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 Post subject: religious debate
PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2003 5:02 am 
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I guess I'll try this idea out. In case anybody's interested. I keep encouraging people to post about their religious beliefs. Anything at all, really. Discussions between people of the same faith, random shouts of praise, descriptions of your religion, ... Anything to celebrate this most incredibly big part of our species.

But even those who want to make such posts sometimes like to debate various aspects of religion in general, or theirs in particular. And then there's those whose ONLY interest in religion is such debates. So I figured I'd make this thread. If you want to start a debate, here's the place. Pick your topic and go. Or if someone starts a different thread that is not intended for debate, but there's some aspect you'd like to single out for debate, copy the passage to here and discuss it. That way, the person who started a thread won't have it messed up. But if you don't get any opposing responses, please don't go pestering anyone in the other threads. Even extremely polite, respectful debates are unwelcome when someone just wants to declare their faith.

And remember, be nice!! Debate the issues, not the person. ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 7:24 am 
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I get off on this creation. This planet that we call home. If this is an incarnation I feel very blessed that I am here and it exists now. I am awestuck that someone who labels himself an atheist has actually started such a discussion-I don't understand how he could do it, but it is done, and that signifies to me some kind of acendancy and ongoing learning process that may not be fully realized. But isn't that the essence of openmindedness?

I prefer the term 'spiritual awareness' to religion. I have no need for past tenets, constructs, or belief systems. I feel that the individual is free to determine his/her own path and that spiritual belief and awareness is too personal to even adequately express and should never be forced upon another. My life motto, so far, is that if you are not learning you're not living. I am always in search of answers but since this is an ongoing process I realize I am far from any answers. Is this the essence of an 'open-mind'? I surely hope it is.

When I say: I have no need for past tenets, constructs, or belief systems what I really mean is that I haven't and will not subject myself to such without a hell of a fight. I do try to study such to the best of my ability and I can see the beauty, logic and usefulness of certian parts. These I may decide to incorporate into my own system..so far attempting to be nice, working to curtail my own anger, being non-hippocritical, trying, trying, trying not to judge another, attempting to put myself in anothers shoes, advocating and practicing non-violence and leading by positive example have been my goals.

Accepting responsibility has always been a sticking point with me. I do believe that Jesus is the son of God, but I also believe that all of us are the sons and daughters of god equally. I also see no difference between humans, animals, plants and matter-I have no idea how we came to seperate ourselves. I believe that Jesus died for the sins of the old world and that we are, now, responsible for our own. When Jesus said "I am the truth the light and the way" what I really believe he was saying is "You are too, if you can find it in yourself."

Leading by positive example, having unconditional love for everything, embracing the gift of life and fellowship. Taking the aspects of all religion, beliefs and creative endeavours into your soul and processing them until you find something that is comfortable, that gives back, that lends a helping hand to those less fortunate than you..ah then we may have a start. I'll continue to believe in a loving God as long as these thing are possible.

Cause if it's an accident, plan, mass hallucination or intelligent creation I'm happy to believe in whatever's responsible for that. Pick and choose, it's up to the individual-I have yet to encounter the arguement that will convince me that something isn't responsible for the glorious gifts found among this chaff. (I'm not afraid to compost my brain in this, potentially useful chaff-we don't know the stinking power of even anything we call chaff...) I can't put my finger on it, and it might not even choose to identify itself by it...but for now I'll call it God.

*****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 1/25/04 12:36 am
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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2004 6:47 pm 
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I don't think I could ever express my beliefs as eloquently as you just did, Danlo, but here is a LITTLE bit of what I believe, cut and pasted from elsewhere...

People are born the way they are born -- whether they are male, female, straight, gay, sweet, cranky, fat, thin, blue eyed or brown eyed, white, black or somewhere in between...and if you believe, as I do, that God is infinate then we are ALL in the image of God -- that we all have that spark of divinity in us -- to me, when we are told to love God, then to love each other...that is the same thing...when we love each other we are also loving that bit of God that is inside each and every one of us...no matter what we look like, no matter how we are born...we all have a bit of that divine fire in ourselves...and when people hate or reject each other for being what they were created to be, then they are also hating and rejecting God...


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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:22 am 
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My goodness!! Big stuff here! And this is going to be a decent-sized post, with nice quotes. But since I'll hardly be on at all for the next two weeks, I figured I'd go out with a bang! So be warned!

Quoth danlo:Quote:I am awestuck that someone who labels himself an atheist has actually started such a discussion-I don't understand how he could do it...That sentence alone gets a pretty big response! Regarding my atheism, I'm technically an agnostic. In some cases, it's impossible to prove the non-existence of something that doesn't exist, if, indeed, it did not exist. OTOH, an omnipotent being that did not want its existence to be proven, which is one possible God, could, by definition, prevent it. So either way, it's possible that nothing can be proven. Personally, I see things that suggest the existence of a creator, but I also see that things could be the way they are without one. So after nearly 30 years of looking for something definitive, I've decided not to worry about it.

I call myself a practical atheist, meaning, for all practical purposes, I am one. No decision or action of mine is based on any religious consideration whatsoever.

And I guess I should explain how I use a few other terms.

1) Spirituality: Examples would be the best way to define my meaning. A) What, if anything, is the meaning in our lives? B) How do we deal with our mortality? C) How do I decide moral issues?

2) Religion: The belief in a deity. Meaning a being who we owe certain things, even if it's merely our thanks.

3) Organized Religion: When a person's beliefs are learned from, given by, or at least influenced by, an organization, such as a particular denomination of Christianity.

Maybe this is old hat. But there's a significant difference between how I use these terms compared to some people. Some call my 2) Spirituality, and my 3) Religion. They deny that I am capable of being spiritual. I say I am. I used to have a site at atheistchurch.com, where I gave my answers to various spiritual questions, and asked other atheists to give me theirs. Since I didn't get any responses, even from those who said they liked the site, I let the domain lapse. *sigh*

There are two reasons I take religion seriously, treat it with respect, and read so much about it:
1) As I've said, I don't claim to be able to prove anything. Some aspects of some organized religions don't make a lick of sense to me, and so I don't believe them. But that's not proof that they aren't true, nor is it a reason to ridicule it.

2) Religion is perhaps the most prevelant aspect of our species. I'm not aware of any culture or society that was founded on atheistic principles (I'm not even aware of any universally accepted atheistic principles), and the overwhelming majority of individuals have religious beliefs. I think it would be counterproductive, if not downright stupid, to attempt any serious interactions with humans without making any attempt to understand this aspect of us.

3) And I guess there's a third now that I have kids. It's possible that one or more of them will feel drawn to religion. If that happens, I don't want them conflicted by the fact that I always ridiculed it. It's the same reason I don't let them say, "Oh God," and tell them to say, "Oh gosh." If they always treated it lightly, because I let them do so, they might not know how to treat it seriously if they ever feel something for it.



Quoth danlo:Quote:I can see the beauty, logic and usefulness of certian parts.OOOHHH yes!! There's at least some beauty and wisdom in nearly every religion I've ever heard of. I like to look for the taoism in them (Surprise Surprise! ), and it's always there. I think of taoism as the core of all human endeavors, that which everything else is built around.



Quoth danlo:Quote:I do believe that Jesus is the son of God, but I also believe that all of us are the sons and daughters of god equally.Here's a few great quotes from Conversations With God that agree:Quote:The great teachers of your Christian religion understood this. They know that Jesus was not perturbed by the crucifixion, but expected it. He could have walked away, but he did not. He could have stopped the process at any point. He had that power. Yet he did not. He allowed himself to be crucified in order that he might stand as man’s eternal salvation. Look, he said, at what I can do. Look at what is true. And know that these things, and more, shall you also do. For have I not said ye are gods? Yet you do not believe. If you cannot, then, believe in yourself, believe in me.Quote:Your body, your mind, and your soul (spirit) are one. In this, you are a microcosm of Me - the Divine All, the Holy Everything, the Sum and Substance. You see now how I am the beginning and the end of everything, the Alpha and the Omega.

Now I will explain to you the ultimate mystery: your exact and true relationship to Me.

YOU ARE MY BODY.

As your body is to your mind and soul, so, too, are you to My mind and soul. Therefore:

Everything I experience, I experience through you.

Just as your body, mind, and spirit are one, so too, are Mine.

So it is that Jesus of Nazareth, among the many who understood this mystery, spoke immutable truth when he said, "I and the father are One."Quote:God: And I tell you this: Men have achieved results much greater than flying. Men have healed sickness. Men have raised the dead.

Neale: One man has.

God: You think only one man has been granted such powers over the physical universe?

Neale: Only one man has demonstrated them.

God: Not so. Who parted the Red Sea?

Neale: God.

God: Indeed, but who called upon God to do that?

Neale: Moses.

God: Exactly. And who called upon me to heal the sick, and raise the dead?

Neale: Jesus.

God: Yes. Now, do you think that what Moses and Jesus did, you cannot do?

Neale: But they didn't do it. They asked You to! That's a different thing.

God: Okay. We'll go with your construction for now. And do you think that you cannot ask Me these same miraculous things?

Neale: I suppose I could.

God: And would I grant them?

Neale: I don't know.

God: That's the difference between you and Moses! That's what separates you from Jesus!



Regarding your vow of ahimsa... Those who live this life, like Gandhi, are the most admirable and bravest people there are. Although I've never had my conviction tested in any personal way, I do not think anyone should ever be killed. But that's a far cry from ahimsa. To be as honest as possible, there's a part of me that disagrees with such an extreme stance. But more important, I'm not strong enough for it. It simply takes more than I have, and I know it. I wouldn't even bother attempting it, because it's not in me. But I'm very proud to know someone who even suspects he is able to live this way.



duchess, I obviously don't think of God the way you do, but I certainly believe that we are all the same when stripped down to our core. So we come to the same attitude from different paths. But here's a quote that I think you'll like. It's from Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, by Gopi Krishna:Quote:"...vividly conscious of the fact that forming as we do the tiny individual cells of a mighty organism, we share alike the sorrows and misery existing in the world; but debarred from realizing it by the wall of ego segregating each cell from the rest, we feel happy and proud at acquisitions often purchased at our own cost, which we mistakenly believe has been paid by others. ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:50 pm 
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I usually avoid such debates as this, because I feel that an individual's belief system is very private. It is no secret how deep my own faith and belief in God and His Son is. And I would like to share that belief here, tho belief in itself is hard to explain...

I was born Catholic, was baptized, recieved my First Communion, was Confirmed. As a child, I did not understand all that the Catholic Church taught, but of it that I did understand, made me fearful of God. At a very young age, I knew that this should not be. God is Love, why should I be afraid of love? My parents are very devout Catholics, my other brothers and my sister are devout Catholics, but me, I turned away from Catholicism. Where everything is sin, where guilt is the ruling force. That was not how I wanted to raise my children.

Yet, turning from the Catholic Church does not mean I turned from God. On the contrary, with the guilt gone, my faith blossomed. I see God everywhere. I see Him in my children's faces, my husband's face, the sky, the stars, the trees, the mountains, the ocean, the desert, the animals, the birds, the sun, the moon, the Earth. Without the Lord in my heart, I do not know where I would be. He is the Guiding Hand, the profound presence. He leads me from day to day in this life. My choices come from His direction. My heart and all that is me comes from Him. He made me. This is my belief.

And now we come to my brother. Stephen taught me more of God's love than any church could. From the moment I held my baby brother in my arms, at six years old, I knew I was holding a gift from God. I saw in my brother's tiny face the light of Heaven. There are no words that can express the intense joy I felt in that most precious of moments. Stephen qrew quietly, there was always a certian serenity, a peace about him. He never threw temper tantrums, hardly cried, he was passive, yet there was a strength of will about him that was undeniable He was a brilliant child, wise beyond his years, he entered Kindergarten reading at a 3rd grade level. His teachers marveled at his ability to be a natural peacemaker, other children gravitated to him, and his smile disarmed even the toughest and scariest of bullies.

Stephen began reading the Bible, children's version, when he was 5 years old. by the time he was 7, he could quote from the King Jame's Version. He claimed to talk to Jesus in his dreams from the time he was 4. At age 6 or so, he started keeping his journals. He spoke of seeing angels in the clouds and hearing them sing to him. He spoke of feeling the touch of their hands on his shoulders whenever he was about to be in danger, to hold him back. In fact, the day of his accident, when he was 13, he felt a hand trying to hold him back at the crosswalk, but the crossing guard insisted he start to cross. It was then that the drunk driver hit him. He told me many weeks afterwards that he would never resist the guiding hand of God again.

When he was older, he thought about becoming a minister. Like me, he had turned from Catholicism. "Jesus is not about guilt and sin, Jesus is the gift of love and sacrifice." But, he decided against it because he felt the Father wanted something else from him. So, he turned to the Arts. "The Arts show the beauty of God's creation's inner essence. Music, art, books, poetry are all interpretations of the soul." And so, Stephen lived his life surrounded by the beauty of such souls as Picasso, Van Goh, Monet, Bach, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Hemmingway, Micheangelo, De Vinci, Chaucer, Whiteman, Thoreau, Emerson, Frost, Dickenson, Dickens, Tennyson, Byron, Wolfe, Wilde, Handel, Mozart, Chopan...etc. And he lived his life in the light of God's love and God's word. Everything Stephen did, everything was in the Lord's name. I think that is seen in all the journal entries of his I have posted.

How could I be in the presence of someone as beautiful as my brother and not believe there is a God? There is just no way. Like his was, my life is an answer to the Lord's gift of that life. I strive to do what He would will me to do, I feel that all the directions I have gone in were guided by His Hand. Jesus is in my heart, my soul, my house, my everything.

Now, I do not say any of this to persuade others to believe as I do. I would never do that. Proving a belief is not something that can be done, in my opinion. Besides, I feel no need to prove to anyone there is a God. That realization must come from within. Who am I to say to someone that what they believe is wrong? Tho, I believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and God the Father's Son, I will not try to persuade my Jewish friend of this. For my friend's belief that He was not, is just as strong as my belief that He was. Tho, I believe that God the Father created Heaven and Earth, I will not try to convince my Athiest friend of that if he believes that we all formed from an atom that exploded. Tho, I believe that death is not actual death, but only a passing from this life to the next, I will not force that belief on a friend who feels that once a person dies then that is all there is...And tho I believe that it was God who lead me to Kevin's Watch so that I would post Stephen's journal entries to guide Shadow to our home, I will not try to prove it to my friend who believes that it was all just a grand coincidence...

I am not sure any of that made any sense at all, as I am prone to babble on, especially so early in the morning. Belief is hard to explain as words seem to be inadequate. I did try, however.

Peace *********

"And the glory of the world becomes less than it was."<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 5:34 pm 
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I agree with you on death Furls- I wrote, death is a door and there are many more... in one of my poems about 20 years ago...

If Jesus isn't about sin why do they say he can absolve you of your sins? And this is probably Catholic belief as opposed to Xtianity, I have heard self professed Xtians say this too, but why are we supposed to inherit the sins of our fathers (...the blood of your fathers shall pass down...)? That never made one ounce of sense to me-one of my ancestors was a slaver-but that doesn't mean I am. I'm a completely different person in a new age and in new circumstances-that has absolutely NEVER made any sense to me...what-so-ever... *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 2/7/06 11:02 pm
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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 6:29 pm 
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It makes sense and doesn't make sense at the same time. I do not feel that any of us are responsible for the sins of our ancestors -- but they can come to affect us, whenther we are responsible for them or not.
My grandfather was one messed up man. I believe he might have molested his own children, though all of the possibly involved parties are dead, so I have no proof of that. But two of his children did grow up to become child molestors themselves, one of whom was my mother. My grandfather ended up killing someone, and being found mad...was sentenced to a mental institution...
Am I responsible in any way for the things he did? No. But because of the things he did, it still had a profound impact on my life...because my mother passed on his abuse to me, and because she herself went mad at about the time he committed murder, in the year of my birth.
I am certainly not responsible for any of the things she did, either, but they have certainly had a strong impact on my life.
So while I am not reponsible, and should not be held guilty for the things they did (it can certainly be argued that they themselves are not responsible, either, as they were both clearly mentally and emotionally ill) -- it still reverberates throughout my life. And my sisters' lives. And my father's life, while he was still with us.
Guilty? No. But the sins of our fathers and mothers can still have a profound effect on our lives. When you turn to Jesus you are supposed to be washed clean and get to leave that baggage behind and have a new beginning in your life...
******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 2004 11:46 pm 
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Some tough posts to follow... I'll give it a try, though.

I was born to a rather large Mormon family. I was blessed, baptized, went to Sacrament and all that. My family wasn't exactly huge into the church (considering the vast majority smokes, drinks, etc.), but close enough that it wasn't surprising if someone went on a mission, served at the temple, and things like that. Strangely enough, though, we never really talked about it. It's always been something of a given.

Around 16 or so, I had a crisis of faith, I guess. I found myself not only unable to believe in the Mormon faith (great people, strange belief system), but in all religion. My mind was trying to tell me the truth, but my emotions didn't want to hear it. So for a while, I just kind of floundered. I had a modified agnostic religion I called Frostism, but I didn't really believe it. Just some metaphysical extrapolations. Around this time, I started reading a lot of books on a lot of different relgions. The only thing that really held my interest, though, was eastern stuff, especially pure Zen. Mainly, I just thought it sounded cool.

A couple years later, I joined the military. I was at a mandatory study session for my A school, and some people from class and I were talking, joking around and stuff after we finished our homework. After something I said, this one girl asked me, "Why are you so weird?" This wasn't exactly anything new to me (even my best friends give me those strange looks from time to time), but I told her I'd have to take some time to give her a good answer.

So that night, I'm sitting in my barracks room, writing out this essay on why I'm weird. At first I try to explain that I'm not weird. By my own perceptions I'm the definition normal, and it's the rest of the world that seems a little off. But I figured anyone could say that, so I'd try to take it from an external view. The way I saw it then, I was weird, and all my protestations of inner normalness were next to useless. Against everything else, the individual perspective doesn't matter.

I sat there trying to balance these ideas out, work them into one coherent arguement, when the paradox of the situation became clear to me, and everything I'd read about Zen suddenly made sense. It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I thought it was enlightenment at the time, but I've come to realize it was an Awakening. In any event, half the barracks probably heard my shout of joy, and I felt almost high for the next few weeks.

What I came to learn, though, gets a bit harder to explain. It's not complex or anything. If anything, it's almost so simple you don't see it until you trip over it, and when you do, you sit there thinking, "Oh, I noticed that." It's not a belief (though I have a few extraneous hypotheses that fit the description) or faith.

The revelation as it related to my weirdness : Imagine the entire universe is a tennis ball. Every minute area on the surface of the tennis ball represents a single point of consciousness. If you take a needle and pierce the tennis ball, you're marking your place on the universe. Now, you can move the needle around, representing exerting influence on the world around you. You push the needle to the left and the whole universe moves left. There's nothing you can do that doesn't effect the entire universe. It's an almost god-like approach to dealing with the universe. It's the reason I've called myself a solipsist, but I'll go back to that.

Imagine another point moves, or even the whole universe other than your point. You have no choice but to move with it. You control nothing. You're at the mercy of the universe. No free will.

So which is true? Both are, and it just depends on your outlook. Personally, I don't see how anyone could live their life thinking they had no control, so I choose to go with the solipsist bit. I know there's more to it, though, which is why I usually call myself a Zen Solipsist.

There's a lot of other stuff that goes with it. Knowing my place in the universe, knowing I'm not alone... a part of something far greater than myself, but in some ways, the most important part.

The nature of consciousness... that's a weird one. I know that my consciousness (going beyond Id, Ego, and Super Ego) is the same as everyone else's (not just human... *everything*), that in a manner of thinking, I'll be reincarnated infinately as everything else; that I already have been.

The nature of time... it's solid. The only thing that separates the future from the past is our own perception. The future already exists just as much as the past does. It's a trick of our consciousness that we see time the way we do.

The afterlife... same thing as the beforelife. There's a sense of progression, but I'm not sure how much consciousness is involved. In fact, that's the biggest drawback. I can't say much about any consciousness other than mine and the whole. It's enough for this life, though.

There's a lot of things I conjecture about, but it's mainly guesses as they fit in with everything I know. I can typically pass for a Christian because I can say I believe in God and Jesus as a redeemer (Boddhisatva, whatever), though how I come to that would generally make people scratch their heads. It's the trappings of religion I get uncomfortable with, but I'm usually fine as long as nobody tries to force it on me or judge me.

I consider my mentor to be a 14th century Zen master by the name of Ikkyu whose book of quotes I picked out of a college bookstore junk bin. Illusions by Richard Bach is a close second, though. After that, just about anything Zen is good (though I've never been a big fan of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance... Zen and the Art of Archery was good, though), the more quotes and allegories the better, so long as the points being made are kept short.

And on that note...
________________
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and cleansing I've endured within my shadow. Change is coming. Now is my time. Listen to my muscle memory. Contemplate what I've been clinging to. -Tool, "Forty-Six & Two" <i></i>


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 Post subject: religious debate
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2004 12:18 am 
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I should add that I was raised a Christian, though I have since turned my back on organized religion. While I am sure that most Christians are good and decent people who truly believe in loving other people, I have met all too many in my personal life who used their religion as a prop to their self-esteem and as a club to hit other people with. <i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2004 2:51 am 
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*bows to all*

I'd like to thank you all very much for what's become of this thread!!! Wow!! (Not too much debating going on though ) ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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 Post subject: Re: religious debate
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:03 am 
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It's been years since I read it, but I remember enjoying Gary Zukav's Dancing Wu Li Masters quite a bit. So I was kinda excited to read The Seat of the Soul by him. Weeeell... It really wasn't what I was after, and I put it down after about 70 pages. However, it had a couple of good moments. Here's one:Quote:When a question is asked that cannot be answered within the common frame of reference, it can be classified as nonsensical, or it can be dismissed as a question that is not appropriate, or the person who is asking the question can expand his or her consciousness to encompass a frame of reference from which the question can be answered. The first two options are the easy ways out of a confrontation with a question that appears to be nonsensical or inappropriate, but the seeker, the true scientist, will allow himself or herself to expand into a frame of reference from which the answers that he or she is seeking can be understood.

We, as a species, have been asking the questions, "Is there a God?", "Is there a Divine Intelligence?", and, "Is there a purpose to life?", for as long as we have been able to articulate questions. The time has now come for us to expand into a frame of reference that allows these questions to be answered.
This is pretty similar to something I just read in a book called A Child of Eternity, by Adriana Rocha and Kristi Jorde. Adriana was born December 8, 1981. She is a very "low functioning" autistic, and could not communicate at all until she was 10, when Kristi, her mother, learned about Facilitated Communication. Basically, a "facilitator" supports the autistic child's hand, wrist, or elbow, so the child can point with better accuracy, or even type. There were plenty of sceptics of FC at that time, and likely still are. After all, how can anyone other than the facilitator know whether the facilitator is "supporting," or doing the actual typing. Expecially when a parent becomes the child's facilitator, since they obviously want to discover that their child is intelligent, and they so badly want to have meaningful communication with their child. So here's what Kristi says about the sceptics:Quote:Thousands of people are now communicating through FC, with many more thousands of facilitatios working with them daily. Yet instead of recognizing that something genuine is happening and then going to our laboratories to figure out how to prove it, some researchers have done the reverse. They've tried to use old paradigms to measure and explain phenomena that exist outside those of old mindsets. Could Pythagoras have discovered that the earth was round by applying the same logic that those before him had used to determine that it was flat? We must change, shift, and grow to accommodate new information - that's the very nature of evolution.

I'm not exactly sure how far I can accept intuition and feelings, even my own, as evidence of anything. It's just too easy to take it too far. But I think Zukav and Jorde are right that we can't rule out such things just because they aren't explainable under current "knowledge." If we assume X (and not just any religious idea) is true, even though it cannot be proven in accepted systems of proof, we may find, or invent, other systems where it can be proven - systems that may come to be acceptable also. They may come to be as accepted as the "new" logics that proved the earth was not flat, but round. It's all sort of like this passage from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which I quote, yet again, despite Syl not being a big fan of it. )Quote:"Well, it's quite a bootstrap operation. It's analogous to the kind of hang-up Sir Isaac Newton had when he wanted to solve the problems of instantaneous rates of change. It was unreasonable in his time to think of anything changing within a zero amount of time. Yet it's almost necessary mathematically to work with other zero quantities, such as points in space and time that no one thought were unreasonable at all, although there was no real difference. So what Newton did was say, in effect, 'We're going to presume there's such a thing as instantaneous change, and see if we can find ways of determining what it is in various applications.' The result of this presumption is the branch of mathematics known as the calculus, which every engineer uses today. Newton invented a new form of reason..."

OK, I'll stop quoting for now. ____________
Highdrake's mastery of spells and sorcery was not much greater than his pupil's, but he had clear in his mind the idea of something very much greater, the wholeness of knowledge. And that made him a mage.<i></i>


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