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Brian Hench
Trad climber
Anaheim, CA
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Oct 15, 2009 - 04:08pm PT
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The predominant belief among comsmologists has been that The Big Bang was a time when all "creation" was compressed into a point, or singularity. By definition, a singularity has no information. It's a black box and we can't know anything that may have come before it.
This allows those of religious mind to say, "okay, let us say that God created the Big Bang and set it in motion". The laws that He created determined how the Universe expanded out of that singularity".
But wait a minute. As cosmologists continue to gain finer and finer insight into the structure of the Universe, some of them are beginning to think that vestiges of structure in the microwave background radiation suggest that perhaps the Big Bang had structure after all. Some are so audacious to say that we might be able to eventually say something about what came BEFORE the Big Bang.
Then the rest of us will have to scramble again to reconcile our own beliefs with what the scientists tell us.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 15, 2009 - 04:13pm PT
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Henchy, Don't hold your breath, God was always before!
Edit; I put those up for you Jan!
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:02pm PT
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It's interesting that the Catholic Church which used to burn people at the stake for saying the Earth revolves around the Sun has now seen the writing on the wall and admits evolution is how humans got here.
Yet many see evolution as an attack on their beliefs and can't accept it no matter how overwhelming the evidence.
It seems more logical to me to incoporate evolution into your beliefs than to reject it using contrived reasoning.
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Gene
Social climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:10pm PT
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The Fet,
Minor correction. The CC only says that "evolution is how humans got here" is not inconsistent with Church dogma. It also says that creation as stated in the Bible is not inconsistent with Church beliefs. It does not take a stand on which happened.
“Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.”
http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp
It is ironic and amazing that the church that once burned people at the stake has taken this view. The Church scientists/theologians who made this happen had some brass ones.
gm
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:16pm PT
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Don't Fet,
The Catholic Church is wrong, the Pope is only the head of the Catholic Church, like any Pastor of any other Church. No matter how many times you stand up or kneel down, or confess and Hail Mary, you still need Jesus to forgive you. And trust that what God says, is true!
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MH2
climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:31pm PT
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jstan:
When one of our residents starts refusing food on a regular basis, that is taken as a sign that they have decided they are ready to die. Most of our people have dementia. Eating or not eating is often just about the only degree of freedom they have left.
If we don't already know the person's wishes regarding pain relief, and many don't like drugs in general or the side effects, you have to go by what the family can tell you about the person. Most of us don't mind a little pain relief for that toothache Ed brought up and we wouldn't object to it in the final hours, either. Pain can be controlled as long as the MD prescribes sufficient dosing and staff are willing to use it.
Jan:
I'd like to echo Ghost (haha) and say that I am very interested in human ancestry, though mostly in what adaptations they show for climbing.
I think this thread does tie back into climbing in several ways. For one thing, our ancestors probably died without drugs for pain relief.
Also, climbers can have unusual experiences that are at least quasi-religious. Voytek Kurtyka's Path of the Mountain essay has those overtones. And another example:
"In the face of potential struggle for survival, the petty concerns of my little self dare not surface. I feel the power of my real being, integrated and intimate."
(from http://www.yosemiteclimber.com/Rewards_of_Climbing.html);
I myself don't have the temperament to look too far inward or outward. But although I'm not looking for depth, and certainly not for God, I recognize a pointer to the address when I see it:
1854
John Muir is 15 years old
His father says, “You may get up in the morning as early as you like.”
“That night I went to bed wishing with all my heart and soul that somebody or something
might call me out of sleep to avail myself of this wonderful indulgence; and next morning
to my joyful surprise I awoke before my father called me. A boy sleeps soundly after
working all day in the snowy woods, but that frosty morning I sprang out of bed as if
called by a trumpet blast, rushed downstairs, scarce feeling my chilblains, enormously
eager to see how much time I had won; and when I held up my candle to a little clock that
stood on a bracket in the kitchen I found that it was only one o’clock. I had gained five
hours, almost half a day! ‘Five hours to myself! I said, ‘five huge solid hours!’ I can
hardly think of any other event in my life, any discovery I ever made that gave birth to joy
so transportingly glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours.”
John Muir for weeks afterwards spent the hours from 1-6am making a clock that could
dump him out of bed at an early hour. When his father learned about this ludicrously
unnecessary invention he ‘very nearly laughed.’ Considering his father's character, this was one of Muir’s more amazing achievements.
At University of Wisconsin, Muir literally hitched a wagon to a star.
John Muir spent 4 years at University. He and his brother Dan went to Canada during the
Civil War.
June, 1864
Simcoe County, Ontario
“Hunger and weariness vanished, and only after the sun was low in the west I plashed on
through the swamp, strong and exhilarated as if never more to feel mortal care.”
 John Muir after seeing a Calypso orchid
As counterpart to Gobee's series of images
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Gene
Social climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:33pm PT
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Gobee,
"And trust that what God says, is true!"
Do you believe that the Bible as written, translated and available to us English speakers is literal truth?
gm
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Gene
Social climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:47pm PT
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Skip,
Agreed.
I wasn't going down that path. I was more interested in Gobee's perspective than in picking nits.
gm
EDIT: Skip, Cool and thanks.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:54pm PT
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MH2.....wonderful contribution on John Muir I had never heard before. I too
in the last several years claim early hours as vacation and opportunity. Thanks MH2 !!!
Wonderful contributors, I am hitting the freeways keep me in yo thoughts. Will hopefully join the forum tonight. jstan especially, for your brain provoking ideas.....I owe you several replies. Peace all and Cheers, lynne
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin' place
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Oct 15, 2009 - 05:56pm PT
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Even if you do not believe that the Bible is total literal truth does not mean the simple and serious truths are not contained within it in boatloads.
I prefer to worship Shakespeare.
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin' place
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Oct 15, 2009 - 06:04pm PT
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I actually don't worship anything. I dislike the word.
When you are full of hate and stupidity you can find all kinds of nifty things to worship.
Skip
But only the god-delusion will do when you're full of fear and pain.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Oct 15, 2009 - 06:07pm PT
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Wanda may be joking....but if not, hey....people think, react, respond and then build life philosophies from all the information presented to them.
Sometimes in my case I need time and life to give perspective and insight to all I learn day after day and month after month. Hopefully we are all growing in relationship to our fellow dudettes and dudes on this planet...and god. If you so choose to believe in one.
I am reflecting intensley again on God as yet another one close to me will soon pass from this earth to.....well, what do you believe ? And better yet, when yo lying there and death says howdy.....what will you believe then ? Jess asking cause it's so very real. lynne
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WandaFuca
Social climber
From the gettin' place
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Oct 15, 2009 - 06:24pm PT
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well, what do you believe ? And better yet, when yo lying there and death says howdy.....what will you believe then ?
In myself and others.
I hope that, in sum, my stay on this earth will have made things just a little better for everything and everyone, or at the very least, the sum of my life hasn't made things worse.
I want to enjoy, seek understandings and experience as much as I can, and I am unwilling to make intellectual compromises for my own emotional or "spiritual" comfort during my time here.
Because when I near oblivion, I want to feel that I made the best of this short time, this wonderful, painful, unexplainable, meaningless gift, because that's all I'm probably going to get.
(edit) for skip: I was being a smartass about worshipping The Bard. The comment about pain and fear was a counter-punch for your insult.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 15, 2009 - 06:38pm PT
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Drive carefully! No posting while driving, esp in Kaliphoniya, it's the law!
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Oct 15, 2009 - 06:42pm PT
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A few days before Thoreau died a friend said "You seem so near the brink of the dark river that I almost wonder how the opposite shore may appear to you." He answered "One world at a time."
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Oct 15, 2009 - 07:06pm PT
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"Do you believe that the Bible as written, translated and available to us English speakers is literal truth?"
That's ink and paper, God IS Truth, but it's what He said!
Edit; The Bible is for us!
Is a photo you?
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Oct 15, 2009 - 07:16pm PT
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What, is "what He said"? the ink and paper part? Are you telling us to disregard the bible? Did your post make sense to you?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 15, 2009 - 07:35pm PT
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I have a friend who is a modern day Quaker.
Out of curiosity, I once asked him whatever happened to
the Shakers. He said they were an offshoot of the Quakers
that believed in very limited physical contact between the sexes.
Husbands and wives slept in separate rooms, and attempted
sex only to produce children. The Shakers died out quickly
because their natural death rate was higher than their birth rate.
The Shakers, it is said, literally shook while praying.
My friend is a highly regarded Doctor, a true man of science,
who is also a deeply devout Christian. He, like many people,
see no conflict between believing in god and at the same time, evolution.
He does not believe that evolution was "made up" to discredit creationism.
He believes completely in Darwinian evolution, and that god gave
humans a soul at some point in their evolution. When, he does not care.
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Gene
Social climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 07:42pm PT
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Thanks, Cragman.
Post of the day. LOL.
Sorry, Locker.
Best to both of you,
gm
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jstan
climber
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Oct 15, 2009 - 07:45pm PT
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There is never a need to "believe" in anything.
"Believing" is a dead end as it has no logical extension. It leads nowhere.
I "think" the concept of parsimony has been exceedingly useful over the last several millennia.
In common usage the word "believe" has been co-opted in the religious context.
It means thinking something to be true despite the absence of confirming data.
"Think", at least so far, implies freedom of choice on the part of the person.
From webster's 9th:relevant excerpts:
Believe: 1a. To have a firm religious faith, 1b; to accept faithfully and on faith 2. to have a firm conviction as to the reality or goodness of something.
3. To hold an opinion
Meaning 3 has been subjugated in popular usage.
Think: To consider to be true or honest; to hold an opinion
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