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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 04:44pm PT
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Also, when you live a life of faith, GOD SHOWS UP!
Do you know what a tautology is?
GO
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Homer
Mountain climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 04:49pm PT
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jstan - I'm not sure. I think part of the security of the security blanket is not really knowing it's a security blanket. It's still probably a good thing to have a security blanket. With limited information we can't tell the difference - probably healthier for us to believe it's real, whether it is or not.
Information theory tells us that the larger information measures the smaller information, not the other way around. I'm happy to let god judge me, and not insist on the opposite, as many (including some christians who insist that their finite understanding of infinity is the one "truth") may want to do.
For some the need to satisfy our sense of integrity forces us to admit that we don't understand. For others the need to understand leads us to insist that our story is the one "truth". Neither of us created our needs. We're all OK, just different manifestations of the same thing. It's not an either/or, it's an and.
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GOclimb
Trad climber
Boston, MA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:08pm PT
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Okay, so here's the thing, if I, as a non-believer, could convince myself that Jesus is real, and is with me at all times, then voila! To my perception - there he'd be, as real as can be!
So...
"Also, when you live a life of faith, GOD SHOWS UP! "
... is a tautology.
Of course that doesn't mean he's going to rain your crops, though. That's why phrases like "We cannot guess at God's ways, only that they are just" is such a lovely way for the truly faithful to explain it when their crops wither to dust and they lose the farm.
GO
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Anaheim, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:26pm PT
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I would have drunk the bottle's contents. Wells have a tendency to run dry these days.
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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Anaheim, CA
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:33pm PT
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Yes, I know. It's all about altruism. I was being a bit sarcastic.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:39pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^
Maybe a couple more jugs would be good to keep around. Just sayin'. Livin' on the edge with just one jug there, old man.
Previously.....
Over the next couple hundred years this crazy cult, one among many, gained political power and established itself as the "wish fulfillment center" of Western culture. Other equally irrational belief systems developed elsewhere at other times. Thanks to literacy and publishing, these things perpetuated themselves and came into infamous and unavoidable conflict. So here we are today.
Largo:
What's missing here is that this, too, is a belief, possibly no less or no more irrational than those you gloss.
What happens when you chuck the beliefs? Are you still there? Is the sun still hot? Is the sky still "up" in the vault? What then is your experience?
___
Sure, maybe rationality is in fact irrational, despite itself, but that doesn't mean it is just another blind faith. The significant difference is the approach of rationality and science is to remain open to revision and correction, while faith-based belief systems are generally founded on inflexible dogmas.
Experience unbiased by belief is what infants experience. And maybe again just before dying, if by chance there's any symmetry to it. Maybe that white light they talk about is the realization that "this is really the end, and it's okay." Only thing for sure is that we'll all get to find out.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:48pm PT
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This thread started about evolution and creationism drifted toward belief of God as they usually do.
Hers's an interesting survey:
Why do you believe in God?:
1. The good design / natural beauty / perfection / complexity of the world or universe (28.6%)
2. The experience of God in everyday life (20.6%)
3. Belief in God is comforting, relieving, consoling, and gives meaning and purpose to life (10.3%)
4. The Bible says so (9.8%)
5. Just because / faith / the need to believe in something (8.2%)
And the six most common answers given to the question Why do you think other people believe in God?:
1. Belief in God is comforting, relieving, consoling, and gives meaning and purpose to life (26.3%)
2. Religious people have been raised to believe in God (22.4%)
3. The experience of God in everyday life (16.2%)
4. Just because / faith / the need to believe in something (13.0%)
5. Fear death and the unknown (9.1%)
6. The good design / natural beauty / perfection / complexity of the world or universe (6.0%)
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 05:50pm PT
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No matter where you go there you are, except after you die?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 14, 2009 - 05:58pm PT
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Gobee asks: "No matter where you go there you are, except after you die?"
That's right gobee, you are no where after you die. You're getting it!
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:07pm PT
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You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink!
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:14pm PT
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I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party.
I like to picture Jesus as a figure skater. He wears like a white outfit, and He does interpretive ice dances of my life's journey.
I like to think of Jesus as a mischievous badger.
I like to think of Jesus like with giant eagles wings, and singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with like an angel band and I'm in the front row and I'm hammered drunk!
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jstan
climber
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:14pm PT
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Very interesting,
1. People think themselves very influenced by good design(28.6%) but others not so much(6%).4.7/1
2.I don't need comforting(10.3%) while others are weaker(26.3%)...........1/.39
3. I am not as bible and raised affected(9.8%) as others are(22.4%).........1/.43
4. I need to believe in something(8.2%) about the same as others(13%)...1/.63
5. I am not afraid of death(N/A) while others do, a little(9.1%)
I had to combine two categories in line three.
In summary, I am about half as sensitive as others to the little stuff
but I am five times as appreciative of the world's good design.
No link to this study. A link? And when was it done and by whom?
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:23pm PT
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Hear, hear.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:26pm PT
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I also thank George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:29pm PT
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"I also thank George Mason, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison."
All Christians!
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jstan
climber
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:43pm PT
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FET’s link is most interesting. You have to wade through some stuff on intelligence, but face it, we put up with that every day. I have not finished reading it but the following quote from Linus Pauling is seminal. (If you do not know him, Master Pauling wrote the bible on chemistry ie. “The Nature of the Chemical Bond.”)
“Creative geniuses generate a massive variety of ideas from which they select only those most likely to survive and reproduce. As the two-time Nobel laureate and scientific genius Linus Pauling observed, one must “have lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones … You aren’t going to have good ideas unless you have lots of ideas and some sort of principle of selection.”
Just from watching the technical literature you know when someone raises a new idea on what happens, for instance, when black holes absorb new matter, in later papers you can see everyone testing their ideas to see if they are wrong.
In the world of ideas – “The De’il takes the hindmost.”
Not being willing to test your ideas – is death.
But back to work………….
http://www.michaelshermer.com/weird-things/excerpt/
Oh and Gobee.
It was even on ST that we saw reference to Jefferson's work to extract all the things that Christ actually may have said from the rest of the bible. That being the case I take it you define "christians" to include those who take seriously only a portion of what is to be found in the bible.
This is very advanced of you.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Oct 14, 2009 - 06:44pm PT
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The meaning in the above parable is this:
The desert is the world in which we live.
The water in the jug is Buddha's word. You can squander it, or use it to it's full glory.
The water flowing out of the pump is enlightenment. Buddha taught that, "No one comes to enlightenment, but through me."
The old, rusty pump, is you and me. Our true self is revealed by being filled with enlightenment. We pour forth goodness when are hearts are enlightened.
The note the thirsty traveler added to the jug is Buddha's promise that his words will help us to enlightenment.
The thirsty traveler...is Buddha. He longs for pouring himself into all of us.
Seems to make perfect sense the way I have altered it. Can you prove that your Christian interpetation has any more validity than a Buddhist one? Or a Hindu one?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 14, 2009 - 06:48pm PT
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I thank the men in New England who fought the British occupiers for the
opportunity to "live in a country where all of us have the freedom to choose the things in which we care to believe".
"god" did not exist, so had nothing to do with it
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 14, 2009 - 07:00pm PT
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Buddha, would never say that because he's not there, and Hindu's can't squander it because they will be coming back again and again?
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