a harsh word to anyone here.
He's a very kind soul.
One should never be harsh to him.
He loves Jesus Christ unconditionally and that's all that matters .....
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Fructose-
I did read Sam Harris' latest book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values on your recommendation and agree with you that it's a good step in the right direction though he could have done a better job.
As for his talk and the example of the woman scientist who ended up stating that putting out the eyes of every third child could not be condemned if it was part of someone's religion and the statement by the American Anthropological Association that there can be no universal human rights because of cultural relativity, I think both demonstrate the problem of relying more on logic and logical sequence than a sense of compassion or what some might call just common ethical sense.
Both of those positions emanated from compassion originally and the attempt to make people in the western world less judgmental and ethnocentric. The problem for both religion and science it would seem, is in the execution.
History has numerous examples of how one can take an idealistic view in religion and logically step by logical step, end up with events like the Inquisition. We have fewer such events in the history of science because it is a shorter history among other things. Nazi and Japanese medical experiments on prisoners comes to mind however, as an example of science gone awry by the same process.
Personally I believe that far more people will be converted away from fundamentalist religion by the presentation of a scientifically based universal morality than by the attack methods of the other well known atheists of the day.
I have always believed that values and ethics could be taught without reference to any specific God or religion. In East Asia, I see it every day under the guise of the secular humanism taught by Confucius more than 2,500 years ago.
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Luke 19:37, As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice l for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
If that happened in Yosemite it could get pretty loud!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Dr. F-
Kind is not an adjective that I would ever apply to Mao ???
The whole point of revolution is that it often starts with an altruistic impulse but always ends with lots of bloodshed which history may or may not deem worthwhile, depending on the results obtained.
To paraphrase Mao himself,
"Revolution is not a ladies' teas party or a knitting society, it is a violent act whereby one social class overthrows another".
Particularly after the 20 something Mao saw his young first wife killed by Chiang kai shek's forces, he was not known for gentleness or kindness and understandably so.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Religion mutilates reality as a means of generating its own (religion's) continuation. It declares what is morally evil to be righteous in order to make sense of itself.
When the inquisitor tortures the witch into confession it is an act of kindness ultimately for the benefit of the witch.
When someone declares that to be killed by God is a great kindness, human experience is turned upside down; reality is abandoned.
When the suicide bomber destroys the innocent, it is an act of kindness in favor of a God and the bomber's brother believers.
Religion is the poison that placates our fears at the expense of our sanity.
How comfortable it is to exist in a state of faith, of absolute and perfect knowledge and how dangerous and how corrupting.
The safety and comfort of faith incubates an unreasonableness without limitations.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jan-
I too thought the book came up short though I did get a few tidbits of insight out of it I think. Glad you watched the video, actually liked it better than the book as I felt I got more out of it. The woman I referred to in the QA section exchanged with Sam over whether or not Mahammad was a man of peace (like Islam is a religion of peace). But the account you alluded to about the policy advisor and every third shall walk in darkness was poignant if not a bit funny, too. I found it one more vignette that hints to where the field (of thinking) is development wise, etc.
re: getting behind one's moral intuitions, correcting for one's moral failures
One of the more interesting parts of the lecture for me personally was when Sam discussed (a) our moral intuitions and how these can fail us (drawing analogies with our logical intuitions and perceptual intuitions and how these can fail us), (b) how we could / should get behind them, overcome them by correcting for them - but then seemed to stop short of giving examples in doing this (e.g, by pushing the fat man off the bridge in the traintracks example even though it goes against the pusher's moral intuition or by saving 3-4 kids instead of one's own 1-2, again even though it goes against a parent's moral intuition). This was one of the lecture's more insightful points that he failed to carry through on to finish, I think, though more subtle, maybe you caught it. If you know what I mean...
Thanks for posting up.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Pate-
Particularly enjoyed "verses" 2 and 3 from your bible.
re: courage, real courage
"It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
.....
"You can plan all you want to. You can lie in your morning bed and fill whole notebooks with schemes and intentions. But within a single afternoon, within hours or minutes, everything you plan and everything you have fought to make yourself can be undone as a slug is undone when salt is poured on him. And right up to the moment when you find yourself dissolving into foam you can still believe you are doing fine."
re: A creature does what it can - till its destiny is revealed to it.
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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James 4:13, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
No man is an island, some rules help us get around, but God's rules are for life, and more abundantly!
Isaiah 43:25, “I, I am he
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins.
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jstan
climber
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Go-B:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I propose that you and I have a dialog that either of us can end without prejudice, as we choose.
To start I ask a question.
Is God all-powerful?
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jstan
climber
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Go-B:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I propose that you and I have a dialog that either of us can end without prejudice, as we choose.
To start I ask a question.
Is God all-powerful?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 10:52am PT
"Is God all-powerful?"
Yes, but He stay's true to His word, (Himself), and His covenant!
Stannard:
Good. Now another question.
Is God also all-knowing?
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jstan
climber
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Go-B:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I propose that you and I have a dialog that either of us can end without prejudice, as we choose.
To start I ask a question.
Is God all-powerful?
jstan
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 10:52am PT
"Is God all-powerful?"
Yes, but He stay's true to His word, (Himself), and His covenant!
Stannard:
Good. Now another question.
Is God also all-knowing?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
"Is God also all-knowing?"
Yes!
Jstan:
Excellent.
Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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"Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?"
Yes!
Genesis 1:1 In the a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
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jstan
climber
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jstan
Go-B:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I propose that you and I have a dialog that either of us can end without prejudice, as we choose.
To start I ask a question.
Is God all-powerful?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 10:52am PT
"Is God all-powerful?"
Yes, but He stay's true to His word, (Himself), and His covenant!
Jstan
Good. Now another question.
Is God also all-knowing?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
"Is God also all-knowing?"
Yes!
Jstan:
Excellent.
Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 01:46pm PT
"Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?"
Yes!
Genesis 1:1 In the a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
Indeed.
Did this all-knowing all-powerful God create each and every one of us?
Jstan
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Did this all-knowing all-powerful God create each and every one of us?
Yes!
Genesis 1:27, So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
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jstan
climber
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jstan
Go-B:
Thank you very much for your reply.
I propose that you and I have a dialog that either of us can end without prejudice, as we choose.
To start I ask a question.
Is God all-powerful?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 10:52am PT
"Is God all-powerful?"
Yes, but He stay's true to His word, (Himself), and His covenant!
Jstan
Good. Now another question.
Is God also all-knowing?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
"Is God also all-knowing?"
Yes!
Jstan:
Excellent.
Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 01:46pm PT
"Did this all-powerful and all-knowing god create the universe and everything in it?"
Yes!
Genesis 1:1 In the a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...
Indeed.
Did this all-knowing all-powerful God create each and every one of us?
Jstan
Edit
go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
Jan 7, 2011 - 01:54pm PT
Did this all-knowing all-powerful God create each and every one of us?
Yes!
Genesis 1:27, So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
jstan
Does this all-knowing all-powerful God who created each and everyone of us sometimes find it necessary to consign some to writhing for an eternity in the flames of Hell?
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