The New "Religion Vs Science" Thread

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Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 10, 2014 - 03:50pm PT

Considering how actively and thoroughly edit history as it happens today - "Torture" report, anyone? - yeah - I'd take all of that ancient sh#t as written (and edited and translated many times) and nothing more. Historical accuracy? Um...yeah. Believe whatever makes you feel better I guess.

Cuz, at that non-existent level of intellectual rigor, it really is about what you want to believe and not much else.

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 04:09pm PT

Yeah, people will kill for metaphors, they will die for metaphors, they will impose for metaphors and it's a tragedy...

WBraun

climber

Dec 10, 2014 - 04:29pm PT

but ultimately nobody knows.

Not true.

There's always someone who knows the absolute ultimate of everything.

The foolish gross materialists who are completely fixated in their own self bondage
never ultimately know anything and foolishly believe every living entity is just like them.

WBraun

climber

Dec 10, 2014 - 04:33pm PT

Nope you've never ever met one yet.

So extremely rare ......

paul roehl

Boulder climber

california

Dec 10, 2014 - 05:09pm PT

[youtube=http://youtu.be/57RrQgURHJk]

Yeah, yeah, I know an ad comes on first... but it's worth it for some interesting ideas.

And yes, I know this guy is a super conservative aristocrat, but he makes some interesting points.

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Dec 10, 2014 - 06:17pm PT

Uhmmm, . . . I think my point got lost in the fray.

Supposedly what a teacher said vs. what followers do and interpret. Again, people seem to be getting all balled-up in technical issues rather than substance.

Whadaya think of what a famous spiritual teacher (living, dead, neither) proclaimed?

No, yes, stupid, brilliant, insightful, don't care?

jgill

Boulder climber

Colorado

Dec 10, 2014 - 07:05pm PT

I bitch about scientists and techies because the place where I live is full of smug ones

I know. I just hate that.

I forced my students to add metaphors to their personal narratives today

Damn, I still can't remember the difference between metaphor and simile!

(OK, my wife, an ex-English teacher just explained it - she showed me a delightful little pamphlet entitled "Versification in English Poetry" by G. B. Woods)

;>)

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Dec 10, 2014 - 08:46pm PT

Cuz, at that non-existent level of intellectual rigor, it really is about what you want to believe and not much else.

Ur ccertainly staying in the shallow end of the pool. Is the water to cold and you don't want to get your balls wet?

Intellectual rigor? Do you know what it took to translate and put together the King James bible together? The world will prolly never see again such an harmonious act between the Nations of the world..

As for the books written "way after Christs death", well why do you think that might have been the case? How can you be sure what Jesus said wasn't recorded daily? My understanding is that the Apostles were on the run from the ones that wanted jesus dead. And they scattered throughout the world preaching the good news. After 50-60yrs they stopped and PUBLISHED they're work. If their writings were put out earlier, Rome would have destroyed them.

But sure, it's ALL opinion right? We have no Youtube of Jesus walking on water. From a scientific perspective the whole bible must be taken on faith. But so should all written history!

Then as far as what you want to believe. Everyones wants are different. Prolly why there's so many descriptions of Christ?! And why Christ said He would meet us right where we're at. Questioning the authenticity of the bible will never get you through the front gate. No. BUT, wholeheartedly faith in just one word, or one sentence or paragraph, brought to the Lord will gain your entrance. He said so, and i've witnessed. Faith is not a one way street. The wall called faith, is built one experience at a time.

sorry for the preachers rant, but i heard a good sermon on John the Revolator today

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Dec 11, 2014 - 01:40am PT

"we could cast aside our old world thinking once and for all to reinvent a different ideology that leaves behind all the old..."

Yep, it's already underway, a work in progress.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber

joshua tree

Dec 11, 2014 - 08:10am PT

Let me know when we don't have to work that would be progress

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 11, 2014 - 08:52am PT

from MikeL:

Excellent point and intriguing question. We know from the childhood game how mutable a message is when passed from one person to another.

From a famous, possibly spiritual, teacher certainly dead:

KNOW THYSELF

It isn't even clear whose 'teaching' this is. Among those it has been attributed to are

Bias of Priene
Chilon of Sparta
Cleobulus of Lindus
Heraclitus
Myson of Chenae
Periander
Pittacus of Mitylene
Pythagoras
Socrates
Solon of Athens
Thales of Miletus

The meaning of the teaching may have originally been that one should not simply follow the crowd. One should try to find out for themself.

Another interpretation is that one should learn about themself.

Because of ambiguity and brevity I put this teaching into the yes, no, stupid, and don't care categories.

There is a more recent example of what may be a spiritual teaching from a living famous climber. This teaching, I believe, goes a long way towards explaining why certain issues raised in this thread are not resolved by talking about them.

..........................................................

Who am I?
Where do I go?
Which way do I follow?

These questions spring from the consciousness of death and the transitoriness of things, and from the sense of omnipresent suffering and from the intellectual helplessness in the face of the common mysteries.

The 'reply' to these questions, when the circumstances [surviving high-altitude near-death?] allowed them to appear, shaped themselves not in words, but in the form of a different state of consciousness, in which the world around took on new colors and qualities. And all the components of this world, even those hardest to accept, like death and suffering, seemed surprisingly proper and irreplaceable.

from Voytek Kurtyka
The Path of the Mountain
in Alpinism volume 1, 1988

......................................................................

This teaching I put in category of insightful.

Now I just need a brilliant spiritual teacher. Preferably one between the living and the dead. That would be Frank Key.

The image of that floozie flickers before him, and now he remembers how she winched him onto a ship from the rock where he had been abandoned for forty days, and how they danced and danced the tarantella, and how her frock was blue, and how she span, and how as midnight struck on the tavern clock she turned into a crow.

http://hootingyard.org/archive/jul06.htm#2006-07-14-1

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Dec 11, 2014 - 09:27am PT

What a great time to be alive with so much progress underway!

Case in point: Here's science, TED, Gregg Curuso and Jerry Coyne all doing their part, each in their own way, to get to the bottom of this "free will" bruhaha.

The Dark Side of Free Will...

[Click to View YouTube Video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfOMqehl-ZA

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/the-dark-side-of-free-will/

It's such a point of confusion. Still. Among many. But even so, with the powers of science, the information age and education all bearing down to bring enlightenment to this topic, it won't be long before it's thoroughly resolved. Good. :)

.....

Speaking of progress...
not to mention technology gone wild...

A great movie: Transcendence (2014) w Johnny Depp. Hope you all had a chance to see it. (The title and basic concept is another name for the Singularity.)

WBraun

climber

Dec 11, 2014 - 09:46am PT

The gross materialists have no free will until they free themselves from the illusionary gross materialism ......

MikeL

Social climber

Seattle, WA

Dec 11, 2014 - 09:53am PT

MH2!!!

I liked everything you wrote—especially the lines from Key. Nice.

HFCS: “we could cast aside our old world thinking once and for all to reinvent a different ideology that leaves behind all the old..."

No more ideologies, please.

Memories (the past) leave imprints and have impacts on how and what a person sees. As long as memories (or the past) are meaningful, people will be kept by them. They suggest a paradox of sorts: If I am not what I have been, then what am I?

(Memories may be imaginary objects by imaginary subjects.)

Tvash

climber

Seattle

Dec 11, 2014 - 10:30am PT

I love the movie "White Christmas" and the music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas".

Charles Schultz lived in the area and built an ice skating rink there. That was part of our annual Christmas thing. Man, I loved that place.

Seattle Center has a temporary skating rink set up for Winterfest. Sweeeeet.

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 11, 2014 - 10:48am PT

MH2!!!

I liked everything you wrote

I aim to please but my vision often fails.

In going back to look for Kurtyka I found many fine expressions of your own, Mike.

rockermike

Trad climber

Berkeley

Dec 11, 2014 - 10:51am PT

nice talk; (first half anyway)

[Click to View YouTube Video]

High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber

Dec 11, 2014 - 11:08am PT

Plantinga's an embarrassment, an obstructionist to The Scientific Story (aka Evolutionary Epic) if ever there was one. (Actually, on par with William Lane Craig.)

MH2

Boulder climber

Andy Cairns

Dec 11, 2014 - 11:31am PT

DMT,

There is an account somewhere, I think part of a British TV series, that looks at indigenous Australian storytelling and its close association with rock art, and less enduring art which nevertheless looks a lot like the older (up to 28,000 years old!!) rock art. I remember the point being made that the combination of visual and audio may have allowed both the art and the story to be transmitted more faithfully than either alone, and a comparison being made to present-day moviemaking. I wish I could find out why they thought the stories were well preserved but I can't locate the source of my recollection. I think they showed examples of ancient and contemporary art that resembled each other pretty well.

I wonder how long Rudolph will last.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-26/indigenous-oral-history-accurately-reflects-sea-level-rises/5918324?§ion=news