I am interested in the experience of the awesomeness of being, (or 'existence' if being is too 'new-agey' sounding)... and in a way I am in agreement with Br in that one of the manners in which the experience can best be repressed (and most belief and anti-belief systems are forms of repression of the unknown and death) is through a simplifying belief
in order to feel the wonder of being-here-now and its implications you have to let go of facile answers . . . such as systematic rationalizations and/or religions
but, I also find that the rebutal of 'all things grand' can also be a means of keeping it at bay
oh, but another thing:
science will have its mysteries in abundance
but people confuse the essential difference between science, which is a descriptive and prescriptive discipline, with asking about what is being?
Science might ask questions which tackle the problem of the hows of the coming into being of matter but it does not step into the question of the being of beings..."why is there something rather than nothing?"
Until we have a firmer grasp on the how, the why will remain a mystery. To pretend to understand the why is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual masturbation.
I also don't deny that the universe is grand. It is. Words cannot do it justice.
There are many unknowns. I'm comfortable with them being unknown. It's just that simple. Uncertainty doesn't scare me into believing things.
Thats true, but it is interesting to reflect that " Science " as we know it today, flowed out of Alchemy & Religion.
What fuels both my passion for science ( astro-physics & quantum mechanics ) as well as my faith is a search for answers.
Like you I am "comfortable" with "unknowns" but I am also driven by a life long passion to " know " the answers.
I perfectly understand your annoyance at people who use God as a shield to hide from science..( I don't have time for those religious fundamentalists who doubt evolutionary theory ).
On the contrary, I embrace science in my quest to understand the universe & life. If Einstein, Plank, Bohm et al , thought the universe to be a profoundly mysterious place, then who am I to doubt their perplexity.
I am moved by mystery as well as awed by the complexity of the universe...that I choose to believe that their must be some sort of organising principal that creates order out of chaos..is my choosing...words are clumsy tools...but given the choice between ultimate meaning or ultimate meaninglessness I choose to believe the universe as having meaning...and purpose..
And that is a quest that both religion and science are endeavouring to grasp.
It is just that their words & methodologies are different.
You are so aggressivly concerned with maintaining a limited form of psuedo-scientific materialism and anti-religious thought that it clamps down your thinking
you know what... Being does move in mysterious ways
pfflam I never thought I would see as such written by you.....
And BR I will never claim to have you figured out. I will remain humble in that area.
Until we have a firmer grasp on the how, the why will remain a mystery. To pretend to understand the why is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual masturbation.
I also don't deny that the universe is grand. It is. Words cannot do it justice.
... a good nights sleep and back to the fray . . .
I disagree with the sentiment that there is only one kind of knowledge and it is scientific. If you follow any discipline to its furthest reaches you will start to enter terrain where the effort pays off in ways that is subtle and still profound: what you call intellectual masturbation would be so if it were mere pretense, however that doesn't account for the hard work of thinkers who have engaged the Universe from angles other than mere positivistic science (and there are other ideas about science too) and have come up with insights and experiences worth considering and having. . . the how and the why might change some of these thinker's works but I don't think their relevance will simple dissappear . . . poetry for example (being the extreme at one end of the spectrum) has forms of insight that don't cave in when confronted with biology . . . is it merely empty? when its strong poetry I don't think so
if all people who ask about the meaning of being stop and say . . 'aah what's the use, will it build bridges?' then they would be selling their own experiential possibilities short.
... a good nights sleep and back to the fray . . .
I disagree with the sentiment that there is only one kind of knowledge and it is scientific. If you follow any discipline to its furthest reaches you will start to enter terrain where the effort pays off in ways that is subtle and still profound: what you call intellectual masturbation would be so if it were mere pretense, however that doesn't account for the hard work of thinkers who have engaged the Universe from angles other than mere positivistic science (and there are other ideas about science too) and have come up with insights and experiences worth considering and having. . . the how and the why might change some of these thinker's works but I don't think their relevance will simple dissappear . . . poetry for example (being the extreme at one end of the spectrum) has forms of insight that don't cave in when confronted with biology . . . is it merely empty? when its strong poetry I don't think so
if all people who ask about the meaning of being stop and say . . 'aah what's the use, will it build bridges?' then they would be selling their own experiential possibilities short.
As usual you miss my point. I've come to expect this. Never did I say poetry is useless. Never did I say the arts were useless. I said MYSTERIOUS WAYS OOOOOH is a cop-out. That's all. As usual you take one very simple statement, apply your "BR IS A SCIENCE FREAK AND HATES HUMANITY" filter to it, and come up with these ridiculous charges including me allegedly thinking that poetry is empty.
You are the one who seems to have the set beliefs. You are the one seems to put any odd shaped peg into your specially designed square hole.
Your right . . . but moire than anything in the post above I was just musing on things . . . just taking the direction of the thread as a point of departure . . . ok?!
You mean the time period when Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt by Moses and lead into desert and from there into the Promised land?!! Of COURSE the Egyptians influenced the Israelites and not POSSIBLY the other way around, ESPECIALLY given that biblical references to the Messiah go back to Abraham ("through you all nations shall be blessed").
Egyptian metaphysics is very top-down oriented. I don't think that the incarnation of God somewhere in the middle would work for them. Two different paradigms.
By the time Abraham comes on the scene Egypts religion was quite well established.
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
The scene in question is dated back to 1600 BCE when the temple was built. That does not mean that was when the concept was first thought of. Those figures, Tehuti, Het-Heru, etc. all predate that particular scene by a couple thousand years.
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
And nowhere in the old testament around the time of abraham is there a detailed story of the birth of a God-son. Nowhere. Matta-fak..Abraham couldn't even build a temple. Mata-fac, Israelites couldn't build a temple prior to (tut)Moses.
So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sar'ai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife'; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account." 14 When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels. 17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sar'ai, Abram's wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone." 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.
1st: Gensis 3: 15 is the first prophecy of the virgin birth.
2nd: I don't see the relevence Gensis 12. Sarah was indeed his sister--his half-sister by their father, Terah.
Genesis: 3:15: And I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head and though shalt bruise his heel.
sure... so much detail. I mean the writing at Luxor has the
"three kings." the whole announcement, the conception, the birth....
but you got "bruisings." very very far streach of the imagination there.
As for "Sarai" She was Terah's daughter in-law. so they were not in fact blood related. They were man and wife. Fact is Abra(ha)m lied to the Pharaoh to "save his skin." as If Sarai was the finest woman in the land. As if the Pharaoh didn't have other options. No he HAAAD to have Abrahams wife... gimmie a break.
Genesis: 3:15: And I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head and though shalt bruise his heel.
sure... so much detail. I mean the writing at Luxor has the
"three kings." the whole announcement, the conception, the birth....
but you got "bruisings." very very far streach of the imagination there.
As for "Sarai" She was Terah's daughter in-law. so they were not in fact blood related. They were man and wife. Fact is Abra(ha)m lied to the Pharaoh to "save his skin." as If Sarai was the finest woman in the land. As if the Pharaoh didn't have other options. No he HAAAD to have Abrahams wife... gimmie a break.
(1) as seed of the woman, the virgin birth was prefigured. It's still an older reference.
(2) Gen. 20: 12, "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." This was the incident with Abimelech, much like pharaoh. (It must have been one heck of a society where one lived in fear that more powerful men would kill you for your wife.) But then scripture never attributes perfection to Abraham, only that Abraham had faith in God and God counted it to Abraham as righteousness.
I was raised prespeterian sp? and our family went to church until I was about ten or so.. then just on Christmas and Easter and such... then none at all. I guess I never did have a good understanding of the Christian religion much less knew if I was a believer in God or not.
A good high school friend of mine who is now my roomate at school is a hardcore Christian. We often have debates over creation and evolution and his many failed attempts at getting me to read the bible make me wonder about the impact of religion on his life. I watch some TV shows on the Discovery channel etc.. and they are packed with references to evolution and the earth being billions of years old. A lot of what we are taught in science class in school is based on Darwin's work. I've also heard that if indeed Jesus was hung on the cross, that his hands with spikes through them could not hold his body weight up.
For english class in high school a common topic for my papers was evolution. I did a fair amount of research and while I had an easy time finding reference material on Darwin and such, I had a hard time finding concrete readings on creation (maybe I just didn't look hard enough). And I wasn't about to read the whole bible just for a paper. As a conclusion to one of my papers I decided that religion is just something the human race has come up with to answer the unanswerables. Where did we come from? Where are we going? How was the earth formed? How old is the Earth?
While I have a hard time calling myself athiest, I just can't understand many people's following of religion as the ultimate truth. I have had no first-hand evidence that a God does exist. I am satisfied that when I die, that is it: lights out. End of story. I am not worried about going to hell because I do not believe any action is worthy of such 'suffering' and try to live a good life regardless of religion.
So what do you guys think? Am I crazy? Do I have logical thoughts? I need some good creative ideas to share with my roomie this fall as we lay in bed trying to fall asleep to the endless traffic noise of the downtown.
Comments
Originally posted by pfflam
I am interested in the experience of the awesomeness of being, (or 'existence' if being is too 'new-agey' sounding)... and in a way I am in agreement with Br in that one of the manners in which the experience can best be repressed (and most belief and anti-belief systems are forms of repression of the unknown and death) is through a simplifying belief
in order to feel the wonder of being-here-now and its implications you have to let go of facile answers . . . such as systematic rationalizations and/or religions
but, I also find that the rebutal of 'all things grand' can also be a means of keeping it at bay
oh, but another thing:
science will have its mysteries in abundance
but people confuse the essential difference between science, which is a descriptive and prescriptive discipline, with asking about what is being?
Science might ask questions which tackle the problem of the hows of the coming into being of matter but it does not step into the question of the being of beings..."why is there something rather than nothing?"
Until we have a firmer grasp on the how, the why will remain a mystery. To pretend to understand the why is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual masturbation.
I also don't deny that the universe is grand. It is. Words cannot do it justice.
Originally posted by BR
There are many unknowns. I'm comfortable with them being unknown. It's just that simple. Uncertainty doesn't scare me into believing things.
Thats true, but it is interesting to reflect that " Science " as we know it today, flowed out of Alchemy & Religion.
What fuels both my passion for science ( astro-physics & quantum mechanics ) as well as my faith is a search for answers.
Like you I am "comfortable" with "unknowns" but I am also driven by a life long passion to " know " the answers.
I perfectly understand your annoyance at people who use God as a shield to hide from science..( I don't have time for those religious fundamentalists who doubt evolutionary theory ).
On the contrary, I embrace science in my quest to understand the universe & life. If Einstein, Plank, Bohm et al , thought the universe to be a profoundly mysterious place, then who am I to doubt their perplexity.
I am moved by mystery as well as awed by the complexity of the universe...that I choose to believe that their must be some sort of organising principal that creates order out of chaos..is my choosing...words are clumsy tools...but given the choice between ultimate meaning or ultimate meaninglessness I choose to believe the universe as having meaning...and purpose..
And that is a quest that both religion and science are endeavouring to grasp.
It is just that their words & methodologies are different.
Originally posted by pfflam
You are so aggressivly concerned with maintaining a limited form of psuedo-scientific materialism and anti-religious thought that it clamps down your thinking
you know what... Being does move in mysterious ways
pfflam I never thought I would see as such written by you.....
And BR I will never claim to have you figured out. I will remain humble in that area.
Fellowship
Originally posted by BR
Until we have a firmer grasp on the how, the why will remain a mystery. To pretend to understand the why is nothing more than pseudo-intellectual masturbation.
I also don't deny that the universe is grand. It is. Words cannot do it justice.
... a good nights sleep and back to the fray . . .
I disagree with the sentiment that there is only one kind of knowledge and it is scientific. If you follow any discipline to its furthest reaches you will start to enter terrain where the effort pays off in ways that is subtle and still profound: what you call intellectual masturbation would be so if it were mere pretense, however that doesn't account for the hard work of thinkers who have engaged the Universe from angles other than mere positivistic science (and there are other ideas about science too) and have come up with insights and experiences worth considering and having. . . the how and the why might change some of these thinker's works but I don't think their relevance will simple dissappear . . . poetry for example (being the extreme at one end of the spectrum) has forms of insight that don't cave in when confronted with biology . . . is it merely empty? when its strong poetry I don't think so
if all people who ask about the meaning of being stop and say . . 'aah what's the use, will it build bridges?' then they would be selling their own experiential possibilities short.
Originally posted by pfflam
... a good nights sleep and back to the fray . . .
I disagree with the sentiment that there is only one kind of knowledge and it is scientific. If you follow any discipline to its furthest reaches you will start to enter terrain where the effort pays off in ways that is subtle and still profound: what you call intellectual masturbation would be so if it were mere pretense, however that doesn't account for the hard work of thinkers who have engaged the Universe from angles other than mere positivistic science (and there are other ideas about science too) and have come up with insights and experiences worth considering and having. . . the how and the why might change some of these thinker's works but I don't think their relevance will simple dissappear . . . poetry for example (being the extreme at one end of the spectrum) has forms of insight that don't cave in when confronted with biology . . . is it merely empty? when its strong poetry I don't think so
if all people who ask about the meaning of being stop and say . . 'aah what's the use, will it build bridges?' then they would be selling their own experiential possibilities short.
As usual you miss my point. I've come to expect this. Never did I say poetry is useless. Never did I say the arts were useless. I said MYSTERIOUS WAYS OOOOOH is a cop-out. That's all. As usual you take one very simple statement, apply your "BR IS A SCIENCE FREAK AND HATES HUMANITY" filter to it, and come up with these ridiculous charges including me allegedly thinking that poetry is empty.
You are the one who seems to have the set beliefs. You are the one seems to put any odd shaped peg into your specially designed square hole.
Your right . . . but moire than anything in the post above I was just musing on things . . . just taking the direction of the thread as a point of departure . . . ok?!
Originally posted by Sondjata
http://www.members.aol.com/sondjata/birth.html
You mean the time period when Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt by Moses and lead into desert and from there into the Promised land?!! Of COURSE the Egyptians influenced the Israelites and not POSSIBLY the other way around, ESPECIALLY given that biblical references to the Messiah go back to Abraham ("through you all nations shall be blessed").
Originally posted by Fangorn
ESPECIALLY given that biblical references to the Messiah go back to Abraham ("through you all nations shall be blessed").
By the time Abraham comes on the scene Egypts religion was quite well established.
Originally posted by Sondjata
By the time Abraham comes on the scene Egypts religion was quite well established.
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
Originally posted by Fangorn
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
The scene in question is dated back to 1600 BCE when the temple was built. That does not mean that was when the concept was first thought of. Those figures, Tehuti, Het-Heru, etc. all predate that particular scene by a couple thousand years.
Originally posted by Fangorn
But that is NOT what your link is saying. The figure is dated about 1600 B.C.; Abraham (Abram) was born about 2000 B.C. My citation still predates yours by an easy 400 years.
And nowhere in the old testament around the time of abraham is there a detailed story of the birth of a God-son. Nowhere. Matta-fak..Abraham couldn't even build a temple. Mata-fac, Israelites couldn't build a temple prior to (tut)Moses.
pardon me ladies, but does this constitute a catfight?
So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sar'ai his wife, "I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife'; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account." 14 When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants, she-asses, and camels. 17 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sar'ai, Abram's wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, "What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone." 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.
2nd: I don't see the relevence Gensis 12. Sarah was indeed his sister--his half-sister by their father, Terah.
Originally posted by Fangorn
1st: Gensis 3: 15 is the first prophecy of the virgin birth.
2nd: I don't see the relevence Gensis 12. Sarah was indeed his sister--his half-sister by their father, Terah.
Genesis: 3:15: And I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head and though shalt bruise his heel.
sure... so much detail. I mean the writing at Luxor has the
"three kings." the whole announcement, the conception, the birth....
but you got "bruisings." very very far streach of the imagination there.
As for "Sarai" She was Terah's daughter in-law. so they were not in fact blood related. They were man and wife. Fact is Abra(ha)m lied to the Pharaoh to "save his skin." as If Sarai was the finest woman in the land. As if the Pharaoh didn't have other options. No he HAAAD to have Abrahams wife... gimmie a break.
Originally posted by Sondjata
Genesis: 3:15: And I will put emnity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head and though shalt bruise his heel.
sure... so much detail. I mean the writing at Luxor has the
"three kings." the whole announcement, the conception, the birth....
but you got "bruisings." very very far streach of the imagination there.
As for "Sarai" She was Terah's daughter in-law. so they were not in fact blood related. They were man and wife. Fact is Abra(ha)m lied to the Pharaoh to "save his skin." as If Sarai was the finest woman in the land. As if the Pharaoh didn't have other options. No he HAAAD to have Abrahams wife... gimmie a break.
(1) as seed of the woman, the virgin birth was prefigured. It's still an older reference.
(2) Gen. 20: 12, "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." This was the incident with Abimelech, much like pharaoh. (It must have been one heck of a society where one lived in fear that more powerful men would kill you for your wife.) But then scripture never attributes perfection to Abraham, only that Abraham had faith in God and God counted it to Abraham as righteousness.
I was raised prespeterian sp? and our family went to church until I was about ten or so.. then just on Christmas and Easter and such... then none at all. I guess I never did have a good understanding of the Christian religion much less knew if I was a believer in God or not.
A good high school friend of mine who is now my roomate at school is a hardcore Christian. We often have debates over creation and evolution and his many failed attempts at getting me to read the bible make me wonder about the impact of religion on his life. I watch some TV shows on the Discovery channel etc.. and they are packed with references to evolution and the earth being billions of years old. A lot of what we are taught in science class in school is based on Darwin's work. I've also heard that if indeed Jesus was hung on the cross, that his hands with spikes through them could not hold his body weight up.
For english class in high school a common topic for my papers was evolution. I did a fair amount of research and while I had an easy time finding reference material on Darwin and such, I had a hard time finding concrete readings on creation (maybe I just didn't look hard enough). And I wasn't about to read the whole bible just for a paper. As a conclusion to one of my papers I decided that religion is just something the human race has come up with to answer the unanswerables. Where did we come from? Where are we going? How was the earth formed? How old is the Earth?
While I have a hard time calling myself athiest, I just can't understand many people's following of religion as the ultimate truth. I have had no first-hand evidence that a God does exist. I am satisfied that when I die, that is it: lights out. End of story. I am not worried about going to hell because I do not believe any action is worthy of such 'suffering' and try to live a good life regardless of religion.
So what do you guys think? Am I crazy? Do I have logical thoughts? I need some good creative ideas to share with my roomie this fall as we lay in bed trying to fall asleep to the endless traffic noise of the downtown.