The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Dec 10, 2014 - 08:03am PT

"Oh to be as smug as Tvash and his certitude that he and his aetheist kin alone possesses knowledge ... Props to Jan and Mike, et al., for their infinite patience when discussing this issue. You're throwing pearls at swine."

If aetheists were as smart as they think, they could explain this...

Or spoon-bending. Or walking on water. Or rising from the dead. But they can't explain any of it. Close-minded d*&$#es!

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 08:19am PT

suuuuuuueeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Dec 10, 2014 - 08:42am PT

Atheism, not determined just reactionary

or

Atheism, not a cause but an effect

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 08:48am PT

as is any data driven conclusion

accepting this planet for what it is, as it is, without wanting ir wishing for more.

connection , appreciation , wonder, contentment, curiosity.

in short - DELITE

Master Pat

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 09:35am PT

accepting this planet for what it is, as it is, without wanting ir wishing for more.

connection , appreciation , wonder, contentment, curiosity.

If you know what "is" you should inform the scientific community immediately.
If you're still wondering then you don't"know what is."

So much assumption, so little time = silliness.

Please, give it another try.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 09:39am PT

Right on cue like a fly to flypaper.

You're that predictable now.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 09:55am PT

Exactly.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Dec 10, 2014 - 10:22am PT

An exact opinion?

I'd love to hear it

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 10:38am PT

You've heard it here ad nauseum, Blue, but you appear to be tone deaf to certain things.

No judgement. Just an observation.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 10:52am PT

That's 616 now, DMT - now the earliest original reference to da numba o da beast, da debbil, "Satin" (from a bathroom stall wall in Klickitat), Bee-el-zuh-bub, Lord of Darkness, Lucifer, Mammon, the Anti-Christ, Christ's fallen brother (7th Day Adventist theology), the Evil One.

Not well advertised, perhaps due to fear of possible resultant literalist dyspepsia.

What? Two conflicting versions of the same thing in a literalist Bible?

Divine typos?

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Dec 10, 2014 - 12:07pm PT

The Perennial Philosophy is the basis for all religions. The ground of all being and nonbeing is where they all come from. But original teachings were conceptualized, interpreted, and propounded, and codified by the unenlightened, and a huge gap arose between God and men. Individuals and God were conceptualized as entities with hierarchies. The gap was filled by intermediaries with the idea that God could not be reached without them. Men turned to God without first turning away from themselves.

(or something like that . . . from Ramesh Balsekar)

It’s hardly enlightening to criticize any religion by relating it to what BB or others say or do. Ditto for any scientist, teacher, parent, administrator, etc. Any given instantiation of a concept will provide evidence of a lack of fit between its concept and itself. That is the problem for all of conceptualizations.

All of this is made clear by semiotics and language theory. There are (supposedly) “objects” in the world, people make characterizations of those so-called objects, and then they make up labels to stand for those conceptualizations. In every part, there is nothing permanently substantive to find or describe. An “object” is impermanent and cannot be defined accurately or completely, concepts by themselves are abstractions, and labels are just linguistic placeholders for the concepts / definitions.

All of this (linguistic theory, semiotics) are completely confounded when one starts to consider what might or might not be timeless or spaceless. Being perforce implies non-being; existence implies non-existence; potential implies dynamic; light implies dark; good implies bad, etc. As long as one makes distinctions, there will be opposites. Together opposites point to unities—more likely a single unity. Yet there seems to be all this diversity everywhere around us. What are we talking about?

Talking about religion on one hand and followers or believers on the other hand, and using the latter to criticize the former seems to present a logical and categorical error. Didn’t Kant have something to say about this in his Critique of Pure Reason? Can noumena be used to determine or analyze phenomena? Didn’t Largo run over this in his “What is Mind?” thread more than once? Is the map the territory?

What BB, or the current pope, or Luther said or did whenever is likely irrelevant when it comes to realizing Christhood or Buddhahood, or the being and non-being of The Great Mother. With BB, one can talk about his actions as phenomena. With God, one engages with non-conceptual awareness that transcends both being and non-being: i.e., noumena, consciousness, mind, un-elaborated awareness.

Wei Wu Wei said that there is a presence (of consciousness), that implies an absence of presence, and finally an absence of the absence of presence that roughly refers to the ground of reality. (Buddhists call that the dharmakaya, and it is like space.) It is a nothingness out of which all phenomena finally spring forth. In a way, like the big bang, purportedly. But all of these things are still conceptualizations, just as nonduality, consciousness, and awareness are.

If we really want to talk about Christianity or religion, then let’s talk about original teachers and what we think they had to say or propose to us. If followers are less than perfect, then fine. That’s on them. But Christ, the Buddha, and other teachers? Criticize them, why don’t you. That might not only be more instructive, but immensely more interesting.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 01:02pm PT

the 'original words' of Christ and Buddha are a fiction. All we have are the texts that followed but were not authored by them. Belief can only be based on the content of those texts and those texts alone, and not the original men, if, in fact, they existed at all - who they were or were not has been lost to history.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 01:57pm PT

This is, again, pure assumption... no one knows whether gospel quotes are the actual words of Jesus. For you to simply declare them fiction is just self indulgent blather.

The reality is it doesn't make a whole lot of difference who came up with Christianity, it has resonated with humanity for centuries and does so for a reason. Gibbon would say it reformed the Hellenistic world and brought down the Roman Empire. It was the primary creative force in europe until the late 18th century. You just gotta wonder why.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 02:05pm PT

No, it's pure fact. Do your own research and write back with any authentic documents you find that were written by either Buddha or Christ. We know, for example, that the gospels were authored long after Christ's death. Pretty hard to write something when you're dead I hear.

Anyway, good luck.

History awaits your results.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 02:11pm PT

the 'original words' of Christ and Buddha are a fiction.

You state this as a fact, but the truth is nobody really knows one way or the other.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 02:16pm PT

Roman historian Tacitus referred to Christus and his execution by Pontius Pilate in his Annals (written ca. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44.[41] The very negative tone of Tacitus' comments on Christians make the passage extremely unlikely to have been forged by a Christian scribe[42] and the Tacitus reference is now widely accepted as an independent confirmation of Christ's crucifixion, although some scholars question the authenticity of the passage on various different grounds.

At least check out wiki...

There's great controversy with regard to this subject but ultimately nobody knows.

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 02:38pm PT

Yup - we don't really know who Buddha and Jesus were, and never will. All we have are anonymous texts, authored long after the fact. Thanks for vehemently agreeing.

Maybe your googling will turn up some hidden scrolls or something.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 02:59pm PT

Yup - we don't really know who Buddha and Jesus were, and never will. All we have are anonymously texts, authored long after the fact. Thanks for vehemently agreeing.

Seems you have a very difficult time accepting your own error and the loss of an argument... makes it difficult to have a reasoned discussion.

By the way, I've seen an "anonymously text" in Texas... very strange plumage.