Obama's Religious Inaugural Blunder

Timmy Part 4

YOU: Before they chose to disobey God they only knew what was good.

TIMMY: "Then why did they choose to disobey God?"

A desire to choose for themselves to know good and evil. If the creatures (Adam and Eve) were not perfectly free to choose then they would not have been created with a perfectly free will. So even though their wills were perfectly free to choose their minds were limited in knowledge and ability. God wanted creatures that could freely choose to love Him, (you can’t force love) so in creating man the possibility of evil was there. God put it there in the test – "You are free to eat from any tree...BUT you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for WHEN you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16,17)

YOU: They also knew before taking the fruit that God had warned them that they would die if they did so.

TIMMY: "So why did they do it? it was a very bad decision. These people were idiots. Who made them so stupid?"

ME: "Can you understand that God wanted a being who from his/her own free volition would return that love? If He just programmed it to love then it would be mechanical, not freely given.

TIMMY: "Then why does he command our love in the Bible?"

ME: "Because He knows what is best for you/man and because He created man for a relationship with Himself."

TIMMY: "Yeah but if he wanted Adam to love him of his own volition, then why wouldn't he want us to love him of our own volition? We're all he's got now. Adam is dead."

Some of us do once we realize the extent to which God went through to have a loving relationship with Him. He enables us to see this love He has for us by His Word and through His Spirit. "Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is hear through the Word of Christ." (Romans 10:17)

His message to us is life transforming, to those who are being saved. He creates in us a new heart, a heart of love and acceptance of what the Savior has done for us. He is the one that came looking for Adam and Eve in the garden after they sinned. He does the same for those whom He has chosen to save from all eternity. Do you hear His message?

"For God so LOVED the world that He gave His one and only Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him SHALL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE." (John 3:16)

Do you not see the measures He went through to meet His justice.

Timmy, Part 3

The act is what caused the perfect but limited creature to be flawed. Mans perfect will was no longer perfect in that it not only had the potential to know evil but now had a disposition to know evil. That "Will" is what brought death and decay to this world.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man [Adam], and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…." (Romans 5:12)

"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in the hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." (Romans 8:20, 21 with Genesis 3:17-19)

ME: "They chose to know what evil was - disobedience to God"

TIMMY: "Makes no sense. If you only know good, you can not do something bad because you don't know what bad is."

Timmy, free will is the ability to decide between alternatives. If their will wasn’t perfectly free then they would not have the ability to choose an alternative that they desired without being programmed to do so. God made evil possible and man made it actual. Imperfection came through the abuse of our moral perfection as free creatures. Will is a choice between two desires. In the case of Adam and Eve as long as the choice comes from the individual rather than an outside force then the choice is considered to be free. Free will has the ability to make an unforced choice between alternatives. So Adam and Eve were creatures who had the ability to sin or not to sin. We on the other hand only have the ability to sin because of that first act. The human nature was corrupted by that choice. By that I do not mean that man is incapable of doing good, but that man is incapable of not sinning, even the very best of us. Adam and Eve were capable of not sinning. They chose to. They were also influenced by the devil in believing the lie.

TIMMY Part2,

God also made mankind in His image and likeness, not as a complete duplicate, but with functions and characteristics that are found in the character and attributes that God has. We, like God have the potential to love, to reason, to know and communicate on a level that is different from animals; hence we are different from animals.

"Then God said, "Let US make man in OUR image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all living creatures that move along the ground." (Genesis 1:26)

And that is precisely what you see and witness today, as in the days of Adam and Eve; man ruling over the animals and the earth.

"...the LORD God formed man out of the dust of the ground [i.e. the elements that make up the earth so that as a physical being he would be able to be sustained from the earth] and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life [mans spirit and soul], and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)

God did not make man exactly as He Himself is for there alone is only one God. Only the Son, who became the second Adam, is the exact likeness and representation of the eternal God, for the Son is God and fully became man to meet the requirements that the first Adam did not. (see Hebrews 1-2; Romans 5 to understand these truth as the Bible explains them).

Therefore the creature was limited in knowledge, wisdom, reason, being and ability. He created it only knowing good, but with the potential to know evil also. He wanted a creature capable of choosing to love Him by returning His love; He wanted a creature that He would teach about Himself and His goodness, that He could interact with and have an intimate relationship with. That relationship was disrupted when man, with perfect freedom of will, chose to know what evil is also, separating himself from his Creator, for God is good, by wanting to choose what good was for himself/herself.

"When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom [outside of God], she took some and ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked...."[and realized they had done evil and found it necessary to hide from God, as you, Timmy are doing] (Genesis 3:6-7)

Hi Timmy (from January 2, 2009 3:04 AM),

To get back to the topic you were pressing me on.

ME: They decided from their limited knowledge perspective that they would know the difference between good and evil. With the evil came the consequence that God had warned them about.

TIMMY: "Such a bad decision. I mean God warned them and everything."

God warns you too. You still do evil.

TIMMY: "These people clearly had bad decision making faculties resulting in a very bad decision. This decision making, of course, occurs before the act. When they were still limited in their knowledge. But only limited in their knowledge of good and evil. Surely God would have made them capable of knowing what the word "consequences" means, otherwise he could not expect them to understand a warning about consequences. So they knew what consequences were. They weren't limited in that department. So before the act, knowing the consequences, they made a very bad decision. They did not have to make the bad decision. They could have made the good decision, because they have free will. But they made the bad decision. So they must have had bad decision making faculties. Which of course they got from Got from God."

Not bad, limited until after the action, then bad. Do you know what death is, never having experienced death? Do you know what's after death, never having experienced it?

However, in your limited knowledge you still know what evil is and yet you do it. If you know it is wrong why do you do it? Adam and Eve did not know evil until they decided to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so you, unlike them until the point of taking the fruit, were one up on them. You know what it is.

As I have said in the past, and you continue to skim past it, God made Adam and Eve limited. They did not have the ability to fly, for He did not make them that way, nor did He make mankind with the ability to live under water. But in some respects we were made similar to other creatures in that we share the environment of the earth with them, so there are similarities.

"So God made the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, ACCORDING TO THEIR KINDS, and every winged bird ACCORDING TO ITS KIND. And God saw that it was good." (Genesis 1:21)

Pamsm,

Part two,

BTW, I am more than happy to be proven wrong by you on this. I am not arguing from certainty on this specific point. Just from my limited knowledge of science, and common sense. I suspect you are doing the same. But unless it's important to you, don't waste your time digging out quotes. It doesn't affect my argument one bit, that wisdom can not be gained without the use of reason. Heck we cannot function for five minutes without it.

YOU: You lay too much at the door of reason. Reason is a great and wonderful thing, and something that we do better than most other animals, but it is NOT the be-all-and-end-all of every bit of our behavior.

Never said that it was. Not even close. You are thrashing at the same straw man as Onofrio now. I have only ever made the point that we can not function without it, or acquire wisdom without it. If I say we can not function without breathing, I am not saying that breathing is the be all and end all of our survival. There are other things we need to survive ass well as breathing of course, but just try tossing breathing aside for a while and see where that gets you. All I am saying about reason is the same thing.

I'm Curious, since you decided to get into the middle of the argument between Daniel and I, that you did not show impartiality by taking him to task for the many things in his faulty yet self assured assertions Like pain generates wisdom. Love generates wisdom. Poetry generates wisdom. Drug abuse generates wisdom. The entire prison system is designed to give convicts wisdom.

Why are you not an equal opportunity post basher? Got a thing for Timmy do ya?

Pamsm,

Pam,

YOU: NO, Timmy. What I was disagreeing with was your assertion that sticking our hand in the fire only tells us that it's hot, that it's the "reasoning" that it will cause injury that keeps us from doing it again. NONSENSE. It is pure conditioned reflex (conditioned by pain, which seldom takes more than one repetition).

Scientific data would convince me more than putting NONSENSE in caps, but the most important thing you need to know is, I don't care. As long as you agree that it does not constitute wisdom, that was my argument to Daniel, to whom the original post was actually addressed. Whether or not reason is involved in such a thing does not matter to me. It seems to me that it would be, but I could care less if the truth is that it does not. Remember, this is all about my argument that wisdom can not be gained without using reason, which you don't seem to disagree with.

Having said that, I will continue to debate this with you, because you have offered no data on the specific question of whether or not reason plays a part in the decision not to stick your hand back into a flame. I do not dispute that reflex plays a role, but what is your data that shows reason plays no roll at all in this specific decision? Can you quote me something specific?

As I type this I have just sparked up my Bic lighter. Now I am running my fingers through the flame. Right through the flame. I'm doing it as slow as I can without getting burned, which is quite slow. Why does my powerful conditioned reflex not stop me from doing this? Have I overruled it with my reason? Have I not reasoned through experimentation that I can actually touch flame for a short period of time without getting burned. The reflex does not kick in until I actually feel the pain. Then only, does my hand jerk back in reflex. Before that, my reason is controlling my actions not my reflex.

One more point. I go skateboarding with my dog every day. Every day she lunges at the nose of my board and tries to stop the wheels with her paws. Every time she does this the wheels roll over her paw and she yelps in pain. Every single time. I have to yell at her to make her stop. Then the next day, she does it again. Shoots her paws right under the wheels, in exactly the same manner as the day before. She yelps in pain every time. Once she got cut and bled all over the place. And yet next time we go out, same thing again. Perhaps if she could reason better she would not do this. But her reflex does not seem to be conditioning her away from hurting herself in the same manner every day.

Timmy,

And thumbs up for the Eden critique vs Peterhuff. Like your text critical approach.

Why cant you people live with the reality that the people of Cali. spoke their minds when they voted FOR Prop 8???? If you do not like the democratic process then move to another country and stop your whining. Both sides fought hard, Hollywood throwing massive amounts of money at it, and the people voted their conscience. What pisses off the gay community is that it is now a constitutional amendment and cannot be ruled upon arbitrarily by their homophile judges who just manage to rule in their favor every time.

Arnold S., the "manly man" is turning out to be quite the "girly governor" with his affinity for the gay community. Makes one wonder where he spends his spare time - like any body gives a crap.

Timmy,

You're getting better! I loved the crows and straw men. Salute!

Hello Peter,

YOU: Unfortunately, it is a serious matter with eternal consequences

Agreed.

YOU: They decided from their limited knowledge perspective that they would know the difference between good and evil. With the evil came the consequence that God had warned them about.

Such a bad decision. I mean God warned them and everything. These people clearly had bad decision making faculties resulting in a very bad decision. This decision making, of course, occurs before the act. When they were still limited in their knowledge. But only limited in their knowledge of good and evil. Surely God would have made them capable of knowing what the word "consequences" means, otherwise he could not expect them to understand a warning about consequences. So they knew what consequences were. They weren't limited in that department. So before the act, knowing the consequences, they made a very bad decision. They did not have to make the bad decision. They could have made the good decision, because they have free will. But they made the bad decision. So they must have had bad decision making faculties. Which of course they got from Got from God.

YOU: "They chose to know what evil was - disobedience to God"

Makes no sense. If you only know good, you can not do something bad because you don't know what bad is.

YOU: Before they chose to disobey God they only knew what was good.

Then why did they choose to disobey God?

YOU: They also knew before taking the fruit that God had warned them that they would die if they did so.

So why did they do it? it was a very bad decision. These people were idiots. Who made them so stupid?

ME: "Can you understand that God wanted a being who from his/her own free volition would return that love? If He just programmed it to love then it would be mechanical, not freely given.

TIMMY: "Then why does he command our love in the Bible?"

Because He knows what is best for you/man and because He created man for a relationship with Himself.

Yeah but if he wanted Adam to love him of his own volition, then why wouldn't he want us to love him of our own volition? We're all he's got now. Adam is dead.

Oh no, Frio

"I really meant Peterhuff just prior, but Timmyhuff is quite accurate after all"

Man. You let an animal out of it's corner and it continues to lash out at you. Look out! He swipes at your face with his claws.

"O amalgam of pure Absolutists"

Hey, that didn't hurt. How come? He looks so ferocious.
It seems this animal's claws are too soft. They could only injure a straw man.

But oh how he did thrash that straw man to bits. And the crows praise their God, Onofrio, as they feast on the corn.

Peterhuff,

You:
"You'll find that without God you are incapable of answers that can make sense."

In fact, WITH your God I found and wrestled with answers that ultimately made no sense at all. You will no doubt retort, in accordance with the I and P in TULIP, that I could never really have been saved. Fair enough. Maybe my revulsion at his Hell is your God's way of telling me I'm not among his elect.

You - as did most of my former fellows in Christ - seem serenely unconcerned about what vexed me to nightmare.

You:
"Best wishes"

Liar

Hi Onofrio,

ONOFRIO: "Any worldview I offer you will be trampled on by arguments I've already heard."

That is fine. It is not up to me to convince you. That is between God and you. But ask yourself to be honest and answer some of the questions I have posed to you. You'll find that without God you are incapable of answers that can make sense. If you choose to live in darkness when God's Word and Son bring light that is your business.

Best wishes!

Timmy, Part 2,

v. willed, will·ing, wills
v.tr.
1. To DECIDE on; choose.
2. To yearn for; desire: "She makes you will your own destruction" George Bernard Shaw.
3. To decree, dictate, or order.
4. To resolve with a forceful will; determine.
5. To induce or try to induce by sheer force of will: We willed the sun to come out.
6. To grant in a legal will; bequeath.
v.intr.
1. To exercise the will.
2. To make a choice; choose.

TIMMY: "The decisions themselves are made with our decision making faculties like our reasoning and judgement."

That is our will Timmy, whether we make that decision based on emotion or our sometimes ill-informed rational and reason.

TIMMY: "Adam's decision making faculties must be flawed if he made a bad or wrong decision."

It was flawed once he made the decision, not until. He decided for himself that he would know the difference between knowledge of good and evil and at that point in taking the fruit became a flawed human being.

ME: "Do you understand that God only gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of what was good when He made them?"

TIMMY: "How could they choose evil if they didn't know it existed?"

They chose to know what evil was - disobedience to God. Before they chose to disobey God they only knew what was good. In the act of taking the fruit they realized what evil was and hid from God, just like you are doing. They also knew before taking the fruit that God had warned them that they would die if they did so.

ME: "Can you understand that God wanted a being who from his/her own free volition would return that love? If He just programmed it to love then it would be mechanical, not freely given.

TIMMY: "Then why does he command our love in the Bible?"

Because He knows what is best for you/man and because He created man for a relationship with Himself. Adam was our federal head or representative, just as Christ is the head and representative of those who are in Him, in covenant with Him (Ephesians 5:23-27; Romans 5:12-21)

Hi Timmy (January 1, 2009 10:17 PM),

TIMMY: "Hi Peter. You make me laugh."

Good, then we are both giving the other some comic relief. Unfortunately, it is a serious matter with eternal consequences.

ME: "Okay, what do you not understand about God creating Adam perfect but limited?"

TIMMY: "That he would then punish them and all humanity for something that they did because of their limitation which he gave them. If the limitation prevents the product from fulfilling it's intended purpose, then that limitation is a flaw."

Not flawed until they freely chose and only flawed because they freely choose to do something that He said there would be consequences for. They decided from their limited knowledge perspective that they would know the difference between good and evil. With the evil came the consequence that God had warned them about.

ME: "What do you not understand about free will? If a person has free will then they have the equal ability to choose one way or the other.

TIMMY: "It is you who does not understand free will. We don't make decisions with it, it is only the lack of a barrier to acting on those decisions."

No, you are inventing your own definition of will, kinda like Bill Clinton, to get yourself out of a pickle.

will 1 (wl)
n.
1.
a. The mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or DECIDES upon a course of action: championed freedom of will against a doctrine of predetermination.
b. The act of exercising the will.
2.
a. Diligent purposefulness; determination: an athlete with the will to win.
b. Self-control; self-discipline: lacked the will to overcome the addiction.
3. A desire, purpose, or determination, especially of one in authority: It is the sovereign's will that the prisoner be spared.
4. Deliberate intention or wish: Let it be known that I took this course of action against my will.
5. Free discretion; inclination or pleasure: wandered about, guided only by will.
6. Bearing or attitude toward others; disposition: full of good will.
7.
a. A legal declaration of how a person wishes his or her possessions to be disposed of after death.
b. A legally executed document containing this declaration.

Peterhuff,

Given that my main objection to your system is ultimately emotional, your reasoning is not going to address it. I know them all already, your reasons.

You can line up your patristics, and I my counter-scholarship (the 'New Age' smear doesn't apply) and it won't make a lick of difference because at the end, I can still see your Hell, full of some vast majority of all the people that ever lived. And I can see on high your 'Romans' deity who devises countless creatures for a destiny of torment, simply to express his favour to the cherry-picked arbitrary few.

Any worldview I offer you will be trampled on by arguments I've already heard. And you wll feel more assured than ever. You are typecast. You've shown what you think dialog is. And your Paul has typecast me. I live in darkness. I see it as shade against your white god's cruel high noon. But to you, it can only ever be deadly darkness.

I'll leave you to Timmy. Like you, he's a Salvific Absolutist, and a triumphalist as well. You can play duelling gods - Reason vs Jesus - till Judgement Day.

Hi Onofrio (January 1, 2009 9:17 PM),

ONOFRIO: "The reason why, ultimately, I could not love God's justice, and endorse the eternal, righteous torture of those consigned to his scrap heap, has little to do with MY actions."

Sure it does. It has everything to do with your actions, your nature and your rejection of His appointed means of salvation.

ONOFRIO: "I had a Trinitarian faith, I believed, I had a "personal relationship with Jesus", I worked out my faith with fear and trembling. I could have delivered an address almost identical to the one you've just graced us with. I was signed, sealed, and delivered, and sold on the Absolute you trumpet."

No, not signed, sealed and delivered or you would not have jumped ship. God saves completely those whom the Son died for. Maybe that still is you? Can you escape from the trap of the devil? "Did God really say?"

ONOFRIO: "What drove me away, finally, was no rationale a la Timmy, no sin I wanted to cover up, no failure to read my scriptures, no life crisis. It was, quite simply, the sheer horror of contemplating the damnation of so many people I respected, admired, and loved. They were not Christians, for any number of reasons far more complex than your simple "rejection" dualism. They were going to be subjected to unremitting torment, because my God said so. Simple."

What you want is those who reject Christ and have in mind what is contrary to God to live in a loving relationship with God without justice. Well, if you want lack of justice then hell is the place to be, unfortunate as that may be.

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them...." (Romans 1:18; also vs. 21)

ONOFRIO: "You solemnly reiterate the oracles of your all-just God and his Christ, through your proof texts. All those damned lose their names, and their faces in your scheme. To you they are the lost, those "without Christ". But when I look into your Hell, I find it filled with ordinary and extraordinary humanity..."

Yes, those who are getting justice, not mercy. Mercy was offered in the Son and those who have the Son have life. If you want a God who is not just then don't complain about injustice. You want it both ways. It is irrational. He met His justice in the Son, the very one you are rejecting. Again, you are dictating to God with your finite human understanding how it MUST be in order for you to worship Him. (Romans 9:14-24, especially vs. 19-21)

Hi Onofrio,

You're not going to prove your point from New Age, mystery religion "scholarly" research. For every scholar you push your point with I can counter with an equally "good" scholar who supports the Christian position. Remember one thing, you nor I were there.

Judging from your last post you are a radical skeptic. That is your nature. You are going to use every shred of "scholarly" evidence that supports your position.

Athanasius did not draw his conclusions from some pagan fable or myth. He used the Word of God as his support for the Trinity.

"6. For as the light is noble, and the sun, the chief cause of light, is nobler still, so, as it is a divine thing for the whole world to be filled with his knowledge, it follows that the orderer and chief cause of such an achievement is GOD AND THE WORD OF GOD [Capital letters are mine]. 7. We speak then as lies within our power, first refuting the ignorance of the unbelieving; so that what is false being refuted, the truth may then shine forth of itself, and that you yourself, friend, may be reassured that you have believed what is true, and in coming to know Christ have not been deceived."

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.vi.ii.i.i.html

What you find in the writing of some of the early church fathers is a confrontation of these pagan mystery religions and affirmation of the truth of Scripture and who Christ is. These pagan gods and false cults are refuted well.

Read the account from Clement on Dionysius and Orpheus or other "gods" and "goddesses" and see how closely they come to the God of Christianity in "Exhortation to the Heathen."

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.vi.ii.ii.html

How can you even compare Christ to these myths?

The New Testament had warning about some of these cults and false teachings. (1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:3-4; 2 Peter 1:16)

The apostles and disciples were eyewitnesses of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord.

So let's not argue on such grounds, but let's get behind our worldview's and discover how you and I account for them. State what you believe. Do you believe there is or is no God? Do you perceive an objective absolute standard for truth and if so what is it? Where does life come from? Does your worldview have purpose and meaning?

Hi Peter. You make me laugh.

Oh boy, do we have to go through this exercise again?

YOU: "Okay, what do you not understand about God creating Adam perfect but limited?"

That he would then punish them and al humanity for something that they did because of their limitation which he gave them. If the limitation prevents the product from fulfilling it's intended purpose, then that limitation is a flaw.

YOU: What do you not understand about free will? If a person has free will then they have the equal ability to choose one way or the other.

It is you who does not understand free will. We don't make decisions with it, it is only the lack of a barrier to acting on those decisions. The decisions themselves are made with our decision making faculties like our reasoning and judgement. Adam's decision making faculties must be flawed if he made a bad or wrong decision.

YOU: Do you understand that God only gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of what was good when He made them?

How could they choose evil if they didn't know it existed?

YOU: Can you understand that God wanted a being who from his/her own free volition would return that love? If He just programmed it to love then it would be mechanical, not freely given.

Then why does he command our love in the Bible?

PeterTimmyhuff,

In Peterhuff's Hell, Onofrio saw

whole cancer wards, bodhisattvas, rabbis, rowdy lads, jilted brides, unexceptional grandmas, abused minors, mahouts, Plotinus, drowned sailors, senile uncles, millions slain in pogroms and crusades, folk from Belsen, Cairene streetsweepers, Rangoon shopkeepers, shipping containers full of sex slaves, Sufi poets, underage conscripts, despairing teens, the Beatles, coalminers, Twin Towers suicides, promising students, Kalahari bushmen, Balinese dancers, massacred infants, drag queens, Martin Buber....and more, and more...and even a certain Galilean, who had never heard of Paul...

O amalgam of pure Absolutists TimmyPeterhuff, and the diminished bored audience,

I really meant Peterhuff just prior, but Timmyhuff is quite accurate after all.

When Onofrio, Ridiculous Ridiculous Fool, former pitchfork dancer and serial baiter of Robespierre, finally divined what Timmy did for a living, his head exploded, and he, of course, beloved of neither Jesus nor Reason, ended up in Hell.

As a shining 4WD drove him direct from the Saddleback carpark along the lip of the blazing abyss, he looked down and saw myriad souls being poured into the flames, wherein he glimpsed faces and forms before they disappeared into God's self-expression forever. And in the moments before he joined them, he saw not his own, but millions of lives pass before his eyes...

Timmyhuff

You to me, about non-Christians:
"You are wrong. I appreciate their successes, compassion, hospitality, courage and unselfishness, but I realize that in itself this will not get you through the pearly gates for "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

You have been most patient with all my persiflage, O Blessedly Assured, and have shown admirable restraint in response to my ravings.

Hey, I've given you a platform for preaching your gospel, so forgiving me, as your Lord enjoins, will be even easier. And the wisdom of this fool is confounded, carefully, point-for-point.

Textbook.

Since you clearly approve of Hell, let me tell you why I find it repulsive. My argument is not rational, nor is it proof-texted.

The reason why, ultimately, I could not love God's justice, and endorse the eternal, righteous torture of those consigned to his scrap heap, has little to do with MY actions. I had a Trinitarian faith, I believed, I had a "personal relationship with Jesus", I worked out my faith with fear and trembling. I could have delivered an address almost identical to the one you've just graced us with. I was signed, sealed, and delivered, and sold on the Absolute you trumpet.

What drove me away, finally, was no rationale a la Timmy, no sin I wanted to cover up, no failure to read my scriptures, no life crisis. It was, quite simply, the sheer horror of contemplating the damnation of so many people I respected, admired, and loved. They were not Christians, for any number of reasons far more complex than your simple "rejection" dualism. They were going to be subjected to unremitting torment, because my God said so. Simple.

You solemnly reiterate the oracles of your all-just God and his Christ, through your proof texts. All those damned lose their names, and their faces in your scheme. To you they are the lost, those "without Christ". But when I look into your Hell, I find it filled with ordinary and extraordinary humanity...

Hi Timmy, you make me laugh!

TIMMY: "As for Peter Huff, you will notice that I cornered him as I did to you, with a question he can not answer. This makes his particular version of God a logical fallacy and impossible to be true. He is cornered, stumped and has given up. He knows I am too formidable for his logic. It's game set and match between me and Huff the Magic Dragon. It was all too easy. Simple logic and reason. One thing that Huff knows that you don't, is that it is pointless to hold a world view that can not stand up to reason and logic."

Do I have to do this exercise again? Okay, what do you not understand about God creating Adam perfect but limited? Physically he was made without flaw, without sickness, with or without the possibility of eternal life. But he was made only knowing good and God was interacting with him, telling him what was acceptable in His sight, laying the boundries.

What do you not understand about free will? If a person has free will then they have the equal ability to choose one way or the other. If it was not free then it would have a disposition towards one slant or another. In that case it would not be perfectly free.

Do you understand that God only gave Adam and Eve the knowledge of what was good when He made them?

What do you not understand about God creating Adam as a being that God wanted to interact with in intimate fellowship by teaching him about Himself as a Father interacts with a child and helps him/her to grow by the interaction? In this way the child would learn the love of the Father. Can you understand that God wanted a being who from his/her own free volition would return that love? If He just programmed it to love then it would be mechanical, not freely given.

God created Adam and Eve very good, as with the rest of His creation? But He created them with only the knowledge of good but the choice of to know evil also. The consequences was death in this choice to know both good and evil, not only in Adam and Eve but also in us as Adam was the representative of all of us. This is what the Bible teaches.

If you want to question God further than His revelation of Himself or His Spirit has revealed through His Word, then you will have to wait until your death. But I fear it will be the other way around in that you will be doing the answering.

I don't know how much longer we will have the license of this forum because Susan cut us off from posting on the last one. I still have my answers to you in my database. Do we migrate to the next forum and screw up the leading question again by our own agenda? That seems very impolite. I don't mind doing that when the forum is dying down a bit. I see you are already in operation on the new one.

I understand your quandary in answering posts when it seems that everyone is wanting a piece of you. I had that problem on the Sam Harris forum at times. What ever happened to Andy and the gang?

Onofrio,

I will leave you alone. I will let you out of your corner now.

But if you find yourself on another thread with me, and you are considering wether or not to make the assertion that deity belief is of benefit to anybody, know that doing so will bring certain questions that you have great difficulty answering. Note that I will turn you into a cornered animal again. I will make you so insane you will start acting like Timmy.

Prepare some good answers for those questions, that are credible, verifiable, not as laughable as "the collective works of Socrates".

I can't make Peter Huff see reality, but I can make you see reality. You will when you think about the questions that I have put to you for a long time and realize there really is no reason for you to forgo something that could bring to you something as great as the wisdom of Socrates or the morality of Jesus. And there really is no fundamental difference between you and the people you claim can receive great benefit from it. If you don't need it, neither do they. If can help them achieve something so great as the Wisdom of Socrates, or the Morality of Jesus, then it can certainly help a smart person like you achieve these same things. So to reject it is foolish.

I could make that point in a funny and poetic way. (OK not poetic, but funny) But there is nothing funny about it. You and all the religious apologists are missing a point that is holding much of our world back in the dark ages. And what an anchor around our necks. It's not funny. No time for jokers. We have a world to save.

PS: If you knew what I did for living your head would explode.

Onofrio, Final segment,

ONOFRIO: "What really galls you about non-Christians is not their moral failures - you expect that; your faith feeds on it like a leech on a horse's butt - but their successes. According to your "worldview" they're not supposed to get anywhere without Christ. So when some atheist, or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Jew, or other demonstrates compassion, or lives contentedly, or offers hospitality, or does something unselfish, or courageous, deep down you either deny it, or misappropriate it for your God by crediting the Holy Spirit. Or you simply don't see it at all. You miss it because of your blood-of-Christ-tinted Son-glasses. To you, even the goodness of people is not their own; its meaning is annihilated by your Christ's jealous exclusivity."

You are wrong. I appreciate their successes, compassion, hospitality, courage and unselfishness, but I realize that in itself this will not get you through the pearly gates for "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." I also am passionate about truth and when I see error I like to expose it. Logically opposite truth claims cannot all be true. Truth is exclusive. If you don't believe so then keep driving through those red lights!

God cannot be both a personal Being and impersonal. He cannot be the only true and living God and there be other true and living gods. That is a contradiction of logic, the very thing that you use to make sense of anything. Let us be reasonable, both Mohammed and Christ cannot be ways to God for they both contradict the other in what they say. Jesus claims to be THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, and no one comes to the Father but by Him. That is exclusive.

ONOFRIO: "Why do I assume so much about you? Because you've made it clear you're a Christmonger. You're typecast. Most people hate being typecast. So tell us why you're not like that."

Call me what you will. Label me what you will. What is the "truth" that you live by? Let's test it.

Onofrio, Part 3,

ONOFRIO: "Another question: Do you believe that all those who are not devotees of your "true Jesus" will be tortured forever in Hell? If so, do you heartily approve of it?"

Yes I believe that those who reject the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God - Jesus - will come under the judgment of God. God has made it clear.

I understand that someone - God - who is truly righteous (alway does what is right for that is His nature) must punish evil action and rebellion. Heaven would not be a place of righteousness if evil was allowed to reside in it. The problem with unbelief and unbelievers is that they want to dictate to God what He should and shouldn't do. They do not want to take the only offer that will appease His righteousness and justice, the gift of His Son in their place.

Well, if Jesus is not standing in your place then you will be their on your own behalf answering by your own flawed merit.

"Do I approve of it?" I approve of justice but even more I approve of God's mercy and grace that I do not deserve. What has God called each believer to do about it? That is tell others of the "Good News" in His Son.

ONOFRIO: "I think that your vehemence in dogmatising about your particular "true Jesus" is fed by a great fear - that perhaps people might be able to make sense of life through other means."

You want me to say what you are willing to hear and in the process deny the truth of God's Word.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and disciple." (Proverbs 1:7)

If you want to fall into the hands of an angry God, be my guest. And He is angry with the injustice and wrongdoing in this world. If you want to tolerate all things then you will need to learn to turn a blind eye to what is morally evil, to rape, to murder, to stealing, to lying. The only thing that you will not tolerate is someone telling you that truth is exclusive and that God has appointed only one means of salvation.

If you want to make sense of life through other means lets see you then.

ONOFRIO, Part 2,

ONOFRIO: "How do you know that only your book and your tradition are right about God? After all, as you opine, our human knowledge is so frail and flawed. How can texts written by flawed humans be flawless?"

Yes my human knowledge is frail and flawed, but I do not look to my own reason and knowledge (His Spirit reasons with my spirit) but to the One who has revealed by His Word that He created it and everything else. Therefore in order to make sense of anything it is a necessary condition to think God's thoughts after Him and to use the mind He has given me to discover the truth of His creation.

So my starting presupposition is that God is true and from that I can make sense of this world and the facts that show the reality of this world, to the degree that God has given me the ability to do so. (And I admit that is limited. But God has confirmed certain of His truths to me by helping me to rightly discern His Word in some areas. If you like I can explain this further to you?)

And what God has said is shown by His creation and everything in it as well as by His Word. It conforms to reality. The atheist cannot account for life coming from non-life, a universe by chance random happenings, personality, knowledge and thinking by material means in a chance universe, uniformity of nature, logic from an illogical abstract, non-thinking process that is chance originated, order and purpose coming from something that lacks intent, etc., etc., etc.

From God I see Being giving birth to being, Life giving birth to life, a Person giving birth to personality, order, knowledge, purpose, and information coming from a mind, the only place that one that can discern information from for a rock does not have a mind, conscience, being or the ability to think. You want me to believe that the material universe is the cause of all this? Or in Timmy's view that chance is the cause of all this?

When he says life may have always existed he is confirming my worldview, for God is eternal, immortal. He just does not recognize the Life that gives birth to all other life for he is blind to his own reason.

Hi Onofrio (January 1, 2009 8:01 AM),

ME TO COLIN: "Without Christ no man will see God. He is the only bridge that spans the gap between God and us. Unless you understand these truths the only thing I can do is point out to you that without God nothing ultimately makes sense for He is the precondition for all intelligibility."

ONOFRIO: "God may be the precondition for intelligibility, but you never attempt to show HOW. You just roll out the peremptory proof texts and convert-or-perish cliches like cluster bombs. You may as well be speaking in Martian."

Actually I do attempt to show how all the time, you are just not aware of it. You are not listening for you want to prove otherwise. The way I do it is to show that without presupposing the Christian God you can't make sense of anything, and I have had many atheists admit that they cannot make sense of anything as to certain.

But the alternative, there is a God, is something that they will not accept because then they would be admitting that they are in fact accountable. They want to rule, to be autonomous.

I have asked them to account for morals, for knowledge in a material universe, for life, for personality, for certainty and truth, and a number of other things. They have no answers, just subjective opinion. With subjective opinion the question becomes whose and why are they right? There is no answer that can make sense of these things. Without God, as Van Til has said, you cannot even account for accounting.

Timmy,

Far from my sight,
unload your spite;
choose another
knave to bother.

Off with you, Tim

Peterhuff,

Peterhuff to me:
"man cannot "rightly" discern truth and meaning without borrowing from the Christian worldview and I challenge the unbeliever to show me that they can."

Perhaps the borrowing runs the other way somewhat.

Any one who thinks the Trinity is a Christian light-bulb moment should read Prof. Gwyn Griffiths "Triads and Trinity". The divine, perichoretic triad, that great "Christian" distinctive, was an age-old construct of Egyptian priests that flowed down the Nile to Alexandria, and diffused into the Greek-then-Roman Oikumene with the grain ships of Alexandria. First-few-centuries minds had been well-trained in divine triads by Isis, Harpocrates, and Serapis. It is no coincidence that the great champion of the Trinity-as-we-know-it, Athanasius - that formidable Nilotic short-ass mean-ass - came out of Alexandria.

For pre-1000 BC examples of the creator god sorting righteous from wicked, shutting the latter in a fiery hell, and vivifying the souls of the blessed, see the Book of Caverns (Piankoff, 'Tomb of Ramesses VI').

For a sample of resurrection from tombs, check out the Anc.Eg. Book of the Dead. Note, not a sign of any of this in Tanakh. Pharaoh, whom Moses defied, was well-steeped in it though. If Christ, Moses, and Pharaoh met, Pharaoh would quickly recognise Christ had borrowed a fair bit from him.

Your "Christian" Lake of Fire as a post-mortem punishment for the wicked is anticipated in the ancient Egyptian royal underworld books, and the Book of the Dead, where it is depicted, surrounded by supervisory baboons.

As for Everlasting Life through a god's sacrifice - you can thank Orphism for that, and the ever-popular Osiris, not mentioning numerous other dying-rising-god stuff. No sign of it in Tanakh. Ask Farnaz, she can give you other startling details, if you stop proof-texting and ask nicely.

You can even source your Cosmic Adversary Satan elsewhere. And where would Christmongery be without him ("kept it in business all these years" - Anton La Vey). While he has a dash of Egypt's Seth and more than a dash of the great chaos serpent Apophis - same source - he resembles the Persian Ahriman very closely - check out Zoroastrianism. Ditto for devils.

I could go on, and on, and I can already tell you are adamant. After all, I'm doubtmongering, and that is anathema to your citadel of Blessed Assurance.

I've heard your homily before. I once lived it. But you've never heard the homilies I've cited, I'm sure. Until you have wrestled down, sampled, and digested at least some of them, don't go waving your dogma at me. You know not what you do.

Onofrio,

As for Peter Huff, you will notice that I cornered him as I did to you, with a question he can not answer. This makes his particular version of God a logical fallacy and impossible to be true. He is cornered, stumped and has given up. He knows I am too formidable for his logic. It's game set and match between me and Huff the Magic Dragon. It was all too easy. Simple logic and reason. One thing that Huff knows that you don't, is that it is pointless to hold a world view that can not stand up to reason and logic.

Onofrio,

"Timmy, you originally asked for ONE example, not a whole list. I supplied one."

What you supplied was the equivalent of quoting a bible verse to support God belief. It was pathetic. It was unverifiable. This is the kind of evidence that Thomas Baum has for God. So you were unable to support your claim that there are benefits to deity belief. There just aren't. All of your jeering at me along the way was distraction, and when it became particularly venomous, it was the equivalent of the ferocity of a cornered animal. And that;s what you are. It's not my fault you made an innane statement that can not be backed up. It's not my fault you are a cornered animal. Don't get mad at me for being right, dude. Just accept defeat or find come CREDIBLE VERIFIABLE benefit to deity belief.

YOU: "So here we are again, stuck in tit-for-tat payback attacks. Know what? I is bored"

Thrn get off the tit for tat and support your baseless assertion with credible verifiable examples.

YOU: "I can tell you, against such assured, certain types, only wit will work. You won't change them"

Not trying to change them. I'm trying to change you. You have sense and reason. (at least I hope you do) There is a chance that you will realize that the fact that you can not answer what is different about you and the people who receive great benefit from religion. Or if they are not different, why do you deprive yourself of this wisdom giving gift?

You may come to your senses one day.
The Huffster will not.

And you coming to your senses, will help greatly. The sooner we stop endorsing this madness in the mainstream,the sooner we will stop brainwashing a new army of delusional robots.

We don't need to de-convert what has not been converted in the first place.

Peace

ONOFRIO, Part 3,

ONOFRIO: "You impute an absolute ethical incompetence to all non-Christians, which is an ACT of dehumanisation. You deny them, categorically, any meaningful moral compass, simply because they are not convinced about Jesus and the whole dead-man-walking schtick."

What I do is make the same claim the Bible does in that man cannot "rightly" discern truth and meaning without borrowing from the Christian worldview and I challenge the unbeliever to show me that they can. When they reveal their thinking I can confidently point out the errors in it because they cannot account for or give any definite reason for it. I do this by trying to follow the argument through to its conclusion - digging down to find where its foundation lays. For the atheist that foundation is in mid-air with no visible means of support. You'll notice that many of the questions posed to the unbeliever asking for an accounting on these forums go unanswered. That speaks for itself. They are without defense.

See 1 Corinthians 2:1-16 if you are at all interested?

ONOFRIO: "Clearly, you do not know what dialog means."

Well maybe you can show me by answering some of the questions I have posted to these unbelievers and to you? What is your standard for good and how do you account for it?

Onofrio: "For you it's just another opportunity to harangue. What I am doing now is not dialog either. How does it feel, harangue for harangue, absolute eye for eye?"

I have discussed every statement and concern you have raised. Call it what you will.

ONOFRIO: "Who is more "moral"? The one who refrains from stealing your wallet because he fears eternal hellfire, or the one who refrains because he respects your common humanity. Think about it."

The question is why he refrains at all if he has no higher standard in which he is accountable to?

Do you think that your morality will stand before a perfectly "just" and "righteous" God? Do you want to earn your merit before God? Have you ever lied, stolen, committed adultery, dishonored your parents, coveted something belonging to someone else or not done the good you know you should have? Have you ever worshiped God with all your heart, mind, body and soul? If your answer is yes to all the above then you do not need a Savior for you are your own.

ONOFRIO: "The implication of your "God or depravity" dualism is that you, if somehow God was disproved, would become a pirate, rapist, mugger, murderer and all round bad hombre. What is it, do you think, that stops atheists from doing just that, because, according to your logic, they should be pillaging their way across the known world like Huns."

What stops them is that God has placed in every one of us a moral compass, that even though it has been badly damaged by sin, the Fall, it still recognizes some things as good and bad, right and wrong (Romans 2:1-24).

Onofrio, Part 2,

Matthew 7:24-27 is a contrast of two opposing worldviews, one which believes and trusts and depends and relies on Christ and the other that does not. How can you believe if you wrongly discern His word of truth? God calls us to worship both in spirit and in truth (John 4:2-24). And there are certain fundamental truths that if you deny you are no longer worshiping the true God but an idol. That is not to say that Christians can't err, but the Spirit eventually leads us into the truth as He opens our eyes to it.

IF YOU HAVE THE WRONG JESUS YOU HAVE THE WRONG GOSPEL AND THE WRONG SAVIOR (2 Corinthians 11:3-4; Galatians 1:6-10).

ME: "Certain Islamic extremists feel that it is good to fly planes into buildings. The ends justify the means. In your worldview why are they wrong, or are they? In my worldview they are and I can make sense of why."

ONOFRIO: "What you are implying here is that only Christians (of your particular sect, no doubt) have the right to decide what's morally objectionable. You are, in fact, insisting that Christians have a monopoly on moral discernment."

What I am saying is that only the Christian God by His very nature and Being is perfectly good and the standard for truth. Without His objective (He knows all things), absolute (it is not contrary or changing), ultimate and universal (it applies everywhere and is our highest authority), true (there is no falsity in it) standard or measure or reference there would be no such thing as "good" or "right" or "just" because there would be nothing to base such concepts on but subjective, changing, fallible human preference - mere opinion that establishes nothing but by force. Without God there is no "right" for it is just what one animal does to another animal (and I'm not saying that we are animals, just that such thought is the common precept).

ONOFRIO: "I, as a non-Huff-Christian, am NOT ALLOWED to have a moral problem with the 9/11 events. Christians alone can interpret it, contextualise it, and in a sense, own it. Anyone else's attempt doesn't count because it occurs without proof texts."

You can recognize it as evil just as well as I can, but you cannot account for it as evil without an objective standard to measure evil by. In effect what you are doing, if you are not a Christian, is borrowing capital from the Christian worldview while all the time denying it. That is how irrational belief is outside of God. As Cornelius Van Til said, the only reason that you can slap your fathers face is because he has allowed you to sit on his lap. With an atheist they deny God all the time breathing in the air that He has given. Go figure?

Hi Onofrio (January 1, 2009 6:44 AM),

ONOFRIO: "What follows is an imperious, brutal, slam dunk of Christofascist sameold. Dial Og and Magog..."

I'm engaging the culture by pointing to the obvious flaws of atheism and any belief system that denies Christ. God has made the wisdom of this world foolish by showing us His own wisdom.

ME: "You will not discover the true Jesus by promises preached and yet not possessed. You doubt His Word and His authority thereby setting yourself in judgment of it as the higher authority."

ONOFRIO: "So you're saying that merely DOUBTING the words of "the true Jesus" is the same as a complete rejection of his spiritual authority. That's called totalitarianism, Peterhuff. No room to move, no room even to breathe. A coffin."

If you are a Christian then what are you trusting in and where does your faith come from? We are not called to be immature in our faith but to hold steadfast to God's truth and mature in it. For someone young in the faith it may be common to doubt but we are not called to doubt but to believe the truth as we mature and rightly discern. If you are a young Christian then I encourage you to dig deeper for faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 5:11-6:12; 11:1, 6).

If you doubt His Word you are in effect calling Him a liar and rejecting the authority of His word, His written revelation to us. You can't serve two masters Onofrio. You have to hold to His teaching in order to be His disciple (John 8:31-58; Matthew 9:26). That does not mean that we are incapable of falling, or error, but He is faithful in keeping us in His grace and mercy as Christians when we do fall. Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).

"If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels." (Matthew 9:26; see also Matthew 10:32, 33; Luke 12:9)

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rocks. The rain came down, the stream rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand....and it fell with a great crash." (Matthew 7:24-27)

So what I am saying is that in order to know God you have to believe what He says concerning all things and rightly discern His Word. (That requires a new birth and intimate fellowship with Him by His Spirit in the Word - for the man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God)

Peterhuff, the Christmonger,

You to Colinnicholas:
"Without Christ no man will see God. He is the only bridge that spans the gap between God and us. Unless you understand these truths the only thing I can do is point out to you that without God nothing ultimately makes sense for He is the precondition for all intelligibility."

God may be the precondition for intelligibility, but you never attempt to show HOW. You just roll out the peremptory proof texts and convert-or-perish cliches like cluster bombs. You may as well be speaking in Martian.

How do you know that only your book and your tradition are right about God? After all, as you opine, our human knowledge is so frail and flawed. How can texts written by flawed humans be flawless?

Another question: Do you believe that all those who are not devotees of your "true Jesus" will be tortured forever in Hell? If so, do you heartily approve of it?

I think that your vehemence in dogmatising about your particular "true Jesus" is fed by a great fear - that perhaps people might be able to make sense of life through other means. What really galls you about non-Christians is not their moral failures - you expect that; your faith feeds on it like a leech on a horse's butt - but their successes. According to your "worldview" they're not supposed to get anywhere without Christ. So when some atheist, or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Jew, or other demonstrates compassion, or lives contentedly, or offers hospitality, or does something unselfish, or courageous, deep down you either deny it, or misappropriate it for your God by crediting the Holy Spirit. Or you simply don't see it at all. You miss it because of your blood-of-Christ-tinted Son-glasses. To you, even the goodness of people is not their own; its meaning is annihilated by your Christ's jealous exclusivity.

Why do I assume so much about you? Because you've made it clear you're a Christmonger. You're typecast. Most people hate being typecast. So tell us why you're not like that.

Peterhuff, Moral Absolutist

You to Colinnicholas:
"It appears you are willing to dialog so here we go"

What follows is an imperious, brutal, slam dunk of Christofascist sameold. Dial Og and Magog...

You:
"You will not discover the true Jesus by promises preached and yet not possessed. You doubt His Word and His authority thereby setting yourself in judgment of it as the higher authority."

So you're saying that merely DOUBTING the words of "the true Jesus" is the same as a complete rejection of his spiritual authority. That's called totalitarianism, Peterhuff. No room to move, no room even to breathe. A coffin.

You:
"Certain Islamic extremists feel that it is good to fly planes into buildings. The ends justify the means. In your worldview why are the wrong, or are they? In my worldview they are and I can make sense of why."

What you are implying here is that only Christians (of your particular sect, no doubt) have the right to decide what's morally objectionable. You are, in fact, insisting that Christians have a monopoly on moral discernment. I, as a non-Huff-Christian, am NOT ALLOWED to have a moral problem with the 9/11 events. Christians alone can interpret it, contextualise it, and in a sense, own it. Anyone else's attempt doesn't count because it occurs without proof texts.

You impute an absolute ethical incompetence to all non-Christians, which is an ACT of dehumanisation. You deny them, categorically, any meaningful moral compass, simply because they are not convinced about Jesus and the whole dead-man-walking schtick.

Clearly, you do not know what dialog means. For you it's just another opportunity to harangue. What I am doing now is not dialog either. How does it feel, harangue for harangue, absolute eye for eye?

Who is more "moral"? The one who refrains from stealing your wallet because he fears eternal hellfire, or the one who refrains because he respects your common humanity. Think about it. The implication of your "God or depravity" dualism is that you, if somehow God was disproved, would become a pirate, rapist, mugger, murderer and all round bad hombre. What is it, do you think, that stops atheists from doing just that, because, according to your logic, they should be pillaging their way across the known world like Huns.

Timmy, Son of Calvin,

You to me (agaaain)
"Go ahead. Build the list of upsides to deity belief. Oh right. The collective works of Socrates..... Good grief."

Timmy, you originally asked for ONE example, not a whole list. I supplied one. We tussled. You thundered. I nipped at your boring certainty. People were amused. You called for back up. I kept up the skeer. It died down. There was an entente of sorts. You quoted Lennon. I said fair enough. I began to answer a straight question from you, from the heart and from personal experience. I was not succinct. I was tentative. Couldn't quite finish it, but was going to. You pounced. You nyah-nyahed. I wearily returned to the fray. I made sport of your triumphalism again, the only way I know how.

So here we are again, stuck in tit-for-tat payback attacks. Know what? I is bored, Son of Calvin (note the grammatical error), as I daresay are the great audience. I'd love to have at thee again, but the circus has left town, methinks.

In case you hadn't noticed, Timmysaurus, several Christmongering dinosaurs have strode onto the thread. Maybe you should try your brilliant unconversion skills on them, and show us all what you're really made of. Let's see a few unconversions...or not.

I can tell you, against such assured, certain types, only wit will work. You won't change them, but you may just give some light relief to everyone else who has to endure their dogmatising.

Keep practicing the irony. It's improving, but has yet to really take flight. Still a bit too...iron.

The Joker is always trumps, Timmy.

But hey, why are we still talking.
Farnaz already said "ALL WE NEED TO KNOW!"
NUF SAID!
READ IT! THINK ABOUT IT! AND IF YOU STILL DON'T GET IT. READ IT AGAIN. BECAUSE YOU ARE STUPID IF YOU DON'T AGREE THAT FARNAZ HAS SAID ALL WE NEE TO KNOW!!!!!!!

All with absolutely no sense of irony.
What a joke. Or should I say Joker.

Onofrio,

"Churlish, no, to pick on my "grammar" when all I ever did with you was pick on your arguments"

I was referring to my own clumsy grammar, and you never touched my argument, you took only personal shots at me. To have addressed my arguments, you would have had to show credible benefits to deity belief. You did not. You did much inane babbling in an ancient dialect as you argued with an invented foe's position, but you most certainly did not touch my argument. You have been all distraction. A side show.

Hello again Colinnicholas (December 30, 2008 10:58 PM),

COLIN: "...and Einstein who says;
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.
I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere..."

Sure, so you say he said that, so what? He starts with a basic premise that discounts him taking the Christian God seriously. He puts the thought of such a God outside of his imagination and human sphere. Therefore he must funnel everything through what is left, man in his finite understanding trying to explain something that is beyond him and his limited understanding. He can't make sense of it. He is trying to put the puzzle together without all the pieces.

COLIN: "Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust."

You uses ethical terms like "morality" and "unjust" but what is your measure for such terms. Who can you uphold as "THE" definitive and qualitative standard for ethics and justness? In other words, why is something unjust because you view it as such? Why do you get to set the shifting standard? What power politics gives you the "right"? Alas, in vain I ask these questions to atheists, for they have no rational answers.

COLIN: "A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs."

Says who and why? The problem is that as much as the atheist uses qualitative terms and makes moral judgments, in order to do so he borrows from the Christian worldview to do so, even if he errs in his assessment of "good and right and just."

It is the age long dilemma of trying to answer how anything can be good or bad or right or wrong without an absolute, ultimate, unchanging, objective reference point and measure.

News flash: Without such a reference point - God - all it is is subjective opinion, personal preference, feeling, and why should yours or your cultures be the one that I subject myself to? Certain Islamic extremists feel that it is good to fly planes into buildings. The ends justify the means. In your worldview why are the wrong, or are they? In my worldview they are and I can make sense of why.

COLIN: "No religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Okay, then when I see you in a dark alley with no one else around, hand over your wallet. What you have is mine. If there is no ultimate meaning and no ultimate penalty for my actions (for it is just the way that my particular brain patterns happen to function in a chance universe and in a particular situation - one without intent or plan or purpose for that requires personhood) I will do what I like and for as long as I get away with it, for eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!

Onofrio,

"Now that you have anointed me your "God king", Timmy, I must be Reason"

You are the only one I have ever heard refer to reason as a god. I have only ever described it is as a functionary tool of the brain. Then your fantastical mind invented a position to argue with because timmy's actual position was too sound, and you had no actual rebuttal. I was far from the only poster on this thread asking you to "show me the money" with your assertions. But alas, you are broke.

Onofrio,

With absolutely no sense of irony, in one post, you did everything you have ever accused me of. You are every bit as arrogant and self assured as you accuse me. All of your olive branches have been barbed. And your main argument against mine has never been there. Like deity believers who believe in something that is just not there, you believe in these magical benefits of willful delusion, that can create wisdom and morality, otherwise not available. Like God, these magical benefits just aren't there. And neither is your argument. Why else reject deity belief yourself?

I doubt the bandwidth on this website could handle it if I were to type out a list of the down sides of deity belief. And you can not come up with one credible benefit. I'm not calling for a ban on it. Just raising awareness about the giant list of down sides and the absent list of upsides.

Go ahead. Build the list of upsides to deity belief. Oh right. The collective works of Socrates..... Good grief. Or should I say, God grief. Or God = Grief.

Timmy,

The passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.

(W H Auden - After Reading A Child's Guide to Modern Physics - 1961)

Hi Colinnicholas (December 30, 2008 10:45 PM),

It appears you are willing to dialog so here we go.

COLIN: "I'm inclined to agree with Carl Sagan when he says;
"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again; that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.
But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest it is more than wishful thinking."
Carl Sagan. "The Demon Haunted World"

Carl Sagan is just a man like you and I with a worldview that he funneled everything through. His basic premise was that, "The universe is all there is or was or ever will be." That is what he starts with and that is what he ends with and everything sandwiched in between is used to support these basic core values. It must be nice to emphatically state such absolutes with such limited knowledge!

You will not discover the true Jesus by promises preached and yet not possessed. You doubt His Word and His authority thereby setting yourself in judgment of it as the higher authority. It must be nice to be so wise! So my pointing you to Christ when you won't even look is futile. You are blind to the fact that the entire Scriptures reveal Him (John 5:39, 46; Luke 24:44-47). The Scriptures are one beautiful mosaic tapestry that presents Him to those who have an eye to see, an ear to hear and a heart to believe.

Without Christ no man will see God. He is the only bridge that spans the gap between God and us. Unless you understand these truths the only thing I can do is point out to you that without God nothing ultimately makes sense for He is the precondition for all intelligibility.

So that is where I start with atheists for as Paul said,

"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God....But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." (2 Corinthians 4:3-4; 3:16)

You, as an unbeliever live in darkness. You refuse to come into the light for fear that what is done in secret will be exposed (John 1:5; 3:19-21). You dismiss sin as not only wrongful action towards God but also as something that tarnishes our very beings and our sin is our legal guilt before a Just and holy God.

You fail to see that God became man to bring us to God, to bridge the gap of our sinful nature that became apparent in Adam as our legal head or representative. Your family tree is in Adam. A Christians family tree is in Christ, the new Adam. As fully man He did not stop being God (Colossians 2:9), but lived completely by His human nature, not His deity, to satisfy all of God's demands that Adam, the first man had failed to live up to.

Timmy,

Was it (as it must look to any god of cross-roads) simply a
fortuitous intersection of life-paths, loyal to different fibs,

or also a rendezvous between accomplices who, in spite of
themselves, cannot resist meeting

to remind the other (do both, at bottom, desire truth?) of
that half of their secret which he would most like to forget

(W H Auden - Horae Canonicae - Vespers)

Timmy, Son of Calvin,

You pipe and whistle to me:
"By not answering my very pertinent question you have answered my very pertinent question. Hells bells. I am now more assured than ever."

The Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind...

Best not let your Blessed Assurance rest on an argument from silence. That would be too close to ...(agaaain) FAITH!

Now that you have anointed me your "God king", Timmy, I must be Reason. The syncretism is sealed. I am your very thoughts!

Here's a burning hot coal, that you may speak my truth...

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to me, re his own triumphalist nyah-nyah effort:

"man you [Onofrio] deserved that.

Clumsy grammar and all."

Hmmm, vengeful too, I see.

Churlish, no, to pick on my "grammar" when all I ever did with you was pick on your arguments and your persona. You elicited personal responses from me, under a flag of truce, and pounced.

Perhaps, when the hangovers have passed, you could write for us all on the "Ratiocination of Vengeance". Or you could demonstrate the links between blessed assurance and spite.

Oh well, here we go again,

Timmy, and the departed great audience,

Timmy to me:
"Hells bells. I am now more assured than ever."

Glad to have helped you feel so secure, Timmy. You know, I think the only other people in the world who feel as assured as you do are Supralapsarian Calvinists.

"Blessed assurance, [Reason] is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine..."

Yes, those bells in Hell are truly ringing. I thought Auden's bells might toll-in a kinder thread, but it's the same old guerre.

Peace, my angry Canuck,
Happy New Year

You can't help yourself, can you Timmy. Haven't you got a party to go to or something. Maybe you should listen again to that other Beatles hit "Let It Be". Or maybe not - Mother Mary might come to you...

Oh, and BTW, thanks for the steel-trap reception to my attempt at parley. I know the reply I gave was partial, but as I said, genuinely, it's a hard question to answer. If the thread stretched on after New Year, I might have returned to it. But New Year's Eve intervened, and, well, I had places to go, people to see.

So thanks again, O "spiritual and emotional" one, for throwing it back in my face. Top effort.

I notice you've started to ape my style a bit. Thanks for the compliment - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. "God king" is a bit clumsy, but keep tryin', tiger.

Face it Timmy, we can't go on without each other, can we?

Onofrio,

BTW. By not answering my very pertinent question you have answered my very pertinent question. Hells bells. I am now more assured than ever.

man you deserved that.

Clumsy grammar and all.

Onofrio,

Farnaz said: "Reform must be embedded in atheism or else if and when Reason sweeps away the smashed gods, it will smash everything else."

Then you said: "The beauty of truth, the truth of beauty!

Ahh, Onofrio has revealed what the beautiful truth is. We can all rest at peace now.

YOU: In terms of the gist of this Mother of Threads, Farnaz, you've said "ALL THAT WE NEED TO KNOW.

And now threaders take note. Onofrio has declared it. Stop your searching for any and all new information and ideas. Onofrio has shown you through his Daimon "Farnaz" ALL THAT WE NEED TO KNOW" right there!

Just in case you had any doubts, note the CAPS and exclamation marks,. It is written!

And now the new authority of the mother of all threads giveth us a command.

"Think about it...and again...and some more!"

Note the exclamation marks!!! This is surely a commandment!

And the final: "'nuf said."

Say no more. Speak no more. The truth has been written. For now and forever. It is ALL WE NEED TO KNOW! Search for no other truth. Onofrio has declared it.

And don't forget about the exclamation marks!!!

Congrats Onofrio. You just became everything you accuse Timmy of. Maybe you should turn to faith. You could stand to improve.

BTW I also agree with Farnaz's statement. I just would never declare that it is all we need to take away from this thread. But you go, self appointed God king.

Hope the New Year parties are goin' off for the great audience.

For Onofrio, here in the Austral Fundament, the stroke of midnight has passed,

and with it all those visions and revisions, certainties, and fidelities, and pedantic boring cries,

like vibrations of a bell,

To each of you:

...Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough...

W H Auden, January 1937

(and with apologies to him as well, and to TSE, who no doubt would have to approve my thefts)

Pamsm

Me to you:
"I can see you're knee deep in cheval de merde"

Pardonay my Fronsays,

Merde de cheval - the murdered phrase,

No longer of merde the horse,

Of course, of course..

Timmy, and Timmy's comrades-in-armedgument, and the rest of the great audience (I see you've taken up that phrase, Timmy),

Pay close attention

FARNAZ:
"Reform must be embedded in atheism or else if and when Reason sweeps away the smashed gods, it will smash everything else."

Think about it...and again...and some more!

'nuf said.

Farnaz!

Persis!

You:
"Reform must be embedded in atheism or else if and when Reason sweeps away the smashed gods, it will smash everything else."

The beauty of truth, the truth of beauty!

In terms of the gist of this Mother of Threads, Farnaz, you've said

ALL THAT WE NEED TO KNOW

right there!

I wonder if anyone will notice?

Will I weep on the keys...no, I'm dancing round the room - think schtick insect possessed by Tevye.

Pamsm,

BTW, I don't want to detain you. I can see you're knee deep in cheval de merde versus the Christmongers who have lurched onto the thread, like Fomorians.

I salute your stand, you're doing brilliantly.

More power to you...

Pamsm,

Thanks for your generous response to my flaky Osiris rap a ways back.

You:
"I think it really took off when people discovered that they could control other people by claiming to have some special "in" with the god or gods, and the ability to act as intermediary and to tell the hoi polloi what the gods "wanted." From witch doctors to priests, the big business of religion was born."

I broadly concur with your Rough Guide to God mongering. Would you agree that the part of our instincts that configures these gods is not - in itself - the problem. The rub in terms of god-problematisation = the manipulation of human instincts by those who claim to represent gods.

Do we agree there? NB, I'm not asking you to endorse actual gods.

It seems to me that the problems with religion are actually about power and the ways humans find to abuse it. In this case, gods are simply a tool, just as technology is a tool.

Gods and Nuclear Fission/Fusion

are more than

Crusades and H-Bombs

Otherwise said: I'm trying to salvage the Poetic Imagination from the wreck of dogma.

"Why give pride of place at his inaugural ceremony to a representative of a religious group that gave Obama so little support?"

That's exactly why Obama is reaching out to these people: he is trying to build bridges and bring them into the American mainstream. After all, these people are not simply going to disappear or abandon their silly religions.

Having Warren speak at the inaugural isn't going to recruit anybody into his media empire. But I think Warren has already had to shift his position considerably. I'll judge Obama by what he actually achieves over the long term, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt--for now.

JAC,

"ADJUSTED ASSERTION:
All tenets or useful philosophies that come out of religion, actually came from nature and has been developed into oral and written morals by means of human reason. Belief in something not real is not the real origin of useful wisdom."

Just tuning in again to the Mother of Threads. Thanks and again for this synthesis of the turf we guerre for, JAC.

I keep turning your last sentence over and over, like a cut gem. So many vistas of light and dark in each facet: "belief", "real", and my favourite double glint "real origin".

Tangled up in True...

Conterww writes:
"Noticed that you did not address the danger of 'reeducation' of our youth.. etc. The one thing that I really fear about radical atheists is the proposal to teach my kids about 'myth'".

Relax. Brainwashing is *your* baliwick. I haven't heard of any atheist movement to actively teach children that there are no gods. We just want religion out of public schools. You're still perfectly welcome to warp their little minds at home, in parochial schools, and in your churches.

CWW: "Your other assertion that most don't believe in the Christian god- that may be true, but MOST do believe there is a creator, something out there that started it all. It is YOU that is the minority, and atheists always will be".

Hmmm...not sure you're you're right about the numbers who believe in a creator. I don't think the Chinese do, and religion is rapidly losing ground in the most educated parts of the world - Japan, most of Europe, Canada - even the U.S. You may be right, but "always" is a very long time. In any case, being in the majority doesn't make you right. All people once believed that the world was flat, and that the sun circled the Earth, which was the center of the universe. Forward thinkers have always been a minority.

CWW: "What makes you not find that seed inside you? Not sure, but I think it has more to do with your insane claim to know everything in the universe enough to claim God does not exist"

Maybe because it isn't there? And I have never claimed to know everything in the universe, quite the contrary. Knowing everything is religion's stock in trade, not atheism's.

CWW: "That you are too smart and 'logical' to believe. The seed is there, but you all have pushed it out of the way. It's just a way to make everything about YOU and not about others".

Oh, merde du cheval. I'm as concerned for others as the next person. You know, I picture you speaking these words with the intonation of a tent revivalist, spittle flying from your lips, face red...

CWW: "Atheistic thinking is deficient. It is so deficient that you have to attack people that believe to make yourselves feel better about your insane lack of belief".

Could have fooled me. I would have sworn that I felt quite good about my lack of belief. But then I'm insane, so what do I know? And of course, believers *never* attack us. What are you doing on this thread?

CWW: "You are swimming upstream against a torrent of evidence against you, and most of the population also".

Really? How about trotting some of that evidence out?

CWW: "I will take my bet over yours anyway"

Ah yes, Pascal's Wager. Always a logical position.

This thread is getting quite unwieldy, and Susan has another essay out, so I'm moving on. Perhaps we will meet again there.

Thomas,

"One day you and all others will have the evidence too. God will provide the evidence."

It doesn't make sense, Thomas. Why would God be keeping the evidence from us? Horrible things are happening in his name daily. Atrocities. Disease, global warming, tsunamis, hundreds of thousands of years of human existence before anyone sees evidence of him and 7000 more years go by and he still is waiting for the big reveal. It doesn't make sense Thomas.

The great audience,

Further to my point that reason is not only a false god but not a god at all, I see it as a functionary tool of our brain. I have two dogs. I watch them use their reason all day long in everything they do. It is hard for me to imagine them ever making the decision to set their reason aside for anything they do. If I could suddenly communicate with them for a moment, and tell them that sometimes you need to set your reason aside to find true morality and or wisdom, I think they would do that thing that dogs do when they cock their head? Without having grown up in a world, where ditching reason for important belief forming was not only accepted behavior but considered to be virtuous, any creature in nature would cock their head at the notion.

I think our imagination is definitely what separates us from the other living things, and I think it is our greatest asset. And one of the elements of imagination it seems is setting reason aside in tiny bursts. But leaving your reason behind to then form strong and important beliefs, your very world view, is where our greatest asset can get us into terrible trouble.

Setting reason aside to imagine is wonderful.
Staying in that head space to form your world view is very troublesome IMHO.

Frederic,

Thanks for your reply. You to me:

"yes, I am a musician, who tries to connect structure to emotion and even derives emotion through structure.

As to Reason: In its fundamentals, yes, it may be a false god, definition of "god" pending!

There still is a difference whether I use it up to its available measure (admitting its Kant-, Hegel-, Marx-, Adorno-, Horkheimer-wise conditioning), or whether I willfully try to "disprove" it by calling black white and white black, by confounding causality with correlation, by ignoring logic, natural evolution etc. like a child stomping his foot because he doesn't get his wishes fulfilled by Santa."

Yes, absolutely, but "admitting its Kant-, Hegel-, Marx-, Adorno-, Horkheimer-wise conditioning," is not parenthetical parenthetical.

I could not agree with you more about gods, ghosts in machines, etc. Surely, they are all essentialist, dangerous reifers. But so is REASON in its Frankfurt School sense. The problem for which I see no solution is that as long as we are playing Bolsheviks vs. Mehseviks, the former wins. Btw., I never "idealized" the Bolsheviks.

Here is Martov in, I believe 1919 or 1920, "We reject the Bolshevik way of posing the question - victory first, reforms after - because the absence of reforms makes for defeat and
not for victory. But we also reject your way of putting it - reforms first and a revolutionary assault on counter-revolution after - because it
may happen that nothing survives to be 'reformed" if counter-revolution gains a decisive victory.

Reform must be embedded in atheism or else if and when Reason sweeps away the smashed gods, it will smash everything else.

TIMMY2

You wrote, "Evidence is not evidence if it can not be verified by outside sources."

I am not trying to prove to anyone that God is Real, but God has proved it to me.

One day you and all others will have the evidence too. God will provide the evidence.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Farnaz,

"So, Frederic, being familiar with the critic of the critic, with the Frankfurt School, you can see that Reason is a false god"

It isn't a God at all.

CounterWW:

YOU: It is YOU that is the minority, and atheists always will be.

The fastest growing demographic in the world was Muslim up until two years ago when it was replaced by "non religious"
Sorry pal, but tick tock tick tock.

YOU: Not sure, but I think it has more to do with your insane claim to know everything in the universe enough to claim God does not exist.

If you are speaking about Pam personally on this one I'll let her answer for herself. If you think that this argument works against all atheists it most certainly does not. I do not think that I know enough about the universe to claim that it definitely does not have a creative source. But I do know enough about history, and science, and biological evolution to know that "Bible God" was created by man not the other way around.

I also know that the possibility of a creative source for the universe suffers from the problem of infinite regression. What is the source of the source and the source of the sources source and on down the line into infinity. Somewhere along that line, something had to exist always. And it seems far more logical to me that it would be a universe not a magic man in the sky.

YOU: That you are too smart and "logical" to believe

Correct sir.

YOU: "The seed is there, but you all have pushed it out of the way. It's just a way to make everything about YOU and not about others"

I donate to charity, I am good to my neighbors. It is you who wants to make it all about God.

YOU: "Atheistic thinking is deficient. It is so deficient that you have to attack people that believe to make yourselves feel better about your insane lack of belief"

I love that you probably don't see the irony in the above sentence. Did you not just show your thinking to be deficient by attacking what others believe to make yourself feel better about your own insane belief??? Read it again. Your sentence above reminds me of a sign I saw at a Muslim demonstration in England. A Muslim was holding a plackard that read, "Death to anyone who says that Islam is a violent religion".

Like you, I don't think that the guy with the sign was aware of the irony of the statement.

YOU: You will never ever eradicate people's belief in God

I'm not looking to. Just raising awareness. Let the people choose for themselves.

YOU: You are swimming upstream against a torrent of evidence against you, and most of the population also

The evidence is on my side. The population will come along in a few generations when brainwashing loses it's battle to the internet. You can teach your children anything you want. But you will no longer be able to shield them from the recorded historical record that shows your religion to be a myth created by Roman politicians for the purposes of subjugation. You will no longer be able to shield them from the science that debunks your myth.

The fastest growing demographic in the world right now is "non religious"

Tick Tock. God bless the internet. ;)

Thomas Baum,

"After I met God and knew that God was Real, it is evidence-based, revealed to me by God."

Evidence is not evidence if it can not be verified by outside sources.

Pam-

Noticed that you did not address the danger of "reeducation" of our youth.. etc. The one thing that I really fear about radical atheists is the proposal to teach my kids about "myth".

Your other assertion that most don't believe in the Christian god- that may be true, but MOST do believe there is a creator, something out there that started it all. It is YOU that is the minority, and atheists always will be. What makes you not find that seed inside you? Not sure, but I think it has more to do with your insane claim to know everything in the universe enough to claim God does not exist. That you are too smart and "logical" to believe. The seed is there, but you all have pushed it out of the way. It's just a way to make everything about YOU and not about others.

Atheistic thinking is deficient. It is so deficient that you have to attack people that believe to make yourselves feel better about your insane lack of belief. Look at Newdow and his sueing about the inauguration prayer. You all have these chips on your shoulders. You will never ever eradicate people's belief in God - as much as you want to try. You are swimming upstream against a torrent of evidence against you, and most of the population also.

I will take my bet over yours anyway

Thomas,

YOU: "There is no evidence that God does not exist, so how can believing that there is no God be evidence-based?"

There is no evidence that the universe does not have a creative source.
As for the trinity, there is a mountain of evidence and science that proves it to be a myth created by humans.

Take care, be ready for that thing that is never going to happen because it is a myth

Thomas Baum,

"A child with cancer is a child not some statistic with a disease, didn't you say once on these posts that Timmy2 is doing just fine?"

Yes that is why Timmy donates to the Children's hospital and to World Vision. That is what Timmy is doing for the poor little child who God either gave, or allowed to get cancer according to you.

Scoreboard:

God: Gives or allows babies to get cancer in spite of his power to not do so, or to prevent it, with the flip of his finger.

Timmy: Donates money to the hospital that cares for the sick child trying desperately to subvert God's evil plan.

Hey wait a minute. Maybe God gave that child cancer so it could bring out the best in me? Yeah that's it. I get it now. Whew. I'm going to go to the hospital now and tell the child that the reason it is suffering in unspeakable agony, is so that God could show me what compassion is all about. That ought to make him feel even better than the medicine my money buys.

You really can't explain childhood cancer with your "being of pure love", Thomas. It is beyond naive to even try. But keep it up. I do enjoy watching delusion try to squirm it's way out of these logical fallacies.

BTW I hope that Peter chimes in on this one. He will make my point about what religion does to otherwise perfectly reasonable minds.( Hint: It is the baby paying the price for Adam's original sin)

PAMSM

You wrote, "I *believe* there is no god (atheist). You *believe* there is one (theist). The difference is that my belief is evidence-based, and yours is faith-based."

When I believed in God, it was faith-based.

After I met God and knew that God was Real, it is evidence-based, revealed to me by God.

There is no evidence that God does not exist, so how can believing that there is no God be evidence-based?

BTW, not only are atheists but even theists are in for quite a shock when they find out: for the former that God is Real and for the latter that God is not even close to being anything like some of them seem to think that God Is, even tho some know His Name.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Arminius will probably too scared to tangle with me now. ;)

OMG, Timmy was comment 666

It's a sign!!!!

JAC

I agree with your summary post although I don't know about the scoring system. Some more thoughts to bounce back at you.

For all of our innate instincts that do come from evolution, I still contend that they are reason based. Not the reason of the person with the innate quality, but the collective reasoning of their ancestors over hundreds of thousands of years. Experimentation, coming to conclusions, and instilling that behavior in their offspring who then take their innate instincts, and combine it with their reason and experience, and find new social behavioral insights, and pass those traits onto their offspring, and then a monkey had sex with a fish frog, and that made you.

Sorry that last line was from a south park episode, I couldn't resist. If you haven't seen the South Park episode where Mr. Garrison teaches evolution you must. It's a great laugh, here's a link to the evolution scene. It's the funniest minute ever. And if one is of an investigatory nature, one could also use this link to find out who Timmy is in real life. But it will take a little deduction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uan5zTNCa30&feature=channel_page

But do you see my point about how it is all reason in the end. A combination of the collective reasoning of our ancestors innate in us, and the reasoning that we add based on our own experience.

Scoreboard:
Timmy: 3
JAC: 3
Pam: 3

Ahh, that's fair. We're all winners.

COLINNICHOLAS

You wrote, "Religion says there's a God, but you gotta be dead to actually meet him. Yeah, very interesting. Some God! The God of the dead.
Doesn't that ring alarm bells Peter? You gotta be DEAD before you meet God. Peter it doesn't smell good to me.
How can we be so gullible as to fall for this ancient and pathetic trick? It might have made sense when we were totally ignorant cavemen.
But c'mon. We know better now. Dead means dead. There is no supernatural world; only this one. All else is imagination.
Religion's gotta go."

I have met God and I am still among the breathers, as in being alive.

Are you so afraid of "Religion" that you would want to impose your will on the rest of humanity?

Seems as if some atheists give other atheists a bad name.

As I have said many, many times: God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof and It is important what one does and why one does it and what one knows.

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TIMMY2

You wrote, "Why should I do anything about what God has created and allows? How could I? I am not more powerful than God. I'm supposed to screw with God's plan? You make no sense. God created cancer so we could subvert his efforts and cure what he has given us for a reason?"

If all you care for is Timmy2, then I understand your answer.

It seems that it isn't so much that you don't believe in God, it is that your conception of God, if God existed, is that God is nowhere near as good as Timmy2.

I suppose that some atheists and some pharisees are just two sides of the same coin.

A child with cancer is a child not some statistic with a disease, didn't you say once on these posts that Timmy2 is doing just fine?

Maybe it is time to look beyond Timmy2, maybe you do but the words that you write in these postings are rather sad and I feel sorry for you.

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Farnaz,

"Agreed, although environment, inside the womb and out, plays no small quirky part. And then there's always contingency as scientists like to say."

Agreed.
So why is it a good thing for some people to believe in a deity?
How does it help them more than being intellectually honest?
Why is deity belief not for you, but for some people it's a good thing?

JUSTACOMMENT

You wrote, "Please tell us when, where and how you met Satan and God. I’m sure that the entire world is now expecting your comments.

Actually, I have written about it several times on these sites.

On 28 Jan 2000, God the Father came into my heart, I knew It was Him.

On 29 Jan 2000, God the Holy Spirit came into my body, I knew It was Him and He revealed to me that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus.

A couple of hours later on 30 Jan 2000, God allowed satan to come down and shall we say, bother me unmercifully for 24 plus hours.

By sometime in the early morning hours, I had made it thru to Perry Point VA Hospital by ambulance unconscious where coming too, I was on four points and experienced hell and spiritual death.

These are just some of the things that I have been thru in my life and I have just highlighted what I went thru on these.

I use the pronoun He when speaking of God even tho God is neither a He, a She nor an It but is a Being Of Pure Love even tho God-Incarnate was a Male, because using a pronoun comes in handy.

As I have also said many times: God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of relgious affiliations or lack thereof.

God knew that I needed to know some things to even attempt to do the "job" that He chose me for, which is to be a messenger, that is why I know some things and there are other things that I believe.

Believing and knowing do not mean the same thing and I try to differentiate between the two and if I mess up, I try to correct it.

It doesn't matter what anyone believes, what is True is True and what isn't, isn't. Pretty simple, don't you think?

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Oppss, I must have said

PAM RESPONSE (my wording)

sorry...

Best wishes,

JAC

INTITIAL ASSERTION FROM TIMMY (my wording):
All tenets or useful philosophies that come out of religion have been developed by means of reasoned, scientific methodology.

PAM RESPONSE:
Golden rule = a wisdom that comes from empathy, innate, hard-wired. Not coming from reason.

MY COMMENTS:
In some animals evolution hard-wired this wisdom as an innate behavior, in others it is a combination of hard/wired and part learned behavior. See “instinct” in Wikipedia.

In humans evolution favored the groups that used the golden rule *empathy*, but never hard-wired it as an instinctual behavior. Humans have to learn this behavior: we do not have hard-wired complex social behaviors, it will negate free will and the heavy influence of cultural legacies. See “instinct” in Wikipedia and Pam citation http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2005fallwinter/FallWinter0506_deWaal.pdf

POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS:
The golden rule as wisdom is not an original construct of the human reasoning [Pam 1, Timmy 0].

Human reason took this wisdom from nature (evolution), taught to every new generation and eventually put it formally in oral and written morals. Consequently, the golden rule -as many of us already knew- does not originally come from believing in the divine [Pam 2, Timmy 1].

ADJUSTED ASSERTION:
All tenets or useful philosophies that come out of religion, actually came from nature and has been developed into oral and written morals by means of human reason. Belief in something not real is not the real origin of useful wisdom.

****************
Please your takes from all corners, so I can go back to my seat in the great silent audience!!

Best wishes,

JAC

Farnaz,

yes, I am a musician, who tries to connect structure to emotion and even derives emotion through structure.

As to Reason: In its fundamentals, yes, it may be a false god, definition of "god" pending!

There still is a difference whether I use it up to its available measure (admitting its Kant-, Hegel-, Marx-, Adorno-, Horkheimer-wise conditioning), or whether I willfully try to "disprove" it by calling black white and white black, by confounding causality with correlation, by ignoring logic, natural evolution etc. like a child stomping his foot because he doesn't get his wishes fulfilled by Santa.

Hello Arminius,

I posted this earlier. (Where is the great poet, Pseudo?)

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

-W. H. Auden

Frederic2,

...may I suggest to drop the knee-jerk attribute "fanatical and intolerant" referring to non-believers"

Sorry if I seemed to be generalizing and judging a group by some of its members. I have had many discussions with non-believers here, and I usually have come away respecting their point of view even when we agree to disagree. The ones I don't like are the in-your-face type, telling me I am demented and causing harm. I don't like ultra-religious types telling me that either.

I was a non-believer for over 30 years before I came back to the faith, so I know something about it. I do not feel superior to non-believers. All I ask is to be judged by my actions, not my beliefs. If my actions or words harm or offend, then have at me. And that you did, and that is OK.

So, Frederic, being familiar with the critic of the critic, with the Frankfurt School, you can see that Reason is a false god. Myth inheres in reason, reason in myth (DE).

Ah, Frederic, now, Adorno, there was a Renaissance man. I'm close to being a musical illiterate, so tell me, are you a musician or composer? How seriously are Adorno's musical ideas taken?

In German, yes.

Thank you, Farnaz, I am familiar with Adorno (especially his musical ideas) to some degree, but I will take the opportunity to refresh the "Kritik of the Kritik"!

Frederic,

Have you read Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectics of the "Englightenment"? Their arguments there and Adorno's in "Negative Dialectics" wage a critique of reason that any atheist, agnostic, believer must know.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe you said you were fluent in German. Both of these works have been translated into English, of course. DE isn't difficult, but ND is, and anyone fluent in German is advised to read it in that language.

Peter Huff doesn't really have anything but his bible in his attempt to prove anything.

Coming back to Goedel: You cannot define or assess or describe or judge a system by merely using elements of that system: Assessment informations must come from outside this "system".

It is similar to judging a scientific paper - or any paper - by using nothing else than elements within the paper. It is impossible to judge it. His obsessive bible quoting doesn't prove anything beyond the mere fact of his bible quoting. It is completely irrelevant to anybody who derives his basic information from outside the bible, which means: It is completely irrelevant.

Arminius,

BTW: This description that Peter gives of me, that you oh so love is the very same description he gives to any atheist. He also would give the very same description of you, as you also reject the obvious truth of his particular Christian ideology and therefore his God. And so you too are all of those things that Peter called me, in his eyes. Ask him. He'll tell you.

Timmy,

Agreed, although environment, inside the womb and out, plays no small quirky part. And then there's always contingency as scientists like to say.

However, "When skies are hanged and oceans drowned/the single secret will still be man" (E.E. Cummings)

Farnaz,

"It isn't metaphor....It isn't Reason, either. He was into that clock and trains, she into bubbles.

And all of it explainable by science. No "other room". No hand of God necessary. The things that inspire us and consume us only feel like they are coming from some outside source, but that's only because they are innate in us from biological evolution. That is the "beyond" from where they come. You are feeling feelings that come from your ancestors, not from God.

you cannot argue emotion vs. reason. It doesn't work.

Agreed. But. Have you read Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectics of the "Englightenment"? Their arguments there and Adorno's in "Negative Dialectics" wage a critique of reason that any atheist, agnostic, believer must know.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I believe you said you were fluent in German. Both of these works have been translated into English, of course. DE isn't difficult, but ND is, and anyone fluent in German is advised to read it in that language.

Hi Peter, And the great audience (you should all read this one)

I hope you had a great Christmas. Sorry I have taken so long to get to your posts, as you can see, they're keeping me quite busy. Most of the posts on this thread have the word "Timmy" in them.

Just to catch everyone else up to date on our dialogue, Peter is a different kind of believer that most. Most religionists can always fall back on the position that their belief does not have to be rational or logical, "that's why it's called faith". (Arminius)

Peter on the other hand thinks more like an atheist, than he thinks like Arminius. Peter holds strong the belief that one's world view must adhere to logic and reason because we can not function without them. And so Peter's argument for his particular brand of Christian faith, is that it is the only logical explanation for our existence. But by marrying himself to logic and reason, Peter can not fall back on the old "I know it's not rational that's why it's called faith argument. And he knows that. He knows that for his world view to be valid, his God must be logical.

So this is where Peter and I are at. I have told him that his particular version of God, (a mostly literal, but not completely, interpretation of Christian theology) is a logical fallacy, and can not possibly exist for this reason. Peter is now defending against my assertion that it is a logical fallacy. So you're all caught up. And now the moment you've all been waiting for. Round three of:

The Timmysaurus VS Huff the magic dragon.

Okay Peter, so you and I agree that Adam is the one responsible for his own actions. God gave him free will, and so Adam alone is responsible for his decision to reject God. And you and I agree that this was a bad decision by Adam. So my question to you is, who made Adam, and gave him the decision making faculties with which he made that bad decision? Clearly Adam's reason and judgement faculties were flawed or he would have made a good decision in God's eyes. And yet God still punishes Adam and all of mankind, for the flawed reasoning and judgement that God gave him. That's a pretty crappy thing to do.

So God can not be Perfect, and all powerful, and all loving.

If he is perfect, then he made Adam flawed on purpose, and to punish him for that is cruel and not loving.

Happy holidays, Peter.

Farnaz,

agreed, am afraid I misread you, especially on the cue "Einstein". Sorry! I think I know you meanwhile quite well, as you know me. Isn't it funny, that here we are, opening up to complete strangers, from totally different backgrounds, with topics we rarely discuss even with the people around us?
Thanks anyway.

As to the rest, I still think you cannot argue emotion vs. reason. It doesn't work.

Frederic,

You posted to me on this, and I posted back to you. Arminius and I both thought you misread DITLD. You surely misread me. (I think we may be misreading each other, at least, we atheists. Or else, all atheists may not be the same, she wisely opined.)

When push comes to shove, I don't believe there is a ghost in the machine. But there is whatever you want to call it from whatever neuronal firings it may emerge that drew Geller to bubbles, Einstein to a clock he walked in circles around, etc.

It isn't metaphor....It isn't Reason, either. He was into that clock and trains, she into bubbles.

Another little observation:

some 100 posts ago, a poster Daniel12 tried to position emotion, perception and sensation against "reason", assisted even by Arminius. (Arminius, "even" conveys a compliment to you!).

This is pretty preposterous: Is there really anybody out there who claims that atheists have less ability for sensation (burning your finger etc.) perception (sensibility, empathy) or emotion (love, awe, hope, fear; even thinking entails emotion!)? Ludicrous.

We are discussing creed ("faith") vs. reason or unconditioned insight, we are not discussing reason vs. emotion, a completely futile discussion btw.

Farnaz,

I'm an atheist. Geller is an atheist. Einstein was an atheist. Did you ever read him? Well, he wasn't into bubbles, from what I recall, but a particular clock intrigued him, and then there were those trains....

I am an atheist too. But i don't understand the bubbles analogy? I'm sorry but I really don't know what point you are making here. I haven't cherry picked, I just don't know what the point is about the bubbles? Sorry to be so obtuse, but you are going to have to give me the "Bubbles for dummies" version.

Timmy,

"Why would I of all people have trouble believing that? I am the one who has been insisting that reasonists are not dead in the heart. I am also an artist. Not a poet obviously, but my heart is filled with wonder and imagination and love and feelings and emotions, and at the risk of being taken to task by Pam I like to call myself spiritual. My argument on this thread has been that being a rationalist in no way gets in the way of inspiration, emotion, feelings, love, open mindedness, art.....poetry."

So why on earth would you say that I might not believe this?

Because that's all that some of us have been saying, but somehow I guess we've been marching passed one another. Now I do believe it, and I loved John Lennon. Imagine... Still do...and microscopes, too. As a kid I read the Microbe Hunter, in Farsi. Seeking amoebae in Tehran isn't as easy as you might think. And then there was the rock collecting, crystal growing, and Keats (also, a doctor, but reads better in English :-) )

PS. T.S. Eliot was a banker.

Farnaz,

Sorry I didn't finish. I meant to add that I can indeed hear the music. But it's coming from this room. If it's coming from another room, why can I see the band right here in front of me?

You can take "seeing the band" here as a metaphor for seeing the biological evolutionary and neurological science explanations for our emotions, morality and things like inspiration and awe. It's all chemicals dude. There's no reason to believe otherwise.

And yet I look up at the mountains and I see beauty. And if fills my heart. And knowing the scientific explanation that "it's all just chemistry" robs me of none of the enjoyment of it. None of that feeling of awe. It's all still there. Even though I know there is a reasonable explanation for it all.

Three points:

1. Why do believers always think we atheists are "lacking" something? I think it is the other way around: They are lacking something very important, based on the frustrating, even intimidating observation that they are completely unable to project their superstition into other, at least equally happy (and equally well informed) people's lives. If people can be happy without those cherished creeds, doubts logically arise as to the content and validity of that creed.

2. When I hear believers screaming about "truth", I am on the run. Insight and knowledge are a work in progress, as is nature, as is the universe, and it is the change, the process, that causes and contains all the fascination of life, certainly not the stale "eternal truths", which, btw, have frazzled out in thousands of similarly untenable eternal truths.

3. Religion has always had to do with power. I get a grin on my face when, even under friendly guises like Peter Huff or even friendlier, Thomas Baum, there invariably is that certain creepy condescension, a desperate attempt at maintaining superiority, as fictional as it may be.

We had the little fable of the Pharisee and the tax collector some time ago. It is one of the nicest "loops" in the bible.

farnaz,

"You might not believe this, but chemists, physicists, doctors read and write poetry. Say it ain't so! "

Why would I of all people have trouble believing that? I am the one who has been insisting that reasonists are not dead in the heart. I am also an artist. Not a poet obviously, but my heart is filled with wonder and imagination and love and feelings and emotions, and at the risk of being taken to task by Pam I like to call myself spiritual. My argument on this thread has been that being a rationalist in no way gets in the way of inspiration, emotion, feelings, love, open mindedness, art.....poetry.

So why on earth would you say that I might not believe this?

Farnaz,

Wasn't looking for sympathy on the grammar thing. You are correct I could have got a loan from Mother Canada or worked my way through university, but I joined a band instead. Things worked out alright for me though so no need for sympathy. My so so grammar doesn't bother me, just some people who have to read it.

I'm not really that bad though. In some circles I sound like friggin Shakespeare. But on this forum I am most certainly out eloquented I concede. ;)

And I'm really not dodging that thing you wanted me to respond to so badly. I just can't find it. I thought I had responded to everything. But we're pushing 700 posts at this point, It's really needle in a haystack at this point.

Timmy,

You ask why you can't "hear music from a farther room." You can. You'll find it in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

You might not believe this, but chemists, physicists, doctors read and write poetry. Say it ain't so! But I can't. I dreamt I saw the number five in gold. Google William Carlos Williams (M.D.). Google Wallace Stevens, Vice President, Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co.

Timmy,

Margaret Geller, she who had the highest math SAT raw score in America, who went on to map the universe at thirty-five, winning a MacArthur in the process, began it all as a child in awe of bubblebath. If you read my posts on her you know the rest. A bubble tormented astrophysicist all the way to the Smithsonian and Harvard where, of course, she investigated the bubble theory of the universe.

You say you are interested in Onofrio's thoughts. You've been interested in mine. You ask questions, get answers, cherry pick, and blow the rest off. I'm an atheist. Geller is an atheist. Einstein was an atheist. Did you ever read him? Well, he wasn't into bubbles, from what I recall, but a particular clock intrigued him, and then there were those trains....

"And so our innate social instincts today are still a product of millennia of human scientific methodology and reasoning.

It seems to me. I am happy to be corrected here."

Nope, because chimps have them too (and almost all other social animals). Read that article. I think you'll find it interesting. I'll give you the link again: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2005fallwinter/FallWinter0506_deWaal.pdf

And now it's long past my bedtime...

Pam,

"The women are raised in the same religion as the men, and are as fully convinced as they that they're living as Allah intends. It's their culture. It's all they know"

You say fully convinced. I say fully brainwashed since childbirth. And you are right, it is "all they know". Because they have been kept ignorant. It's child abuse. It is with Christians in america as well. But particularly in a religion that abuses women so greatly.

We will never agree on this Pam.
Victims of brainwashing and imprisonment since birth are not "willing submitters". I am shocked that you feel that way.

BTW, I have been to both Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan recently. Also Dubai and Egypt. My heart wept for almost every woman saw. None of them looked happy to me. They all looked like slaves.

A small postscript to Counterww:

Why do parents need to teach their children at all, if God instills the knowledge?

Do you really believe that a child raised never hearing anything about a God or gods (by wolves, say) would have this knowledge? Why don't the Chinese have it, then? Why all the Sunday school classes, parochial schools, bible colleges?

You say that "most people" know the truth, but in fact, "most people" don't believe in the Christian God.

Pam,

YOU: Empathy is innate - hard-wired by evolution into animals that need to live in cooperative societies. So are other social "graces" - like respect for authority (this one plays into the god delusion), appeasement to defuse anger, sharing, bonding rituals, respect for the property of others, pair-bonding and sexual exclusivity (in most, but not all), aversion to deceit, and much more.

Couldn't agree more.

YOU: "Morals" is just the word that humans gave to their social skills when they decided to invent a god to explain everything they didn't know"

Couldn't agree more.
But using "morality" in the vernacular, I have always seen it as being about things that we have a choice over. Decisions that we make. To do the right thing or the wrong thing. Which path do you choose and why?

This is why I say that our hard wired social skills are just that. They are innate. But you know what that means. They exist as a result of millennia of human trial and error reasoning. Experimenting with different social skills, our ancestors learned through scientific methodology which worked best, slowly evolving as new discoveries in social skills discovered through reasoning were made and added on. And those reasoned traits over great lengths of time were passed on to the greatest number of offspring by being successful. And so our innate social instincts today are still a product of millennia of human scientific methodology and reasoning.

It seems to me. I am happy to be corrected here.

Arminius,

may I suggest to drop the knee-jerk attribute "fanatical and intolerant" referring to non-believers, to people who don't imagine a god. It might enhance your superiority feeling, in other words, your general happiness.

To NOT believe in something excludes (quite logically, alleging that you still have some affinity to logic) any form of fanaticism. Can you "fanatically" NOT imagine a pink elephant? I can't.

Hi Counterww,
"Yep, Pam you are right . It is difficult to believe what you and others claim that you don't believe in God, but that is it a excuse not to believe so you can't be accountable to a just God that may judge you".

OK, but just think about that for a moment - if indeed I really believed somehere deep down that there was a god, how would claiming not to believe get me out of accountability? If there's a god who is going to someday judge us all, then all of my bluster isn't going to get me out of standing before him, right? So how does that make sense? I assure you that I *really* don't believe AT ALL.

"My point about about what the majority believe- is the most people know deep inside the truth. I believe that most people know the truth spiritually and know that God exists. It is something most humans know..."

How do they know it? God put the knowledge there? Then why did he skip some of us?

" what atheists believe is this bunk claim of 'brainwashing' by parents when parents are simply teaching their kids the truth that God exists".

One man's "truth" is another's benighted superstitious nonsense.

"I don't think we can ever agree due to this".

I think you're right about that.

Onofrio,

I'm sorry but, no, you did not address my question. And it is an important one given your assertion that deity belief can be a more than significant benefit (Socrates) and profoundly improve people's lives and morality. So why give it up? You have been saying over and over again what good it can bring into people's lives. Why can it not bring that same good into yours.

Here is the most important question. What is different about you and the people who you say it brings all of this wisdom and peace and morality to?

You would have to believe that some people need it, and some people don't. That it can bring great morality and wisdom to some people, and others, not so much. What is different about these two groups of people. There must be a fundamental difference?

I see it as there is no difference between these two groups. If atheists can get through life without knowing that there is an afterlife, or thinking that their good side is inspired by God, and they can be good and moral people, (we can) then so can all those who currently have deity belief. The only difference I can see, is that one group has been taught from their earliest childhood development, to attribute their conscience and feelings to the magic sky fairy. And they have grown up in a community where this belief is supported, and they become addicted to religion like pain killers. And they only think that they need it to get through life and they only think that God is responsible for their Grammy award because they were trained to think that way since childhood.

Those are my thoughts, I'm keen to hear yours.

"How exactly do "they" go about this? The bare sentence suggests a committee meeting with an agenda and minutes, to wit: ... "

Well that gave me a chuckle, Onofrio. :)

Saying that people "decided" to "invent" gods was just shorthand - not the way I think it really happened.

I imagine that it began so long ago, when human intellect was just beginning to dawn, that it pretty much evolved right along with us. I think it just grew out of the awe that people felt at phenomena they had no way of understanding - the sunrise, the moon and its phases, the stars, storms, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, the seasons... they just began to anthropomorphize these things.

Probably the Sun was the first "god", and worship and sacrifice evolved to appease his anger (when he didn't show his face on a cloudy day, or when he hurled thunderbolts from above). We'll never know for sure.

I think it really took off when people discovered that they could control other people by claiming to have some special "in" with the god or gods, and the ability to act as intermediary and to tell the hoi polloi what the gods "wanted." From witch doctors to priests, the big business of religion was born.

Sin, or something like it - the function of displeasing the gods - had to be an early development, as an explanation for all of life's injustices - early death, illness and deformity, loss of one's goods and chattel...

It would be interesting to go back and watch it develop, but we can't - it's always now. :)

"They pick on my bad grammar a lot. It's not my fault my parents couldn't afford to send me to university."

Awwww. They picks on the ole Timmeroo. Read a poem, and we'll pray for you. Even we who don't know whom to pray to.

Neither could mine afford university, or much of anything else. I got there and stayed there all on my own steam, right here in the good ole U.S. of A. Here tell folks do it in O Canada, too. But ya know it's not the grammar that gets us all stewed. Ole Tim, it's you.

(Read the Auden poem, out loud. Listen to your own beautiful voice--Not being sarcastic. Do it softly, once, twice, thrice--You'll be all new, and more reasonable, too.)

XOXO

Farnaz

Yep, Pam you are right . It is difficult to believe what you and others claim that you don't believe in God, but that is it a excuse not to believe so you can't be accountable to a just God that may judge you. I think its easy to believe in relative morality, and that is what atheism represents much of the time.

My point about about what the majority believe- is the most people know deep inside the truth. I believe that most people know the truth spiritually and know that God exists. It is something most humans know- the MIS interpretation being what atheists believe is this bunk claim of "brainwashing" by parents when parents are simply teaching their kids the truth that God exists.

People like Timmy want to "reeducate" our kids so or make it so that the state will determine what is truth - by eradicating theism through teaching "logic"... sounds very big brother to me. They also want "religionists" to be taken out of the political process , bringing the wall of separation of church and state to unprecedented heights that the founders would have disagreed with strongly.

Like I said, TRUTH cannot always be derived by reasoning through logical reasoning that is defined by atheists like yourself.

You have an opinion based on your limited reasoning abilities. I have an opinion based on my limited reasoning abilities. We disagree.

Bottom line - I find people that don't use their reasoning abilities in conjunction with three qualities that are not intrinsically logical- faith , love and hope ( and having those three in God and people) to be deficient.

I don't think we can ever agree due to this.

-

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

-W. H. Auden

JAC said: "Even if I´m part of the great silent audience, you can count me as part of TimColin alliance"

I'm pretty sure we've got Frederick too. We're up to four. Not bad.

The three of you have a great opportunity here. I'm taking all the heat. No matter what you say they'll turn their barbs on me anyway. Fire away.

I love all of your work by the way. Very sensible and reasoned. And you are all more eloquent than I. They pick on my bad grammar a lot. It's not my fault my parents couldn't afford to send me to university.

Arminius,

Arminius,

"You can't hear it because you are deaf to your heart. What does your heart say? Throw reason aside - what do you FEEL?"

My heart pumps blood. It has no effect whatsoever on my brain function. The heart you speak of is in the brain. I have no problem using the metaphor, but it seems to make people think that it can not be understood scientifically. But it can. Pamsm can explain more than I on this. Remember her comment on empathy. It feels like your heart but it is actually a biological evolutionary function. All of our feelings and emotions, the things we call our heart have to do with evolution. They are all explainable by neuro science, biological evolution and reason.

I go with my "heart" all the time. But I always know that it is all very reasonable. It may not seem so. But if you read the science, you discover that it's not all so mysterious. My heart actually tells me to listen to my logic. It really does. My heart tells me that if we ever find God, it will be perfectly logical and discoverable through reasoned scientific methodology.

Scientific reasoned methodology can not get in the way of finding God if it exists. Why would it? How could it?

Pamsm, Part 3,

All this for just one deity. And there were untold myriads of others, as varied as the cultures and languages of humankind.

Now I'm not advocating ontological status for these entities, but I am saying there's more to it all than crap some prehistoric committee made up.

Nor am I suggesting that gods are somehow exempt from change, or even obsolescence. They are not what they were, and putting them on life support when their day is done is folly.

I'm just proposing nuance, and balance.

Pamsm, Part 2

Take for instance the god Osiris. He wasn't so much an imagined causal agent that explained why X happened. He WAS the dead king, and the unseen sun, and the return of crops, and the harvested crops, and the rise of the river, and every mummified person, and every drowned person, and the process of decomposition. His story allowed people to control psychological threats - fear of emasculation, fear of dismemberment, fear of death - and offered hope of a just recompense for wrongs left unredressed in life (which relates to social controls). None of this is primarily about explanation. But it is about control - self-control, group-control, control-of-nature - and it is intrinsically human, not some distortion of reason as many would have it.

Osiris united all these things in a sort of semantic constellation, or a matrix. In him, principles became personal, and links between apparently distinct phenomena were found - pattern recognition (another instinct?).

No one just sat around and made all this up. It developed over time - in an evolutionary fashion. Osiris wasn't cynically foisted by tyrannical priests on a credulous population. That's some vaguely Marxist fantasy, and anachronistic as well. It projects memories of more recent sectarian, ethnic, political strife onto the ancient Other, and slanders the deep human past.

Pamsm,

Pam, love your posts. Can I elaborate on a remark you made while answering Timmy

"...when they decided to invent a god"

This link of god and invention I've encountered often. There's one god I know of whose deliberate "invention" or rather "compilation" is pretty well documented - Serapis. But he's not exactly typical.

"...when they decided to invent a god"

How exactly do "they" go about this? The bare sentence suggests a committee meeting with an agenda and minutes, to wit:

Item 1: Why does the moon wax and wane? As you're all aware, we primitive people have no idea why, and need an explanation. Suggestions anyone? Yes, Rekhnetjer?

Well I've got this idea of a sort of really large kind of us, with an eye that opens and closes...

And that's the moon? Right. OK we'll consider that... anyone else?

Pam, I think that gods, like many of the other things you mention, are not simply invented things, like fictional characters, but expressions/outcomes of instinct, in particular the instinct among members of a group to control the group's surroundings - necessary for survival. Gods were one way that a group could build the confidence and cohesion to achieve such control.

It's hard to pin down exactly how gods were first devised/developed/understood. And it's just a cliche that the prime motivation for belief in them was to "explain" significant phenomena, like a Just So Story.

"Gods" could represent natural processes, important relationships, moral qualities, social institutions, emotions, situations, authority, food, and much more, none of which is necessarily about explanation per se.

Counterww,
I know your post wasn't addressed to me, but I just have to comment on a couple of points:

1) "Agnosticism is at least more honest than your position".

Too many people think that agnosticism is some middle ground between faith and the lack thereof. It isn't. You can be an atheist and an agnostic at the same time. Or a theist and an agnostic. One has to do with belief (theist/athiest), the other with knowledge (gnostic/agnostic).

I submit to you that to the extent that we are honest with ourselves and each other, we are *all* agnostic.

I *believe* there is no god (atheist). You *believe* there is one (theist). The difference is that my belief is evidence-based, and yours is faith-based.

Please don't think that numbers of believers or non-believers have any bearing on the relative merits of same. The vast majority, if not the whole, of humanity have believed some pretty bizarre things throughout history.

and

2) "Personally I agree with Rick Warren when he said to Sam Harris on this forum that atheists use the 'reasoning' out because they just don't want to be held accountable to God in any way shape or manner".

No, no, no. It seems to be impossible for the religious to grasp that we *really*, sincerely don't believe that there is a god to be accountable to. Do you imagine that we're living lives of depraved debauchery that we don't want to give up? Nonsense. We're living lives much like your own, only we have more free time on Sundays.

Peter Huff- I like what you say about Timmy-\\"That is what I have been saying to Timmy. Why is what Timmy says "true"?"

You see in the atheist mindset, what they BELIEVE about truth is sacrosanct to them. THEIR reasoning automatically rejects faith while ours includes it.THEIR claims are the only ones that make any sense, and THEY define what truth is and what it is not.

It is exactly what Paul talks about in one of the letters about our eyes being open to the truth of Christ and many being blind to it.

Timmy-

You dismiss faith out of hand. BIG mistake.

Now you use this horsecrap- "the collective reasoning of all" like it supports your position.

Got news for you pal- the collective reasoning of the peoples of the US or the world for that matter- taken together, would come out that GOD exists and has a hand in people's lives.

Faith has substance and and is evidence to people- because they know inside themselves intrinsically that God exists. It's not the God believing person that should be questioned, no, it is the person that makes obvious asinine statements that God does not exist when that person has not seen all the evidence physically, and refuses to consider spiritual evidence and substantive things that cannot be proven through science and your definition of "reasoning"

I am glad you think that YOU are a representative of the common reasoning of society..that is a hoot.

All of this comes down to opinion, and yours happens to define faith in a very bad light, which is counter to most of what society believes.

As for your assertion I don't know how we got here- my FAITH and REASONING TOGETHER tells me God started it all- whether its theistic macro evolution or some other method, I know in my heart we were created. Again, not all truth can be proven. It's just common sense really.

It's time for you to have the maturity, (perhaps you need more life experience) to acknowledge you can't explain everything and that some truths (like when the founding fathers said- all men are created equal- key words- CREATED and EQUAL) cannot be proven either. They are just beliefs that people have deep faith in.

Agnosticism is at least more honest than your position.

Personally I agree with Rick Warren when he said to Sam Harris on this forum that atheists use the "reasoning" out because they just don't want to be held accountable to God in any way shape or manner.

Maybe you should read through Washington's farewell address to get the gist of what I was trying to say to you. It was, and still is, a great civics lesson for people that hold this skeptic title with so much honor.

TIMMY: "I swear I laughed for a half hour before I could type.
As Ayan Hirsi Ali about her "willing submission" and if she thinks that muslim women are willing submitters. What an outrageous statement you just made. These women are imprisoned from birth, brainwashed and enslaved by the most misogynistic ideology ever dreamed up.

Jesus. Did you really just say "willing submission" with regards to muslim women in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? I think you did. Wow!"

Yes, I did. I'll say it again - the women in these oppressed (to our way of thinking) Muslim countries are willing participants in their own culture. You stumbled onto a tiny nugget of truth above when you use the word "brainwashed", but then you blunder on, heedless.

Have you been to any of these countries, Timmy? I've been to Abu Dhabi & Dubai, Iran, Somalia, Kenya, and other places in Africa and India where the religion is at least partially Muslim, and where arranged marriages are the norm even among the non-Muslim population. The women are raised in the same religion as the men, and are as fully convinced as they that they're living as Allah intends. It's their culture. It's all they know.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is from a country (Somalia) where genital mutilation is practiced. Do you know that it is usually performed by women, and that their mothers take them there? It's the culture.

Anyway, she learned that there was another way by reading American novels (Nancy Drew), and she applied for asylum in Holland in 1992 when she was promised in marriage to a cousin whom she hated.

Even so, she didn't fully back away from Islam until after the 9/11 attack. People don't give up their culture easily.

I have Indian friends in arranged marriages who will argue with me forever about how much better they are. Our appalling divorce rate doesn't give me much ground to argue back.

ME: Empathy. Nothing to do with reason, just something that comes from natural selection working on social animals

TIMMY: "Then it is not morality. It is a biological function.
Morality is about how we perceive such biological functions, and what we do with them, not the functions themselves.

Empathy is what the "golden rule" is all about. And it's found in many sorts of social animals, not just man. Did you look at the link I provided at all? It's a short article - you really need to read it. Your sentence just above makes no sense whatsoever.

Empathy is innate - hard-wired by evolution into animals that need to live in cooperative societies. So are other social "graces" - like respect for authority (this one plays into the god delusion), appeasement to defuse anger, sharing, bonding rituals, respect for the property of others, pair-bonding and sexual exclusivity (in most, but not all), aversion to deceit, and much more.

"Morals" is just the word that humans gave to their social skills when they decided to invent a god to explain everything they didn't know.

Pam,

You to Timmy:
"We're on the same side of the God/no God question, but if you use BS to support it, I'm going to call you on it."

What I waste reams to get across, you deliver in just one sentence.

You're a gem, Pam.

TIMMY:"I think you are both reaching. Really really reaching to find a positive effect of deity belief. "

Now why on earth would I do that? I'm not a believer, as you know, and I think that belief in the supernatural has been the greatest force for the promulgation of ignorance in the history of humanity. But you, Timmy, are prone to making blanket pronouncements, often in areas where you have little actual knowledge.

We're on the same side of the God/no God question, but if you use BS to support it, I'm going to call you on it.

To the Poster Formerly Known as Yo-Yo:

You pontificated: "Religion says there's a God, but you gotta be dead to actually meet him."

Really? I beg to differ. But don't ask for an explanation based upon classical 'reason' as worshiped by fanatical and non-tolerant non-believers. The explanation is transcendent, and cannot be comprehended by any who have not experienced it. Might as well try to explain the feelings and power of sexual love to a virgin.

True religion is totally benign, harms none, helps many, is never in your face telling you what to believe, and is entirely inclusive. You cannot experience it unless you look hard in unexpected places, not necessarily in holy books - or unless it finds you.

I respectfully ask you not to judge me, and those like me - and we are many, not known because of our usual silence - do not judge us by those who twist belief into a horror show, amid much sound and fury, like Hamlet's idiot.

Timmy, Part 2

I wrestled painfully with matters of faith and doctrine, most of which didn't seem to trouble my fellows "in the faith", which was isolating. The doctrine of Hell in particular, though I tried to swallow it (hurts let me tell you), became utterly revolting to me. Eventually, instead of suppressing my moral outrage, I surrendered to it, and gave God the flick.

I went through a grim stretch when I believed in God's existence - a Christian God that is - but rejected him, in a sort of despairing war. For solace, I turned not to anti-religious rebuttals like those of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al, but to the ancient gods I knew, whose tales and natures required nothing of me but imagination, and who, for all their failings, were infinitely better company than that dreadful Father of Christ in my system.

Even as a Christian, I was always fascinated with other ways of believing. I was a hopeless Christian proselytiser, because I never won any souls for Christ, just got into lots of engaging conversations. And I found myself constantly disarmed by the goodness of the religious Other - Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, and Catholic (yes, I always got on too well with Catholics, to the chagrin of my narrow fellows. I treated them as real-not-quasi-Christians, which was a no-no). I single out a nameless, elderly Jew, with a numeric tattoo on his arm, whose simple act of kindness caused a paradigm shift for this goy. One day, I may tell that story.

Not sure that I've properly addressed your question, Timmy. I think the readers of this thread have heard more than enough from me as it is. I might offer fragments in future, if it suits the flow.

Timmy,

Peace for peace.

Reminds me of that story of Christmas between the trenches in WWI.

You to me:

"If deity belief can provide wisdom as you say, why do you not choose it for yourself? If it is beneficial, why have you rejected it. Same thing for religion. Why do you not make use of it yourself. Is there something different about the people who use it, and you, that makes it good for them, but not for you?"

I did register your question before, but those straw men tax the launcher as much as the target, so it passed, as does too much else, into the thread's dying fall.

This is a good question, and, as you say, entirely germane to the proceedings thus far. I don't want to fob you off, but it's not easy for me to answer. There are many sides to it, and I don't know where to begin, or how to be succinct.

May it suffice to say that my turning away is not simply a matter of reason winning out, not from my perspective anyway. Reasoning was involved (of course, says Timmy), expressed mainly negatively in a strong, almost instinctual inclination to doubtfulness. Fatal for Christianity. Not so for other religions.

As you do for Buddhism, I have a "soft spot" for ancient religions, into which I was self-immersed at an early age (there's your "indoctrination", yet it was entirely my own doing). I'm still very imaginatively involved with these relics, but one doesn't really believe in them. There's no faith commitment to Osiris.

I was seriously committed to Christianity for about 12 years, from late teenage. So my issues with religion are skewed by my originally Christian context. I have engaged seriously with Christian theology and scripture (pace Farnaz - I know OT is not Tanakh), and in the end I have decided that there are too many insolubles in them for me - rational, ethical, practical. I concede that these may have more to do with my individual psychology than any necessary deficiency in the traditions themselves.

Peter Huff.

When I have more time I might respond to your comments in more detail...I am one busy dude...
interested in the truth yes...but fully confident that religion is a pack of lies, and the last place to seek truth.
Religion says there's a God, but you gotta be dead to actually meet him. Yeah, very interesting. Some God! The God of the dead.
Doesn't that ring alarm bells Peter? You gotta be DEAD before you meet God. Peter it doesn't smell good to me.
How can we be so gullible as to fall for this ancient and pathetic trick? It might have made sense when we were totally ignorant cavemen.
But c'mon. We know better now. Dead means dead. There is no supernatural world; only this one. All else is imagination.
Religion's gotta go. And now,so must I.

Thanks Arminius for your report.

Even if I´m part of the great silent audience, you can count me as part of TimColin alliance.

Best wishes,

JAC

Well, JAC, here is a report from the trenches.

The battle lines have roughly formed, amid the smoke, noise, and chaos. A coalition of the willing? More like a loose alliance of those accepting that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

On one side we have Timzilla, fanatical proponent of 'reason cures everything'. He has acquired an ally, one colinnicholas, who claims to be the poster formerly known as Yo-Yo.

On another side we have the alliance, containing first, a conservative believer, Peter Huff, forthright but polite. He is joined by another believer, me, quite the moderate. On the non-believer side, we have the Farnaz the Feisty, and Onofrio (an epithet escapes me for him, alas!), plus others. Who have I forgotten?

Quite the verbal donnybrook, this is.

Sorry for what follows. Under the circumstances, it couldn't be helped.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Peter Huff;

...and Einstein who says;

"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.
I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere...

Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behaviour should be based effectually on sympathy, education and social ties and needs.
No religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

Albert Einstein. Quoted in Atheist Universe. by David Mills.Pub.Ulysses Press. Berkeley.Cal.

I couldn't improve on that Peter. I totally agree with old dead Albert.

Last night and today has been one of the more edifying times that I have had in a blog. This in spite of the noise from frequent "semantic belly dancing” and dirty ad hominem attacks.

After the overnight spectacular carrousel of ideas, around six in the morning I tried to summarize the discussion with these assertions from Timmy, written with my wording:

1. All tenets or useful philosophies that come out of religion have been developed by means of reasoned, scientific methodology.

2. There is no way to explain how belief in something not real can create useful wisdom; there is never a need to set reason aside to form beliefs about anything.

3. There is not one example where belief in the divine has created useful wisdom of any kind

With the post count over the 600 mark, the three faction war (atheist vs. atheist vs. religionists) keeps going, but the fog of the battle does not let you see which faction owns the hill.

Does anybody with clean goggles and cool head want to send a report from the front?

Peace to all and best wishes,

JAC

ColinNicholas:

I cannot believe it. What have you done with YoYo?

Hi Arminius,

Oh, I don't know if Yeats knew or cared about TSE's antisemitism. But I do have some TSE antisemite stories, one of them very funny, another funny/sad. But you know Yeats' hatred for Eliot was prosodic (and, therefore, cosmic), not "political."

For his part, TSE wrote of Yeats as if he had been dead for centuries and already canonized. (TSE might have said no vers is libre for the man who wants to do a good job, but surely he believed it might be less self-conscious if the meter-making giant were gone.)

No, I've never been among those who diss TSE. We can't expect our poets or anyone else to be moral giants, as Thurber with his crumplehope, shattermyth, and dampenglee opined.

Peter Huff;

I'm inclined to agree with Carl Sagan when he says;

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again; that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue.
But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest it is more than wishful thinking."

Carl Sagan. "The Demon Haunted World"

colinnicholas

You are Yo-Yo? Hard to believe - you have morphed into something else.

Your post got a chuckle here. You are not worthy to be an enemy - an enemy is worthy of hatred, not giggles. Follow the mob indeed - you did not read my post at all. I defend what I believe, and I defend my friends.

Farnaz,

Yup, T S Eliot was something of an SOB/Bastard. Antisemitic to the core. But I cannot help but love 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.

Ever owned a Ford? Old Henry was virulently antisemitic, which I am sure you already know. His son, when he took over, publicly repudiated that, IIRC.

Arminius;

You always speak for the mob, don't you? Why the desperation? Why always ahead of the mob. You love watching the cut and thrust of dissent especially when an atheist is under attack, leaving you free to call names and insults. Yet, you always moan and whine when atheists become strident and arrogant and disagree with your ridiculous beliefs.

Please Arminius put me on your enemies list. I would be so proud to be ignored by a twit like you.

The atheist who formerly posted as Yoyo.

Arminius,

"We have two problems here.

One, serious, where the hell is Pseudo when we really need him?

Two, humorous - if CCNL is now Bun-Bun, then who is Timmy?"
_____________________________________
What to do about Pseudo? How can we enter 2009 without? Do you think he's lost in his music? How shall we find him?! :-(

On CCNL & Timmy--This, I fear, is one of those great mysteries, to which, one day, God willing, Science shall find The Answer. :0

Hello Arminius,

Thanks for the support. It was not expected. Usually on an atheist forum it is the Christian who is open to the ridicule and bullying of the majority, but that is to be expected for that is where atheists congregate.

Remember, knowing the truth in whom you believe in and what you believe about Him is important, for that is the kind of worshiper God seeks. (John 4:23-24)

Off the mark by one degree can result in losing direction, but God is faithful in delivering and saving His people! His reasoning is above ours, nevertheless logical, so faith in Him is not illogical, or baseless for He is a God of order and reason, not of confusion (Isaiah 55:8-11).

These atheists have nothing to offer that is logical or can make sense of this world without borrowing from the Christian position.

Blessings in Christ Jesus!

Timmy;

Yes I know you can certainly take care of yourself. You're good to watch. I learn from you.

You really threaten Arminius with your rational rejection of all he prays is real. That's why he hangs around on this atheist thread taking pot shots at nonbelievers. He practically lives here, trying to strengthen a weakening faith, by the look of it.
And all he does is throw little darts at atheists,(especially newbies) and fawning encouragement to those who support the grand delusion. It's interesting that he boasts of the irrationality of his belief, but like they say - Faith means never having to make sense - and lovin' it.

God be out of you Timmy, and keep up the good work.

Onofrio, Arminius, et al,

On a different but still quirky note. Did you ever hear any of the recordings in which Yeats brought up the dare-I-say-detested name of Mr. T. S. Eliot?

If so, do you recall how he bit off each syllable as if he were trying to get something distasteful our of his mouth? Say what you feel, Old Boy.

There are other Yeats and Eliot stories....

Onofrio, thanks so much for the cleric/astronomer story! Wonderful!

Hi Colin,

Sorry the one quote is Matthew 7:13-14 concerning the narrow way that is true.

Farnaz,

We have two problems here.

One, serious, where the hell is Pseudo when we really need him?

Two, humorous - if CCNL is now Bun-Bun, then who is Timmy?

Hi Colin,

COLIN: "I am disgusted by the attacks on Timmy. Can't you people hear yourselves? A furious religious mini-mob attacking this uppity atheist for daring to doubt the supernatural claptrap that most of you were raised-on and cling to as if your very lives depend on it."

My eternal life does depend on the truth of God's Word.

Actually Timmy is not without attacks on others. Just read some of his posts on the Sam Harris forums for example. Two opposing worldviews both hold beliefs that are contrary to each other. The question is how does a worldview answer the fundamental questions of metaphysics, epistemology and axiology? In order to offer a reasonable view of the world you have to have a base on which to come from? What is yours? If you can't asnwer these question then how do you know you are right and Christianity is wrong?

COLIN: "Have any of you ever perhaps considered that maybe, just maybe, Timmy might be correct and that we really ARE all alone down here on Earth? Is that too scary to contemplate?"

Yes it is scary that you would believe he is right. Have you ever considered that Timmy IS wrong? Yes, I'm sure you have. But what, other than subjective, changing human experience do you have to base your BELIEF on? Do you have Someone outside of yourself that is the necessary condition in order to make sense of anything? If not then how do you know anything for certain? Science has been proved wrong in the past. Prize beliefs about the earth and universe are continually changing. Are you sure you hold the truth now. Timmy isn't.

COLIN: "Surely when we seek truth we don't quit seeking it...."

What is truth? (John 18:37, 38) Is truth absolutely true or can truth be false? If absolute, the what is the absolute you base it on?

COLLIN: "Surely the only response to this kind of drivel is great skepticism. It is absurd and has nothing to do with the real world."

Considering you have a limited, finite mind you do not see every aspect of every fact and how one fact is connected to the other in its entirety, so how well do you see the real world?

COLIN: "Timmy says show me the money. And so do I."

That is what I have been saying to Timmy. Why is what Timmy says "true"?

COLIN: "But on second thoughts...don't show me. There's nothing to show."

You have already made up your mind. How open is that? What proof could be given that you would not view skeptically, for that is what a skeptic does. Truth is narrow (John 7:13-14). You don't know what it is so you cannot defend it. (Colossians 2:3; John 8:12, 31-32)

Timmy,
"Why can I not hear the music from this other room?
Am I not worthy? Or do I just need to open my heart?

You can't hear it because you are deaf to your heart. What does your heart say? Throw reason aside - what do you FEEL?

Timmy,

"Or do I just need to open my heart?"

Heart and MIND. Also, some of the recommended reading couldn't hurt. Promise. :0) Open hearts and minds need to let selected guests in.

Farnaz

Farnaz,

Thanks for the M.Geller story - it's new to me. A fair swag of the moments of science seem to be these uncanny confluences of time, consequence, chance, and an otherwise dormant mind.

May I share in a similar vein? Your story reminds me of a man from near where I live - a retired clergyman who is an amateur astronomer. He has the uncanny ability to sight pinprick variations in immense star fields - a skill once described as akin to viewing the contents of a saltshaker scattered across a dark tablecloth, leaving the room, and upon return being able to spot the single grain of salt that has been added to the scattering. This man is consulted by observatories, and has made numerous stellar discoveries, or spotted things that other trained eyes have missed for years.

My point. No amount of reasoning or even training can produce such ability. It's just mysteriously inherent in an individual. I am not offended when people attribute this sort of thing to such abstractions as "genius", or to the special gifting of a god. There's no real harm in that. And the man I mention himself sees his unusual ability as a gift from his god, given to help him respond to and discover the god's creation. I think it's churlish to insist that someone like that is mistaken, or in need of correction. This ex-priestly amateur astronomer doesn't use his "gift" as a platform for an Intelligent Design roadshow or anything. He doesn't proselytise. He is quietly thankful-and-attentive to a vast mystery that he sees as personal.

Not at all intending to lecture you with all this, Farnaz. Just trying to "swell [your] progress, start a scene or two" rather than "advise the prince[ss]".

Always an easy tool, me...no doubt.

Colinnicholas, you wrote,

"I am disgusted by the attacks on Timmy. Can't you people hear yourselves? A furious religious mini-mob attacking this uppity atheist for daring to doubt the supernatural claptrap that most of you were raised-on and cling to as if your very lives depend on it."

ME:

First, the 'mob' attacking him was composed of a mix of religious types and atheists. One of the religious types is Peter Huff, rather to the right in religion, but is usually polite and does make some good points. The other religious type is me, a liberal Christian. The rest of the 'mob' are non-believers.

Next, all of us have been trying to dialog with Timzilla for quite a while. He does not dialog, he always just blasts. We are very sick of it.

So deal with it. Peter Huff probably made the best summary of poor Timmy: "...you are your own ultimate authority who is caught up in a sea of subjective irrationality. You take for granted that you are that final authority that stands in judgment of all things, as is also evident by your posts."

Timmy said: "Morality is about how we perceive such biological functions, and what we do with them, not the functions themselves."

Who perceptions and why are they right? How can a changing standard be used to define "good" and "right" and "ought"?

TIMMY: "And for that we use reason."

Bunk. Whose reason and why are they right?

As the rock group King Crimson said, "Knowledge is a deadly friend when no one sets the rules. The fate of all mankind I fear is in the hands of fools."

More so even than this are those who set the rules without an ultimate, absolute, objective authority and reference - God.

What Atheism is is a struggle for the control of power. But whose????

If you want to use reason and logic then there would have to be an unchanging qualitative standard by which to measure morality against otherwise it is just opinion and preference with the stakes being the one who has the most force or most appeal to back up their claim. But don't call it moral.

How can you have a "good" standard that is constantly changing and being redefined????

TIMMY: "It was also reason that came to the conclusion that empathy is a biological function not a moral."

Bunk. If all we are is advanced animals then what does it matter what one animal does to another animal? If all we are is biological bags of matter in motion then what difference does it make if my electro-magnetic biological impulses are different from yours? If this is all there is then what difference does it make if I end my life now or later? If there is no ultimate purpose for life none of this matters. Ultimately there is no meaning and no justice for one to answer to. That is the illusion the atheist is living under.

Hi Colin,

Thanks bud,

Don't worry about me though. I can take all the attacks these guys throw at me. Consider the source is what I do. These are people who think Socrates wisdom came about because he believed in God.

Farnaz,

"He heard the music from a farther room."

What other room?

Why can I not hear the music from this other room?

Am I not worthy? Or do I just need to open my heart?

ColinNicholas, a voice from a nearer/farther room?

Wouldst be so kind as to scroll down and read my exchange with Timmy on "the Jews" (sic)?

Now, if sickness is to be had on behalf of one or t'other there, do comment, please. And when you have done, wouldst read again the other T2 exchanges and pronounce?

Yours,
Farnaz

"And, Timmy, you are a bigot, but not because you are "unethical," only because you are a blockhead"

See what I mean?
have I ever used such language towards any of you?

Bigoted towards who?

I am disgusted by the attacks on Timmy. Can't you people hear yourselves? A furious religious mini-mob attacking this uppity atheist for daring to doubt the supernatural claptrap that most of you were raised-on and cling to as if your very lives depend on it.

Have any of you ever perhaps considered that maybe, just maybe, Timmy might be correct and that we really ARE all alone down here on Earth? Is that too scary to contemplate?

Surely when we seek truth we don't quit seeking it when some guy in a dog collar says
"There's a Magic Man in the sky who watches everything we do, and if we're good we'll go up there to live with Him when we are dead. But you gotta Believe this or it doesn't work. Unbelievers go to Hell. Your choice."

Surely the only response to this kind of drivel is great skepticism. It is absurd and has nothing to do with the real world.

Timmy says show me the money. And so do I.

But on second thoughts...don't show me. There's nothing to show. Like the buses in London now advertise "There Probably is No God. So Take Care and Have a Nice Day".

Onofrio,

I will try very hard to change my tone. Maybe you can try too.

I asked you a question earlier and perhaps you missed it, so here it is again. I think that it is quite relevant and pertinent to our discussion about the benefits of religion and deity belief.

If deity belief can provide wisdom as you say, why do you not choose it for yourself? If it is beneficial, why have you rejected it. Same thing for religion. Why do you not make use of it yourself. Is there something different about the people who use it, and you, that makes it good for them, but not for you?

This is a sincere question. I'm pretty sure I asked it politely. And I think that you will agree that it is a valid question.

I promise to treat your answer with respect. If it is respectful in it's nature of course.

I would also like to point out that I do not ever attack anyone here personally as I am attacked in almost every post. I do attack bad ideas and irrational beliefs but I don't engage in name calling and personal attacks such that I have been subjected to. Bigot, tyrannical, stupid, moronic, and a holy host of other names have been hurled at me. I try to attack only ideas and beliefs held for bad ideas. I don't hate religious people. I see them as victims of brainwashing both parental and societal.

Peace

Pam, Timmy, Onofrio,

I posted earlier on an astrophysicist, Margaret Geller, who won a MacArthur at thirty-five for mapping the universe. She explained her astrophysics thus: "I noticed bubbles in the bath."

To elaborate, the bubbles enchanted (yes) her from childhood on. She continually thought about them through elementary school, high school, when she received the top SAT math raw score, etc. (She always was and is now what most would call an atheist.) From bubble bath, she set out to explore the bubble hypothesis of the universe.

Einstein's tales are more mystical. So, when you think about Socrates, how about thinking this way: "He heard the music from a farther room."

Science has a place for literalism, but the two are not equivalent, as you know. (And, Timmy, you are a bigot, but not because you are "unethical," only because you are a blockhead. Try this: A doesn't equal A(social)epistomology, ethics, pragamatism--twentieth century)

Pamsm,

"Now maybe these were curious men who would have done this work even if they'd never heard of a god, but this can't be known. If indeed, religion inspired what wouldn't have happened otherwise, then your premise falls apart"

So if Socrates was not religious, the wisdom of socrates would never have come about. Not by him or anyone else? The world would be absent of the reasoned thoughts that were authored by Socrates?

You are suggesting that this may possibly be true.
Onofrio is suggesting that it is most definitely true.

I think you are both reaching. Really really reaching to find a positive effect of deity belief.

Pamsm,

"This isn’t rape, it’s submission. Willing submission"

I swear I laughed for a half hour before I could type.
As Ayan Hirsi Ali about her "willing submission" and if she thinks that muslim women are willing submitters. What an outrageous statement you just made. These women are imprisoned from birth, brainwashed and enslaved by the most misogynistic ideology ever dreamed up.

Jesus. Did you really just say "willing submission" with regards to muslim women in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan? I think you did. Wow!

Pamsm,

"Empathy. Nothing to do with reason, just something that comes from natural selection working on social animals"

Then it is not morality. It is a biological function.
Morality is about how we perceive such biological functions, and what we do with them, not the functions themselves. And for that we use reason. It was also reason that came to the conclusion that empathy is a biological function not a moral.

Pam!

You:
"Timmy, per your ongoing discussion with Onofrio, you may recall that I said that I understood his point...?"

Thankyou, thankyou, and again thankyou Pam, I won't embarass you with kisses, but - [hug of Slavic force]

See Timmy, this is how it's done! Pam is not necessarily agreeing with me - she is seeing my point. Not a "poppycock" in sight.

[Sigh]

Onofrio,

William Dever, yes, of course. The nemesis of the debunkers, asks the one key question they can't answer, and so after decades, they decided it doesn't matter. It's quite funny/sad. They mention the question in passing, taking great care to avoid the Dever Name. It does, of course matter, the question, that is. It's one of them howdyacallit "gaps." A biggie--hear tell the Titanic is down at its bottom.

Indispensable on Joshua to the great aggravation of many Js, more Js than Cs, except CCNL and one other blogger.

Thanks for the title. I'll check it out!

Pam,

Regarding entanglement - no particle physicist am I either! But it is a fascinating subject. I submitted a humble request to Mother Web, and found an interesting article on Wikipedia. I can't even begin to understand it. It does seem to defy classical Einstein ideas of space/time.

Regarding Wikipedia: I have found that it is a good place to begin, especially if the topic is not emotionally charged. For subjects such as history and technology, it is pretty good if it is well documented. But watch out for things like religion, abortion, homosexuality, etc.

Timmy, per your ongoing discussion with Onofrio, you may recall that I said that I understood his point...?

Here's why: I've read the work of a number of people who contributed greatly to our early scientific knowledge - people like Newton and Galileo - who were religious men (as all men were in those times). Many of them dedicated their work to the glory of God, and said that their investigations were to be closer to him by better knowing his creation (or something to that effect).

Now maybe these were curious men who would have done this work even if they'd never heard of a god, but this can't be known. If indeed, religion inspired what wouldn't have happened otherwise, then your premise falls apart.

Farnaz,

"There is evidence for Solomon, David, and for some reason, though very, very early, Deborah seems to be accepted."

Sort of tangential...Excuse this goy his impertinence, but I have quite an interest in the so-called "United Monarchy", close at is to my own speciality of ancient Egypt. I'm not with the minimalists who debunk the whole thing as made-up. Have you read any of William Dever's stuff (former Protestant, now convert to Judaism) on early Israel? I can recommend Baruch Halpern's 'David's Secret Demons'. Despite the lurid title, it's seriously scholarly, and well-written to boot!

PeterHuff,

"...you are your own ultimate authority who is caught up in a sea of subjective irrationality. You take for granted that you are that final authority that stands in judgment of all things, as is also evident by your posts."

Bravo! Well done! I'm with Arminius on this, shall save under "ReplyToTimmy"--All Occasion.

Onofrio:

"On the wing - maybe Red Hanrahan. No wait, Crazy Jane for sure. She hath Joker's feist.

Not unlike you."
--------------
Aw, Shucks, Onofrio. But maybe Red Hanrahan....hhmmm

Arminius,
You wrote:
"Ah, yes, the 'particle thing'. I think the physics term is 'entanglement', meaning (as you correctly said) that two separate particles, regardless of were they are, mirror behavior. Apparently the 'mystery' of this is that it seems to happen instantly, thus defying that most sacred rule, the speed of light in a vacuum. "

This is a different "particle thing" than I was discussing with Timmy. And I am no quantum mechanics expert!

I have heard about this one - apparently they have to first be in close proximity to one another, and then they continue to mirror one another, even though separated and with others between them...? Or something like that. I would have to do some reading before I could discuss this anything like intelligently. :)

Huff the Magic Dragon vs Timzilla. And me caught in the middle..... now where did I put my claymore?

Peter Huff did make one good observation about Timmy: "...you are your own ultimate authority who is caught up in a sea of subjective irrationality. You take for granted that you are that final authority that stands in judgment of all things, as is also evident by your posts."

Farnaz,

You:
"What would Yeats's equivalent of the Joker be?"

On the wing - maybe Red Hanrahan. No wait, Crazy Jane for sure. She hath Joker's feist.

Not unlike you.

Farnaz,

"Playing tennis without a net." Hhmmm, where have I heard those words before? :-)

Huff the Magic Dragon takes on Timmysaurus!

Cut to footage from bad Japanese monster flicks.

A huckster with a pitchfork waves the crowds into the big tent. Step right up! See the Hierophantic Hack of Intelligent Design versus the former First Consul of Robespierria and Martyr of Reason.

Timmy, hate to go all Jungian on you, but, your shadow has arrived!

What a (non-existent)-god-send! A near synchronous example of my earlier suggested distinction between Christ-folk:

Arminius - Christian

Huff-n-Puff - Christmonger

Let the games begin!

Greetings Pam,

Welcome back!

Farnaz

Hey Pam,

Good to see you back, and taking your commonsense ripostes to the Timmysaurus Rex, the stalinist Crusoe.

Love your work.

"Keep up the skeer"
(N.B.Forrest)

Onofrio,

If Timmy had more scrolling ability, he might learn that much of what Cs take as "laws" (their word), Js from the beginning of the post-biblical era took as "exhortation" (Religious Studies talk).

But Timmy can't scroll down unless it is to back up an argument he wants to make. He's playing tennis without a net. :)

Onofrio,

Farnaz,

Random tangent - Sometimes I fancy there are three divine persons, all hypsostases of Love (I'm playing bad patristics here), without whom our lives would be insufferable:

The Joker, the Dancer, and the Poetic Imagination.

ME:
I think you have unwittingly opened a metaphysical can of worms. I'm desperately trying to find classical references.... hell, any references.... these are definitely some kinds of prototypes of the best in humanity.

The Joker: The comedian? Pan? Bacchus? Surely not Loki? Or, really far out, the Fool in the Greater Trumps of the Tarot deck?

The Dancer: This one hits squarely home. My daughter is a dancer, currently in grad school, aiming toward dance therapy. Dance, as you know, is intimately connected with poetry and music.

The Poetic Imagination: Easy - the Muse. Or, more correctly, the Muses.

Hello Timmy, still at it. I hope one day you will come to your senses about God.

Vaguely defined truth cannot be defended but you do not even have that as an atheist for truth needs an absolute standard or else it is mere opinion. You are like Pilate (John 18:37). I've been reading your posts and it must surely be obvious to many that you are your own ultimate authority who is caught up in a sea of subjective irrationality. You take for granted that you are that final authority that stands in judgment of all things, as is also evident by your posts.

You discount the God in the Christian Scriptures as irrational and yet have no explanation for anything other than mere opinion. How is that rational, to deny something that you can never be sure of? It just shows your immense dislike and prejudice fueled by your passionate denial. There, I have not mince words.

How do you get logic and reason from a random chance universe that had no Creator? Either the universe is here by creation or it is here by chance for regardless of whether you believe it to be eternal or originating by chance (since you deny God) the fact that there is nothing to create information and organize and plan and intend it for a purpose is not logical for plan and purpose and intent and information organizing itself is what we see all around us?

THERE IS NO PLAN IN BRUTE FACTS. They just are. A plan involves intent and without it the universe consists of random, blind matter directed by nothing but chance. Go figure that out Timmy.

Without a personal Being - God - the universe is impersonal, irrational, governed by nothing.

All I see constantly in your posts is you telling the rest of us what can and cannot be and yet when pushed to give an answer, over and over again making statements of utter illogic while remaining dogmatically sure of nothing.

TIMMY: "...It MAY have always been a state of existence in the energy/matter that makes up the current state of the universe. Or it MAY have arose here on earth only in this massive universe. Or PERHAPS it arose in all places in the universe that are hospitable for it. WAS THERE life before the big bang? WAS THERE a universe? WHAT IS this ball of energy/matter that we call a universe? WHY DOES it exist? WHAT IS life? ARE WE SURE there aren't other forms of life that are completely different than anything we could imagine?"

You don't even know whether the Big Bang happened. You were not there. Logically (and you always talk of your purely logical and rational mind) in order for us to know how the universe happened we would have to have an all knowing eternal Being who created it tell us. Otherwise there is no definite answer and nothing can be known for certain, which is also something that you have admitted to in the past. So carry on Timmy with your pure speculation and myth!

I do this to show the absurdity of your worldview. Maybe God will grant you eyes to see?

Greetings. Peace be with you! (Matthew 10:11-16)

Onofrio,

Well, as you know all sorts of things go on in religions, including syncretism. The thing is that earliest commentaries show that much of the Tanakh was not taken literally by the earliest medieval sages. Then, we can look at Maimonides, who doubted most of it. Of course, some of these figures did exist. There is evidence for Solomon, David, and for some reason, though very, very early, Deborah seems to be accepted.

The Joker, the Dancer, and the Poetic imagination.

What would Yeats's equivalent of the Joker be?

Yeats thoughts, memories are flooding my awareness now. :0

Timmy,

You to me, re 'Imagine':
"Yes I just can't see these wacko pseudo religionist tyrannical offensive to peoples belief systems lyrics resonating with very many people. Me and my stalinist idealism are all alone on a desert island."

A bit garbled, but getting better. Maybe a few hyphens...I dunno. I like the "stalinist" and "desert island" ironic self-deprecation.

Clearly we're both still biting our shields and waving axes, but the flecks of spittle and rolling eyes have lessened, no?

Being such a snob, I prefer poets to pop stars, but thanks for your Lennon, Timmy.

Timmy2

"That's just it--he's not using reason"

Example please.

Oh, and I have started learning Aramaic given that I am not qualified to hear you explanation of leviticus until I have done so.

We can continue this discussion in five years when I am done.
---------------------
I'll paste part of my last post to you, and then you can scroll down for the rest, should you choose to depart from your usual modi operandi. If you think you can cherry pick, verbally masturbate, or bully your way out of this, think again, Shell Script (Pseudo):

"AFTER you have responded to me, then I shall be happy to discuss the passage you cite (miserable translation though it is.)"

Otherwise, I join Arminius, Onofrio (?), and DITLD (?). You're almost making me miss CCNL. (CCNL, nothing personal--I do miss you, but only in your human incarnation.)

PS. PSEUDO, GREAT CHRISTIAN POET, HELLPPP!!!!

Pam,

Ah, yes, the 'particle thing'. I think the physics term is 'entanglement', meaning (as you correctly said) that two separate particles, regardless of were they are, mirror behavior. Apparently the 'mystery' of this is that it seems to happen instantly, thus defying that most sacred rule, the speed of light in a vacuum.

I could be wrong about this, and will gladly be corrected. I am here to learn.

PART FOUR

TIMMY: “Muslims living in places like Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan condemn rape on paper, and yet engage in rape (as we would define it) almost daily. The truth is that submitting to rape by your husband is part of their faith. Most women over there don't even get to choose who they marry, and therefore they don't get to choose who gets to stick it in them”.

This isn’t rape, it’s submission. Willing submission. Anathema to Western women, yes, but accepted there as part of the culture. I think there’s probably much less actual rape there because sharia law is harsh.

TIMMY: "Drunk guys at frat parties don't not grope asses and boobs because their animal instinct tells them it's wrong".

They don’t? That’s not my experience.

TIMMY: “They refrain from acting on their animal instincts because they reason that they will go to jail”.

Most drunk frat guys I ever knew didn’t reason about much of anything.

TIMMY: “Are you countering the argument that we use our intellect to outsmart our animal instincts every day? That is what being human is all about. That;s what makes us different from other animals. They do not possess an intellect capable of outsmarting their basic animal instinct, so they are all natural instinct. We think our way around our instincts all the time. It's the only way we could form a workable society”.

Again, you need to bone up on animal societies. They work just fine based on their “animal instincts.” Ours would work better if we listened to our own more.

Farnaz,

You to me:
"Hopefully, one day, Persis will start publishing her poetry for a larger audience."

If and when she decides to, perhaps you could cite her in some your posts.

Random tangent - Sometimes I fancy there are three divine persons, all hypsostases of Love (I'm playing bad patristics here), without whom our lives would be insufferable:

The Joker, the Dancer, and the Poetic Imagination.

Hey, Christianism not only stole Judah's back catalogue, it looted the pagans as well...divine triads are way cool, when they include la femme.

PART THREE

ME: In fact, it is always NOW. No other time exists.

TIMMY: “I wasn't born now. I was born in another time. Time is as real as I am. If time is not real, neither am I. The Romans didn't sack Jerusalem now. Length width and height are also real.”

Yes, Timmy, you were born in an earlier time, which no longer exists. When you were born it was NOW to you. When the Romans sacked Jerusalem, it was NOW to them. The past no longer exists. It is a useful concept that makes it easier for us to think about things, but it has no reality of its own. Show me a “length” without referring to any physical object. You can’t. It’s just a dimension – a concept. If you want to measure a table top, you assign one edge a point called “zero” and measure to the other edge. The concept of “length”, though, has no zero point. You can set that *anywhere*. You can’t start at the “beginning” of something that’s infinite. For that matter, infinity is just a concept, and has no reality. If something started an infinity ago, it could never get to here.

TIMMY: “An example of morality that does not come from reason please”.

OK. Empathy (and the altruism it engenders). Nothing to do with reason, just something that comes from natural selection working on social animals, and exhibited in many more than just humans. See here: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/archive/2005fallwinter/FallWinter0506_deWaal.pdf

TIMMY: “Note 1: I did not say that rape was "the most natural thing in the world", I said that nothing is MORE natural than rape. There is a difference”.

Sorry, the distinction escapes me.

TIMMY: “ This simply means that rape occurs in nature just as everything else occurs in nature and they are all equally natural.”

That is not at all the way you used it, and you know it. Remember “Man want woman…”

TIMMY: “You are correct that males in the animal world risk their lives to woo a female partner. If they are unsuccessful, they almost always resort to attempted rape. It does not always succeed true, but it takes physical repulsion by the female and or other members of the social network, if there is one, to stop it from happening”

This is just flatly and unequivocally NOT TRUE. It’s clear to me that you know nothing about social animals. Do some reading.

PART TWO

TIMMY: “As for the particle thing. Of course there is mathematical proof that particles do indeed appear in multiple places at once and that there is entanglement. But they don't know how that is possible, they only know that it happens. How it is possible is a mystery. And the implications of it are a mystery, indeed mysterious. Any quantum scientist I have ever heard or read calls it a baffling mystery. What's your hang up?”

Timmy, until today, I had only your word for this "particle thing" – I had not read or heard about it, and was taking you at your word. However, I have now done some reading, and it isn’t nearly so inexplicable as you make it sound. I went (among other places) to a physics forum where it was discussed. Here are a couple of quotes:

“Its not that a single particle exists in more than one place. It is that the particle is also a wave spread out over space. There is a difference.”

“Such concept can be visualized using easily well known lava lamp as the direct analogy: Try to bring up, we'll create a standing waves on the surface of some oil bubble in the lava lamp. If we separate such undulations bubble into smaller ones, the energy of surface doesn't disappears and whenever the tiny bubble are mixed together, they will restore the original big undulating oily bubble.”
(Japanese, I’m guessing.)

TIMMY: “As for your ‘false analogy’ accusation on the consciousness issue. If the particles in my brain are also in your brain, and in everyone else's brain all at the same time then there is really only one collective consciousness.

What a leap! Particles in our *brains*??? Particle theory in quantum mechanics has *nothing* to do with our brains. And “collective consciousness”?? If we had that, we wouldn’t need to have these discussions, would we? We’d all know everything that each other thought. What possible evidence could lead you to even speculate on such a thing? This is diametrically opposed to the scientific process – make up a fantasy and then try to find some evidence for it. I think you read/watch way too much science fiction, Timmy.

Farnaz,

"That's just it--he's not using reason"

Example please.

Oh, and I have started learning Aramaic given that I am not qualified to hear you explanation of leviticus until I have done so.

We can continue this discussion in five years when I am done.

PART ONE

Well, well, everyone has been very busy! I’m not even fully caught up with the posts yet, but I promised to answer some of Timmy’s earlier assertions, and I’m going to do so – sorry to drag everyone back.

ME: Whether it also arose elsewhere in the universe, existed in a universe prior to the Big Bang, etc., is immaterial – the discussion was about life on Earth.

TIMMY: “No it wasn't. For future reference, I am always talking big picture. Full scale. The origin of life, period. When I say it might not have arose[sic] at all, I mean that life may have been a natural state of elements under the right circumstances that has existed as long as the energy/matter of the universe which may have always been in which case life would have always been. No?”

No.

TIMMY: You really need to cool your jets here Pam because you then go on to spout off all of the science for life arising here on earth which I am not only aware of but completely buy into. Think big picture, Pam. Life period, Not life as our primitive butts know it here on our insignificant planet spec in the mass of it all. LIFE"

That’s why the above answer was “no”, Timmy. The only life we know for certain exists, is here on Earth. It’s entirely adapted to Earth conditions. (BTW, this is why it always seemed ridiculous that some religious people thought of God as human in form, sitting on a throne. Why would he need a nose, or ears, or a ribcage…?) I explained to you why it could not have been seeded from elsewhere, except as building blocks (*all* of which came from the hearts of stars, ultimately).

There may be other life out there. Given the numbers, I consider it quite probable. There are probably many other planets in the “Goldilocks” zones of suitable stars. But, if so, it developed quite independently there. There is absolutely no reason or evidence on which to base a conclusion that there would be any interconnectedness.

It wouldn’t look anything like life here on Earth. In fact, if we could rewind the clock and start evolution all over again, it wouldn’t come out the same at all. Cladistics again. The basic body plan of terrestrial animal life is about 600 million years old. In fact, the same genes that make a fish or a fruit fly have a head with eyes and a mouth on it, and other body parts that grow limbs, are also active in us. Biologists speak of such genes as “highly conserved.”

Those who understand genetic morphology laugh at the silly science fiction movies with the “extraterrestrials” that clearly could only have evolved right here on Earth.

onofrio,

Yes, you and I could debate religion, with restraint, and come away friends that agree to disagree. Not so with Timmy/CCNL/Spidey, that Triumvirate of Anti-reason.

Onofrio,

It's about tone is it?

Here then. I'll restate my position in a kinder tone.

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Yes I just can't see these wacko pseudo religionist tyrannical offensive to peoples belief systems lyrics resonating with very many people. Me and my stalinist idealism are all alone on a desert island.

Arminius,

"our use of reason as a weapon to support your obviously deficient ego puts the lie to your support of reason as a solution to everything."

That's just it--he's not using reason, not even being reasonable. He cherry picks through discussions to respond as he will, then accuses everyone else of, well, "cherry picking." He's talking to himself. He could be "shell script," as Pseudo would have it. (Ah, Pseudooo!) Even so, he was fun while he lasted, certainly a welcome distraction from CCNL, who, I guess, be back now. I take it "on faith" that he has been monitoring this thread.

Farnaz

PS. DILTD, there is little logic to the OnFaith censor. Sometimes, I've had to post comments one or two lines at a time. If breaking them up doesn't help, try changing a word or two or three. At times, it seems to dislike various inoffensive words--unpredictably, of course.

Daniel,

It's pointless to post here. All my best posts do not go through. Site says Jacoby will look over...Boy are you lucky Timmy.

Whew! Counting my lucky lucky stars. LAMO

Arminius,,

"Congratulations, Timmy! You have just written the most blatantly stupid and bigoted words ever seen on these blogs!"

Bigoted? Against who? Lovers?

Love is an emotion. It is no more a morality than hate or fear.

Moral behavior can come from love. But love itself is just an emotion that requires reason to exist. Give me an example of love without reason.

daniel12,

Please keep trying - your first post was a gem.

Timmy,

The Ouroboros swallows its tail.

You say to Arminius:
"So why call yourself a Christian? Why associate yourself with a harmful ideology."

You know, Timmy, I too have asked these questions, with battle in my heart, many times. Not so much of Arminius, but of more dogmatic types, that make you look like a wee spaniel. Despite my enthusiastic, sometimes impassioned opposition to my forsaken Christ, I like to distinguish within his flock two broad types. That sincere, goodwilled minority, like Arminius, whom I address by the name they use for themselves - Christians; and the herd, particularly their leaders, who are more problematic. These I call Christmongers - they that mongrelise and mangle, and hawk their wares blindly in a stinking marketplace. Some Christ-folk are clearly one or the other, others shift between the poles. Perhaps you could try using a little - just a little - nuance in your attacks on religions.

You see, our Fool vs Robespierre war is more about method and manner, than content. Yet I feel I could have a genuine debate with Arminius. If he is able to do this, as a religionist, yet you, with whom I unbelieve, can't, perhaps there are some things that are more important than Being Correct.

Sincerely

Timmy,

Many of us here have urged CCNL and Spidey to seek professional help. I urge you to do the same. This is not a sarcastic comment - your use of reason as a weapon to support your obviously deficient ego puts the lie to your support of reason as a solution to everything. You've got a problem relating to your fellow humans.

It's pointless to post here. All my best posts do not go through. Site says Jacoby will look over...Boy are you lucky Timmy...But I can see already that you more obstinate than reasonable. Thanks Arminius for correct observation.

Daniel,

"What is your problem Jacoby? You have censored three of my posts now concerning Timmy. Trust me, when on faith gets back to atheism as it eventually will I will roast you and apparently your beloved Timmy"

Delusions of persecution go hand in hand with religious delusions.
Maybe try cleaning up your potty mouth. Or try not being so verbose. I promise you this website is not protecting me from you. It sure doesn't need to that is for sure

Arminius,

"To add to the list of non-reasoning great happenings: as Asimov said, most great scientific discoveries begin not with a 'eureka!' moment, but a "that's funny"

That's funny does not mean that's humorous. It means "that's odd".
A statement of reason, comparing the observation with all others before it.

"LOL. love is morality???? Love is wisdom?"

(Drum roll and trumpets, please, maestro....)

Congratulations, Timmy! You have just written the most blatantly stupid and bigoted words ever seen on these blogs!

WTF is your idea of morality? Your despite of all who refuse to grovel at your rants? You are pathetic.

Don't bother to answer, whatever you write will just be the same crap.

Onofrio,

Peris is Iranian American, but doesn't think of herself as a poet, so much the worse for us. I can't find any of her stuff on the web. She is a traditional academic, and, that, is primarily how she thinks of herself.

I know Jennifer Michael Hecht whose poetry I posted the other day thinks of herself as a historian, first, but then she has also won prizes as both a philosopher and poet. Sheesh!
Hopefully, one day, Persis will start publishing her poetry for a larger audience.

Farnaz

Daniel,,

YOU: An example of wisdom that has not come from reason: learning about fire by simply sticking your finger into as a child.

What wisdom do you learn about fire by doing that?
That it is hot?
How did you come to this conclusion? By reasoning that burning pain happens when you stick your finger in it so it must be hot. You then reason all of the ways to not hurt yourself with this hot substance.

Or did belief in God tell you that it is hot and burny.

YOU: An example of morality come about without reason: Love.

LOL. love is morality???? Love is wisdom?

YOU: Or are you going to tell your future wife that you are about to marry her because you reasoned it was best?

Of course. Are you saying that if you had no evidence that your wife loved you, (she does not tell you she loves you, no hugs no kisses, no examples of great caring for you on her part etc) you would still believe that she does???? I have mountains of evidence and reason to form the belief that my wife loves me? You don't? It's all faith is it? LOL

YOU: Examples of wisdom come about by delusion: only by knowing delusion can one compare and contrast to the nondelusional.

LMAO
Only by giving us cancer could God show us what true compassion is.

YOU: Examples of wisdom that have come about by illusion: far too many to comtemplate. Poetry. Painting. Idealisms of all stripes which are called idealisms.

LMAO
Poetry is wisdom? Poetry comes about by illusion? (BTW were talking about DElusion not Illusion)
Poetry may CONTAIN wisdom, all of which came about by way of reason. But poetry is wisdom? LMAO

Painting is wisdom? Why don't we call painters wisdomists? lol

Idealisms are wisdom? and they come from delusion?????

One more LMAO for the praise for this post.

Seriously I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

love = wisdom
painting = wisdom
poetry = wisdom
Hot pain in finger = wisdom

Love it.

Timmy,

It is clear to me that the Jabberwock still lumbers among us. Are you going to reply to my posts, or not? Not? Evasion and double-speak seem to be your preferred modi operandi.

AFTER you have responded to me, then I shall be happy to discuss the passage you cite (miserable translation though it is.)

As you know, this discussion must begin with the relevant commentaries. IMHO, it would be best to start with the Mishnah, and earliest biblical sages, but you can start in the twentieth century if, for some reason, you'd prefer. If you do start with the Mishnah, please post in Aramaic. (I'll translate for the wider audience, or post in Aramaic and translate, yourself.)

But first things, first. If you'd rather not honestly engage, spare us all the "hah, hah" blather, please.

frederic2,

Daniel12's whole point, which you seem to have missed, is that there are very real things that are not arrived at by reason. This in no way dismisses reason, and in no way insists on a religion.

Daniel12

Sometimes the posts won't go through if they're long. Happened to me on another thread, and I thought as you, but I haven't had any trouble since. Try breaking up your posts into instalments.

Daniel1,

The auto-censor here is routinely psychotic, and will embargo a perfectly polite post for no apparent reason. You are not being picked on. One thing to remember is that a very long post, however civil, will be blocked.

Fredric:
"And please, Farnaz, don't usurp Einstein for any religionist argument"
-------------------
To echo words of thine: Pleeze, it's me, Farnaz, the atheist. Read carefully, please!

Timmy is a metaphysician in dialogue with himself. Neither my DITLD quote nor my mention of Geller and Einstein was meant as a claim for a god, neither Timmy's nor anyone else's.

Farnaz

Farnaz,

You to me:
"You know that there is a wonderful Iranian American poet named Persis?"

Now I do. Is her work in Persian only? I am virtually monolingual, yea, barely that. I'm from the Austral Fundament, so English is my second language. There is no first!

What is your problem Jacoby? You have censored three of my posts now concerning Timmy. Trust me, when on faith gets back to atheism as it eventually will I will roast you and apparently your beloved Timmy.

If this post somehow goes through, Timmy please reason your way to an original thought for us. It should be easy if reason is the only way to great discovery and creativity.

"I did include you in the Furies as a complement. I have felt your fury, was suitably impressed, and do not wish to feel it again. Let there be peace between us."

Arminius, yes, I understood--I've emerged from your Celtic flame!

Peace

Daniel 12 and Arminius,

you certainly don't have to believe in a religion to know what love is, to feel a burn, or to create ideas or beautiful art (I am an artist with a considerable "surrounding") I certainly don't have to abandon my thinking capacity when creating or interpreting art or music! This is, unfortunately, a common and paralyzing misunderstanding.

And please, Farnaz, don't usurp Einstein for any religionist argument. He was more than blunt about his rejection of any religion, of anything resembling a belief in a "personal" god. His "god" metaphor was similar to my (and I believe your!) awe and wonder about the universe with all its unfathomable processes and phenomena.

Onofrio,

I think Farnaz is starting to wield the Vorpal Blade against our resident prime example of hubris, Timmy. (S)he chortled in her joy!

SORRY, that was Arminius to Timmy.

Farnaz,

I did include you in the Furies as a complement. I have felt your fury, was suitably impressed, and do not wish to feel it again. Let there be peace between us.

Arminius to Farnaz:
"Your hubris grows with every post, and Zeus is really pissed. So you won't get thunderbolts, no - instead watch out for the Furies! And I think one of them is from Iran.... beware!"

Farnaz to Arminius:
"Noble, Arminius, you are too kind!"

'O frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy...

(LC)

Excess of joy is weeping...tears on the keyboard.

Farnaz,

"What is it that you know, Timmy?"

That you can not reconstruct your way out of this:

Lev 20:13
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Please do so if you can.

Timmy,

I have just added you to my growing list of posters who cannot engage in tolerant dialog. Your bigotry against religion in any form drips from your words like acid, and you are so befuddled with it that you do not care. So, then, Rejoice! You have been added to that select list that now includes you, CCNL, and Spidey!

Thomas,

ME: "Did God cause the cancer? If so. Why?"

YOU: I would say that God allowed it, as I have said it is not a perfect world.

Why not? God is perfect and he created it. Why is it not perfect?

YOU: Maybe instead of asking did God cause or allow, maybe, as some are doing, the question should be, "What can I do about it?

Why should I do anything about what God has created and allows? How could I? I am not more powerful than God. I'm supposed to screw with God's plan? You make no sense. God created cancer so we could subvert his efforts and cure what he has given us for a reason?

YOU: Only God knows how everything fits together, so to speak, as I have said, I am not God, I am a messenger.

The old cop out. Nice 1.

To add to the list of non-reasoning great happenings: as Asimov said, most great scientific discoveries begin not with a 'eureka!' moment, but a "that's funny....' moment. Penicillin, super glue, and many more.

Arminius,

Continued.

YOU: I am moderate, and cannot see how what I believe could harm anyone.

It can't. But your support of the Christian faith by calling yourself a Christian endorses Christianity in general and gives it political capital. And most Christians BY FAR believe that those who do not accept Christ as their ONLY path to salvation are going to burn in Hell. Most Christians BY FAR believe that Gayness is a sin against God. The fact that there are a few tiny miniscule insignificant sects that call themselves Christians who do not believe these harmful things, that the VAST MAJORITY of Christians believe, is not evidence that Christianity is not a harmful ideology. It is. Your actual belief is harmless to others. But you calling yourself a Christian, and praying on the Christian holy bible with all of it's extremely harmful delusions created for political gain, is harmful, in that you give moral support, and political support in numbers on a census form, to a very harmful ideology.

YOU: I am well aware that many 'Christians' harm others by pursuing their 'my way or the highway(to hell)' false message"

Not just many. Most. So why call yourself a Christian? Why associate yourself with a harmful ideology. You admit yourself you don't even understand the trinity and yet you believe in it. How could such a delusional position be helpful in any way to anyone?

Arminius,

My belief, and my church, does not say "My way or the highway"

Neither does mine. I don't even have a church.

YOU: You do not so much 'engage in dialog' as preach atheism, to the exclusion of everything else, much as a fundie preacher sets forth his absolutist message"

Rubbish. One quote from me preaching atheism to the exclusion of everything else please. BTW: Deity belief is not "everything else", I'm sorry to inform you. Just provide one quote of me preaching like a fundie preacher. You need to back up these ad hominem attacks with some exact quotes so we can see if your accusation has any merit or if it is just baseless lashing out at the presenter of ideas you don't agree with.

YOU: Belief may be useless to you, but it is not useless to very many other people.

We're all still waiting for you to provide some evidence of that.

YOU: My belief is NOT rational, and I have never claimed it to be so - almost by definition a belief, a faith, cannot be rational

Here we are in complete agreement.

YOU: My belief is useful to me, and indirectly useful to others because it does guide me to a more tolerant and loving life style"

How does your belief do that? How can belief in something undefinable guide you to anything? Be specific. Are you talking about the human wisdom that is contained in some religious texts? Well these tidbits of wisdom are equally available to those without irrational belief in a deity. How is your irrational belief in a deity more helpful than just admiration of the human wisdom and philosophies found in some parts of religious texts?

YOU: "And because I never insist on anyone else follow my belief, unless they want to"

Same here. I just point out facts and let the people decide from there. How could I possibly insist that people follow my belief? I have no power over people. You'll need to quote me insisting that other people follow my belief. Otherwise your accusation that I do so is baseless babble.

"Your hubris grows with every post, and Zeus is really pissed. So you won't get thunderbolts, no - instead watch out for the Furies! And I think one of them is from Iran.... beware!"

Noble, Arminius, you are too kind!

Persis,

Yes, Tandava!

...perhaps aped by the "semantic belly dance" Frederic saw.

As my pitchfork revels fling the head up and down, the loose jaw seems to chatter, and the head has a semblance of life.

If I dance faster, maybe that jaw will drop off, at last.

"Painting. Idealisms of all stripes which are called idealisms and not ideas, reason, precisely because they are not in existence yet if ever."

Margaret Geller, who at thirty-five, mapped the universe, for which she won a MacArthur, explained her astrophysics thus: "I noticed bubbles in the bath."

And then there was Einstein.

Timmy,

Your hubris grows with every post, and Zeus is really pissed. So you won't get thunderbolts, no - instead watch out for the Furies! And I think one of them is from Iran.... beware!

TIMMY2

You wrote, "You said: "God is caring"

Babies get cancer.
Is God indifferent? Complicit? Helpless?.... not there?

Absolutely everything is from God, including satan who was also created.

Have you ever thought that God put us, and by us I mean all of humanity, on this earth to help each other out and it is our choice to either help or not. We can complain, blame God, blame others or face reality.

It is not a perfect world.

You also wrote, "Did God cause the cancer? If so. Why?"

I would say that God allowed it, as I have said it is not a perfect world. Maybe instead of asking did God cause or allow, maybe, as some are doing, the question should be, "What can I do about it?

Only God knows how everything fits together, so to speak, as I have said, I am not God, I am a messenger.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Onofrio,

You know that there is a wonderful Iranian American poet named Persis?

Daniel12,

Absolutely incredible post! Thanks! I've saved it.

Thomas PM Baum,

YOU: “I have met God and that I have also met satan… I stopped believing in God after I met God. I know that there is a God and that God is a Trinity and that God is a BEING OF PURE LOVE, as in Love not being an attribute of God but His Very Being.”

ME: Please tell us when, where and how you met Satan and God. I’m sure that the entire world is now expecting your comments.

Best wishes,

JAC

Timmy, from W.H. and me:

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

-W.H. Auden

Frederic2,

YOU: you may be tolerant as a person, but your church - any church - certainly is not. Hell is hotter than the highway.

ME: Please stop the guilt by association. Sure, there are many 'Christians' obsessed with hell. I am not one, and the Episcopal Church (minus the defectors!) is not obsessed with hell. We preach, and try to live, love. I have never heard a fire and brimstone sermon in my life.

YOU: Why do you need a crutch to help you admire the incredible wonders and beauties and miracles of your life, of nature? To me, it would feel like a millstone hanging around my neck, impeding me to move and even to think freely.

ME: It is not a crutch - I appreciate all the beauty of creation as much as you. My faith is not a millstone, it is a door, a series of doors, into wonder, and a greater appreciation of the universe.

Onofrio,

You are too kind, my friend, but I do sense strange vibrations coming from afar. Tandava?

Persis

Daniel12,

Bless your heart!

Timmy,

Scroll down for intro. to re-posting. Another strongly recommended philosopher, the current philosopher of ethics, Levinas, would serve you well:
----------------------

"The Jews" (sic) told you nothing. "The Christians" swiped our text, denied our identity, and then explained it to us. Per Edward Said ("Orientalism"), thieving, wresting, distorting another culture and then explaining it to the "Others" is the foundation of imperialism.

The Tanakh was written by Jews for Jews (not for you.) It is interpreted internally, and exegesis began in the early middle ages. (Or, to be precise, that is the earliest period for which we have records of it.) Jews are not Christians: We are not typologists, and we are neither so concrete nor so literalistic.

In the US, it is only Christians (generically speaking) or should I say "The Christians" who are publicly lobbying and campaigning against gay marriage, against choice, etc.

I posted to you in response to a comment you made on Judaism and atheism, which you promptly ignored. And so you may ignore this.

It doesn't matter. After two thousand years, we Js have learned to say it again, Sam.

Reformed, Reconstructionist, Conservative Egalitarian Judaism accept gayness as they do straightness. The rabbi of the synagogue we occasionally go to is a lesbian. It is only the Orthodox whose position is like that of "The Christians."

Farnaz,

Re Auden and such,

I think a horse is nonchalantly scratching its behind somewhere, against a tree, as Icarus' white legs disappear into the sea.

The straw men have lit a great bonfire out of themselves, by which I now dance, twirling my pitchfork.

On one prong is a familiar head, with jaw dangling.

Absalom, Absalom...

Your feist is formidable, Persis.

"Yes yes Farnaz I know. This is from the OT not the Tenakh.
The OT is just a rip off of the tenakh."

What is it that you know, Timmy?

JUSTACOMMENT

You wrote, "Yes, it is about religion. When you talk about what God has done and continue to do you are precisely talking about religion. There is no middle ground in this: you are talking as a religious person with a special communication link (magic waves?) to God and his plan."

You can call it religion if you like, what I have said is that I have met God and that I have also met satan.

What God has done is created all that you see and all that you don't see, God has also become One of us. I have been chosen to speak, so I speak.

I don't know what you consider a "religious person", if it is one who believes in God then I used to be. I stopped believing in God after I met God. I know that there is a God and that God is a Trinity and that God is a BEING OF PURE LOVE, as in Love not being an attribute of God but His Very Being.

Then you wrote, "…then you should not worry about our country becoming more secular with real fredom of/from religion."

Who said I did?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Timmy,

O Martyr of Reason,

Nataraja is dancing on your back.

Timmy, why not join in?

Sorry, Timmy,

Evasion won't do it this time. You trespassed.

HERE, AGAIN, IS THE POST. IF YOU ARE GOING TO IGNORE IT, AS YOU IGNORED YOUR OTHER FORAY INTO JUDAISM, THEN I SHALL SO NOTE AND MOVE ON. (MOST ANTISEMITES AREN'T ANTI-JUDAIC SINCE THEY ARE CLUELESS, LIKE YOUR OWN BENIGHTED SELF, ABOUT WHAT JUDAISM IS.)

EITHER ADDRESS THE POST, OR DON'T BOTHER PRETENDING. DON'T MESS WITH A PERSIAN JEW WHO SAW MURDER BECAUSE SHE WAS A JEW--GENTILES HAVE OFTEN DEFINED US. READ, TIM, SAID, REUTHOR, ADORNO, ET AL.

I AWAIT A RESPONSE: HONEST OR EVASIVE OR NOTHING. THE BALL, AS THEY SAY, IS IN YOUR COURT.

Arminius,

you may be tolerant as a person, but your church - any church - certainly is not. Hell is hotter than the highway.

Why do you need a crutch to help you admire the incredible wonders and beauties and miracles of your life, of nature? To me, it would feel like a millstone hanging around my neck, impeding me to move and even to think freely.

Atheists usually don't proselytize, but, of course, they maintain their view. For the oh so tolerant religionists and religion relativists this amounts already to an insult, to extremism, to fundamentalism, because, psychologically speaking, in most cases deep-down they realize the weakness of their artificial, prefabricated belief system, which inevitably is based on something others have told them instead of something they have reached by their own free "god-given" thinking - and learning capacities!

And, of course, atheism, by definition, "excludes everything else" as far as a religious belief system is concerned. You cannot be "a little bit" atheist, as you cannot be a little bit pregnant. It is the definite absence of a religious belief. There cannot be anything fanatic whatsoever about NOT believing something.

And the "usefulness" of a creed does not say anything about its substance - beyond being useful. Children are happy ("useful" for the parents) with Santa Claus and are saddened once the illusion disappears.

An example of wisdom that has not come from reason: learning about fire by simply sticking your finger into as a child.

An example of morality come about without reason: Love. Or are you going to tell your future wife that you are about to marry her because you reasoned it was best?

Examples of wisdom come about by delusion: only by knowing delusion can one compare and contrast to the nondelusional.

Examples of wisdom that have come about by illusion: far too many to comtemplate. Poetry. Painting. Idealisms of all stripes which are called idealisms and not ideas, reason, precisely because they are not in existence yet if ever.

I have to say, the most entertaining thing on this thread for me has been the oxymoronishness of Farnaz's simultaneous defense of religion and complaints about gay marriage bans. Could there be a more confused individual? And a Jew to boot.

Lev 20:13
13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Yes yes Farnaz I know. This is from the OT not the Tenakh.
The OT is just a rip off of the tenakh.

So how about you give us the original verse from the Tenakh from which this misleading translation came, and show us how you reconstruct this into a positive relevant verse that might help with Americas homophobia as opposed to causing it.

Timmy2

Metaphysician. Useless ideologue? Worse? (Don't mess with a Persian Jew): "the Jews told us that God forbids it"

"The Jews" (sic) told you nothing. "The Christians" swiped our text, denied our identity, and then explained it to us. Per Edward Said ("Orientalism"), thieving, wresting, distorting another culture and then explaining it to the "Others" is the foundation of imperialism.

The Tanakh was written by Jews for Jews (not for you.) It is interpreted internally, and exegesis began in the early middle ages. (Or, to be precise, that is the earliest period for which we have records of it.) Jews are not Christians: We are not typologists, and we are neither so concrete nor so literalistic.

In the US, it is only Christians (generically speaking) or should I say "The Christians" who are publicly lobbying and campaigning against gay marriage, against choice, etc.

I posted to you in response to a comment you made on Judaism and atheism, which you promptly ignored. And so you may ignore this.

It doesn't matter. After two thousand years, we Js have learned to say it again, Sam.

Reformed, Reconstructionist, Conservative Egalitarian Judaism accept gayness as they do straightness. The rabbi of the synagogue we occasionally go to is a lesbian. It is only the Orthodox whose position is like that of "The Christians."

Cherie Farnaz,

"What will happen, do you think? Will Pseudo return in time?"

One can only hope. Don't know if that's "reasonable" or not. Guess not. But then it wouldn't be unreasonable either. In all likelihood, it would be nonreasonable.

Observer :)

Timmy,

My belief, and my church, does not say "My way or the highway".

You do not so much 'engage in dialog' as preach atheism, to the exclusion of everything else, much as a fundie preacher sets forth his absolutist message. Belief may be useless to you, but it is not useless to very many other people. I am in no way hurt by your posts - actually, they are somewhat amusing.

My belief is NOT rational, and I have never claimed it to be so - almost by definition a belief, a faith, cannot be rational. So what? My belief is useful to me, and indirectly useful to others because it does guide me to a more tolerant and loving life style. And because I never insist on anyone else follow my belief, unless they want to - and I never talk about it unless asked. I am moderate, and cannot see how what I believe could harm anyone. I am well aware that many 'Christians' harm others by pursuing their 'my way or the highway(to hell)' false message.

Farnaz,

"I shall have to remain in the land of the brave, home of the free, whose national anthem is non-theist"

And where we don't let them friggin queers get married because the Jews told us that God forbids it. lol.
DON'T MESS WITH A SECULAR CANUCK!

Under God
In God we trust
God Bless America
The Christian Nation
The most religious nation in the western world. Light years behind Canada in enlightenment.

Pardon me now while I go to the doctor for free.

You know you want to come here Farnaz. The true home of the free, because it includes gay people.

Try coming to Canada and walking into any school during the singing of the national anthem. I went to school in the seventies and we weren't even aloud to sing the God line then, never mind now. You should try some actual on the ground research, it's not as misleading as a quick wikipedia search which can leave you looking quite ignorant at times.

Hello Observer!

Long time, my friend, and great inspirational choice for PseudO! (Not too worry, I omit letters all the time1) What will happen, do you think? Will Pseudo return in time?

-------------------

O Great OnFaith Poet, Pseudo,

Pleeze come home.

Farnaz

O Great Poet Pseud,

'Tis December 30, 2008. There are a scant thirty-two hours left until the bell rings, ball falls, etc. (Genius can be rushed, I know. :0) But, tomorrow is, as they say, another perhaps inspiring day! :)

Inspiration:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up wih snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the yeaer.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

Persiflage, Onofrio, Timmy, Pam, Fredric, JAC, Thomas Baum, Wiccan, Arminius, Susan Jacoby, and All,

Yes, yes, yes, a thoroughly enjoyable and edifying thread!

Farnaz

Onofrio,

If God belief helped Socrates come up with his wisdom, why then would you not opt for God belief yourself? Maybe you'll score yourself some of that divine wisdom. Then you can be just like your hero. So let's hear your reason for opting out of God belief. Why can you not make good use of this good and useful thing for yourself?

Persiflage,

Thanks so very much for sharing your learning on this thread. I've been referencing your posts almost daily.

Farnaz

Thomas,

So disappointed you did not answer my last question. Perhaps it was a difficult one for you. But I know that you are not one to back down from a challenge. So I will ask it again.

You said: "God is caring"

Babies get cancer.
Is God indifferent? Complicit? Helpless?.... not there?

Did God cause the cancer? If so. Why?

Hello Onofrio,

Actually 'twas your Olympian language play that first brought Auden lines to mind. I figured you knew the elegy, but at the time I posted I was too exhausted to do much more than click.

As you also know, Auden revised in print throughout his life (more frequently than did Yeats). His resistance in the elegy was on principle. One of my favorite Auden tinkerings is with the diminishing number of children in "The Unknown Citizen." And they say he had no fashion sense!

Farnaz

timmy2 Author Profile Page:

Farnaz,

I'm afraid your copy of the "Oh Canada" lyrics is dated.

The line "God keep our land, glorious and free" is most often sung these days as "Oh Canada, glorious and free".

We woke up. Your turn.
-----------------------------
Timmy,

Never mess with a SPIRITUAL-CONTEMPLATIVE ATHEIST (SCA). I did my research on "O Canada" before I posted. Some Canadians omit the deity from the line, some don't. Unless you have statistics to prove your case, O Great Logical(?) Apologist, I shall have to remain in the land of the brave, home of the free, whose national anthem is non-theist.

Cheers!

Farnaz

What I have learned on this thread.

Do not ask a religionist or a religious apologist, to provide evidence for any of their claims. They go friggin ballistic.

They will immediately launch into a tirade of ad hominem attack and heinous accusations of Orwellian dictatorial megalomania.

How is exercising one's free speech analogous to trying to take away anyone's right to believe whatever they want? Has any atheist ever called for a law against religion? Or the rounding up of the religious? You'd think we all do so on a daily basis the way these religionists fly off the handle with accusations of tyranny and oppression when you do so. They're just words guys. try countering with actual argument instead of these distractionary accusations of tyrany and megalomania.

As part of the great silent audience, I fully agree with Persiflage: "a thoroughly enjoyable thread - one of the best in recent memory".

Thanks to Susan Jacoby for creating the environment and to all the active participants in the thread!

Best wishes,

Arminius,

"Timmy comes across as such a fanatical atheist that he comes full circle to the black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway attitude of the worst of the religious right"

Arminius, For me to be able to declare "my way or the highway" I would need to be in some kind of position of power. Like the Pope, or a cardinal at the very least. This is what religions do I agree. But I have no flock to command. Even if I were president of your country, I could not enforce "my way or the highway" because you live in a democracy. No, I would need to be a church leader or a dictator. They are the only one's who get to say "my way or the highway".

All I do is engage in dialogue with other citizens (free speech) where I point out the delusion of deity belief, the uselessness of it, and the documented harm that it causes.

I understand your anger at me Arminius. I know that it must hurt when beliefs that you hold are called delusional over and over again. I understand your need to lash out. But please understand my need to speak out against irrationality and it's uselessness, and harmful effects.

Instead of lashing out though, you could always counter with an argument that shows deity belief to be A) rational B) useful or C) not harmful in any way.

I'm still waiting for these points to be substantiated in any way.

Thomas PM Baum,

YOU: “It is not about politics and power and it is not about religion and rules or even the intermingling of the two but it is about what God has done and continues to do in creating the universe, including this earth, and God's Plan which is unfolding before our very eyes.”

ME: Yes, it is about religion. When you talk about what God has done and continue to do you are precisely talking about religion. There is no middle ground in this: you are talking as a religious person with a special communication link (magic waves?) to God and his plan.

If within your religious belief…

A. There is no quest for political power and for setting rules for those that do not share your belief.
B. There is no discrimination or promotion of hate toward other groups.
C. There is no dissemination of false alarmist messages to scare people because something cataclysmic is going to happen (be ready?).

…then you should not worry about our country becoming more secular with real fredom of/from religion.

Best wishes,

JAC

Onofrio,

"He seethes with a sanctimonious assurance that he occupies the moral high ground at all times"

I can see how it sure feels that way when you are debating someone who insists that you show your work when you make the delusional assertion that wisdom can come from deity belief.

Onofrio,

Continued.

ONOFRIO CONTINUES: "To dogmatically abominate such belief in all cases, without exception, may lead to a tyranny as bad as that attributed to religious causes"

Who called for dogmatic abomination. A simple pointing out of the delusion, the uselessness, and harm caused, is all that happened. The dogma is in your head only. The statement that we can not function without reason, and that the willful suspension of reason is not only useless, but most likely harmful, is not dogma. It's fact.

Is the statement that we can not function without breathing, and that the willful suspension of breathing is detrimental not helpful, a dogmatic statement showing idolatry of breathing? lol. It's just a fact, not idolatry. We can not function without reason. The willful suspension of reason is not helpful in any way, and in fact has shown itself to be quite harmful. Where oh where is the dogma.

You used the term "without exception" above. I have been asking you to present said exceptions, (examples please) but all I get in return is distractionary poetry.

ONOFRIO CONTINUES: Point B: SOME of those who pride themselves on being free of gods are still believers, and so self-deceived.

Wow. Who? You mean me? Is the God you refer to, that I believe in, reason?
I do believe in reason you have me there. Guilty as charged. But is reason a God? I don't think so, nor do I present it as such. I do present it as something we can not function without. Which makes it very much unlike a god. Because Gods we can most certainly function without. In fact we can function even better without them than with them.

ONOFRIO CONTINUES: Point C: To absolutise the value of any single human capacity is comparable in effect to "bad" religion, a.k.a. idolatry.

You heard it here first folks. To say that humans can absolutely not function without breathing = Idolatry of breathing. The personification of breathing into a God like entity. The religion of breathing.

ONOFRIO: Hmm. Semantic belly dances, eh? I'd like to see that!

Then you should have video taped your performance. It was spectacular.

Until next time, oh pointless pitchfork holder.

Onofrio,

"Careful how you cock that pistol, Maximilien, or you'll shoot off your jaw..."

Hasn't happened yet. Except in your oh so fertile imagination of course.

ME: (Onofrios caps not mine) JUST IMAGINE. CHILDREN IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE WORDS OF TIMMY. THERE'S HOPE FOR US YET."

THEN ONOFRIO: You're lucky there are no gods, Timmy. They were said to be particularly tough on hubris.

And so the great humorist himself continues to show his inability to recognize humor?

And now for the most delicious present of all. And it's not even my birthday..
Thank you frederick and JAC for pointing out that this sudden frenzy of poetic nonsense came right about the time that our resident fool found himself cornered by his own assertions that wisdom can come from belief in the delusional. If I said something so inane, and was challenged to back it up, I'd probably also try fantasy poetry as a distraction from the fact that I have no point

And now here, having had the cloak of distraction lifted by the great audience, come the points. These are truly delicious. Now we will see that the pitchfork holder has no actual points.

ONOFRIO: Point A: Belief in gods is not necessarily a mental virus, to be eradicated.

"not necessarily? You have doubt about point A? My my my, not off to a good start. But wait. Who said it was a mental virus? I remember some rational minded person pointing out that it is delusional, (which it is) and that it creates no wisdom (it does not) and that it serves no useful purpose at all. Given that none of these points can be countered with any rationality, it is no wonder you have been forced to invent a point out of thin air to counter.

Eradicated???? Who called for that? I call only for the raising of awareness about the uselessness of the delusion and the harm that it can cause. I leave it up to the people to choose what to do with this information. I offer my personal suggestion. Toss this useless delusion onto the scrap heap. No one needs to do what I say. But if someone would like to counter my assertions that it is delusional and useless, let him bring forth some tiny scrap of evidence that it is not delusional, or that it is useful, or that it causes no harm to our society.

"To dogmatically abominate such belief in all cases, without exception, may lead to a tyranny as bad as that attributed to religious causes."

Which are the exceptional cases?

Good to finally arrive at the consensus that religion is simply a handy social means to achieve something politically, far from philosophical insight. There are other "social means" on this scope: Suppression, intimidation, brain washing, fear mongering, every imaginable brand of ideology like Nazism, Communism. All are practical social means to achieve something politically, which has been done so successfully in old and recent times.

Religion DOES have an effect! Gloria in excelsis!

Onofrio,

I agree with all points, A,B, and C, despite the fact that you managed to inadvertently split an infinitive.....

Timmy comes across as such a fanatical atheist that he comes full circle to the black-and-white, my-way-or-the-highway attitude of the worst of the religious right. I have no use for either group.

"Semantic belly dances" - good one, Frederic!

Onofrio plays word games to avoid being revealed as just another goddist. As far as we know there are no gods; the very idea is absurd, and if it hadn't been drummed into our heads as children we wouldn't be defending such silly supernatural notions today.

The 9/11 terrorists were believers, and we seem to accept the fact that they were mistaken in their belief that their martydom would be rewarded with 72 virgins and eternal life. (Well don't we?) Yet they were all college educated, some with PHD's.

Childhood religious indoctrination, it would seem, trumps IQ and education. Once we are persuaded that there's a Magic Man who lives in the sky (where, if we're good, we will live with him for all eternity)- well 72 virgins is no stretch at all.
Why aren't people more skeptical of such drivel?
Why play word games when the likelyhood is that all gods were invented by humans. Nobody denies that Apollo was made up, ditto Zeus and Aphrodite.
Why would the present one be any different from the thousands of gods who are now known simply as myths?

Frederic,

I can augment my pitchfork with some flaming darts as well:

The persona of 'Timmy' is a churlish crusader and clumsy debater who fancies himself dialectically invincible. His meagre rhetorical armoury - which he thinks a mighty arsenal - consists of a constant refrain of "examples please" and "am not, am not, am not" when challenged, along with a tendency to hurl rather dull invective when the going gets tough. He seethes with a sanctimonious assurance that he occupies the moral high ground at all times.

His humour is leaden, and he lacks panache and brio, all of which are grave sins.

I see it as a moral duty to pillory him, with minimal mercy.

Frederic,

"Onofrio, excuse the question: What actually is your point?"

My point is a pitchfork:

Point A: Belief in gods is not necessarily a mental virus, to be eradicated. To dogmatically abominate such belief in all cases, without exception, may lead to a tyranny as bad as that attributed to religious causes.

Point B: SOME of those who pride themselves on being free of gods are still believers, and so self-deceived.

Point C: To absolutise the value of any single human capacity is comparable in effect to "bad" religion, a.k.a. idolatry.

There, 'Timmy' enough for ya?

Damn, split infinitive in Point A. O readers, forgive the lumpen verbage. It's done on the run.

Hmm. Semantic belly dances, eh? I'd like to see that!

"We all now know - for it has been proven with a barrage of "example please" - that no useful wisdom - not even a shred - can come from gods." (Onofrio's (of course ironic) Timmy reference.)

After all the kaleidoscope, all the verbal maze, all the irony, the double and triple sarcasm, the semantic belly dances, the funny and hilarious self-contradictions - hugely entertaining as it is, thanx, and honestly! - Onofrio, excuse the question: What actually is your point?

I wouldn't even be surprised any more, after Plato, Socrates, Auden, Yeats, Augustinus et al., to see you, if just for the fun of it, join our friends' Peter Huff or Moses Baum simple creationist world, just for the purpose of making some reasonable fun at reason (ironically using "Reason's martyr Timmy", to avoid being caught, even for a moment, as a believer in nonsense).

I would like to come back to earth with the simple statement that believing in something unbelievable ("god cannot be defined") is a "contradictio in adiecto", which at least in my upbringing I would have to refute, almost as a knee jerk reflex, without the slightest evil will, as a total fallacy, no matter in what royal or papal garb it ("belief") comes along.

Believing in an image which obviously man created himself, deifying it and trying to derive "truth" from it, seems to me, excuse me, just a bit childish. But then: "Unless you become like children..."

I have the impression, irony aside, that this is all Timmy tries to project, even if he sometimes shoots beyond the goal and exposes some soft spots, several Achilles' heels you can then creatively exploit. Well, despite his heel, it is pretty clear what Achilles tried to accomplish: Kill Hector.

And, Onofrio, how do you know that Timmy might not ironically have used his "hubris" to keep you turning the carousel? In any case, the two of you did a great job entertaining all of us, even edifying us, at least keeping our neurons on the move, and even from time to time looking up a cue in Google, lol!

Sorry to disappoint you there, Arminius, but this Ridiculous Ridiculous Fool is a mere male. Don't worry though, the tonk is well in the pants...um, so to speak.

Onofrio,

Or is it Kind lady?

Onofrio,

"Can I stand with you in a curmudgeonly entente better-than-cordiale?"

Kind sir, I would be honored!

Arminius,

Glad to have entertained you, sir. Can I stand with you in a curmudgeonly entente better-than-cordiale?

Persiflage,

Thank YOU for the gentle infusions of sanity and beautiful poems. For a while there, I thought I might begin to imitate your example of sagely forbearance and balance, but, regretfully, I have fallen back to cut and thrust. The Middle Way, even in rumour, beckoned, along with Nagarjuna, and I said "Yes...but not yet."

How Augustinian of me.

Peace to you.

Onofrio,

My thanks to you for some of the most entertaining posts I've ever seen here.

As for Timmy - I vote for hubris. Beware of Zeus, Timmy! Them thunderbolts is a-comin'!

ALERT

I just have to post this again, to make plain to the great audience the kind of incipient megalomania gathering in the 'Timmy' persona. It's either epic conceit or a truly woeful lunge at...irony? You be the judge which is the more alarming prospect:

"Speaking of, I just read an article that they are using John Lennon in an ad for the "every child a lap top" charity that is hell bent on putting a virtually indestructible laptop in the hands of every child in third world countries. [OK, my capitals coming up, but words unchanged] JUST IMAGINE. CHILDREN IN THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO THE WORDS OF TIMMY. THERE'S HOPE FOR US YET."

You're lucky there are no gods, Timmy. They were said to be particularly tough on hubris.

My personal thanks to Farnaz, Onofrio, Timmy, PamSM, Thomas Baum, Frederick, Arminius, and the great silent audience, for a thoroughly enjoyable thread - one of the best in recent memory.

Onofrio you have a gift! Very funny stuff - I suspect you've seen a stage or two in your day...

Timmy - I checked out your link and thanks.

Ryokan says farewell.......

- Thoughts -

When all thoughts
Are exhausted
I slip into the woods
And gather
A pile of shepherd's purse.
Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.

- No-mind -

The flower invites the butterfly with no-mind;
The butterfly visits the flower with no-mind.
The flower opens, the butterfly comes;
The butterfly comes, the flower opens.
I don't know others,
Others don't know me.
By not-knowing we follow nature's course.

- Lazy -

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

JUSTACOMMENT

You wrote, " How long will take for the religion to lose their political weight in this country?"

It is not about politics and power and it is not about religion and rules or even the intermingling of the two but it is about what God has done and continues to do in creating the universe, including this earth, and God's Plan which is unfolding before our very eyes.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Onofrio,

I’m still around, in and out. I wish this carrousel could stay open, but not many threads in WAPO have gone over the 500 hundred posts. Like the hitting average in baseball, if you care about this sport.

Best wishes,

JAC

As his apotheosis approaches, Reason's Messiah bestows words of hope and consolation on his flock, who reverently hum "Imagine" under their flickering lighters:

Timmy, to all of us:
"Religion will die a slow death (too slow) once every child has a lap top."

'What if they all just tune in to Rick Warren's site? Or al-Jazeera?' exclaims a doubter, who is promptly scorched to death with massed lighters. The discourse continues:

"Religion, cherry picked for the human wisdom that it hijacked in the first place and attributed to a false God, will be replaced by belief in human goodness, and pride in the very HUMAN wisdom of our ancestors. And this will be a good thing. There will be nothing to lament."

Amen! shout the Imagineers. 'And the lion shall lay down with the lamb' exclaims an over-enthused former Episcopalian priest, forgetting himself. His tongue is cauterised with lighter-flames. The discourse continues...

"Keep the wisdom from all of the world's religions, and chuck the delusion, and the world will be so much happier. I know that gays will be, that's for sure. They will finally have their equal rights. Religion is the only thing standing in their way."

Immediately, swarms of grateful homosexuals surge forward and kiss the Messiah's feet, just as he starts to lift off, ascending into the blessed celestial company of those who've made the NY Times bestseller lists.

"Don't touch me," he says to the fervent gay horde, "I have not yet ascended to the...Reason"

And then he said, "Behold I am with you, even to the ending of the age"

And they greatly wondered, and were much afraid...

Hmm, so JAC is closing down this carousel, at last. And as she does, the First Consul of Robespierria is in his final throes:

Timmy, to us all:

"I may be alone on this thread"

Reason's martyr flails about for some pity...

"but I can look at the NY Times best sellers list over the last five years and find myself in very good company."

Consoles himself that he stands shoulder-to-shoulder with giants...popular giants...

"I can look at the number of people touched by the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" and find myself in very goods company."

He protests, tardily, that he has feelings too, and stands swaying in a sea of firelighters, choking back tears...he is not alone after all!

"Speaking of, I just read an article that they are using John Lennon in an ad for the "every child a lap top" charity that is hell bent on putting a virtually indestructible laptop in the hands of every child in third world countries. Just imagine. Children in third world countries will have access to the words of Timmy. There's hope for us yet."

Hear that all you third world children! Reason's martyr has become...your MESSIAH!

Careful how you cock that pistol, Maximilien, or you'll shoot off your jaw...

Please add me to the great silent audience of this thread. It has been a fun reading.

In my personal view, the central ideas behind this discussion are (this are no citations, are my free constructs from Timmy assertions):
1. All tenets or useful philosophies that come out of religion have been developed by means of reasoned, scientific methodology.
2. There is no way to explain how belief in something not real can create useful wisdom; there is never a need to set reason aside to form beliefs about anything.
3. There is not one example where belief in the divine has created useful wisdom of any kind.

Curiously, there have not been many religious posters arguing against these assertions. Why is that? Are the religious believers conceding? If yes, what is the future of the religions? How long will take for the religion to lose their political weight in this country? What needs be done for this to happen? Will BO presidency keep the religious status quo or will help us to move to a more secular nation?

Unfortunately this thread is close to its end, but my hope is a reprise of this discussion with the participation of the great religious audience.

Best wishes to all,

JAC

Onofrio,

"We all now know - for it has been proven with a barrage of "example please" - that no useful wisdom - not even a shred - can come from gods."

How can it, when gods do not exist?
It could only have come from humans.

And I too would be annoyed by the persistent request "example please" if I needed one to make my point, and none existed.

Farnaz,

You to me, re Auden's excisions:

"It pained me deeply that the confused old pseudo-Stalinist (no offense, Pseudo) removed those three verses."

Someone should make a law against poets' tinkering with their own poems. Yeats too had some goes at that, didn't he, and not always for the better.

Yes those verses pierce, no doubt. I wish I had been able to somehow make praise just now, rather than war. The latter is too easy.

I too throw foes in the fatal tumbrel..

Every once in a while I have to shake my head when I step back a realize that I am actually in an argument with two grown women over wether or not it is a good thing to believe in a delusion. An actual argument over wether or not the negatives of believing in a delusion far outweigh the positives.

You guys wouldn't even be right if there were one benefit gained by religion that is not equally available to atheists . But alas there is not even one.

I may be alone on this thread, but I can look at the NY Times best sellers list over the last five years and find myself in very good company. I can look at the number of people touched by the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine" and find myself in very goods company.

Speaking of, I just read an article that they are using John Lennon in an ad for the "every child a lap top" charity that is hell bent on putting a virtually indestructible laptop in the hands of every child in third world countries. Just imagine. Children in third world countries will have access to the words of Timmy. There's hope for us yet.

More importantly, of course, they will also have access to Dan Dennet, and Steven Weinberg, and Sam Harris, and Carl Sagan, and Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer, and Bill Maher, and Christopher Hitchens, and the thousands of websites that teach science and dispel the myths of religion. And then the brainwashing of their parents religion won't stand a chance.

Religion will die a slow death (too slow) once every child has a lap top. Religion, cherry picked for the human wisdom that it hijacked in the first place and attributed to a false God, will be replaced by belief in human goodness, and pride in the very HUMAN wisdom of our ancestors. And this will be a good thing. There will be nothing to lament. Keep the wisdom from all of the world's religions, and chuck the delusion, and the world will be so much happier. I know that gays will be, that's for sure. They will finally have their equal rights. Religion is the only thing standing in their way.

Thank God for the mouthy atheists.

Farnaz,

From Robespierre's evil twin a.k.a. Onofrio:

You to me:
"You win the Farnaz American Idol Contest (FAIC)."

Too kind, too sweet, you essence of the great audience. Hope my twilight isn't too soon.

Thanx for the Auden. You know, when all the winsome Yeats-n-friends exchange was going on earlier, I thought of this very poem you've given, especially the bit about Yeats becoming his admirers and being in our guts - and that when reflecting on your recollection of shattermyth.

Mad Ireland hurt Yeats into poetry; Timmy has hurt Onofrio into...persiflage, not to be confused with Persiflage, who writes anything but his namesake.

I'm familiar with the excised bits you include in the Auden. Thanks for offering them here to that great audience. I wish I could say more about how they fit this present dialectic darkness, but real life crowds in. Keep quoting though...I know what you're gettin' at, though my deluded brain is easily taxed by subtlety...

I might have hoped we could all unite around Pope's "presume not God to scan", but I'm afraid that Timmy might be offended at the preceding line "know then thyself", adapted as it is from the sanctuary of Apollo. We all now know - for it has been proven with a barrage of "example please" - that no useful wisdom - not even a shred - can come from gods.

Farnaz,

I'm afraid your copy of the "Oh Canada" lyrics is dated.

The line "God keep our land, glorious and free" is most often sung these days as "Oh Canada, glorious and free".

We woke up. Your turn.

Timmy, and the great audience

Timmy to moi:
"As usual you show slight bent of insanity"

Oh, they just keep rolling out, don't they, these leaden gems. Please, don't wound me with such faint praise! Non-existent Muses, lend me now Mercutio's esprit. I bleed in your cause...

"Cherry picking religions for the non metaphysical wisdom mixed in with all of the delusion is the best use of them. Accepting any one of them fully is delusional. Cherry picking just one of them is pointless."

An Adolescent's Fantasy:
Out of Spiritus Mundi rises a vision of the First Consul's afterlife: His his severed head is reattached, the jaw he half shot-off now healed and whole. He wanders among blossoms, contentedly effacing the lips from bodhisattvas - lest they speak; pulling all but two of the arms from dharmapalas - because more than two are against Reason; likewise those third eyes in the Buddhas' brows...and he picks the ripe fruit from all the many and varied trees, among the floating blossoms. Every golden bough - agreeably - appears to bear cherries...

The swoon breaks with the blade's descent.

Auden had his moments of glad grace.

Timmy,

I could not live in a country in which the deity figures in the national anthem. :(
---------------------
O Canada!

O Canada!

Our home and native land!

True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,

The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

Timmy,

Did you like any of the poems I posted? Alexander Pope, infinitely reasonable, was kissed by the muse, you know.

Timmy,

Jeez Louise, some of your indigenes still haven't caught sight of all that great Canadian ratiocination you keep hawking.

Onofrio,

YOU: Having used a success in your home country as an opportunity to crap all over another country's problems, you are showing your bitter imperial fangs, O Great Corrector. Say on. There's enough rope for us both..."

No fangs. I didn't crap all over another country's problems. I have crapped all over another country's religion. If you see that particular country's religion as "problems", well then what the hell are we arguing about. We agree!

Farnaz,

"So, how, then did Religion stop Reason from allowing gay marriage? A poisoned rapier?

It didn't in Canada. Because what remains of our religious population have been marginalized out of holding any political power whatsoever.

But it did in the US because a backward-ass ignorant religious populous tossed reason aside so as not to anger God and cause more Katrinas and wildfires. You should move to Canada. We allow gay marriage because we follow common reason over religion. There is no reasoned argument against gay marriage. Only a religious one.

Farnaz, you would be so much happier living in a less religious country. But by all means, you keep on keepin on with your religious apologetics and simultaneous complaining about gays not having full rights. And you think I'm confused? That's rich.

Onofrio and Timmy,

The great audience, I fear, c'est moi.

Goodnight to you both. May the gods protect you from CCNL.

Farnaz

Ah, Onofrio, I should have known. To Robespierre, you have not flown.

An Interlude

I have loved Auden's elegy since I was a child, stumbled upon it shortly after arrival in this country. It pained me deeply that the confused old pseudo-Stalinist (no offense, Pseudo) removed those three verses.

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to moi:
"Are you 14 years old?"

Is that the best you can do? Clearly, wit has been the first casualty of the Reign of Pure Reason.

Having used a success in your home country as an opportunity to crap all over another country's problems, you are showing your bitter imperial fangs, O Great Corrector. Say on. There's enough rope for us both...

I offered you a sincere entente, sealed with Blake, no less! You could have accepted my olive branch, but I see you would rather descend to dull, shrill terms of un-endearment, and call out to august bystanders for help.

The longer this goes on, the worse you look, O Scion of Robespierre. I've got nothing to lose here - I am a Ridiculous Ridiculous Fool with an army of straw men at my command. You are the proven, gleaming First Consul of the Virtuous Republic, and High Priest of the god Reason. You have a long way to fall.

I'll be a mood-fascist now - LIGHTEN UP!

Or...la mort!

Onofrio,

Auden deleted the stanzas in question after years of enormous pressure from the literati.

Farnaz

In Memory of W.B. Yeats

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
The snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

[Auden later deleted the next three stanzas.]

Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and the innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives;
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honours at their feet.

Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

WH Auden

Onofrio,

"I wonder what will be left of the Buddhism you deign to pompously pick at, once your Rationalising purge has had its way"

As usual you show slight bent of insanity by referring to rationality and reason as mine. Many rational people have already pompously picked it over and developed non metaphysical versions of it that are practiced all over the world. In the western world, these versions are more popular than the original. Cherry picking religions for the non metaphysical wisdom mixed in with all of the delusion is the best use of them. Accepting any one of them fully is delusional. Cherry picking just one of them is pointless.

Virtuous Onofrio,

Robespierre was a bloody maniac, born of Dichotomia, Ratiocinata, and Dracula. The earth wept.

Onofrio,

You win the Farnaz American Idol Contest (FAIC). She worships language and forgives everyone by whom it lives.

Your servant,
Farnaz

Pseudo,

I'm pining away.

F

Ah, Timmy,

So, how, then did Religion stop Reason from allowing gay marriage? A poisoned rapier?

XOXO
Farnaz

PS. Socrates was less the metaphysician than you, lad. :)

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to Farnaz:
"Farnaz, do you concur with Onofrio that the wisdom of Socrates was created by his belief that his Daimon was the true voice of his words? Because I know Persiflage does not. And Pamsm does not. And Frederick does not. And colinnicholas does not, And Daniel does not. And I do not. Are you going to leave Onofrio hanging on this one or concur that Socrates would not have come up with his wisdom were it not for his belief in his Daimon?"

Desperate move, First Consul. Calling up allies, now are we? As if Pure Reason needed those. I thought this was a Virtuous Republic, this Robespierria of yours, but it seems you have decided to turn it into a Committee of Public Safety. Next, you'll be changing the names of months and days, time itself...Thermidor, Whatabore, etc...

Hmm, no parley with the Ridiculous Ridiculous Fool and his l'ordre en masse of straw, I see. If they only had a brain! Or, better, the Paraclete Reason, to outthink their base instincts...

The reasonable chamberlain has been dumped in the tumbrel, and trundles away to Mme Guillotine, haranguing the jeering crowds all the way. What elan! Salut, chamberlain...

Nevertheless, as Pope Thomas Baum has reiterated in his latest encyclical - Take care, be ready!

Onofrio,

YOU: Timmy, how can Reason itself be smart? Is it not just a process? People who use reason can be smart, granted, but at what point does Reason per se become an entity that possesses smartness as an attribute. This implies that Reason has its own mind, since to be smart, a thing needs a mind"

You did it again. You are unreal. You have no actual argument so you play these childish semantics games as distractions. Are you 14 years old?

Through the reasoning process that he would go through, he would learn things that his initial base instinct can not take into account. I will try to speak more literally now that I know I'm dealing with a 14 year-old with no real argument.

YOU: Of course, Timmy, you're just using figures of speech. Funny how language forces that on one. How will you purge language of its persistent anthropomorphism? Once you do, will you be able to communicate the oracles of your god Reason reasonably?"

I just need to stop debating 14 year olds who are easily confused by common vernacular.

As usual, you have no actual point or argument. Just semantics games and the most childish diversionary ones I've ever seen on these threads. But then I'd resort to this too if I had the burden of backing up my argument that Socrates' wisdom could not have come about without him believing in a delusion. You remain alone on this thread in that conclusion.

You also have never cleared up what you meant by the "other ways of knowing".

What other ways????

But instead of answering these questions, why don't you dodge again. Find another vernacular in my language to turn on it's head and then write a whole meaningless post on your latest straw man theory distraction. Maybe no one will notice you have no real point.

Farnaz,

"Can you demonstrate to me the reasonable nature, individually and collectively speaking, for why the law will not recognize gay marriage?"

(Kiss)
Thank you dear for making my point. It will be my great joy to provide the answer.

Because the the collective in the US are religious.
No religion. No bans on Gay marriage. Thank you for pointing out one of the many ill effects of religion on our society. Actually I should say your society. I live in Canada. Our non religious collective gives gay people full rights to marry.

Can any of you show one benefit of religious belief that is not equally available to an atheist?

Farnaz, do you concur with Onofrio that the wisdom of Socrates was created by his belief that his Daimon was the true voice of his words? Because I know Persiflage does not. And Pamsm does not. And Frederick does not. And colinnicholas does not, And Daniel does not. And I do not. Are you going to leave Onofrio hanging on this one or concur that Socrates would not have come up with his wisdom were it not for his belief in his Daimon?

Dear Pseudo,

It is December 30, 2008. Please come home. It's eternal winter in the Antarctic, and few, if any, birds sing.

Farnaz

Onofrio:

"Of course I insist as I always do that the metaphysical claims are counterproductive to the positives of the philosophy, and the benefits of the practice, and should be tossed on the trash heap, but beyond those, I see buddhism as a very scientific practice."

Good grief. And now, a moment of silence as the English language slowly passes away.

Onofrio, you are having wonderful fun as am I reading your impassioned prose. Yes, Timmy is the Republic, in the flesh, a confused ancient utopia(n). It may have suited ancient Greek, even Renaissance (British)English, but for us in the New World, it mangles, maims subjects and verbs. Predication defiled! Philosophy weeps.

Timmy, and the great audience,

The reasonable chamberlain to the First Consul of Robespierria:

Hist, Your Grace! The straw men - they come by night. Our spies say they mutter something about "enough rope" and hoisting on petards. I suggest a parley...

Timmy,

First Consul of the newly named Robespierria,

A horde of straw men, led by a Ridiculous Ridiculous Childish Myopic Fool, is pouring over the borders of your most serene Republic, sloganeering about unreal oracles and intent on exposing you as a closet infidel.

Timmy to Persiflage:
"I do have a soft spot for some of the eastern religions, Buddhism in particular."

You didn't think I could let this one pass, did you Timmy? Ah those matrices! As I've said - can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em.

Just as well you followed up your soft spot with this rather dreary-but-consistent disclaimer:
"Of course I insist as I always do that the metaphysical claims are counterproductive to the positives of the philosophy, and the benefits of the practice, and should be tossed on the trash heap, but beyond those, I see buddhism as a very scientific practice."

Otherwise I would have crowed "I win" in a fit petty triumphalism. I'm not yet saturated in Nagarjuna (pace Persiflage), so, yes, I'm still an unreconstructed egoist, and a fool thereby.

So nice to know that there's at least one religion that is not entirely worthy of your "scrap heap" - identical to Gehenna BTW (hey, you have even retained Christian Hell - I thought the reign of Pure Reason might be able to dispense with that). I wonder what will be left of the Buddhism you deign to pompously pick at, once your Rationalising purge has had its way

So, Timmy, I'm willing to concede you are just the victim of sneaky language, and NOT a theist-in-denial, and we'll call our stoush a draw, eh?

The straw men are offering terms...

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to Farnaz:
"Reason is smarter than his [the politician's] base instinct. Reason knows that the "get money now" voice is too stupid to think ahead and reason it out."

Hark, there's a stir on the borders of the Virtuous Republic. The hurly-burly is not done...and the sleeping dogs have just been jolted awake...

Timmy, how can Reason itself be smart? Is it not just a process? People who use reason can be smart, granted, but at what point does Reason per se become an entity that possesses smartness as an attribute. This implies that Reason has its own mind, since to be smart, a thing needs a mind.

Yes, I'm not just imagining it. Timmy has said that Reason not only can outsmart things, it can "know" things as well. All as if it were a thinking subject with its own mind. Here was I thinking people "know" things, with their minds/brains, and outsmart other thinking subjects, but apparently there is a non-personal Reason that also "knows".

According to Timmy, the Great Corrector, not only does Reason have its own mind, capable of smartness and knowing. It's antithesis - "base instinct" - has a voice, which implies that it too may have a mind, unless of course the voice is simply an animal call, like the honking of a goose. Suitably, the "voice" of "base instinct" is "stupid". Seems odd to call instincts "stupid" as if they were culpable moral agents. But I guess in the mind of the Great Corrector, all such fissures can be filled.

Ah, now I see that "base instinct" too has its own mind, and is culpable for its misuse, because it could have "thought ahead" -i.e. exercised foresight - rather than just been, well, its own base self. If only "base instinct" would "reason it out" like Reason, all would be well...

Pardon my Persian, but it all rather resembles the conflict of Ahriman and Ohrmazd. Not only are you a religionist-in-denial, Timmy, but a monarchical dualist to boot!

Of course, Timmy, you're just using figures of speech. Funny how language forces that on one. How will you purge language of its persistent anthropomorphism? Once you do, will you be able to communicate the oracles of your god Reason reasonably?

"All things are full of gods" - Herakleitos

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

-- Walt Whitman

Timmy:

"individual and collective reasoning"

Can you demonstrate to me the reasonable nature, individually and collectively speaking, for why the law will not recognize gay marriage?

Farnaz,

"So, then, that which is legal is reasonable. That which is not legal is unreasonable"

That which is legal is obviously reasonable to the collective reasoning of society. People have to then decide if those things are reasonable for them personally, and they can take it or leave it.

That which is not legal is clearly unreasonable to the collective democracy. If people decide that, what society decides deems unreasonable for the collective, is reasonable for them, and they do it anyway? Then they risk losing their freedom and becoming cell mates with the governor of Illinois.

There is individual reasoning, and collective reasoning.

Still waiting for someone to show me another way of knowing anything. The fact that I say we could not function without air, does not mean that I idolize air.

Dear Great Christian Poet, Pseudo,

Tomorrow is December 30, 2008. I just want to point this out.

Sincerely,
Farnaz

P.S. It's hot here at the equator.

Timmy:

"If selling a Senate seat is reasonable. Why did our society make it illegal. Because it is unreasonable to think that a society could function otherwise."

So, then, that which is legal is reasonable. That which is not legal is unreasonable.

Timmy, you are correct. You do not idolize reason. You idolize "reason," i.e., the word "reason," since, clearly, the ability to reason often eludes you. No offense, but you are lost somewhere in an OCD thicket. You need to try to figure out what you think.

Persiflage,

I'm sorry that I have not had time to comment on any of your posts. Onofrio has me chasing strawmen all over the place and I can't keep up.

I have been appreciating your posts. With all of my calls for people to be spiritual about the mystery of it all, as opposed to being religious about it, I do have a soft spot for some of the eastern religions, Buddhism in particular. Of course I insist as I always do that the metaphysical claims are counterproductive to the positives of the philosophy, and the benefits of the practice, and should be tossed on the trash heap, but beyond those, I see buddhism as a very scientific practice.

Have you ever seen Jill Bolte Taylor's talk at the TED conference last year? It is a must see for anyone interested in "awareness"

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

She is a brain scientist who has a stroke in her brain and it shuts down everything but her awareness. It's a fascinating story. Check it out. If I have a religion, this exemplifies it.

Onofrio,

YOU: You protest otherwise, but the way you write about it, Reason is your speaking, salvific, teleologically motivated, all-accessible, omnipresent something-or-other - all functions usually assigned to supernatural beings"

It only seems that way to you because you think that it is not the source of all of our wisdom but it is. Not my reason. Just reason. I have challenged you to show me one bit of wisdom that did not come about by a reasoned process and you can not. You give, as your example, one of the most reasoned thinkers in history.

Onofrio,

YOU: "The spectre lurking in all you say Timmy is that those who do not conform to your non-negotiable absolute Reason"

Rubbish. Reason is not mine. It's everybody's. And it is always negotiable and updatable based on new information. Just show me a reasoned though process that leads to God belief. The spectre lurking in all I say is nothing more than reason plays a part in every decision we make and belief that we form, except when it comes to deity belief. Some people think that it is useful to se reason aside to form this belief. And they haven't made a very good case of it. In fact they've failed miserably.

YOU "are at the same level as animals, controlled by their animal instincts"

This is your analogy. I only said that they set their reason aside. I did however mention animal instincts when I was talking about criminals. But this just reminds us that you need glasses.

YOU: "You have actually said it; I'm not misrepresenting you"

You need glasses.

YOU: You then semantically link "animal instincts", prayer and rape in a sort of melange, and presto, you've produced your very own version of...Abomination."

No, this is what you did with your eye problem and your sick mind. Get glasses. And grow up.

Timmy,

You say:
"I don't idolize reason."

No, Timmy, you idolize Reason. At least you do in your posts on this thread. I'm sure non-persona Timmy is quite ordinarily reasonable.

You protest otherwise, but the way you write about it, Reason is your speaking, salvific, teleologically motivated, all-accessible, omnipresent something-or-other - all functions usually assigned to supernatural beings. While writing, you've fallen into the fissures of your own (probably unwitting) absolutism. They open wider. Easy to get out.

It's OK, I do it all the time, idolater that I am, "ridiculous, ridiculous" human being (or persona) that I am.

You win. Reason is Lord. You are First Consul of the Virtuous Republic. Now what will you do with we who dissent?

As I've posted before, and I mean it,

OPPOSITION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP

From this Twice Ridiculous, Childishly Game, Poppycock Purveying, Myopic Fool to the Apostle of the Fact, and Great Corrector.

Onofrio,

You quote me: ""But you let your animal instinct make the decision. You overrule your reason. Just as religionists do every time they pray."

And then you say: "I love this one. Equation:
animal instinct = the act of prayer"

Get some glasses. The equation is: overrule your reason = praying to a god who isn't there. The "animal instinct" line was from the previous sentence, hence the period. Get some glasses, for your eyes and your brain.

YOU: Thus the act of prayer is akin to rape

The delicious irony here is that this thought comes from your mind. Get some glasses.

YOU "Be careful, Timmy."

Get some glasses. For your eyes and your brain.

Sorry, again, it's a tough evening.

“When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”

M's witches.

Onofrio,

"More of language's sly tricks are tripping you up, Timmy. So "reason" has the power of speech now, even direction - it "tells" us things. I call gotcha - Anthropomorphism! which of course is the first step on that slippery slope toward...religion."

Wow. Let me get this straight.
When a scientist say something like "the evidence tells us that ice melts at....." do you think that the scientist thinks that evidence can talk? Would you jump up in the middle of a lecture and yell "Ha ha! I call gotcha! This so called professor just showed us that he thinks that evidence can talk. Anthropomorphism! This scientist is clearly a religionist!"
lol

When he says that "the second law of thermodynamics tells us that things in motion...." does he think that the second law of thermodynamics can talk?

You ridiculous ridiculous human being. Every time to think you've got me, you make a fool of yourself. You sound like the religionist with their version of the same "gotcha" on natural selection. "Well who's doing the selecting. If there's selecting going on, someone must be doing the selecting?"

I'd resort to this kind of childish gamesmanship too if I was burdened with trying to prove my assertion that belief in a supernatural entity is necessary for the kind of wisdom we get from Socrates.

YOU :You also manage to pop out a very Mosaic line for your god Reason - "Don't do it". Does that differ so very much from Farnaz' citation of "thou shalt not"? Or from Socrates' guiding daimon?

The "god" and "daimon" you refer to does exist. It's just not a deity. It's your conscience. And the word "conscience" has the word "science" in it for a REASON. Conscience is the very deepest form of reasoning. But depth doesn't seem to be your thing, so I understand your confusion.

YOU: "Timmy, you're an idolater"

As I said to Farnaz. I do not idolize reason, it just seems that way to you because have so little respect for it. I just think that it needs to play a part in all of our decision making and belief forming. For some unknown reason, you think that it needs to be discarded for certain very important decisions and belief forming. For some unknown reason, you think that reason can get in the way of a certain kinds of wisdom.

Onofrio writes to Persiflage:

"Your irenic style and your clear erudition are a blessing amid the hurly-burly I and others stir.

More power to your posts..."

Ditto, Persiflage, and thanks.

Farnaz

Farnaz,

"Calculation is a function of reason"

One of them.
And the calculation could not have come to any other conclusion that what he was doing was wrong, and dangerous to himself, his family and their livelihood. All of the calculation and reason would have brought him to this conclusion. But he allowed his primal urges ignore his reasoned calculations.

Here's the proof.
Before he incriminated himself by talking about it on the phone, he said, at a press conference in front of everyone, "Go ahead, tape my conversations. You'll never get me like that". This means he did indeed calculate that talking about it on the phone would get him busted, making this a completely unreasonable thing to do. So why, after calculating that it would be suicide, did he go out and talk about it on the phone? He allowed himself to set reason aside and let his primal urges, which just say "get money now!" to override his reason, which knows that "get money now!" is not wise. Reason is smarter than his base instinct. Reason knows that the "get money now" voice is too stupid to think ahead and reason it out. Reasoning allows you to think beyond "get money now" and weigh the long term negatives to the short term monetary gain. Getting caught, harming others, breaking a code that allows you to live in a civil society, these negatives far out weigh the quick monetary gain when you reason it out.

If selling a Senate seat is reasonable. Why did our society make it illegal. Because it is unreasonable to think that a society could function otherwise.

I don't idolize reason. I just don't think that it ever gets in the way. You guys, apparently, do. For some unknown reason.

Farnaz - yes, Nagarjuna founded the Madhyamika or Middle Way school of Buddhist thought, which is currently most prevelant in the Buddhism emerging from the Indo-Tibetan tradition via the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan masters.

Briefly, in elucidating the central Buddhist concept of emptiness and phenomena - he describes our material reality as co-dependently arisen, where material objects consist of mere appearances, without true lasting substance or individual, autonomous identities. Seemingly objective phenomena are therefore neither completely real, nor completely unreal - but are merely appearances existing somewhere in between.

Students of this view are invited to consider what reality might be like if it was actually as we imagine it to be - with real, independently existing, free-standing and solidly permanent phenomena.

We quickly begin to see that this idea is inconsistent with the constant change the we perceive to be occurring at both gross and suble levels all around us. When you add in the observer effect of quantum mechanics, this all seems to be cutting edge science!

This is the essence of the Middle Way view of emptiness or sunyata, and has been considered to be the most subtle level of intuitive wisdom taught by Gautama Buddha.

Seemingly counter-intuitive to what we universally consider to be true through our own experience, Nagarjuna nevertheless defended this view of reality through the use of a dialetical process that employed progressively more subtle levels of logical analysis.

A book that I have, 'The Sun of Wisdom' by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso and published by Shambhala Books might be a place to start. This is a take-off on 'The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way' written in the 2nd century by Nagarjuna. A direct translation of this original work might even be better, if you can find it.
_______________

Onofrio - thanks! I appreciate your comments...

Persiflage again,

Just letting you know that I did register your comments on Plotinus et al, back in the heat of mental fight.

Your irenic style and your clear erudition are a blessing amid the hurly-burly I and others stir.

More power to your posts...

Farnaz,

Thanks to you too for these lines.

Perfectly apposite...

Apologies to Persiflage, Onofrio, and all...I cannot help myself:

Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

Persiflage, thank you.

We, no won't hide in that, I, have been laying waste my powers, to be sure.

Been reaching for underdoggish glamour
to glaze my pious ungodly clamour.

The Tables Turned

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?

The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.

Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:--
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

W. Wordsworth -

Persiflage:

Acharya Nāgārjuna--the Middle Way, yes? I've been reading about this everywhere. Can you say something about it?

Farnaz

Timmy, and the great audience,

The spectre lurking in all you say Timmy is that those who do not conform to your non-negotiable absolute Reason - i.e. your god - are at the same level as animals, controlled by their animal instincts. You have actually said it; I'm not misrepresenting you.

You then semantically link "animal instincts", prayer and rape in a sort of melange, and presto, you've produced your very own version of...Abomination.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...

What does history tell us happens to those designated abominations, Timmy? And don't try the flight to abstraction dodge. You actually accused Farnaz of advocating wholesale surrender to those "animal instincts". Abomination, in the end, as history shows, always attaches to bodies - real, natural bodies.

I can just predict the response, swift and sure as a guillotine blade:

"just one example"

Look around...

O, Great Christian Poet, PSEUDO,

Please come before the bell strikes, ball falls/calls 2009!!!

I troubled and seeking consolation in the writings of Persiflage, but needeth the wings of your poesy.

Though Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Animists, B'hai, et al abound, I am SPIRITUALLY desolate.

Come back, great poet, great singer, great muse, great prose stylest (prose is okay)!!! Teach the lost ones how to praise.

(I's windy here in the dessert.)

Farnaz

Timmy,

You are out-Orwelling Orwell. As I live and breathe, you have mastered the art of triple-think and newer-speak. O, Bigger Bro, what do you wreak?

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to Farnaz:
"But you let your animal instinct make the decision. You overrule your reason. Just as religionists do every time they pray."

I love this one.

Equation:
animal instinct = the act of prayer

Rape is according to Timmy, paradigmatically "natural", so presumably it belongs with those awful "animal instincts" that are Reason's quarry.

Thus the act of prayer is akin to rape.

It's been said before, and I'll say it again:
"Be careful, Timmy."

Onofrio to Timmy:

"Timmy, you're an idolater."

'nuf said, though it's been said more than once. Must be REASON is hard of hearing, reading, etc. So, history would have it, in the event.

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy to Farnaz:
"Things are risks because reason tells you so. It tells you that you are about to do something rather foolish. Wrong. You risk getting caught. Don't do it. But you let your animal instinct make the decision. You overrule your reason. Just as religionists do every time they pray."

More of language's sly tricks are tripping you up, Timmy. So "reason" has the power of speech now, even direction - it "tells" us things. I call gotcha - Anthropomorphism! which of course is the first step on that slippery slope toward...religion.

Timmy, do you realise that you are treating reason as a supernatural being? According to you it SAVES us from our natural rapacious selves, it SPEAKS to us, warning against dumb risks (where have I heard that before? - no, must be going mad), and it is universally accessible to all, just like PRAYING.

Have you ever heard of Robespierre, Timmy? Look, I don't believe in reincarnation, but the resemblance is rather uncannily striking...

You also manage to pop out a very Mosaic line for your god Reason - "Don't do it". Does that differ so very much from Farnaz' citation of "thou shalt not"? Or from Socrates' guiding daimon?

Timmy, you're an idolater.

ARMINIUS

You wrote, "Further, prophesy does not concern me. It seems to me that the message of our Lord stands by itself, and does not need it."

I believe that you have stated this very well, it is just that I have a different "job".

The Message and prophesy go together in God's unfolding Plan.

There seems to be many people that are so preoccupied with prophesy and trying to figure out prophesy that they miss Jesus's Message and sometimes the fact that Jesus Is The Message.

I have not tried to figure out prophesy even tho at times I have wondered about it, it just so happens that God chose me to speak.

I have used other avenues of speaking and the internet is just another avenue of speaking in trying to do what God chose me for.

Then you wrote, " Even further, I don't dwell on any afterlife - that is out of my hands, all I can try to do is live right. But before you draw too many conclusions, Holy Week is very, very important and real to me."

Don't worry, I do not "draw too many conclusions" for the simple fact that not only can't I live your life, I am not supposed to even try, I am supposed to live my own life.

Some seem to forget that the invitation that Jesus extended to us is, "Come follow Me", it is not to tell other people what to do.

Following Jesus is personal, the path that I am to follow is not the same path that Jesus has for others, we all have different "jobs", so to speak.

Then you wrote, "Some have usurped the message of the Gospels by insisting on making a confusion with OT rules and a literal interpretation of Revelation. I am repulsed by this."

Sometimes things are quite "literal" yet people look at them from the wrong frame of reference, I do not concern myself with the details, that is God's Job, so to speak, the big picture is what I speak of. You could say that I am just a small "cog", as in "Child of God", in God's Plan.

Not only am I a Child of God but every other human being past, present and to come are Children of God, we can be quite unruly children at times, can we not?

You also wrote, "Faith is a journey, not a destination." That it is, a day by day journey and the destination, which is for ALL OF HUMANITY contrary to what some think, is the seventh day.

I wish you well on your move and thanks for replying, we are all in this together.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Timmy,

Re: Your post

Calculation is a function of reason.

F.

Arminius - yes, the strong and weak nuclear forces hold the sub-atomic parts together....and electromagnitism holds a constellation or bundle of atoms together to give us all this stuff, including the face in the mirror (there are alot of atoms in a teacup, let alone Mother Earth). As for gravity, gravitons have actually been proposed but remain undetected.

String theory is cool, what with all those tiny strings combining in various ways to do the (theoretical) job of atoms - unfortunately we don't have the capacity to test the theory.

So from our current standpoint, while everything under the sun and elsewhere looks vastly unique and different, at the same time it's all composed of the same old (mostly empty) atoms.

More than a few physicists have been baffled by their own results. See below, two that were of a particularly mystical bent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stanley_Eddington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bohm

h

Timmy, and the great audience

Timmy says:
"That is what being human is all about. That's what makes us different from other animals. They do not possess an intellect capable of outsmarting their basic animal instinct, so they are all natural instinct. We think our way around our instincts all the time. It's the only way we could form a workable society."

Ah, so there's teleology in our lucky outthinking (aside - do instincts think?)capacity. It's all for a purpose - it's the only way we could "form a workable society". Do you think "nature" had that in "mind" when we got our "lucky" intellectual break, Timmy?

I think you'd be really at home in the 18th century, Timmy. All those ghastly fruits of "Reason" (capital R) had yet to ripen.

As for those mere animals we so excel, where's their H-Bomb, where's their Shoah? Has that where "Thinking around our instincts" has got us? Imagine, I could still be mindlessly, instinctually padding through the undergrowth, looking for food and a mate...

Someone once said the unexamined life ain't worth living, or thereabouts. But he was a deluded genius, so he would say that...

Farnaz,

You need correcting again.

"It is unintelligent, not unreasonable, to attempt to make such deals on the phone. But making them is not unreasonable"

Of course it is unreasonable. Reason told him that he is highly likely to get caught and he should not do it. Reason told him over and over again that it is a bad thing to do for his own conscience and for society. But he allowed his selfish animal instinct to get the better of him. This goes for everyone who commits a crime. They all know that the reasoning is bad. But they let their animal side overrule their reason and made an irrational decision. They should not do this. They should listen to their reason. We all should.

YOU: Corruption is endemic in politics and elsewhere. Intelligent people take reasoned, calculated risks, not only in corrupt dealings but in many domains of life in society.

Calculated risks yes. But not "reasoned" risks. You equate the two and you need correcting. Things are risks because reason tells you so. It tells you that you are about to do something rather foolish. Wrong. You risk getting caught. Don't do it. But you let your animal instinct make the decision. You overrule your reason. Just as religionists do every time they pray.

The way you think, we should all go around robbing stores. It makes perfect sense because we will be richer then, right? Rob stores, get rich. Perfectly reasonable. At least if you have zero depth to your thinking.

Timmy, and the great audience,

Timmy says:
"People keep saying that to me, "be careful Timmy", and yet nothing bad ever happens. You all need to stop worrying about me."

We like you Timmy. We get concerned that your all your sunshine will make a desert.

Back to Socrates (sorry all, but I am mad, after all, and like Socrates himself, deluded)

Timmy: "In other words, you [Onofrio] need to show how he [Socrates] would not have come up with the same wisdom were it not for his delusional belief."

But I have. On the basis of our Platonic documents, which I quoted at tedious length, it is clear that Socrates felt he was compelled by a god to embark on his gadfly mission, from which his dialectical encounters derived. If he had not been convinced (yea, even deluded) thus, on the evidence we have, he might just have remained a regular Athenian, unremembered and unsung. Probability is as good as it gets with history, Timmy.

On your quasi-religious faith in the inevitability of rationalistic progress, I say - No, Socrates probably would not have exercised his "genius" sufficiently for his contemporaries and us to notice without the spur of his belief in his god.

And no, I don't think it inevitable, as you seem to, that Socrates-like ways and words would have developed any old how, even if Socrates hadn't done his "delusional" deity-inspired gadfly thing. On your part, that's an argument from speculation, a statement of faith, and ahistorical to boot.

One day, I'd like to see your learned treatise on "The Inevitability of Platonism sans Plato".

Persiflage, you wrote,

"An atom is calculated to be about 99% empty space. Since string theory is unprovable, we have to go with atoms. How these atoms manage to hang together just so, giving us chairs, tables, houses, cars, people and so forth is an amazing feat of electromagnitism, or is it?"

Particle physics is endlessly fascinating. [Disclosure: I am NOT a scientist!] The deeper we delve, the more questions pop up to annoy us.

As I (imperfectly) understand it, an atom is held together by three of the four fundamental forces: for atoms, it is electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force. These three forces are well tied together in physics, and are pretty well understood. The fourth force, gravity, is the spoiler. Nobody understands how it ties in - it is the weakest of the four, but triumphs in the end in a black hole. Understanding how all four tie together is the Holy Grail of physics.

Mysteries... which we pursue, only to solve and uncover more mysteries...

Timmy, and the great audience

I sit corrected by the Apostle of the Fact. I now know the truth. Forgive my hectoring madness.

Know I now that:

Socrates is "deluded", yet also a dictionary-certified "genius"...

There is nothing that is not natural, yet "lucky" we (presumably also "natural") have a supervening "reason" that somehow "outsmarts" the completely natural behaviour of rape.

Also to be considered are that some things are more "natural" than others, since some things are "equally natural".

Not to mention that there is some mysterious internal thing called a "conscience", that delivers us from evil, but which, like rape, is also entirely "natural".

Also, an axiom for sound debate: Those who defend the subjectivity of others are always to be attributed with that subjectivity themselves. Sprinkle liberally with such reasonable rhetorical phraseology as "poppycock", "utter nonsense", "fool", "you must be mad", etc.

Further,

Against flaky, theo-nostalgic Onofrios, use blinkered reductionism and virtually deify the human mind.

Against thoroughly naturalistic Pams, opine about mystery and the smallness of human minds.

Welcome to Timmy's dialectic...

"But let me help, The REASON comes from the consequences of getting caught."

I'm afraid that's not helpful. Even grammatically, no offense "the reason" does not "come from consequences."

It is unintelligent, not unreasonable, to attempt to make such deals on the phone. But making them is not unreasonable. Corruption is endemic in politics and elsewhere. Intelligent people take reasoned, calculated risks, not only in corrupt dealings but in many domains of life in society.

farnaz,

"Let me help. There is nothing "unreasonable" in attempting to sell a Senate seat in order to increase one's income. Nothing at all"

You have got to be kidding me. You're not serious here? Your thinking can not possibly be that shallow.

But let me help, The REASON comes from the consequences of getting caught. And the shame of it. And then on into the more important reasons not to do it. The harm it does on your own community. You don't want to live in a world where people do such things without retribution because that would be anarchy. And we're just getting started. There are a million more reasons why what The illinois governor showed bad reasoning and all animal instinct.

Attempting to sell a senate seat in order to increase one's income is most definitely bad reasoning. End of discussion.

PAMSM - I had hoped I wasn't being obtuse. While you don't personally believe that it's possible for consciousness to survive death, this does not mean the door is officially closed to the possibility....my posts were leading in that direction, or so I thought.

And I thought the research findings were provocative, as did the researchers, but you apparently didn't.

At the moment of death, conscousness is gone from the body (although according to Tibetan lore, not immediately) - but we haven't established unquivically that it's gone for good, like woodsmoke on a windy day....on the other hand, maybe that's a good simile afterall.

If we accept the possiblity that consciousness survives death, then we're left with another problem - did it also exist before the individual biological entity in question came into being? This really is a can of worms...

Since matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, but merely change form, perhaps consciousness has sufficient integrity to persist both before & after bodily death (reincarnation, I'm afraid). We speak of energy, and yet no one knows exactly what energy is, only what it does - more of a principle than a thing.

Which is exacly how I view atoms and our material world - a constellation of minute forces and relationships, rather than things. An atom is calculated to be about 99% empty space. Since string theory is unprovable, we have to go with atoms. How these atoms manage to hang together just so, giving us chairs, tables, houses, cars, people and so forth is an amazing feat of electromagnitism, or is it?

Anyway, the door that we speak of regarding the persistence of consciousness is either open or closed - and in your mind death is the end.

I don't have a problem with that.....there are plenty of folks that have no real curiosity about this one way or another, or write it off to fantasy and wishful thinking.

As for me, while I have a comfortable relationship with science, it doesn't have the answers to all of my questions, and life is short. Looking and not finding is preferrable to not looking at all, in my view.

PAMSM

You wrote, "While these studies may be interesting for what they tell us about the experience of dying, they have no relevance to the question of consciouness surviving death. These people had functioning brains, else they would not have been able to report their experiences."

Some of these "near-death" experiences had absolutely nothing to do with the experience of dying but of seeing and hearing what was going on, in some cases, on their own bodies which they looked upon as observers, so to speak.

Some of these people were "unconscious" also, at least according to the machines that we have built, no brain waves.

Maybe when people speak of a mind, it might not just be that couple of pounds of stuff inside our skulls, in other words we may have both a mind and a brain.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

PAMSM

You wrote, "No one has provided *any* evidence of consciousness surviving brain death, or severe damage to the pre-frontal cortex".

First, that is not a proof that consciousness does not survive.

Second, this may not be in the category of "brain death" or "severe damage to the pre-frontal cortex", but there have been many reports of "near-death" experiences such as "clinical" death during operations and such and in other circumstances where people have had "experiences" that defy everyday experiences, so to speak.

I have never had a "near-death" experience myself but plenty of others have.

Not all who have been declared, so to speak, "clinically dead" have had these experiences but many have.

One day God will prove that He Is Real and He has revealed to me that He Is Real but we will not prove it.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Timmy,

Let me help. There is nothing "unreasonable" in attempting to sell a Senate seat in order to increase one's income. Nothing at all.

Persiflage says:
"PAMSM - people in full cardiac arrest and without discernable EKG or EEG functions shouldn't have memories of the NDE either - but they do (in about 12% of the cases, as I recall). I believe this was pointed out in the Von Lommel article, which was also published in the Lancet.

On the other hand, full brain death is death by any other name - and you might as well pull the plug. Beyond that point 'proof of life after death' really is anecdotal - although not in short supply. The tipping point between life and death really is the razor's edge."

Again, you're talking about cardiac arrest, not brain death or injury. No "discernable...EEG functions" doesn't, apparently, necessarily mean brain death, since these people were revived. Nor could the cardiac arrest have been of long duration. That most formed no memories, but a few did, is not particularly surprising to me. So some brains resist losing consciousness longer than others... so what? So EEGs can't measure all brain activity... so what? Maybe all of them were conscious, but only a few could recall it - like dreams.

I'm afraid that I'm missing your point. You don't seem to be disagreeing that when the brain crosses that "razor's edge" that consciousness is gone, except anecdotally (and I guarantee you that none of the anecdotes come from the decedent) so what is it that you're trying to say?

"Like, for example, in Afghanistan, in importing and selling drugs, etc. In selling Senate seats...."

Yes these are fine examples of where people have failed to use their intellect and reason and allowed their primal instincts to take the lead.

Where would intellect lead/have lead us in these separate domains?

Farnaz,

So you were lying when you said "If I already knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked the question, Timmy"?

The "equally so" was understood.

Then nothing is, end of discussion. Next topic?

Sorry I forgot to add,

... and equally so.

Farnaz,

"Can you give me your answer, at least?"

Everything is natural."

Then nothing is, end of discussion. Next topic?

Farnaz,

"Can you give me your answer, at least?"

Everything is natural.

Farnaz

"Like, for example, in Afghanistan, in importing and selling drugs, etc. In selling Senate seats...."

Yes these are fine examples of where people have failed to use their intellect and reason and allowed their primal instincts to take the lead.

I'm not sure why I have to be careful? People keep saying that to me, "be careful Timmy", and yet nothing bad ever happens. You all need to stop worrying about me. I've been through all of these arguments many many times. I don't very often get into any trouble.

If I already knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked the question, Timmy.

Can you give me your answer, at least?

"Are you countering the argument that we use our intellect to outsmart our animal instincts every day?"

Like, for example, in Afghanistan, in importing and selling drugs, etc. In selling Senate seats....

Careful, Timmy, there are several different arguments here.

Farnaz,

"Are there, then, "things" that are more and less natural?"

Sounds like you already know the answer to that so why don't you tell me.

"I did not say that rape was "the most natural thing in the world", I said that nothing is MORE natural than rape. There is a difference. This simply means that rape occurs in nature just as everything else occurs in nature and they are all equally natural."

Are there, then, "things" that are more and less natural?

Pam,

Note 1: I did not say that rape was "the most natural thing in the world", I said that nothing is MORE natural than rape. There is a difference. This simply means that rape occurs in nature just as everything else occurs in nature and they are all equally natural.

You are correct that males in the animal world risk their lives to woo a female partner. If they are unsuccessful, they almost always resort to attempted rape. It does not always succeed true, but it takes physical repulsion by the female and or other members of the social network, if there is one, to stop it from happening.

In the human world, No means no, in our society. Reasoned thinking brought us to a place where we make this the law. This is not true however in all human societies. Muslims living in places like Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan condemn rape on paper, and yet engage in rape (as we would define it) almost daily. The truth is that submitting to rape by your husband is part of their faith. Most women over there don't even get to choose who they marry, and therefore they don't get to choose who gets to stick it in them. We have reasoned our way out of that. In our society, women can just say the word "no", and it holds incredible weight. This is thanks to reason, not thanks to animal instinct. Drunk guys at frat parties don't not grope asses and boobs because their animal instinct tells them it's wrong. They refrain from acting on their animal instincts because they reason that they will go to jail.

This is a total sidetrack argument anyway. Are you countering the argument that we use our intellect to outsmart our animal instincts every day? That is what being human is all about. That;s what makes us different from other animals. They do not possess an intellect capable of outsmarting their basic animal instinct, so they are all natural instinct. We think our way around our instincts all the time. It's the only way we could form a workable society.

PAMSM - take a look at this brief article on cardiac arrest and NDE with reference to brain functions and memory.

http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(01)00469-5/abstract

PAMSM - people in full cardiac arrest and without discernable EKG or EEG functions shouldn't have memories of the NDE either - but they do (in about 12% of the cases, as I recall). I believe this was pointed out in the Von Lommel article, which was also published in the Lancet.

On the other hand, full brain death is death by any other name - and you might as well pull the plug. Beyond that point 'proof of life after death' really is anecdotal - although not in short supply. The tipping point between life and death really is the razor's edge.

In many ways consciousness research is in it's infancy (in the West). Time will tell.......
____________

Farnaz - see works by Nagarjuna.

Hi Persiflage,

Awhile back, you recommended I read an Indian mystic, whose name, I believe, began with Nar....
Can you tell me again?

Thanks!

Farnaz

Hi Arminius,
Yes, precisely - rape has never been about sex - it's a hate crime. That's why it happens in war so frequently - it's the enemy women who are being brutalized, and the enemy is never seen as being quite as human as you are. It's a way of punishing the enemy women, and thumbing your nose at the enemy men - "I've had your woman, and if there's a child, you won't know it isn't mine."
This is why rape victims were supposed to be killed.

Rape happens when normal social constraints have broken down, whether because of psychological impairment, or because we no longer have the same tribal community that we evolved in.

The "stranger" factor is probably why rape is more common in humans than in other primates, but it's still, fortunately, relatively rare.

No, I've never personally had a near-death experience. I would expect that it would be very strange. Once the heart stops, the brain begins to be deprived of oxygen, and that has to cause some odd thoughts.

Farnaz,

"Thou shalt not....Never have three words been so well understood by so few, so misconstrued by so many.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's because those three words are a lousy and misleading and therefore dangerous metaphor? Especially considering the audience. You ought to know those words were well meant to be misconstrued in exactly the way that they were.
---------------
Don't have time now, Timmy, probably tomorrow. One of the commandments translates roughly as "You shall not steal."

The text with the commandments was ripped off by a people who knew not Joseph, refused to know him, and, therefore, misconstrued the multiple meanings of "not" and many other things.
_______________________
If rape were natural, obviously, we would have more rapists. I do agree that men tend to let there sexuality, anger, emotions get the better of them more than women. We see now that women have much higher graduation rates from colleges and this trend is slowly making itself felt in graduate and professional schools.

At the same time, women have children, run the homes, etc. A great deal of progress since scholastic and employment discrimination has been seriously addressed only in the last forty years or so.

Hi, Thomas Baum,

Well, friend, I guess I'm coming to the bible from a someone different direction. I'll put forward a few thoughts, but not a terribly connected narrative. I'm in the middle of moving, and no time to think too much!

We do have some important things in common - our recognition of the core message of the Gospels that our Lord preached love and that God is love. Also, we come to this not so much by reading, but from an outside experience. Yours was much more profound.

But as for the bible: my entire faith, which is evolving, is based on the Gospels. To me, all else is either support, commentary, interpretation, background, history, myth, or other.

Further, prophesy does not concern me. It seems to me that the message of our Lord stands by itself, and does not need it. Even further, I don't dwell on any afterlife - that is out of my hands, all I can try to do is live right. But before you draw too many conclusions, Holy Week is very, very important and real to me.

As to Revelation - someday I must read it again, and I will. But the howlings and ravings of the fundamentalists, those twisters of all the good that is there in the Gospels, has prevented me. Some have usurped the message of the Gospels by insisting on making a confusion with OT rules and a literal interpretation of Revelation. I am repulsed by this.

Faith is a journey, not a destination.

Take care, God bless.

Pam,

First, I am in agreement with you about Timmy's unfortunate comment about rape. He seems to think about it as a 'natural' sex thing. It is not - it is about power and violence. Even as a male, I am tempted to think that the best punishment would be castration.

Next, about near-death experiences. Have you ever known someone who had one? I have, my sister, after a serious car accident. I won't describe it here, but it is really spooky.

Persiflage,
"Near-death" is not the same as brain death, from which no one has ever recovered.

While these studies may be interesting for what they tell us about the experience of dying, they have no relevance to the question of consciouness surviving death. These people had functioning brains, else they would not have been able to report their experiences.

Here's a Time magazine synopsis of Susan Brownmiller's recent book on the brutal history of rape - this paints a very ugly picture indeed.

This behavior is pathological in the extreme, as only human nature can be when seen at it's worst.
Such behavior is still rampant in third world countries and during time of war - the atrocities committed against women and girls in Darfur is only one recent example.

'Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape".

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,947218-2,00.html

PAMSM and Thomas Baum - research in the area of near-death experiences continues to grow.

Whether or not all of this research and it's results would be considered 'anecdotal' in nature is a fair question - because reports happen 'after the fact' & usually following a full cariac arrest. It's worth a looksee for those interested, and there's plenty more on the web.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080910090829.htm
http://www.scimednet.org/library/articlesN75+/N76Parnia_nde.htm
http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_consciousness.htm

Timmy says:
"As for your weird rant on the "rape" thing.
Before society used reason to develop group morality, men had sex with any female they saw, wanted, and felt like having sex with. It was perfectly natural. See woman, want woman, have woman, by force if necessary. That's the way humans did it for hundreds of thousands of years and it was as natural as anything gets. Until we learned to outsmart it with reason and sense."

Horse puckey! Where are your documents (as you challenge others to provide)? Methinks you're relying on cartoons of cavemen with clubs for your social conclusions. It would be much better for you to consult primitive peoples who still live without knowledge of civilization, or our closest living relatives, the chimps and bonobos. You will find rape rare and socially unacceptable.

This speaks, BTW, to my point about morality being instinctual (i.e., genetic). Mull that.

Timmy, I'm at work, and don't have time to reply to all of your points right now - I'll get back to you later. But the most egregious, I'll take the time to address - rape is not, *not*, NOT the "most natural thing in the world."

Clearly, you know little about animal behavior. If rape is all it takes to produce the next generation, why do so many male animals risk life and limb fighting for territory in order attract females, who stand by to see which male ends up with the land that has the best food and water?

Why do male birds waste energy and risk being more visible to predators to grow the brightest and most elaborate possible plumage, and then dance and display it for every female they come across, most of which say "La di da" and walk away? (Metaphorically, of course.)

Sorry to burst your bubble, but rape is uncommon and aberrant in nature.

I've spent years breeding show dogs and cats, and I can tell you that rape *never* happens among them. If an extra-randy young male that hasn't yet learned the social ropes, makes advances on a female that isn't in season, isn't in the right part of her season, or simply doesn't like *him*, he is told in no uncertain terms that his advances are unwelcome, and is lucky to come out of it without wounds to lick. It doesn't take many tries before he learns to wait for an invitation.

Thomas Baum wrote:
"You wrote, 'But my stating that consciousness can't survive brain death is not at all hubristic, it's simply reality'.

How could you know that this is 'simply reality'?

If you are saying that consciousness doesn't survive in the dead brain is one thing but to say that consciousness doesn't survive is quite another."

Thomas, I gave you several scenarios, all of which constitute strong evidence that consciousness is a function of having a brain. No one who has suffered a blow to the head sufficient to cause unconsciousness (note the word) has ever said that during that time he was perfectly conscious and aware but somewhere else. All report no memory of the time. I've been there myself.

No one has provided *any* evidence of consciousness surviving brain death, or severe damage to the pre-frontal cortex.

I draw the only conclusion that I can.

Onofrio,

Continnued.

As for your weird rant on the "rape" thing.
Before society used reason to develop group morality, men had sex with any female they saw, wanted, and felt like having sex with. It was perfectly natural. See woman, want woman, have woman, by force if necessary. That's the way humans did it for hundreds of thousands of years and it was as natural as anything gets. Until we learned to outsmart it with reason and sense.

Is it your contention that we do not use our intellect to outsmart our animal instincts on a daily basis? This somehow makes intellect and reason "supernatural" to you? You've lost your marbles son.

Onofrio,

continued.

YOU: Now it's my turn to demand examples. Where are the documents that tell us about the childhood of Socrates? How can you infer that it was "indoctrination" he experienced, rather than the less pejorative terms instruction, teaching, education? Why invoke the emotive cliche of small children being force-fed patent untruths?

Every child who is told that God or Gods exist by their parents or guardians is a victim of child abuse and indoctrination.
Also, are you arguing that socrates belief that God was coming up with his thoughts was not delusional? Either God was coming up with his thoughts, or he was delusional. How he got that way is moot. I am assuming it was the standard way in which people become delusional, childhood indoctrination. But for our argument, we only need to agree that he was delusional. And I think we agree there because I heard you admit that you do not think that God was creating his wisdom even though he thought that he was.

YOU: He's not my hero, and he wrote nothing himself. I do not deny that his reasonings were his own, but also his own was his BELIEF (NOTE: no ontological status assigned by me) that he was guided by a god.

Yes but you need to show that his belief is the thing that created the wisdom. In other words, you need to show how he would not have come up with the same wisdom were it not for his delusional belief. You have not, you can not show this. Thus, you still have not given one example of a positive religious tenet or verse or principle that was not arrived at by reason.

As for your weird rant on "thou shalt not".
The metaphor is God's command for your conscience.
It is our conscience that tells us what is wrong. "Thou shalt not" creates "God creator of all" as a metaphor for the conscience. I think you need to take a couple of deep breaths. Maybe count to ten or something.

Onofrio,

You are my favorite poster of all time. I love condescension from beneath. It cracks me up every time.

YOU: "What am I missing here? Is this the same universe in which your "irrational reasons" occur Timmy?"

What you are missing is that your entire first post in this round is a moot and a pointless rant as you quote Pamsm as me, and then my argument against Pam's words as me contradicting myself when I was actually contradicting Pam. So maybe you should get some glasses and you'll look less like a fool. Let's start with that.

YOU: The issue, if you recall, was whether belief in supernatural beings could possibly effect useful wisdom.

No the issue was could supernatural belief CREATE wisdom.
And if you'll recall, I asked you for one example of a positive tenet or verse from a RELIGION, given that it is religion that we are arguing about.

Regardless, your Socrates example fails miserably. A man attributing his own reasoned thoughts to God, and his conscience to God is evidence of delusion, not evidence that belief in God created his wisdom. So pathetic.

YOU: I think you ought to avoid glowing terms like genius, Timmy. They could bite you back. You know, I've never actually claimed genius for Socrates. He was a clever Athenian. I'll leave the worship to you...

Genius is a word in the dictionary. Look it up. It's nothing more than high praise for intellect. There is no worshiping of geniuses. You seem to have lost your mind here. Socrates fits all dictionary definitions for genius. Do you think that genius is a supernatural word? Are you losing your mind? You seem like you are losing your mind. It's amazing what stumping someone on a challenge can do to them.

PAMSM

You wrote, " But my stating that consciousness can't survive brain death is not at all hubristic, it's simply reality".

How could you know that this is "simply reality"?

If you are saying that consciousness doesn't survive in the dead brain is one thing but to say that consciousness doesn't survive is quite another.

I am not a scientist, just a messenger, and I don't know if you are one either but this is a very unscientific statement, considering that it has not be proven one way or the other.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

ARMINIUS

You wrote, "If Revelation had been excluded, as some wanted to do when the official NT was compiled, IMHO Christianity would have benefited greatly"

Arminius, just because people twist what is written and say that they have "figured out" something that is written, should not bother anyone.

What is written in the book of Revelation is not the only thing in the bible that has been twisted.

The book of Revelation is true and is unfolding before our very eyes even if some that have supposedly "figured it out" don't have a clue.

Even tho I referred to it as the "book of Revelation", I actually look at the bible as one book with a lot of chapters with Revelation being one of the chapters.

When some say that there will be no more prophecy, they seem to overlook the fact that not all prophecy has unfolded.

And as you know "Gospel" means GOOD NEWS not 'good enough news'.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

FREDERIC2

What makes you think that God was in a rush when He created the universe?

You wrote, "And lets not forget that light ("let there be light") takes four years to the nearest star within our "home" galaxy, the Milky Way. It takes eight minutes from the sun. Well, everybody knows that."

And also let us not forget the sun is a star and if I remember right a medium size star and just the right size for this planet and at just the right distance and the earth is tilted at just the right angle, roughly 23 and a half degrees I think it is, for it to do quite a nice job in distributing it's energy on us, kind of like our furnace in the sky, among other things that it does and don't forget the moon which is situated rather nicely too and helps in the tides which I believe must help in keeping all of that water from getting stagnant not to mention the hydrospere which continuously desalinates and cleans up our water supply to keep it potable.

Pretty nice place God made, isn't it?

Not only are we making a mess of this nice place that God made for us but we also seem to have trouble with sharing it or does it just seem that way?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Onofrio - I noted your reference to Plotinus. His thought is seen to mirror the ideas in the Indian Upanishads and Advaita Vedanta rather closely - and consequently by inference, in the monism of Buddhism as well.

Beyond the common idea of the One Truth, any confusion and perceived differences arise in the context of cultural elaboration, at least in my view. As you say, it's all about matrices...still, this single profound discovery concerning the nature of reality remains the same in it's essence.

BTW, I post these links not to inform the informed, but for the sake of the silent audience that you mentioned! I have greatly enjoyed the to and fro between yourself and the intrepid Timmy - who I actually don't have any real disagreement with.

I think he may be a monist himself........

best regards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

Timmy,

Further to your
"Nothing is more natural than rape."

Why don't you intervene in "nature", go to the Congo or Darfur, and imbue the folk there with some of your salvific Rationality (with an extra helping of Reason). They should be so "lucky".

Frederic,

I like your elegant summation of the "merry-go-round" and I pretty much agree with your gist.

You say:
"I can be moved by Bach's St. Matthew Passion to tears and still refrain from believing in the religious roots of this masterwork. Similar thoughts came to my mind when reading all these Socrates arguments."

I'm right with you there, bro, wiping my sentimental eyes. But, with respect, that is not really what has kept this carousel spinning past everyone's bedtime. I have been trying to dislodge Timmy's absolutist, dualistic opposition of reason and religion. That's no semantic game to me, though sometimes I may appear to be playing.

You say:
"Even Onofrio finally admits that it was Socrates', not any god's wisdom"

What do you mean "even", as if I've finally come around to the view that there is in fact nothing to the Delphic oracle. You too seem under the impression that I advocate the ontological actuality of deities and divine inspiration. I was NEVER arguing that an actual divine entity authored Socrates' wisdom. I was giving "just one" documented example (as demanded by Timmy) of how one man's (not my) BELIEF in god/gods could bring about "useful wisdom". Since then there has been a persistent effort to shift the terms of the original challenge and make it about something else - i.e. the ontological status of supernatural beings.

You say:
"Watch out, you are on the brim of becoming condescending, for which there certainly is no solid ground, even if Timmy sometimes snaps to a premature conclusion!"

Condescending? You bet! Not on the brim, Frederic, I'm well down to the dregs...Look, Timmy has a great mind, and he clearly knows a heck of a lot more about science than I ever will. As do you. But I won't let his smug, tedious "examples please" glittering dualism go unmauled. I give him the answer he demands, then I am loftily faulted for somehow missing the point. So perhaps I'll stop condescending when he stops "snapping to his premature conclusions".

How petulant of me.

Timmy,

You to Pamsm:
"As for morality, we are very lucky that we use our rationality and reason to outsmart our animal instincts in that department. Nothing is more natural than rape."

So are you implying that reason, because it "outsmarts" our "animal instincts", is something other than natural. Are there human capacities (i.e. mind) outside of nature? Are you a Cartesian or something? Careful, Timmy, that's there's metaphysics. Wouldn't want you to venture there for your patently reasonable morality...

You say that "nothing is more natural than rape". Have you any idea of the culpable ambiguity of your statement? I think I know what you intend here, but I take particualr exception because you've just attacked Farnaz over mere "thou shalt not". Tell me, Timmy, which phrase, taken alone, is more likely to be misconstrued, with dire consequences:

"thou shalt not..."

or

"Nothing is more natural than rape."

For many in the great "audience" out there, "natural" is equated with the good. So rape is a "natural instinct", eh? Careful how you tread there, Timmy.

And further, you invoke this "lucky" endowment of our reasoning capacity as a sort of salvific deus ex machina that delivers us from those "natural" tendencies to rape and such. Sounds dangerously close to religious - particularly Christian - thinking:

You: reason / outsmarts / natural instincts

St Paul: faith / saves / from sin

Whaddya know, Timmy. Them matrices are knocking at your door.

I can hear you scoff, but your lofty insistence that morality derives from reason ALONE betrays you as a religionist at heart.

"Bring me my bow of burning gold..."

I think we should make a clear and above all honest distinction, at least in principle, of what we know, what is within our human grasp and what we don't know, maybe never will know, instead of inserting a "supernatural" or even religious pseudo-knowledge into the void, no matter how socially desirable it may be at a given moment for a given group.

Such a distinguishing mindset to me appears to be more honest than to blow a friendly supernatural fog over everything, completely blurring those distinctions, leaving the realm of clear reasoning and honest thinking. Fog: Warm analogies, beautiful emotional associations, semantic multiple meanings of words, desperate hopes, the huge wisdom of cultural historical developments, including their gigantic errors should not a priori blur our ability to make clear distinctions.

All this, granted, is immensely interesting and even important, because it forms part of our cultural background, for better or worse, and is a part of our own biography. However, it does not force us to cover thinking with fog.

Semantic games, of course, are fun: "What is time"? It is our reality, and, within another "matrix", it is, of course, a dimension. Language as a conjurer of metamorphoses.

I do have the impression in these last discussions that such a "foggy" sentiment brings a very pleasant feeling to some of the contestants - to keep the merry-go-round moving.

I can be moved by Bach's St. Matthew Passion to tears and still refrain from believing in the religious roots of this masterwork. Similar thoughts came to my mind when reading all these Socrates arguments. Even Onofrio finally admits that it was Socrates', not any god's wisdom - q.e.d. (Watch out, you are on the brim of becoming condescending, for which there certainly is no solid ground, even if Timmy sometimes snaps to a premature conclusion!)

Timmy,

You quote Farnaz' comment on my quote from Plato's Apology of Socrates - she writes:
"Thou shalt not....Never have three words been so well understood by so few, so misconstrued by so many."

Then comment thus

You: "Did you [Farnaz] ever stop to think that maybe it's because those three words are a lousy and misleading and therefore dangerous metaphor? Especially considering the audience."

I thought incoherence was my game, Apostle of the Fact. WTF? How are the words "thou shalt not" a metaphor? They're plain, straight-up, nothing metaphorical about them. And what dire response do you expect from that powderkeg "audience", whoever they are? Don't worry, Timmy, it's the Net, you can't be stoned or burned at the stake.

And then you add:
"You [Farnaz] ought to know those words were well meant to be misconstrued in exactly the way that they were."

I say again, WTF? This must be part of that mysterious logic that prevails in your world of "irrational reasons".

Come on, Timmy, please explain. Gettin' tired?

Timmy,

I'll do the point-for-point, as a gesture of goodwill.

You to me:"Socrates is not a religion by the way."
Thanks for clearing that up for us, Timmy. The issue, if you recall, was whether belief in supernatural beings could possibly effect useful wisdom.

"And his genius came from reason and intellect." There you go again getting all reverent. What is "genius", Timmy? Sounds a bit - dare I say it - supernatural and ill-defined, and open to misunderstanding, given that it evokes ancient belief in familiar spirits, which of course, are bunk. I think you ought to avoid glowing terms like genius, Timmy. They could bite you back.
You know, I've never actually claimed genius for Socrates. He was a clever Athenian. I'll leave the worship to you...

"His childhood indoctrination into the delusion that gods are responsible for everything"
Now it's my turn to demand examples. Where are the documents that tell us about the childhood of Socrates? How can you infer that it was "indoctrination" he experienced, rather than the less pejorative terms instruction, teaching, education? Why invoke the emotive cliche of small children being force-fed patent untruths?
(Your words conjure images of the Athenian equivalent of Jesuits haranguing junior proto-philosophers with brainwashing sessions in Hesiod and rote-learned proofs that devoured gods can survive the digestive juices of their fathers) How can you be so sure about any aspect of Socrates' young life?

"can not help you escape that your hero writings were all his own reasoning."
He's not my hero, and he wrote nothing himself. I do not deny that his reasonings were his own, but also his own was his BELIEF (NOTE: no ontological status assigned by me) that he was guided by a god.

Timmy,

You to Pamsm:
"Time is just a dimension – a human construct that helps us understand things and explain our world. Just as length, width, and height are dimensions. There isn’t some giant cosmic ruler defining each of these and stretching out infinitely in each direction. Any point in those dimensions can be a beginning or an end or anything in between. It’s a concept, not a reality."

You to Pamsm:
"I wasn't born now. I was born in another time. Time is as real as I am. If time is not real, neither am I. The Romans didn't sack Jerusalem now. Length width and height are also real."

Hold on there. How can "Time" be:
"just a dimension"

"a human construct that helps us understand things and explain our world"

"A concept, not a reality"

AND ALSO

"as real as I am"

Let me run through that again: Time is JUST a human construct and NOT a reality, YET ALSO IS a reality just like you.

What am I missing here? Is this the same universe in which your "irrational reasons" occur Timmy?

Reason ain't what I thought...

Farnaz,

"Thou shalt not....Never have three words been so well understood by so few, so misconstrued by so many.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe it's because those three words are a lousy and misleading and therefore dangerous metaphor? Especially considering the audience. You ought to know those words were well meant to be misconstrued in exactly the way that they were.

Pam,

"I do think Timmy assigns a little too much to rational thought, though. Our "morality", and many other facets of our "knowledge" are pure animal instinct, inherited from our social-living ancestors.

One example of knowledge that came from animal instinct as opposed to reasoning.
As for morality, we are very lucky that we use our rationality and reason to outsmart our animal instincts in that department. Nothing is more natural than rape.

And again. An example of morality that does not come from reason please.

Onofrioooo,

YOU: Those "beliefs formed for irrational reasons" you mention. Irrational reasons, eh. What might THEY be?

Beliefs formed with no evidence, reason or logic.
Give me another valid basis to form a belief.

YOU: I think we've reached an impasse here haven't we Tim.

If you've given up on the challenge of showing how belief in something not real can create useful wisdom then yes I guess we have.

No need to prolong it. "Reason" as you depict it is universal, absolute, infallible, imperial, and all-defining.

I haven't called it any of those things. It is simply the tool we use to learn about our world. And we do use it universally. In everything we do. But you think it gets in the way for some reason when it comes to the most important things. You think that wisdom can come without reason. You have failed to show that though.

YOU: Religion as you caricature it is monolithic, inevitably bad, and if positive (non-existent god forbid), simply a subset of Reason.

Find me a positive religious tenet or verse, or revelation that that did not come from reason.

Socrates is not a religion by the way.
And his genius came from reason and intellect.
His childhood indoctrination into the delusion that gods are responsible for everything can not help you escape that your hero writings were all his own reasoning. So are any of the positive useful tenets of any religion. Drop the deity belief and it is no longer a religion. Just a collection of millennia's worth of human reasoning.

Pam,

Part 2

ME: “What is the origin of the universe, Pam? Does it have an origin? Has it always been? What is "time" in this case? How long has life been a thing in the universe. Since it's beginning? We don't even know if it had a beginning.

YOU: Again, this is extraneous to the discussion, which was about life on Earth.

Again. No it wasn't. It is small thinking when someone asks you the origin of life, and you assume they meant life on earth. So if you still don't think that life is mystery, then perhaps you can answer those questions now about life's capsule, the universe. Because I know that science doesn't have the answers. It is a mystery to science. But apparently not to you.

The origin of life is a mystery. The origin of the universe is a mystery. Only theists think it;s not. Theists are those who answer the unanswerable. For the sake of closure.

One thing, though - you asked about time. Time is just a dimension – a human construct that helps us understand things and explain our world. Just as length, width, and height are dimensions. There isn’t some giant cosmic ruler defining each of these and stretching out infinitely in each direction. Any point in those dimensions can be a beginning or an end or anything in between. It’s a concept, not a reality.

YOU: In fact, it is always NOW. No other time exists.

I wasn't born now. I was born in another time. Time is as real as I am. If time is not real, neither am I.
The Romans didn't sack Jerusalem now.

Length width and height are also real.

Hi Pam,

I use "spiritual" in the vernacular the way you use God in the vernacular. But if this word causes you hang ups, forget I ever said it. For you we'll call it contemplative about the mystery.

YOU: Whether it also arose elsewhere in the universe, existed in a universe prior to the Big Bang, etc., is immaterial – the discussion was about life on Earth.

No it wasn't. For future reference, I am always talking big picture. Full scale. The origin of life, period. When I say it might not have arose at all, I mean that life may have been a natural state of elements under the right circumstances that has existed as long as the energy/matter of the universe which may have always been in which case life would have always been. No?

You really need to cool your jets here Pam because you then go on to spout off all of the science for life arising here on earth which I am not only aware of but completely buy into. Think big picture, Pam. Life period, Not life as our primitive butts know it here on our insignificant planet spec in the mass of it all. LIFE

As for the particle thing. Of course there is mathematical proof that particles do indeed appear in multiple places at once and that there is entanglement. But they don't know how that is possible, they only know that it happens. How it is possible is a mystery. And the implications of it are a mystery, indeed mysterious. Any quantum scientist I have ever heard or read calls it a baffling mystery. What's your hang up?

As for your "false analogy" accusation on the consciousness issue. If the particles in my brain are also in your brain, and in everyone else's brain all at the same time then there is really only one collective consciousness. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? Not the quantum scientists. They are all baffled. They have no idea what the implications of entanglement are.

Pam,

Thanks for the understanding. Appreciated.

"You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, as I think."

Great, great words. Worth re-posting. Thou shalt not....Never have three words been so well understood by so few, so misconstrued by so many.

OK, Onofrio, I see what you're saying, and it makes sense to me.

Great Christian Poet, Pseudo,

Where are you? Surely, you will come back before the New Year.

It's cold here in the Klondike.

Farnaz

"Why must there be this doctrinaire trashing of ALL supernatural beliefs?"

It's not even a question of trashing "supernatural beliefs." It is extremely difficult for us to know what or how Plato used the word "god," how Socrates may have used it, intended it at his trial.

It's this mythologizing of reason, the failure to recognize that myth adheres in reasons, in science, as "Dialectics of the Enlightenment" explains so well. Stated as example, the Shoah occurred not despite "progress" but because of it, not despite advances in thinking and science, but because of them.

Obviously, the Rick Warrens of this world are not the answer. But deification of science and reason, such as we occasionally see on this thread isn't either. Beware, Timmy and Pam.

Pamsm

YOU: "Believing that one's wisdom came from the oracle at Delphi, doesn't make it so. Their knowledge came from their own intellect, by way of their observations, education, and life-experiences."

For my part, I've never claimed or implied that an actual god Apollo "made it so" with regard to Socrates et al. The debate, as I saw it, was about whether BELIEF in supernatural beings could result in what Timmy calls "useful wisdom". Absolutely not, according to Timmy. Once I provided evidence that Socrates (or Plato on is behalf) indeed claimed a specifically divine source for his philosophical project, the debating terms shifted and it was insinuated that I may have been arguing for the ontological ACTUALITY of god/gods. That has never been my position. What I'm trying to get through is that just maybe, people can come up with good ideas BECAUSE they BELIEVE in gods, not despite it. Positive results can sometimes come from strange sources - irrational, weird, and yes, RELIGIOUS. Why is that taken as advocacy for superstition, or a devaluation of rationality? Why must there be this doctrinaire trashing of ALL supernatural beliefs?

Onofrio:

I'm an eclectic idolater.

Onofrio:

I kinda idolize Timmy, too.

Onofrio:

Re: New Idols

I'm torn between among Persiflage, Pam, and you. Don't ask.

F

Farnaz

"And how can we listen to Wagner's music without recalling who wrote it?"

Daniel Barenboim has managed to resolve that particular dilemma. Very brave.

Persiflage could be my new idol. I could do with more of that kind of persiflage on these threads. Then folk like me might just shut up for once.

How rich...from Rick Warren's grand poobah star-turn to Pamsm v Timmy scientistic joust. A fitting metaphor for the cosmic process - from primordial amoeba to epic strings of maths, chemicals, and acronyms in contention over vast imponderables.

WTF? Or Warren To Fracas...

Onofrio to Timmy:

"either/or style"

One cannot get away from it. It is leaf, blossom, bole. T'was born of Dichotomia in Onkelos and migrated west with Ratiocinata in 1933. Mythologia, hanging from one great gnarled branch, giggled like a microscope.

For all my disagreement with Timmy about mysteries, I do agree with him about religion in general, and definitely about the Aristotle/Socrates thing.

Believing that one's wisdom came from the oracle at Delphi, doesn't make it so. Their knowledge came from their own intellect, by way of their observations, education, and life-experiences.

While their education certainly included religion, which is reflected in their statements, it doesn't follow that their intellect came from their gods.

I do think Timmy assigns a little too much to rational thought, though. Our "morality", and many other facets of our "knowledge" are pure animal instinct, inherited from our social-living ancestors.

Timmyyyy!

First of all:
Those "beliefs formed for irrational reasons" you mention. Irrational reasons, eh. What might THEY be? You going a bit Zen there, Timmy, or just dazed and confused?

YOU to me: "Or are you [Onofrio] special because you know that we must leave rationality behind to know certain things. Because reason has closed my heart."

Oh, I'm VERY special, Timmy, to my eternal grief. Hey, maybe I do know something you don't, mwahahahaaah...What's this about "closing" of any "heart", Timmy? Why bring the blood pump into this? That is a rather non-rational emotive metaphor you're resorting to. Are you suggesting that perhaps -

"The heart has its reasons, whereof Reason knows nothing" (Pascal, transl.)?

No, I'm sure you aren't.

You refuting me: "YOU [i.e. Onofrio]: All of your [Timmy's] posts are pervaded by a rather simplistic Religion = Lies = Bad
No. Allow me [Timmy] to state my own position please, you always do a terrible job."

Actually, I was just giving a precis of what you have already said quite clearly in your posts. GO back and read them. You have actually made these equations, without the = signs. I'm not misrepresenting you, I'm summarising you. If I got you WRONG there, Timmy, then you've done a fair job of misrepresenting yourself.

"If you get specific, and use actual quotes by me instead of your own conjecture, then we can discuss this further. Until then it is utter nonsense."

Look, I don't have to follow your preferred mode of posting to make my points. And I think any intelligent reader who wants to can gauge my estimate of your writings against your original posts themselves, without having to re cut-and-paste you every time. You can sputter with all the "utter nonsenses" and "poppycocks" you like, as you try to coerce me into your either/or style. I'm not going to help you make your case for yourself.

I think we've reached an impasse here haven't we Tim. No need to prolong it. "Reason" as you depict it is universal, absolute, infallible, imperial, and all-defining. Religion as you caricature it is monolithic, inevitably bad, and if positive (non-existent god forbid), simply a subset of Reason.

Or have I got you wrong again?

I think your posting persona is just a two-dimensional dogmatist. And that's definitely stooping to ad hominem, O Apostle of the Fact. I'm sure in your-true-self you are "spiritual and emotional" as you protest (unnecessarily, surely, if Reason is on your side. Shouldn't it completely satisfy you?) and probably quite delightful. Me, I'm far worse than my posts...

OPPOSITION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP (W.Blake)

Part Three:

ME: “I can't explain the particle thing to you, I'm not a physicist
YOU: Don't worry. Neither can physicists.”

And:

ME: “I'm sure this information, and its scientific or mathematical proof, is also available, if you want to know
YOU: No it is not. Scientists don't know. They admit that it is a mystery.”

Says, Timmy, the fount of all wisdom. How then, does anyone know about it at all? I’m sure that the physicists, or mathematicians, or whoever came up with the idea that particles could exist in more than one place at a time, didn’t make it up out of whole cloth. Some mathematical model or equation, or some experimental finding led them to this idea. And whatever it was, I feel certain that they can explain the work that led them there – maybe not to my comprehension, or yours, but certainly to the comprehension of their peers.

YOU: “What is the origin of the universe, Pam? Does it have an origin? Has it always been? What is "time" in this case? How long has life been a thing in the universe. Since it's beginning? We don't even know if it had a beginning.
Don't try looking up the answers on the internet, or recommending any books. You'll find no answers to these questions. It's a mystery.”

Again, this is extraneous to the discussion, which was about life on Earth (the only one we *know* to exist, and consciousness. Neither of those things is mysterious to me, although not everything is known about them.

Practically everything about the Cosmos is mysterious to me, hopefully a bit less so to astrophysicists; but that’s a whole different sphere of knowledge, and one that is yet in its infancy. Not to mention much more difficult to study.

One thing, though - you asked about time. Time is just a dimension – a human construct that helps us understand things and explain our world. Just as length, width, and height are dimensions. There isn’t some giant cosmic ruler defining each of these and stretching out infinitely in each direction. Any point in those dimensions can be a beginning or an end or anything in between. It’s a concept, not a reality.

In fact, it is always NOW. No other time exists. It’s a tough thing for an earthbound animal to grasp, because we evolved to live on Earth, and both remembering the past and planning for the future are necessary to our survival, but in fact neither one has any reality.

Part Two:

ME: ‘I don't have the time or the space to lay them out for you here, but the information is out there, if you're sincerely interested
YOU: No it isn't. It's a mystery.”

Gee, way to take a statement out of context. I was talking about promising avenues of inquiry into the origin of life on Earth. It’s not a mystery just because you say it is. The Teaching Company has an excellent lecture series on the subject, by one of the top people in the field: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=1515 Yes, you have to pay for it. Their lectures are worth every penny – and this one’s on sale.

One hypothesis isn’t included in that lecture, because it’s too new, and I find it extremely promising. Read about it here: http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/did-life-evolve-in-ice/?searchterm=ice%20origins%20of%20life

Putting the two together (the lectures talk about such things as lipids and cell wall self-organization) will give you a very good picture of the possibilities.

YOU: “I am certain that the kind of consciousness you are talking about ends when the brain stops functioning. Another kind of consciousness? I can't really imagine such a thing. But I also can't figure out how particles can be in two places at the same time. This opens up all kinds of strange possibilities.”

As I pointed out before, this analogy is false. One thing that is counter-intuitive doesn’t make other such things any more (or less) likely. They are unrelated.

PART ONE
Timmy,
YOU: “I use the word God a hundred times a day. I'll be you use it often yourself. Doesn't mean I believe in him. Using the word "spiritual" doesn't mean I believe in Ghosts. All you need to know, is that I don't believe in anything supernatural.”

Glad to hear it. Yes, I use the word “god.” I grew up in the U.S., and speak in the vernacular. However, you used the word “spiritual” to describe yourself. That’s something that I have never done in my entire life, for the simple reason that it doesn’t apply. Words have meanings. If you choose to redefine them, expect people to fail to understand you.

YOU: “It may not have first arose at all. It may have always been a state of existence in the energy/matter that makes up the current state of the universe. Or it may have arose here on earth only in this massive universe. Or perhaps it arose in all places in the universe that are hospitable for it. Was there life before the big bang? Was there a universe? What is this ball of energy/matter that we call a universe? Where does it exist? What is life? Are we sure there aren't other forms of life that are completely different than anything we could imagine?

Don't tell me to go and look up these answers. They don't exist. So you can tell me that you don't think that life is a mystery. But if you can't answer these questions, (no one can actually) then it most certainly is a mystery.”

If you know anything about biology, and how the elements formed in the hearts of the stars, then you know that your first sentence above is absurd. Life did arise on Earth, and it only happened once. Cladistics (among other things) tells us this. Whether it also arose elsewhere in the universe, existed in a universe prior to the Big Bang, etc., is immaterial – the discussion was about life on Earth.

I suspect you’ve heard of theories that life may have been “seeded” from outer space via comets and asteroid impacts. Many people take this way too literally. Life on earth is cellular and replicates by DNA (possibly RNA in an earlier form). None of this would survive space travel or impact. We know from the Miller-Urey experiment that most of the amino acids necessary to life could have formed naturally under the conditions present on early Earth, but we’re not sure about the few that didn’t turn up in the experiment.
Perhaps there was simply something missing from the experiment, but one possibility that’s been mentioned is that they arrived from space. Not life, but some of its precursors.

Onofrio:

"Recruiting new idols...enquire within."

Ain't it a cryin' shame? That's why I'm trying to learn more about Buddhism, with which Persiflage is helping enormously. Why do we Western types need to idolize? And how can we listen to Wagner's music without recalling who wrote it? Horcheimer, Adorno, the Frankfurt School, made that impossible for many for whom it might have been do-able.

What would Buddhism say? We cannot know the dancer from the dance...Or can we?

Onofrio,

YOU: Science and Reason, when imposed on other ways of knowing and being as absolute standards, may become idols, yes.

What other ways of knowing?
be specific.

YOU: All of your posts are pervaded by a rather simplistic Religion = Lies = Bad

No. Allow me to state my own position please, you always do a terrible job. It is very simple though. There is never a need to set reason aside to form beliefs about anything. You seem to think that there is another way of knowing things. I'd like you to elucidate. Tell me one thing that you "know" by some other methodology.

YOU: you have constructed a very "religious" abomination of religion as the all-evil, and elevated reason as the infallible key to the all-good

I point out the complete uselessness and irrationality of the belief that anyone knows who God is or can channel it's thoughts.

YOU: Your spirit and method reflect the failings of the dogmatising, intolerant "religion" you so despise

Please be specific. Because this is utter nonsense. If you get specific, and use actual quotes by me instead of your own conjecture, then we can discuss this further. Until then it is utter nonsense.

YOU: I object to your Calvinistic either/or absolutism that consigns all non-approved ways of thought/feeling/intuition to the scrapheap....

No.
Not "all non approved ways of though/feeling/intuition"
Just beliefs formed for irrational reasons.

YOU: I would characterise our fissure as that between closed/orthodox (right thinking) atheism (you) and open/eclectic (tentative) atheism (me).

Again absolute rubbish. I am 100% open to anything rational. You are more open yes, but only in that you accept everything that I accept, plus the irrational, as valid in it's own realm. For some reason you think that it is sometimes necessary to believe in things that aren't true (see socrates) and I say poppycock. You have been unable to make this case.

You on your philosophy: There's no god, but what do I know?

Mine is: I don't know and neither do you.

Because if you knew, so would I.

Or are you special because you know that we must leave rationality behind to know certain things. Because reason has closed my heart.

Timmy:

You write: "BTW I didn't say he did."

I don't know to what I was referring, so I'll take your word for it--Sorry!

Farnaz

Farnaz,

"BTW., Timmy, Plato didn't "deconstruct."

BTW I didn't say he did.

Farnaz,

"O why must the shattermyth be such a dampenglee?"

Reminds me of my callow adolescent rapture at certain bits of Wagner. Then I did a unit on Nazism at university and learned what a noxious bastard Wagner was.

Why are some weeds so pretty?

In my youth, used to revere Tolkien too, till I saw through his dark orcs and pure races and read that he thought well of Franco.

My most recent idol has been Plotinus, though his twilight is well underway too.

Recruiting new idols...enquire within.

Timmy,

Science and Reason, when imposed on other ways of knowing and being as absolute standards, may become idols, yes. All of your posts are pervaded by a rather simplistic Religion = Lies = Bad; Science-and-Reason = Truth = Good dualism. In other words, you have constructed a very "religious" abomination of religion as the all-evil, and elevated reason as the infallible key to the all-good. Your spirit and method reflect the failings of the dogmatising, intolerant "religion" you so despise. You make yourself into your foe. I don't object to your reason, or your science, per se; I object to your Calvinistic either/or absolutism that consigns all non-approved ways of thought/feeling/intuition to the scrapheap, or appropriates them as something other than themselves.

I would characterise our fissure as that between closed/orthodox (right thinking) atheism (you) and open/eclectic (tentative) atheism (me).

There's no god, but what do I know?

Onofrio, Persiflage,

Persiflage, thank you for the poetry, and I'm glad you like Li-Young Lee. Thank you both for the Yeats. It's been ages since I read the work you posted, Onofrio. I used to be a Yeats idolater, and even now, I have terrific pangs.
To paraphrase Auden's elegy, I worshiped language and did forgive him by whom language lived.

I saw the warps, of course, but this horsewoman passed by, even after I'd read the letters, indeed, all the prose writings, up until that moment when I read O'Connor on Yeats' fascism. Then I stopped forgiving, stopped excusing, stopped idolizing (almost).

O why must the shattermyth be such a dampenglee? O why do I make these claims when so much of Yeats is in memory?

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving-man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Or lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

Timmy writes to Onofrio:

And why do you call it idol? Do you think that science is idol? Do you think that reason is idol?

I cannot answer for Onofrio, but for myself, I can, as an atheist, say YES.

For some rather spectacular clarification, see Horcheimer and Adorno, "Dialectic of the Englightenment."

BTW., Timmy, Plato didn't "deconstruct."

Onofrio,

YOU: Useful wisdom? Pardon me, but I assumed you might be familiar with the "Socratic" dialectic process of exposing presuppositions and deconstructing opinions that masquerade as truth. All a mission from God, as far as Socrates/Plato is concerned"

The fact that Socrates thought his conscience was God, and his brilliance was God's brilliance says nothing to the claim that his brilliant thoughts would never have arisen without this delusion (cause by childhood indoctrination like most) but it says everything about socrates lack of knowledge in neural science and biological evolution.

For you to have met the challenge, you would have had to prove that socrates genius reasoning either really did come from the divine, or that he would never have come up with such brilliant REASONING were he not under the mistaken impression that his conscience was God, and his thoughts were God's.

YOU I realise that's not nugget-like enough for your reductionist mentality

My reductionist mentality? Reductionism is exceptionally useful to our society. It saves millions of lives every day and educates billions every day. But it is not everything that we need. We also use our experience and intuition and emotions. I'm not heartless. I'm quite spiritual and emotional.

YOU: I suppose you need to define "useful wisdom" a bit finer - I suspect you may have in mind something more utilitarian than Socratic method.

The socratic method did not come about because of his God belief, he created it all by himself. The fact that he attributed it to God, as I said, speaks only to his ignorance of neural science and biological evolution.

YOU: You want to overrule it and then appropriate it with your idol Science-and-Reason

My own?
Why do you refer to "science and reason" as mine. Is it not yours too?
And why do you call it idol? Do you think that science is idol? Do you think that reason is idol?

Timmy,

Put another way Timmy, are you implying that the Socratic philosophic trajectory has no useful wisdom to offer? I think I've made the case pretty clearly that Socrates, and by extension Plato, thought they were motivated by deities of some sort. Otherwise said - their dialectic and their theology are a continuum, not a kaleidoscope from which the goodly "nuggets" can be gleaned whole and pure.

I'm not suggesting you endorse Platonism, but you've gotta admit it has set the ball rolling for "Western" philosophy. That Delphic oracle has hatched a whole lot of .... persiflage, no?

Timmy,

Did you notice how when the Bushies introduced the phrase, "weapons of mass destruction," the media picked it up, and then all over America, from East to West, whenever anyone talked about the proposed war the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" came up, finally abbreviated to WMDs? (It probably came up in everyone's silent musings.)

Now think about this, and think about Socrates and his "project." Was't not exceeding wise?

Timmy,

YOU to me re the Socrates schtick: "I must have missed the wisdom part. Can you extract the nugget of wisdom from your post, that was arrived at by belief in the divine. I saw plenty of belief in the divine. But I missed the useful wisdom."

Useful wisdom? Pardon me, but I assumed you might be familiar with the "Socratic" dialectic process of exposing presuppositions and deconstructing opinions that masquerade as truth. All a mission from God, as far as Socrates/Plato is concerned. I realise that's not nugget-like enough for your reductionist mentality, but I don't want to fill the thread with quotes from Plato, and I daresay you would find all that fairly useless anyway. I suppose you need to define "useful wisdom" a bit finer - I suspect you may have in mind something more utilitarian than Socratic method.

Apophasis anyone?

It's hard to imagine that various famous Grecians that helped spawn the science and civilization that we know and enjoy today, were not in some way knowledgeable or even involved in the Greek mystery religions. Involvement with religion was not quite the option in ancient Greece that it is today - it was all-pervasive and penetrated to the core of society.

If religion was in fact dysfunctional in society, it would have withered and died out long ago - whether it's currently in a long and drawn-out process of spiraling into oblivian is highly debatable....although a melding with science is not out of the question within the next century.

The future and the weather remain unpredictable - see the 'butterfly effect' for one explanation of why this is (e.g. chaos theory).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

Timmy,

More on the thorough supernaturalism of Socrates and his famous "method", which I'm sure you'll agree, is a worthwhile aspect of the Hellenic heritage (salutations to its older roots in the more ancient Levantine, Mesopotamian, and Nilotic worlds):

The "Apology" again - Socrates considers the affirmation of the Delphic oracle that there is no man wiser than he:

"When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method to try the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, 'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.' ..... Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me - the word of the god, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle."

"And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you. For if you kill me you will not easily find a successor to me, who, if I may use such a ludicrous figure of speech, am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by God....I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places I am fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you."

Now I know you'll just say Socrates was wrong - there are no gods. But that's beside my point and the words of your challenge. Socrates' philosophical project was inseparable from his belief in a supernatural being. In his own eyes, Socrates was not an apostle of Reason, but of "the god" understood as Delphic Apollo. That is Socrates' subjectivity, and I respect it, though I don't personally consult oracles. You want to overrule it and then appropriate it with your idol Science-and-Reason.

Indeed, in the case I have cited, Socrates demonstrates a kind of oracular empiricism. He tests the god's utterance by trying his utmost to prove it wrong. Simultaneously he respects the god as one who can never lie. Love your work, Socrates!

Onofrio,

I must have missed the wisdom part. Can you extract the nugget of wisdom from your post, that was arrived at by belief in the divine. I saw plenty of belief in the divine. But I missed the useful wisdom.

Please elucidate.

Another opportunity to bone up on the place of religion in society just below....like death and taxes, we may not like everything about it, but most of us learn to live with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_religions

Timmy,

Thanks for providing such comprehensive responses to my posts. I will stick with Socrates to answer your challenge:

"Just one example where belief in the divine created useful wisdom of any kind."

This is Plato's take on where Socrates located the source of his wisdom:

From the "Apology" of Socrates (at his trial for impiety)

"And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall be the god of Delphi [i.e. Apollo] - he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is."

"This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer [i.e. the Delphic oracle] he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, "He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing." And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of anyone, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and y occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god."

"You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician. And rightly, as I think."

As Onofrio sez, knowledge and culture are all about 'matrix'. I love that word!

I think I'll have another.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato

Here are two mystics and metaphysicians that contributed a thing or two to western civilization.....and science.

It's all Greek to me.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras

Daniel,

"When I read "turn the other cheek," that is what I read into it, that my co-worker has told my boss somthing about me that has upset me, but that I should just let it go, keep a good humor, try to make the most of a bad situation, without making things worse with my own petty retaliation"

Me too. You misunderstand me if you think that I think that it is about cheek slapping. The slapping of the cheek is a metaphor for these things you describe and other things as well. But it's not just about letting things go for your own peace of mind. That is certainly part of it. But it's also about changing the hearts of your adversaries in each of these situations by showing them an example of peace and love. This is where the true revolutionary power of the gesture lies.

Timmy

A few thoughts about Christianity and "turn the other cheek."

First of all, many Christian teachings, and the Christian way of life is personal, what goes on behind closed doors, what goes on inside ones own head, the thoughts that one thinks, and the prayers that one says, are personal and not for others to know.

When people who call themselves Christians begin to attach themselves to political causes and worldly obsessions, then they are getting further and further away from this personal conception of Christianity. Of course many of these Christians are unaware and unconscious, even ignorant, and they believe that God needs them to pursue his goals on earth.

Anyway, what does "turn the other cheek" really mean? I am no expert, and my word is not authoratative. But my opinion is as good and as valid as anyone else's.

Even with all the violence in the world today, how often does your neighbor strike you? How often does anyone strike you? I have not been physically struck by another human being since I was a little boy, involved in sibling brawling. So, people striking each other is not an urgent problem. It is an unusual event. You do not really need a code of behavior to handle what to do if someone strikes you.

But how often do you fell slighted by your neighbor, coworker, friend, or relative? How often do people tell stories about you that are not true, or are a breech of confidence? How many times do people take advantage of your good intentions, or your good humor, or your generosity? How often do people just plain get on your nerves?

These things happen all the time. And if you retaliate over these little things, small grievances and conflicts can mushroom into long-standing fueds, and general dissension and unhappiness.

When I read "turn the other cheek," that is what I read into it, that my co-worker has told my boss somthing about me that has upset me, but that I should just let it go, keep a good humor, try to make the most of a bad situation, without making things worse with my own petty retalliation.

When you look at it this way, it is alot more useful, because it is something that you use everyday, instead of almost never. I notice that Christians are just as likely to get into a pissing brawl over nothing as non-Christians, so they mostly do not practice what they preach. But how can they? They do not even understand what they preach.

Now somebody show me a tenet or useful philosophy that comes out of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other religion, that was developed by any other means than reasoned, scientific methodology. Just one example. So many religions out there to choose from. Surely one of you can can provide an example and show that I am out to lunch here. Just one example where belief in the divine created useful wisdom of any kind.

Par une example,

"Turn the other cheek"

This is a tenet in the teachings of Jesus that is inspirational, and exemplifies the spirit of the Christian philosophy. This is a tenet that would seem to require a good deal of faith. People's first reaction is "Wait a minute here. You're telling me that if my enemy slaps me on one cheek, I should turn my other cheek to him and let him slap that one as well? You've got to be kidding me?". Surely only faith could make someone do something so seemingly foolish.

Poppycock.

Simple reasoning. Wisdom gained over time by generation after generation. Love your enemies, it will drive them nuts. Throw them off their game. Change their hearts. Experience by wise men showed them this through reasoned, scientific methodology. Repetitive experimentation over time, noting results. And they created sage wisdom out of it. Reason leads you to believe that the "turn the other cheek" philosophy is a wiser than wise move. Not belief in the divine words of a mythical character.

Believing that God commands you to be this way is poison to the reasoned wisdom of it.

Onofrio,

Part three

YOU: I, like you, do not believe in "supernatural" beings per se, yet I must come to terms with them nevertheless, because belief in them shaped our collective past and continues to shape our present, for good and ill

Only for ill. That is, until you can provide that one example of course.
Regardless, we only need to "come to terms with" the fact that they have greatly affected our lives, like racism has and continues to. But we speak out against things that are, and have always been a part of us, if we can show with reason that they are harmful, and or not useful, and or not true. Like racism.

YOU: We humans are embodied/embedded in cultures, states, institutions, traditions, and yes, religions, all of which flow out of our collective past. You are claiming the necessary dominance of Science-and-Reason over all that, and in so doing, I think you make an idol of what is simply a useful methodology

What you don't seem to realize is that science and reason do in fact dominate all of those things you listed above except one. Religion. We don't need to idolize science and reason. We just need to accept that there is only one area of discourse where we toss hem aside. And why should we if they are as you say, a useful methodology? Why is reason and science not useful on the God question? Why are they a hinderance that must be tossed aside in this one area?

YOU: The content of the term (religion) is different for both of us. For you it all boils down to cynical priests manipulating the masses for "political" gain. I do feel that in your zeal to strike blows against actual evils and abuses, you have slandered much else that is ethically, aesthetically, and spiritually worthwhile. Your great rationalist hammer smites all ants, not just the stinging ones.

One example of a non stinging ant please.

YOU: Have you ever seriously studied/encountered a religion other than the one you've inherited/rejected? As you're so fond of demanding from others, I say DETAILS, Timmy, DETAILS...

Many. Pick one and I'll start giving you details.
But first, you should give one example, just one, from any religion where there is some valuable insight that could only have come about by believing something irrational for which there is no evidence or reason.

Onofrio,

Continued

YOU: Look, Timmy, I don't fault your atheism, nor your devotion to rationalism, but can't you see that the undecideable MYSTERY that is before, after, within, through, and around us has for most of human history been addressed by religions, and not always badly

Yes, always badly. It is never a good thing to believe something that is not true. Until you give us that one example of course and prove me wrong.

And you are wrong that the mystery has mostly been addressed by religions. It has been addressed just as much by science and reason, but scientists are honest about it. They admit when they don't know something. This has always put them at a disadvantage to gaining the hearts and minds of the masses because all they have is "we don't know". Where as religions are not burdened by intellectual honesty as science is. So of course they won the hearts and minds of the ignorant masses. Science say we have no answers to these questions and religion says, "well we do". (even though they are lying)

YOU: And that the "good" parts of religions are not always devoid of supernaturalism

Yes they are. Example please.

Onofrio,

YOU: Timmy, you seem to think everything good springs from minds identical to your own"

Not identical. Similar. All of our minds are similar. Very similar in fact. Almost identical. We all have the very same reasoning and logic functionality in our brain. It is only experience that makes minds different. Someone who is religious has exactly the same reasoning and logical capabilities as I do. But their experience and education have brought them to a place where they have been influenced to leave rationality and reason aside for certain beliefs. This almost always occurs in childhood.

YOU: - i.e. if any guru, rabbi, prophet, sage, psalmist, seer, martyr, tzadik, or shaman - or any Sikh, Buddhist, Hasid, Ghost Dancer, Bogomil, Gnostic, Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Shintoist, Serpent Dreamer, Osirian, Mazdaean, Orphic, Sabaean, Amish, Parsee, etc, etc, etc - has had anything worthwhile to teach, it was because he/she was some proto-rationalist

Anything worthwhile came about through reasoning. Why don't you try me with one example of wisdom that you think came about some other way than reason. I will show you that that is simply not true. While the person saying the worth while thing may have left reason behind in order to believe in some deity, the words of wisdom did not come from that deity, they came from that persons reason, working with their experience and the sum of human wisdom gathered to that point. Try me Onofrio. Give one example of a positive verse or phrase in any religion that is useful, and could only have come about by belief in something that can not bee seen or verified in any way. I wish you luck sir.

YOU: You marginalise belief in supernatural beings as of no account in the development of worthwhile ideas

I do indeed sir. You can prove me wrong with one example. Just one.

YOU: Do daimons exist? Probably not. But Socrates may never have spoken his gadfly wisdom, if he had not felt guided and goaded by his daimon

Nonsense. And if he didn't, then someone else would have.
One example please.
Just one.

YOU: The non-rational and the non-existent, in which religion often trades, are just as much a part of human experience as the measurable, the logical, and the tangible"

Only because we are still under the spell of religion. The irrational and non-existent don't need to play any roll in our lives. Your argument that they always have is only an argument that we are still stuck in our primitive mindset. Virtually all religionists were brainwashed as a child to believe what they believe. Including Socrates. Racism has also always been a part of human experience. Does that mean we should accept it?

Frederick,

Thank you. Very well said.

"Yes, I'll Marry You

by Pam Ayres

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
And here's the reason why;
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry,
And if we hear a knocking
And it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It's you that has to mend it,
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It's you that has to whack him.

Yes, I'll marry you,
You're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!

It's you who has to work the drill
and put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I do, I do, I do!"

Farnaz and Onofrio - thanks for the poetry.
Li-Young Li would make Chuang Tzu and Confucious proud!

Ryokan - 19th century

When I was a lad,
I sauntered about town as a gay blade,
Sporting a cloak of the softest down,
And mounted on a splendid chestnut-colored horse.
During the day, I galloped to the city;
At night, I got drunk on peach blossoms by the river.
I never cared about returning home,
Usually ending up, with a big smile on my face, at a pleasure pavilion!

Returning to my native village after many years’ absence:
Ill, I put up at a country inn and listen to the rain.
One robe, one bowl is all I have.
I light incense and strain to sit in meditation;
All night a steady drizzle outside the dark window --
Inside, poignant memories of these long years of pilgrimage.

________________________

To My Teacher

An old grave hidden away at the foot of a deserted hill,
Overrun with rank weeks growing unchecked year after year;
There is no one left to tend the tomb,
And only an occasional woodcutter passes by.
Once I was his pupil, a youth with shaggy hair,
Learning deeply from him by the Narrow River.
One morning I set off on my solitary journey
And the years passed between us in silence.
Now I have returned to find him at rest here;
How can I honor his departed spirit?
I pour a dipper of pure water over his tombstone
And offer a silent prayer.
The sun suddenly disappears behind the hill
And I’m enveloped by the roar of the wind in the pines.
I try to pull myself away but cannot;
A flood of tears soaks my sleeves.

______________________

In my youth I put aside my studies
And I aspired to be a saint.
Living austerely as a mendicant monk,
I wandered here and there for many springs.
Finally I returned home to settle under a craggy peak.
I live peacefully in a grass hut,
Listening to the birds for music.
Clouds are my best neighbors.
Below a pure spring where I refresh body and mind;
Above, towering pines and oaks that provide shade and brushwood.
Free, so free, day after day --
I never want to leave!

In sincere imitation of Farnaz and Persiflage, I offer another germane slice of Yeats:

From "Supernatural Songs: V - Ribh Considers Christian Love Insufficient"

Why should I seek for love or study it?
It is of God and passes human wit;
I study hatred with great diligence,
For that's a passion in my own control,
A sort of besom that can clear the soul
Of everything that is not mind or sense.

Why do I hate man, woman, or event?
That is a light my jealous soul has sent.
From terror and deception freed it can
Discover impurities, can show at last
How soul may walk when all such things are past,
How soul could walk before such things began.

Then my delivered soul herself shall learn
A darker knowledge and in hatred turn
From every thought of God mankind has had.
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.

....

Timmy,

continued:

We humans are embodied/embedded in cultures, states, institutions, traditions, and yes, religions, all of which flow out of our collective past. You are claiming the necessary dominance of Science-and-Reason over all that, and in so doing, I think you make an idol of what is simply a useful methodology.

We're at war here about a term. You seem to want "religion" to have only pejorative force, whereas I want it to be descriptive and value neutral. The content of the term is different for both of us. For you it all boils down to cynical priests manipulating the masses for "political" gain. I do feel that in your zeal to strike blows against actual evils and abuses, you have slandered much else that is ethically, aesthetically, and spiritually worthwhile. Your great rationalist hammer smites all ants, not just the stinging ones.

I thought you were more original than that, Timmy. I hope you're not just a caricaturist.

Have you ever seriously studied/encountered a religion other than the one you've inherited/rejected? As you're so fond of demanding from others, I say DETAILS, Timmy, DETAILS...

You'll find the devil there - he's the god your reductionist sieve will never quite strain out.

Timmy, you're back,

YOU to me: "They used science (things like predicting floods) to convince the masses that they had special connection to the gods, and then God. They used reason to develop a moral code. And then they attached that moral code to the deity. This moral code was then corrupted over the years by those who saw the power in this one true God belief, and used it to subjugate with fear, and gain political capital."

Timmy, you seem to think everything good springs from minds identical to your own - i.e. if any guru, rabbi, prophet, sage, psalmist, seer, martyr, tzadik, or shaman - or any Sikh, Buddhist, Hasid, Ghost Dancer, Bogomil, Gnostic, Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Shintoist, Serpent Dreamer, Osirian, Mazdaean, Orphic, Sabaean, Amish, Parsee, etc, etc, etc - has had anything worthwhile to teach, it was because he/she was some proto-rationalist. You marginalise belief in supernatural beings as of no account in the development of worthwhile ideas. Do daimons exist? Probably not. But Socrates may never have spoken his gadfly wisdom, if he had not felt guided and goaded by his daimon. The non-rational and the non-existent, in which religion often trades, are just as much a part of human experience as the measurable, the logical, and the tangible.

Look, Timmy, I don't fault your atheism, nor your devotion to rationalism, but can't you see that the undecideable MYSTERY that is before, after, within, through, and around us has for most of human history been addressed by religions, and not always badly. And that the "good" parts of religions are not always devoid of supernaturalism. I, like you, do not believe in "supernatural" beings per se, yet I must come to terms with them nevertheless, because belief in them shaped our collective past and continues to shape our present, for good and ill. If I dismiss them outright, or reduce them to nothing as you do, I miss the chance to appeciate what and who I am, and to encounter others in their own subjectivity. In short, even though daimons do not exist, I cannot deny Socrates' daimon.

It seems we all agree on the fact that we simply don't know, believer and atheists alike, and that our life and its origin is a mystery, as Timmy points out.

I think the difference is that religionists disingenuously insert a joker into the void, calling it god(s), and endow it with a plethora of human-derived, fairy-tale properties, while atheists, or call us "naturalists", honestly admit they don't know. However, atheists generally are keen on expanding human knowledge, whereas religionists are not interested in expanding knowledge, pretending to be in the possession of "eternal" truth. Their truth, however, is the fossil knowledge of ancient, superstitious times.

And as to the semantics of "spiritual" (language can explain AND disguise things!): In German it is "geistig", having no religious notion whatsoever, but describes the creative open mindedness of a person, which boils down to the honest use of one's brain, trying to avoid prejudice and residues of brainwashing as much as possible. Also in English, as in other languages (French, Italian) "spiritual" does not exclusively refer to religion; it can also be used in the sense of "pertaining to the mind".

Thus, an author, a scientist, a poet, a philosopher, a composer, or a teacher, speaker, thinker does "spiritual" work as distinguished from manual work. (Actually, one cannot clearly separate the two, but that would lead to a wide and much different discussion).

BTW: Why are so many people so keen on fabricating god(s), whom nobody ever was able to describe, who is even dubbed the "undescribable"? How can one believe in something not defined nor definable? Obviously, there can be no "evidence" of something undefinable.

How can one believe in a "trinity", a concept concocted for political reasons of Roman imperial power in the fourth century, of which nobody actually understands (and has ever understood) the meaning?

Counterww,

YOU: Faith tells me god exists where reason can only take me a portion of the journey to see that He exists

Faith does not tell you that God exists. Faith is you, convincing yourself that God exists. Faith does not tell people things. It is one's willingness to believe that something they've heard from other people, is true, even though there is no evidence for it, or reason to believe that it is true.

YOU: You and others that don't believe and don't have any other answers about how we got here and how we came to this point in human history

Neither do you.

YOU: ....want to use your limited human abilities to determine how our society goes.

Not mine. The collective reasoning of all. That's how democracy works.

Hi Pam,

One more.

YOU: The same cannot be said about believing (note that word) without evidence that consciousness survives brain death. That is faith, pure and simple"

I have no such belief, or faith.

Hi Pam,

Continued,

YOU: I can't explain the particle thing to you, I'm not a physicist"

Don't worry. Neither can physicists.

YOU: I'm sure this information, and its scientific or mathematical proof, is also available, if you want to know"

No it is not. Scientists don't know. They admit that it is a mystery.

YOU: Do you know how much you sound like a religionist when you say stuff like this?

Not at all. Religionists form beliefs about the supernatural. I have formed no belief and I believe in nothing supernatural. I simply admit that it is a mystery, which it is. I do not believe that consciousness transcends the death of the brain.

140 years ago the world's top scientific minds believed that heat was an element with mass. It seems logical to me that we are likely as ignorant about what life is, (currently) as we were about what heat was just 140 years ago. There is much mystery.

What is the origin of the universe, Pam? Does it have an origin? Has it always been? What is "time" in this case? How long has life been a thing in the universe. Since it's beginning? We don't even know if it had a beginning.

Don't try looking up the answers on the internet, or recommending any books. You'll find no answers to these questions. It's a mystery.

Pamsm,

YOU: Well, OK, if you want to make up your own definitions for words. I gave you the accepted definitions for spiritual"

I use the word God a hundred times a day. I'll be you use it often yourself. Doesn't mean I believe in him. Using the word "spiritual" doesn't mean I believe in Ghosts. All you need to know, is that I don't believe in anything supernatural.

YOU: No, I don't think that life and consciousness are mysteries. Does that mean that I know exactly how life first arose? No.

It may not have first arose at all. It may have always been a state of existence in the energy/matter that makes up the current state of the universe. Or it may have arose here on earth only in this massive universe. Or perhaps it arose in all places in the universe that are hospitable for it. Was there life before the big bang? Was there a universe? What is this ball of energy/matter that we call a universe? Where does it exist? What is life? Are we sure there aren't other forms of life that are completely different than anything we could imagine?

Don't tell me to go and look up these answers. They don't exist. So you can tell me that you don't think that life is a mystery. But if you can't answer these questions, (no one can actually) then it most certainly is a mystery.

YOU: I don't have the time or the space to lay them out for you here, but the information is out there, if you're sincerely interested"

No it isn't. It's a mystery.

YOU: Consciousness is just what it feels like to have a cortex. You can't have it without one, so how could it possibly "transcend" brain function?

I can't see how. I am certain that the kind of consciousness you are talking about ends when the brain stops functioning. Another kind of consciousness? I can't really imagine such a thing. But I also can't figure out how particles can be in two places at the same time. This opens up all kinds of strange possibilities.

Persiflage,

Thanks for offering such a clear view to and from the East. It has really stimulated my interest. I'm putting Nagarjuna on my to-explore list.

Ah, another Yeats quoter. Nice.

Onofrio,

YOU: I can see that you've embarked on a strategy of trying to sift good rational wheat from crazy irrational chaff, but the separation of those elements can never be as neat as you imagine"

I'm afraid it is. The irrational chaff is the part where they thought they special insight into the wishes and intentions of the almighty creator of the universe. The good stuff is easily extractable through reason and logic and experience.

YOU: It was not people primarily committed to Reason who created, valued and transmitted the "good bits" of religions - it was people committed to various expressions of God/gods"

They used science (things like predicting floods) to convince the masses that they had special connection to the gods, and then God. They used reason to develop a moral code. And then they attached that moral code to the deity. This moral code was then corrupted over the years by those who saw the power in this one true God belief, and used it to subjugate with fear, and gain political capital.

Arminius,

YOU: Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. His method of birth, while a beautiful story, is immaterial to me"

Then what is meant by "the son" of God. The word "son" has a definition. Do you mean metaphorical son? Is God a metaphorical father? I don't understand how you can believe that he is the son of God, and not have a belief about how that works. How his birth came about.

YOU: I accept the Trinity, even though I do not really understand it.

Wow. Speechless here. Okay. I guess.

YOU: Beware of 'black and white' judgments in a gray universe"

The people who wrote the Bible either had special insight and instruction from the creator of the universe, or they did not. Some issues have no grey area.

Onofrio,

"Timmy, please, you're not one of these rationalist atheists who patronises Jesus are you?"

How can one patronize a mythical character?

YOU: And why do you of all people have any truck with mythical figures anyway? If it's BS it's BS, right? No residual loyalty necessary. You wouldn't want to confuse anyone, would you now"

Words spoken by mythical characters were actually written by and created by humans. Therefore we can still be inspired by them. We can be inspired by the good, and throw away the bad. Reason and experience tell us which ones are which. Believing that mythical characters are real is useless. Then it's hard to throw away the bad.

YOU: I just think it a bit rich that you accuse Persiflage and Farnaz (?) of "simply philosophical cherry picking" regarding religion, when you seem to be doing the very same"

I am doing the very same thing. I just call it philosophy, because it is, and they call it religion, which it isn't, unless you add in some kind of deity belief.

YOU: Look, Arminius identifies as a Christian, and tries to situate his belief within the Christian continuum. "Who are you to tell him he has to admit he's something else - a "philosopher" or some sort of "fan" - something more to your taste?

I didn't tell him that he has to do anything. He can call himself a Christian, and make up his own version of Christianity, taking from the faith the things he likes and discarding the things he thinks are bad. And so can I. I can call myself a Christian because I identify with brotherly love and selflessness, but that does not make me a Christian. I am not a Christian because I don't believe in Hell, or the virgin birth, or the literal resurrection, or the miracles. People who also don't believe in those things can call themselves Christians, but they are not. Why they would want to associate themselves with people who do believe all of those delusional things, I don't know. Seem s bizarre to me.

YOU: There's far more to religious commitment than just thinking that words in a text are "divine". And anyway, since when does the profession of philosopher exclude religious belief? "

We are all philosophers, even the religious. One doesn't need to be a pro to be a philosopher, and one does not need to be an atheist either. But a philosopher (any of us) who does not believe that words in scripture are divine or from a deity, or have special insight into a deity, is not religious. Just a philosopher. This is by definition. If you do not believe in a deity, you are not religious.

Counterww:

Here is a post I originally addressed to Onofrio.
I paste it here since I noticed your reference to "the Jews" in your last post to Arminius. I wonder if it would be possible for a Christian (aside from Onofrio) to grasp that "the Jews" were otherwise occupied at the time JC is said to have existed, that very few Christians seem able to take this in.

If you are interested in knowing the path Judaism was following during JC's period, here is a very small piece of it. Prophets were everywhere during the Roman occupation and were unharrassed. What harm could they do? Meanwhile Akiva et al were busy ushering in the rabbinic age. He among others was tortured to death by the Romans.

"Religions are enormously complex entities - they're cultural and social matrixes that transmit all sorts of knowledge, attitudes, and values to their adherents, for better or worse."

Yes, and while I'd prefer not to get into the sociopolitical dimensions of it all, I suppose it's unavoidable. Religion is not only a "cultural and social matirix," but it is enmeshed in social, cultural, and political matrixes.

Hence, Onofrio, as you once pointed out, Christians (generically speaking) base their belief on a "huge faith commitment." Therefore, they CANNOT KNOW (literally) that Judaism was going its own merry way during the time when JC presumably lived. Going on with Akiva, et al.

Not once, has any Christian (cultural or practicing) shown either knowledge of Akiva, et al, or any interest in knowing about him. Yet for Jews, he and his cohorts are foundational.
Judaism proceeded with commentaries on Tanakh, with Judah HaNasi and the Mishnah, with more commentaries, with Talmud, etc., all the way up to the present.

And, so, when I read Christians telling me what's myth and what's not in a text developed over centuries in a particular context, intended for a particular people (MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT THEM) heavily interpreted and reinterpreted through the ages, I get "skeeved" as it were.

On another thread, some Christian dolt mentioned the barbaric punishments in the OT (sic), yet from the very early middle ages, as it was being compiled, these so-called punishments, were, in the main viewed as "exhortation."

When I hear some other dolts quoting "OT" (sic) to justify their demented politics, it gets downright scary.

CRAZY JANE ON GOD

That lover of a night

Came when he would,

Went in the dawning light

Whether I would or no;

Men come, men go;

All things remain in God.

Banners choke the sky;

Men-at-arms tread;

Armoured horses neigh

Where the great battle was

In the narrow pass:

All things remain in God.

Before their eyes a house

That from childhood stood

Uninhabited, ruinous,

Suddenly lit up

From door to top:

All things remain in God.

I had wild Jack for a lover;

Though like a road

That men pass over

My body makes no moan

But sings on:

All things remain in God.

W.B. Yeats

And through it all, gay sexual activity is still mutual masturbation. Rick Warren should define it as such an then retire into evangelical-mumbo jumbo oblivion where he belongs.

Okay, Timmy, here it is:

Faith tells me god exists where reason can only take me a portion of the journey to see that He exists. This is the mystery of knowing God. Jesus said it to the Jews- that proof(and the lack thereof that obviously exists) only takes away from knowing God in the first place. You just don't get it do you- do you think that even the super-intelligent can know everything? Reasoning, and YOUR definition of what is rational, now that scares me. You don't want people that claim to know Christ be let their religion influence society and politics. That scares me more than anything as it means that YOU and others that don't believe and don't have any other answers about how we got here and how we came to this point in human history ....want to use your limited human abilities to determine how our society goes. GW in the quote in his farewell speech diametrically opposed such thinking.

Arminius- I am surprised that you can actually read through Paul's letters and not get it. Paul explained how the death and resurrection of Christ worked. Revelation is for looking that the future and seeing that time on this earth has its limitations.... you can't get much out of it without studying it and even then it is still difficult. I get just as much out of Paul's writings as I do the gospels. BOTH came from inspiration God's spirit,dude.

Onofrio,

"With regard to the topic of the thread - I don't want to be tarred as an inevitable compatriot of Rick Warren - or the pope or Luther or any other variety of Christian - simply because I was born among "Western" goyim. I once was "practicing", but I've repudiated that, partly because of afore mentioned historic evils.

Those damned matrices...can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em. "

Welcome to the club. You may be the only Christian (cultural, practicing, or other) in it. Everyone else is Jewish.

You are the most remarkable blogger....

Farnaz,

Thanks for the poesy, and to Persiflage too for the always-welcome Yeats.

YOU to me: "Religion is not only a "cultural and social matirix," but it is enmeshed in social, cultural, and political matrixes."

In my haste to hammer out my post I neglected to include "political" in my matrix. Thanks for the adjustment, Farnaz.

Given the historic evil of "Christendom", particularly against Jews, how can a repentant Christian - cultural or practising - ever genuinely de-toxify him or her self? Do you think that's even possible for individuals? Is Christianity truly an indelible stain? I ask because I keep thinking I've forsaken it, but your posts have led me to suspect that maybe I'm kidding myself.

With regard to the topic of the thread - I don't want to be tarred as an inevitable compatriot of Rick Warren - or the pope or Luther or any other variety of Christian - simply because I was born among "Western" goyim. I once was "practicing", but I've repudiated that, partly because of afore mentioned historic evils.

Those damned matrices...can't live with 'em; can't live without 'em.

Timmy and Persiflage,

Here is a poem by Jennifer Michael Hecht from her brilliant, award-winning book, "Funny." Timmy, she is the writer that Colin Nicholas mentioned (scroll down), the author of "A History of Doubt."
I post this poem here now for reasons I don't know. Hope you like it.

Hat Trick

A woman howling, her baby's bunk somehow
afloat in the river, taking on water. Help,
shrieks the mother. Shriek, helps the baby,
and a good man jumps into the river; splash

and paddle. Grabs the kid, hands the damp
bundle over. Thank God, cries the mother.
She cradles her daughter, looks up at the man,
says, Excuse me, but she had a hat.

The child grows up to be a hat-check girl,
always trying to get back what she'd lost,

always having to return it all by the end of the
night. She is often sorrowful and ashamed

for being sorrowful, surrounded by warm
coats, a stool to rest on while others,

elsewhere, spend all day bending. Wincing
anyway, she sharp regrets her bland

missteps, laments her ill use and fatigue. It is
awful: her feet hot with it, her head metal-cold.

You think it's enough to just keep
getting old? Can't I also have my hat?

Roots squeeze this information toward their
leaves: You can not also have your hat.

After mother and child left, the man,
loitering the scene of his heroics

happened upon the little girl's small cap.
Picked it up off the bank, startled by the tiny

scale of its protection, took it home, kept it
for years, then lost track of it.

It's been long seasons since he'd jump
in the sea like a fin in response to a splash.

To be so little thanked, so asked for more,
flattened in him what he hoped he had to give.

The mother grows less certain by degrees
that all that she had long awaited

had any sense outside the confines
of her blazing expectations.

The girl, fidgeting hairclip in cloak room,
her own self set by his one leap and her many

lurid resignations, braces waves of distress
and lets down her tresses. All three rail

their separate saga, he having labored
and netted so little; the elder she having

wanted so much from those around her
and found she was not so much let down

as wrong in her detailed attentions; the girl
wrestling a dreadful shadow: the facts

that throw us in the water in the first place
ruin us for much saving. She is aggrieved

of it, feels disgraced by the triumph of pain.
I want to comfort them, myself, my keen regret,

but am at best a lemon tree, vivid fruit
abundant among bleak green leaves. I will

wait for ice and sugar to be invented,
bees in the daytime, bats when it's done.

I will wait in the sun. I hope for relief like a
lunatic, indulge, like a drunk, in my croon.

It is my intention to offer lemonade while
there is time and so much brutal sunshine.

Meanwhile, I can't do much, but gather
the hero and the mother beneath my bower.

As for the girl, she's not a hat-checker,
anymore, there's no such thing these

days. After an eon of servitude: men
stopped wearing hats, so she was free

to wander away from the 21 Club
and under my branches. Isn't she

beautiful? Didn't she have a hat?
To know, and arrange, and recover

even that. I am ridiculous, but it is
what is wanted.

Jennifer Michael Hecht

Eating Alone

I've pulled the last of the year's young onions.
The garden is bare now. The ground is cold,
brown and old. What is left of the day flames
in the maples at the corner of my
eye. I turn, a cardinal vanishes.
By the cellar door, I wash the onions,
then drink from the icy metal spigot.

Once, years back, I walked beside my father
among the windfall pears. I can't recall
our words. We may have strolled in silence. But
I still see him bend that way—left hand braced
on knee, creaky—to lift and hold to my
eye a rotten pear. In it, a hornet
spun crazily, glazed in slow, glistening juice.

It was my father I saw this morning
waving to me from the trees. I almost
called to him, until I came close enough
to see the shovel, leaning where I had
left it, in the flickering, deep green shade.

White rice steaming, almost done. Sweet green peas
fried in onions. Shrimp braised in sesame
oil and garlic. And my own loneliness.
What more could I, a young man, want.

Li-Young Lee
--------------------------

Persiflage,

I don't know what to say about Li-Young Lee's work, in general, or this poem, in particular. It's midway between a particle and a wave.

For Anne Gregory

'NEVER shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
'But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
'I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'

William Butler Yeats
________________

Farnaz - Well, here we all are in Bill's world as we live and breathe. I hope his Catholic wife knows the debt she owes to Zen :)

Persiflage,

Did you know that Bill Gates and crew were heavily into Zen in their early days, that they connected virtual reality with meditative states?

to continue -

We can argue about the validity of 'mystical' experience all day long, but if we mention out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences, we can generate the same kind lively discussion, I'm sure!

Particles are everywhere and nowhere when they are in a wave state - electrons in particular. The wave function collapses through an act of observation and the particle side of the particle/wave dichotomy emerges (Erwin Schrodinger). When particles are brought in contact they remain 'entangled' and perfectly synchronized essentially forever, and mirror each other's behavior instantly, without regard to distance between the particles (non-locality) - what form of communication that transcends the known laws of time and space might this be?

We should note that while atoms are considered the basis for our material world, none have ever been seen directly, much less their sub-atomic constituent parts (quarks, quarks, for muster mark). We see light, but never the photons that Einstein deduced as the essential massless particulate component of light.

This (Bell's theorem) has been proven experimentally (by Alain Aspect), but curiously not much has been made of the implications of this phenomenon. The nature and cause of this peculiar relationship is unknown.

So much to do, and so little time......

Just few quick comments - it is true that eastern religions are ultimately non-theistic, although there is no shortage of god-like entities to be found in the mythologies of both Hinduism and Buddhism - not so in Taoism or Confucianism.

I would also emphasize that in my view religion and religious traditions are based on human experience - and are not a gift from the gods.

However, when it comes to a core idea akin to the original source or the essential nature of reality, the religions of Hindu Vedanta, Taoism and Buddhism are agreed on the transpersonal nature of this essential ground of being (so called by Paul Tillich). Emptiness per my other posts is the fundamental quality of the phenomenal universe and it's infinity of objects.

Taoism and Zen Buddhism have a real affinity, and are also in agreement that this essential reality is indescribable and beyond categorization, is void of all qualities, and yet is fundamental to existence at every level.

Furthermore, they tell us that this truth can be apprehended directly and intuitively, because our very own awareness is this essential Buddha nature - albeit greatly obstructed by attachment, desire, and first and foremost, endlessly active thought processes.

I don't believe the realized Zen masters of the past have deceived anyone as regards the profundity of their experiences - they're neither self-deluded nor the perpetrators of an elaborate hoax - they know of where they speak. This is surely true of many other meditative and contemplative traditions as well. This all comes from inner non-logical intuitive experience. It's my personal feeling that while nothing we do eludes the involvement of our physical being, intuitive experiences are not reliant on brain functions, nor are they separate from brain functions.

The brain runs the body, and in turn, the body runs the brain - the number of autonomic and sub-cellular processes taking place every second (and wit just the right harmonious balance) are beyond reckoning - this in itself is kind of mysterious and miraculous!

Farnaz says:
"While there are distinct differences between particles and consciousness, I'd warrant you'd say you were conscious, whether or not anyone observed it 'empirically.'"

Yep, I'd say that - but not after I'm dead. I use my consciousness to deduce it. :)

Hi Arminius,
You said:
"There is a LOT, of course, that science has not explained. I know you understand this, but you come across in your last post as someone thinking that the answer lies somewhere on the internet."

Not at all. And I did mention books, not the internet. Most of the unknowns that you mention in your post have to do with the cosmos. I agree, there's *much* that we don't know about that, and much that we may *never* know.

Timmy asked me specifically about life and consciousness. I don't find either of those things "mysterious." That is not to say that we know *everything* about them, but the general concepts are not mysterious. We don't need to postulate mystical explanations for either one, although "the God of the gaps" gets trotted out to explain the ultimate origin of life. I think that gap will close soon.

I disagree that we don't know about the biological workings of a living cell. We know a great deal about this - what do you think is still a mystery? Ditto healing. Again, I'm sure that there are undiscovered details, but in general, we understand these things quite well.

Particle physics and quantum theory are entirely mysterious to me. I read about them, but not in any depth. I don't have the math skills to follow the hypotheses to the degree required to have any real understanding.

I'm sure that it's much less mysterious to those who understand it better than I do, but I would never contend that anyone knows everything there is to know about it - it's pretty recent science, and the cosmos is incredibly vast. Not to mention that some of the things we're interested in happened billions of years ago.

Dear Great Christian Poet, Pseudo,

What does it all mean?

Sincerely,
Farnaz, Seeker

Pam,

While there are distinct differences between particles and consciousness, I'd warrant you'd say you were conscious, whether or not anyone observed it "empirically." (the cogito, I believe) Particle theory began as a model.

Models, theories, and "reality" are different, no?

On another note, poor Timmy. Here are all these takers, and he's not at this site. :-0

Pam,

There is a LOT, of course, that science has not explained. I know you understand this, but you come across in your last post as someone thinking that the answer lies somewhere on the internet.

Take 'entanglement', the phenomenon of two widely separated particles affecting each other. Science has no idea why.

How about a living cell? No one is quite sure of the biological/chemical workings of it. Related, we don't know just how the body heals itself.

What goes on inside a black hole?

What really caused the Big Bang?

Given string theory, how many dimensions are there? Is an electron really just one thing (as opposed to something like a proton), or is it some wild combination of strings?

The list goes on and on...

Sure, some very great minds are going to answer a lot of this. But for every answer, at least two questions pop up.

New mysteries, and we will never run out of them.

Timmy,
In case it isn't clear to you *why* the particles and the consciousness things are a false analogy, let me try to explain:

The particle hypotheses is something that was presumably arrived at scientifically - which means that you make observations, and then go where the evidence (or the math) leads you. You don't reach a conclusion first, and then set about trying to prove it. I'm sure that whoever came up with this didn't dream it up ahead of time. I'm also sure that if this is considered settled science (and I don't know one way or the other) that the work has been peer-reviewed and is repeatable.

The same cannot be said about believing (note that word) without evidence that consciousness survives brain death. That is faith, pure and simple.

Just because one thing that is true seems illogical, doesn't mean that all illogical things are true - or even possible.

"Religions are enormously complex entities - they're cultural and social matrixes that transmit all sorts of knowledge, attitudes, and values to their adherents, for better or worse."

Yes, and while I'd prefer not to get into the sociopolitical dimensions of it all, I suppose it's unavoidable. Religion is not only a "cultural and social matirix," but it is enmeshed in social, cultural, and political matrixes.

Hence, Onofrio, as you once pointed out, Christians (generically speaking) base their belief on a "huge faith commitment." Therefore, they CANNOT KNOW (literally) that Judaism was going its own merry way during the time when JC presumably lived. Going on with Akiva, et al.

Not once, has any Christian (cultural or practicing) shown either knowledge of Akiva, et al, or any interest in knowing about him. Yet for Jews, he and his cohorts are foundational.
Judaism proceeded with commentaries on Tanakh, with Judah HaNasi and the Mishnah, with more commentaries, with Talmud, etc., all the way up to the present.

And, so, when I read Christians telling me what's myth and what's not in a text developed over centuries in a particular context, intended for a particular people (MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT THEM) heavily interpreted and reinterpreted through the ages, I get "skeeved" as it were.

On another thread, some Christian dolt mentioned the barbaric punishments in the OT (sic), yet from the very early middle ages, as it was being compiled, these so-called punishments, were, in the main viewed as "exhortation."

When I hear some other dolts quoting "OT" (sic) to justify their demented politics, it gets downright scary.

Timmy2 says:
"Being spiritual to me means being contemplative about the mystery of life, and consciousness. If you do not think that life and consciousness are mysteries, please come forth with your answers that no one else seems to have. We're all waiting to hear the answer to it all."

Well, OK, if you want to make up your own definitions for words. I gave you the accepted definitions for spiritual.

No, I don't think that life and consciousness are mysteries. Does that mean that I know exactly how life first arose? No. But we're very close to knowing - we know about lots of the elements of it, and biologists are working on a number of promising possibilties. I don't have the time or the space to lay them out for you here, but the information is out there, if you're sincerely interested. I'd be happy to recommend reading material.

Consciousness is just what it feels like to have a cortex. You can't have it without one, so how could it possibly "transcend" brain function? It *is* brain function. Again, a great deal about the brain and how it forms memories has been learned in recent years, and this is readily available information. Try Jeff Hawkins's book, On Intelligence.

"Quantum science tells us that particles can be in multiple places at the same time. How is that possible? We don't know. So for you to think that you know that consciousness and or awareness can not transcend brain function seems pretty hubristic. I don't see how it can either, but I also don't see how a particle can be in two places at the same time, and yet science tells me that they can."

This is a false analogy. One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. I can't explain the particle thing to you, I'm not a physicist. I'm sure this information, and its scientific or mathematical proof, is also available, if you want to know. But my stating that consciousness can't survive brain death is not at all hubristic, it's simply reality. I gave you many instances in my previous post of consciousness departing when brain damage occurs. Now give me ONE indicator that any given consciousness has survived the death of the brain that it was formerly associated with. Not anecdotal, please (I don't want to hear about haunted houses).

Do you know how much you sound like a religionist when you say stuff like this?

Timmy again,

YOU to Pamsm: "Being spiritual to me means being contemplative about the mystery of life, and consciousness."

Look Timmy, a lot of your Great Satan "religion" covers exactly what you describe here. I can see that you've embarked on a strategy of trying to sift good rational wheat from crazy irrational chaff, but the separation of those elements can never be as neat as you imagine. Religions are enormously complex entities - they're cultural and social matrixes that transmit all sorts of knowledge, attitudes, and values to their adherents, for better or worse. They are not monolithic monsters or inevitably bad, and they are not chemical compounds from which elements can be separated. You yourself are admitting there are bits that are less than bad.

It was not people primarily committed to Reason who created, valued and transmitted the "good bits" of religions - it was people committed to various expressions of God/gods. For them, compassion was inextricably bound up in the sense of what even you admt is the MYSTERY at the heart of things.

With regard to, say, the Abrahamic suite of faiths, I can't really claim to subscribe to their God/Gods, but neither can I simply claim any of their ethical insights for rationality either. Credit where credit's due.

Timmy, please, no more rationalising cut-and-paste.

Timmy,

Well, you are entitled to your definition of what is a Christian, and I am entitled to mine.

If we only had the Gospels of Mark and John, which begin with John the Baptist, there would be no great fuss about any virgin birth. Nonetheless, Jesus would still be the Son of God, and Christianity would be intact, just somewhat different.

If Revelation had been excluded, as some wanted to do when the official NT was compiled, IMHO Christianity would have benefited greatly. No Spideys!

Yes, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. His method of birth, while a beautiful story, is immaterial to me. I accept the Trinity, even though I do not really understand it. The sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is important to me, as is Holy Week. In many senses I am a 'normal' Christian.

Beware of 'black and white' judgments in a gray universe.

I believe words in religious texts are divine?

YOU to Arminius: "You are a fan of some of the writings and teachings of the mythical character "Jesus". Just like I am."

Timmy, please, you're not one of these rationalist atheists who patronises Jesus are you? Letting it slip there a bit, sir. Given that a great deal of Jesus logia concern something called the Kingdom of GOD, how do you decide which bits are suitable for your God-less approval? Still gooey about the Good Samaritan are you? Like to turn the other cheek? And why do you of all people have any truck with mythical figures anyway? If it's BS it's BS, right? No residual loyalty necessary. You wouldn't want to confuse anyone, would you now.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not waving a placard for Jesus here. I just think it a bit rich that you accuse Persiflage and Farnaz (?) of "simply philosophical cherry picking" regarding religion, when you seem to be doing the very same.

YOU to Arminius "Just say, I am a fan of Jesus. Of Nazereth, not Christ."

Look, Arminius identifies as a Christian, and tries to situate his belief within the Christian continuum. Who are you to tell him he has to admit he's something else - a "philosopher" or some sort of "fan" - something more to your taste? If he wants to labour in that old quarry, that's up to him.

YOU to Arminius "Unless you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, I don't think you should call yourself a Christian. It's confusing. It perpetuates the belief that Jesus was a deity."

And who are you to insist to Christians that unless they believe in the virgin birth they're not who they say they are. Wake up, Timmy! To say that all Christians believe in the FACTUALITY of the virgin birth is like saying all Jews believe the Red Sea actually parted for an actual Moses. Are you going to rule them out of Judaism because they - GOD FORBID - have some nuance in their understanding?

YOU to Persiflage and Farnaz: "If you believe the words in the religious texts are divine you are religious and that is a bad thing. If you think that the words in religious texts are not divine, but rather from mortal humans, you are a philosopher, and you should be just as against religion as I am."

What condescending BS! Full of inept labelling and SHOULDS and false dichotomies. Look man, all power to your consistent rationalist position, but this is just arrogance. There's far more to religious commitment than just thinking that words in a text are "divine". And anyway, since when does the profession of philosopher exclude religious belief?

Counterww

1 example of faith helping where reason can not.

1 example

Pamsm

Being spiritual to me means being contemplative about the mystery of life, and consciousness. If you do not think that life and consciousness are mysteries, please come forth with your answers that no one else seems to have. We're all waiting to hear the answer to it all.

Quantum science tells us that particles can be in multiple places at the same time. How is that possible? We don't know. So for you to think that you know that consciousness and or awareness can not transcend brain function seems pretty hubristic. I don't see how it can either, but I also don't see how a particle can be in two places at the same time, and yet science tells me that they can.

Persiflage and Farnaz,

It's just mislabeling I think. What you guys are calling "religion" is simply philosophical cherry picking. If you believe the words in the religious texts are divine you are religious and that is a bad thing. If you think that the words in religious texts are not divine, but rather from mortal humans, you are a philosopher, and you should be just as against religion as I am.

Once more,

If you think the words are divine you are a religionist, and your irrational belief is harmful.

If you think that the words are not divine, then you are a philosopher, and you should not refer to yourself as religious, or your philosophy as a religion. The same way Arminius should not call himself a Christian. Why? It supports the madness, that's why? It makes true Christians seem not crazy like you, but they are crazy, and it's not a good thing, no matter how many bake sales they hold.

Arminius,

Christians believe that Jesus was the son of God and born of a virgin. If you do not believe those things, you are not a Christian. You are a fan of some of the writings and teachings of the mythical character "Jesus". Just like I am.

Christians take it much further than that. Ergo the "christ" in Christian. You sound like a fan of Jesus, but not a believer in "Christ".

Unless you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, I don't think you should call yourself a Christian. It's confusing. It perpetuates the belief that Jesus was a deity. Just say, I am a fan of Jesus. Of Nazereth, not Christ.

The words of Jesus are useful and inspirational.
They become poisoned, and any good that comes from them is subverted by the irrational belief that Jesus was the son of God, who is the holder of the one true morality code.

Pam,

Persiflage is the one to address this, but from what I've been reading, these Eastern practices are "foundationally" monistic. There is no god in the machine. They out Descartes Descartes--from one point of view.

Don't worry about me, in any case. I'm not about to start playing with imaginary friends, or attempting to legislate on their behalf.

Hi Arminius,
I won't call you nuts. You're admittedly a believer. That's fine. But when the self-professed atheists start talking about spirituality, that's scary.

There's something that seems to be a part of some human brains that finds this sort of thing attractive. Other brains, like mine, can't understand it at all. It seems so utterly obvious what is real. You can see it, feel, touch it, or learn about it through experiment.

Even counter-intuitive things, like quantum physics, can be discovered mathematically or experimentally.

But the spiritual? Nahhhh. The only "evidence" is utterly subjective and anecdotal.

You say (like Thomas Baum) that you had a spiritual experience. I don't know what kind. I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure that you didn't, but at the same time, I know what the human mind is capable of - how it can be fooled, or even fool itself; so I remain skeptical of your experience.

Hello Pam,

Is there an armadillo man in the Capital One commercials?

You know, you really seem to love all this--physical anthropology? It's really neat.

Sort of...neuronal.

F :)

Hi, Pam,

Well, you are certainly firm in your stand! No problem with that here.

ME:
Metaphysical
From the Greek, meaning 'beyond the physical'

My personal definition (#2a):
of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses

To me, a parallel path to our perception of reality. Perhaps they co-exist. Sometimes they touch. Both are 'real' to me. Call me nuts, no problem.

I've never meditated, but from what I know of it, I don't see how it rids one of metaphysics.

I'm not a mathematician, either, but I don't see what it could possibly have to do with anything spiritual or mystical.

In any case, those words just make me want to roll up like the armadillo man in the Capital One commercials. Fingernails on a blackboard.

Hi Pam,

But if I'm reading this meditation stuff correctly, it's not into metaphysics either; after all, isn't it a western construct--metaphysics, that is?

You know mathematicians use words like "spiritual," "mystical," etc., but they aren't thinking metaphysically. The whole point, I would hope, of meditation, or at least of some meditation practices is to rid us of metaphysics, once and for all.

Apologies to Chomsky.

"You inveterate (and vertebrate) cynic! Read Persiflage. If you don't want to call it spirit, call it something else. What? (Neruonal subjectivist atheism, maybe?)"

Sorry, Farnaz, I did read Persiflage. It nearly put me to sleep. :)

All that stuff just leaves me cold. I am entirely a realist - or more properly, a naturalist, in philosophy. Not into the metaphysical at all.

Metaphysical
"Function:
adjective
Date:
15th century

1: of or relating to metaphysics 2 a: of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses b: supernatural 3: highly abstract or abstruse ; also : theoretical"

Metaphysics
"1 a (1): a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology (2): ontology 2 b: abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience"

I leave all that to the religious - it's anathema to me.

Pam,

You inveterate (and vertebrate) cynic! Read Persiflage. If you don't want to call it spirit, call it something else. What? (Neruonal subjectivist atheism, maybe?)

Regards,
Farnaz :-)

Hello Persiflage,

Beautifully and succinctly put. Are you going to post more on this? I hope so!

Farnaz

OK, you (atheist) guys are making me distinctly nauseous now.

Here's the definiton of spiritual:

"Etymology:
Middle English, from Anglo-French & Late Latin; Anglo-French espirital, spiritual, from Late Latin spiritualis, from Latin, of breathing, of wind, from spiritus
Date:
14th century

1: of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal 2 a: of or relating to sacred matters b: ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal 3: concerned with religious values4: related or joined in spirit 5 a: of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena b: of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic"

In the first definition, it refers to the word "spirit", which has many definitions - here are the relevant ones:

"1: an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms 2: a supernatural being or essence: as a: HOLY SPIRIT b: SOUL 2a c: an often malevolent being that is bodiless but can become visible; specifically: GHOST 2 d: a malevolent being that enters and possesses a human being 3: temper or disposition of mind or outlook especially when vigorous or animated 4: the immaterial intelligent or sentient part of a person"

Now tell me - which definition do you find appealing?

There is no "immaterial" part of a person that is intelligent or sentient. That is nothing more nor less that the brain, and this is easily demonstrated. Just take a baseball bat to someone's head - not hard enough to kill him - and tell me how conscious, intelligent, or sentient he is. Better still, do a lobotomy - remove all of his pre-frontal cortex, and answer me the same questions.

Check out the intelligence and sentience of someone (like Teri Schaivo) whose brain has been deprived of oxygen for an extended period. Or that of an anencephalic baby.

Give me a break. I hope we've moved a bit beyond the 14th century.

to continue -

Eventually it is intuitively discovered (prajna wisdom) that the entire material manifestation is constructed of a single substance or essence, and the apparent fragmentation of the material world is seen as an illusion (Maya). This essence is empty and void of all qualities - that is the 'suchness' (tathata) of all things.

This vision occurs at the deepest level of awareness - the Buddhists maintain that awareness consists of three levels - the gross, subtle, and very subtle levels (this last being the transpersonal and boundless source of all things -called the Dharmakaya, among many other names).

When full enlightenment occurs, one sees the dual nature of all things simultaneously (samsara and nirvana are one). This is the level of a Buddha's spontaneous, continual and perpetual awareness - absent any kind of self or self-consciousness whatsoever (anatman). This is merely descriptive, since it's far beyond conceptualization.

Zen is in complete agreement with this view, but has no patience for either philosophy or metaphysics of any kind.....realization is seen to be intuitive, immediate and direct, and the result of the correct application of zazen (meditative) practice. Thus the term 'radical empiricism'. This is the case (with variations) of both the Rinzai and Soto schools of Zen practice.

Arminius and Farnaz - this is a brief take-off on a running conversation that Farnaz and I were having on a recent thread regarding the Buddhist idea of Emptiness - Primal awareness (sometimes called clarity) is it's twin in Buddhist metaphyics.

Before, we were discussing Tibetan Buddhism and the thinking of a particular school - the Madyhamika or Middle Way school propounded by the Dalai Lama and developed originally by the thought of the Indian sage Nagarjuna in the 2nd-3rd centuries C.E.

The Buddha is said to have taught three levels of esoteric understanding, with the 3rd turning of the wheel (dharma or truth) being the most subtle and complete - as represented by the Madhymika ideas on Emptiness or sunyata.

Here Nagarjuna says all things arise co-dependently or interdependently, from moment to moment, giving only the mere appearance of an independent or autonomous objective existence, but all the while remaining 'empty' of a truly independent identity with real qualities (this being impossible in actuality, in order for the cosmo to emerge as it does - because all is constant change, on both gross and subtle levels). Even the present moment is forever elusive, much less past or future.

In the end, the true nature of this apparent material reality is somewhere in the middle, forever suspended between the real and the unreal. We can actually begin to apprehend this level logically, with considerable practice. It's far to say that the principles of quantum mechanics functions at a similar level of quasi-reality.

Buddhist practitioners begin grappling with this concept of emptiness logically and intellectually, long before it is experienced intuitively during meditation. This is the 'faith' part of Buddhism - the belief that the essential nature of reality is empty, and that it can be experienced directly.

To what end? To lessen the attachment we have to the material world, possessions, property, relationships, and to life itself. So this is no less than a transformation of what we consider to be 'human nature'.

This does not result in nihilism or eliminate emotions, but does acknowledge the fact that striving and material ambitions cause suffering to ourselves and others - only to fail utterly in the end at the moment of death.

Emptiness is central to all forms of Buddhism, and the truth of it is experienced intuitively and directly during an enlightenment experience (which are of varying depths). At deeper levels one discovers a complete absence of ego or self - simply a social fabrication and figment of our (self-aware)imagination. Feelings of empathy and compassion for all living things begin to arise with the deepening of the meditative practice (bodhichitta).

Frederc2:

"Spiritual atheists" -- I like this term very much. Regarding Persiflage's posts, if we think of "spirit" as a neuronal phenomenon, we may reconsider how seriously we take ourselves. Even if that is all that consciousness comes down to, that and some hormonal play, I think we can continue to struggle for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal awareness.

Spiritual atheism is what I am after....I think:-)

As human beings we have the possibility to be spiritual atheists, a term I used long ago in other threads, which at the time was vividly rejected by religionists and atheists alike.

I think we can come back to it and move the discussion forward, without even having to resort to Fritjof Capra and others, who make the general but charming mistake to take correlation for causality. Still, it may help to advance human accountable behavior.

Hello, Timmy,

Really nice post, thanks, and pleasantly revealing.

As for me - a brief summary. I am Christian, but not the average one. I came back to it after over three decades of non-belief because of a spiritual experience. So we have spirituality in common, even though we see it differently. Anyway, I ventured into the Gospels, and, after four readings, finally accepted the teachings of Jesus. This is how I try to manage my life. The rest of the bible is either supporting text, commentary, background, history, legend, myth, or nonsense.

I wonder if Thomas Baum and others ever took a look at Google Earth, both the Earth version and the universe version, with such a huge amount of irrefutable information.

To me, it as an unfathomable secret (a "miracle" I am forced to deeply believe in, lol!) that in the face of all this information available to everybody, a halfway literate person still can talk about a "new heaven" or "heavens" or a "new earth" and the "seventh day" or a "world to come". If we equate one year to one Millimeter, 1 billion years would be 1000 km, and the first signs of life would be at a distance of 500 km, the origin of the earth at a distance of 4-5.000 km, give or take a few years, lol! No humans around yet. The first "humanoids", at this rate, would appear around 250 meters, according to recent research.

Human history as we know it, at this rate, would start at a distance of about 4-5 meters, and the dinosaurs lived at a distance of about 65 km. These are the time proportions we are talking about. Even the desperate, defensive attempt to use these old books in a metaphorical sense seems to be doomed with every passing day.

And lets not forget that light ("let there be light") takes four years to the nearest star within our "home" galaxy, the Milky Way. It takes eight minutes from the sun. Well, everybody knows that.

Once Nature's facts are willfully ignored, the rest of religious discussions is nothing else than speculation about the social and psychological practicability of a given religion (moral, faith, apostasy, denominations, religious history) of historically generated myths, but never, never about truth! Against this background, even the question of how many angels can dance on the tip of a pin, has a certain "legitimacy"!

And Counterww, "sin" is a religious term. Since I don't believe in any religion, I cannot be a sinner, the mistakes in life I may have made notwithstanding!

Persiflage,

Your posts, quite learned and thought provoking, have suddenly made this quite boring blog very interesting. Please continue. Your explanation of a Zen enlightenment was very good, and touched base here, even though I have no connection with Zen or Buddhism in general.

Persiflage,

Where would You put emptiness with awareness? (I don't mean rapture.)

If "soul" is metaphor, does it matter?

Counterww:

I guess what I don't understand is who gets to decide that some citizens don't have the rights others do.

Marriage is a civil institution. In my view, that is what needs clarification and what will require change so that gay citizens gain civil equality.

No longer should clergy be able to officiate at weddings, which should be in the hands of civil authorities alone. Should religious institutions wish to place their imprimatur on some unions, but not others, that should be their business, but their seal of approval should be no more than that. With it or without it, persons, gay or straight, should be able to marry.

Farnaz

In some ways, we are moving backward, not forward in time. You might look at the link Persiflage gives regarding the lock Religion has put on the laboratory.

Hi Arminius,

"Trouble is - your arguments won't work. I am quite aware that my belief has absolutely no rational basis. That does not bother me. It has something to do with Persiflage's comment about multi-dimension comment"

I don't know what your belief is. You should know that I consider myself to be the most spiritual person I know. I am of a quantum physics spirituality. I like implications of this mysterious science. But it is all contemplative speculation and fantasy, and it makes me feel good and inspired to act as though Me and the guy next to me are one in the same, and so to treat him as I would treat myself. I can be inspired by the possibility that he and I are one in the same. Two fingers on one hand.

I consider this as a possibility, and that is all I need, to be inspired to be altruistic. I do not need to believe that it is true. I do not need to conclude that it is true. Nor is there any reason for me to conclude that it is true, or "believe" that it is true. To decide to leave rationality behind, and go ahead and convince myself, (develop the faith) that it is true, helps me in no way. The possibility that it is true (the intellectually honest position) is all I need to be inspired to behave as though it is true.

I can also take the teachings of the mythical character "Jesus" as being the words of enlightened thinkers expounding on millennia of collective human knowledge, and coming to the conclusion that treating each other as though we are all one, is the path to metaphorical heaven here on earth. I can coreleate the scientific possibility that we are all one, with this millennia's worth of collective human wisdom and form a life philosophy that is positive for the world, all with reason and logic, and no need to believe anything irrational. No religion necessary.

Why do some people need to leave reason and rationality behind to find peace in their hearts?
They don't. Because the heart, is actually in the head. Where your reason and logic are.

Another way to put my philosophy, and spirituality.
If we ever find God. It will be perfectly reasonable, and logical, and verifiable by scientific methodology. Why wouldn't it be?

to continue -

There is a certain interest among some quantum physicists regarding possible sympathies between the worldview of quantum mechanics and Eastern mysticism. These scientists are represented by such writers as Amit Goswami, Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, and Ervin Laszlo. Ken Wilber has written an excellent book, 'Quantum Questions' regarding the 'mystical' writings of world-famous physicists.

On the other hand, there are plenty of physicists that are anti-religious, or just not much interested. Steven Weinberg is almost virulently anti-religious, while Roger Penrose seems more neutral on the issue, although he has recently developed a theorem that posits the continual (perpetual) recurrance of Big Bangs from the inevitable singularity at the end of each cosmic cycle - you may have been referring to this particular idea in your early posts.

Right now the most pressing question for consciousness research is whether consciousness (at every level) is a primary self-existent phenomenon or is purely a secondary epiphenomenon arising from neurons, chemistry, and brain activity. I realize that is your position.....time will tell whether you're right or not.

This also seems to be the real crux of religion and religious belief, in all it's manifestations -how can a soul be separate from the reality of consciousness and it's twin, unconsciousness

Timmy - if you can find those 'nuggets of wisdom' and secular folk philosophies outside the historical matrix of religion itself, such separate and distinct origins have not been well documented to my knowledge.

So one separates the wheat from the chaff, and finds what might be considered the essential esoteric ingredients and themes - which are sometimes referred to as 'wisdom religions' more typically from the East but also found tucked into the 'Abrahamic' faiths as well. These are really what give the original substance to the 'public' practice of religion and religious behavior - although many religionists seem unaware of this fact.

What you don't seem to like in particular are just these - the exoteric rites, rituals, beliefs and practices of mainstream religious practice. Every religion has both overt and covert/mystical elements. So far, your arguments have been with the exotericists and the regular churchgoers that argue their beliefs, however futile their efforts are bound to be in the midst of a material world.

The famous Zen practitioner D.T. Suzuki called Zen radical empiricism, or experientalism - the enlightenment experience being purely non-rational and intuitive, but nevertheless real and transformative. What do Zen practitioners and other meditators and contemplatives experiencing kensho, satori, moksha or the divine actually perceive or apprehend during this experience? While some describe it in religious terms, the Taoists and Zennists among others, defer all descriptors and definitions.

Since everything we experience and call real occurs in the realm of consciousness, that must be our starting point.

Naturally their beliefs cannot be proven empirically in the context of an argument using the logic of contemporary scientific materialism (although Descartes might challenge your logic).

It's curious that some folks are completely taken with religion, while others are completely taken aback by religion. On the other hand, the historical, sociological and comparative dimensions of religion take up entire university departments with lots of PhD types roaming the halls and classrooms.

What secular religion academics do or do not believe as regards the tenets of religion is probably the equivilant of the science community at large.

Farnaz- the lesson that Jesus was teaching us was that all men are sinners. We all have that seed of going against God's will in us, and we all do it, some more than others.

I know I fail everyday to meet the creator's benchmark for sin. The only thing that washes it away is the blood of Christ. Warren knows this all too well too.

In the end , God is final judge of us all. If people want to sin behind closed doors, let them do it. It is only god that can judge them eternally. However, when it is brought out in the open, we in society have the right to debate it and determine what is best for society, and sometimes this is above what others want to call "rights".Polygamy and same sex marriage sit in those categories. they don't contribute to society like the man-woman never divorced marriage can. So, it is possible to love gays without giving them something that never belonged to them.....

You know, Obama has it right. We can disagree without being diagree-able. That is possible and is being done when he picked Warren. Rick is a good man, whether you want to believe it or not.

Timmy,

Another reply. Judaism is not what the Christians Call the "OT" (sic).

Timmy,

You write:

"Perhaps you will now tell me of a special brand of Judaism where God is not real, and does not give commands, and does not punish. It doesn't change the intent of the original."

Timmy, the simple answer is Reconstructionist Judaism.

Many Reconstructionists are what the Christians would call atheists. I guess, in a sense, they all are.

The complex answer is Judaism, but it would take much too long to explain, and I'm hardly the one to do it. Certainly, R. Waskow would have a problem with my excluding Jewish Renewal.

Tikkun Olam is foundational to all branches of Judaism.

Actually Timmy I wrote a very long post in response, and it was rejected.

The answer is simple- faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen- from Hebrews.

You can't find God through human reasoning. Human reasoning is something that is limited and has boundaries. Faith, given to us with hope and love, is from God and he gives a measure of it to know him. That is the answer.

The difference between the atheist and the believer is not that the atheist sees things more logically- that is your "front" -it is the the presupposition that God can't exist and that the ancients were just barbarians / uneducated and could never have written anything down that was truth. I have had this same argument with many of you before- not all truth can be proven with reasoning and facts. Fact are truth, but not all truth can be factually proved. This is something that atheists can's grasp, and it is this lack of spiritual insight that creates the gulf between us.

Hi, Timmy,

You said, "My reasoning for dismissing every religion is very complex, educated, and well thought out. I can back up this statement with very complex and detailed discussion of the finer points."

OK, all find and good, and I am very sure there is nothing wrong whatsoever with your reasoning abilities. (This is not a snide comment, I mean it sincerely.)

Trouble is - your arguments won't work. I am quite aware that my belief has absolutely no rational basis. That does not bother me. It has something to do with Persiflage's comment about multi-dimension comment.

Thomqas Baum,

"God cares, so should we"

Babies get cancer.
Is God indifferent? Complicit? Helpless? Uncaring? Not there?
Can you ask him at your next chat session?

Persiflage,

"Timmy - here's something for you to peruse. Judaism is multi-dimensional."

So Is Christianity.

YOU: To imagine that you can dismiss every aspect of religion with simplex logic is kind of naive"

Good thing I don't use simplistic logic then. My reasoning for dismissing every religion is very complex, educated, and well thought out. I can back up this statement with very complex and detailed discussion of the finer points. Try me.

Persiflage, I think you are making the same mistake a lot of people make, and that is not separating the religion from the philosophy and human wisdom found within religious texts. Religions don't own those philosophies and nuggets of human wisdom, but rather are the hijacker of those things. All of those proverbs and sage wisdoms are equally available to atheists as they are to the religious. The only difference is that atheists see them as mortal human wisdom and religionists see them as the divine word of the almighty God. This poisons any good that can come from them, by causing more harm than good.

Religion is just the "believing in a deity" part. And that is what I dismiss outright. There is nothing simplistic about the logic that leads me to this conclusion.

All the rest (the good parts of religion, as you would call it) are just inspirational philosophies and nuggets of wisdom from our ancestors that have been hijacked by religion and called divine.

YOU: "If religion and religionists fades into non-existence, I dare say it will be ages after Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the two of us are dead and gone"

Of course. Same goes for the disasterous effects of Global Warming. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't bother doing something about it now.

YOU: Just my two cents as a non-theist who finds (certain aspects) of religion endlessly fascinating"

Me too. I find them fascinating. But I think your "certain aspects" of religion, are actually philosophy and wisdom that come from mortal human minds. Religion is only the part where you believe that these words are divine, and from God, or from someone who had some special insight to God. That is religion, and that is wack. Across the board.

Timmy - here's something for you to peruse. Judaism is multi-dimensional. To imagine that you can dismiss every aspect of religion with simplex logic is kind of naive.

If religion and religionists fades into non-existence, I dare say it will be ages after Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and the two of us are dead and gone.

Just my two cents as a non-theist who finds (certain aspects) of religion endlessly fascinating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah

Farnaz,

"Some of us believe that Jesus' real message was that it is up to US to create the "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth, by treating each other with justice and grace"

"There is a word for this: Judaism, more specifically, Tikkun Olam"

Nonsense. In Judaism, we are commanded to love each other by God. Commanded! Am I wrong? In Judaism, God is real, not metaphorical. Am I wrong?

Perhaps you will now tell me of a special brand of Judaism where God is not real, and does not give commands, and does not punish. It doesn't change the intent of the original.

The religion of Judaism is as wack as the rest of them. To the trash heap with all of them.

NOTSOGREATSCOTT

You wrote, "Some of us believe that Jesus' real message was that it is up to US to create the "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth, by treating each other with justice and grace."

If this is what you believe then go for it but Jesus's message was for us to live it even if others didn't.

Jesus also said that His Kingdom was not of this world which means it is of the world to come, the new heavens and the new earth which will come on the seventh day.

God's Kingdom will come from within because all of the laws in the world that come from the outside will not change someone, it might, by threat of temporal punishment, persuade some to act decently.

There is more to reality then the reality that we see and sense with our five senses, science has shown us that in the natural world and there is more to reality than just the natural world.

The captives shall be released and the dead shall rise, a little hint, those that go straight to God at physical death are neither captive nor dead.

There seem to be quite a few that believe in God that neither believe nor want this to be.

God cares, so should we.

All human beings are our brothers and sisters, not just some.

It is important what one does and why one does it and what one knows.

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Counterww

I see you are not up to my challenge to show one specific example of a situation where faith can help but reason can not. I'll have to take your non response as an admission that you were wrong about all of that babble earlier to me about how man's reason is limited and therefore faith is necessary.

Just one example of where reason fails to provide an answer that faith can. Can you do it? Or are you admitting that your supposition was wrong?

And Farnaz is continually humbled by the atrocities noted in Jewish scripture.

To wit:

"Biblical Atrocities

Exodus 32: 3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf.

Numbers 31: After killing all men, boys and married women among the Midianites, 32,000 virgins remain as booty for the Israelites. (If unmarried girls are a quarter of the population, then 96,000 people were killed.)

Joshua:

Joshua 8: 12,000 men and women, all the people of Ai, killed.

Joshua 10: Joshua completely destroys Gibeon ("larger than Ai"), Makeddah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir. "He left no survivors."

Joshua 11: Hazor destroyed. [Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (1987), estimates the population of Hazor at ?> 50,000]
TOTAL: if Ai is average, 12,000 x 9 = 108,000 killed.

Judges 1: 10,000 Canaanites k. at Battle of Bezek. Jerusalem and Zephath destroyed.

Judges 3: ca. 10,000 Moabites k. at Jordan River.

Judges 8: 120,000 Midianite soldiers k. by Gideon

Judges 20: Benjamin attacked by other tribes. 25,000 killed.

1 Samuel 4: 4,000 Isrealites killed at 1st Battle of Ebenezer/Aphek. 30,000 Isr. k. at 2nd battle.
David:

2 Samuel 8: 22,000 Arameans of Damascus and 18,000 Edomites killed in 2 battles.

2 Samuel 10: 40,000 Aramean footsoldiers and 7,000 charioteers killed at Helam.

2 Samuel 18: 20,000 Israelites under Absalom killed at Ephraim.

1 Kings 20: 100,000 Arameans killed by Israelites at Battle of Aphek. Another 27,000 killed by collapsing wall.

2 Chron 13: Judah beat Israel and inflicted 500,000 casualties.

2 Chron 25: Amaziah, king of Judah, k. 10,000 from Seir in battle and executed 10,000 POWs. Discharged Judean soldiers pillaged and killed 3,000.

2 Chron 28: Pekah, king of Israel, slew 120,000 Judeans

TOTAL: That comes to about 1,283,000 mass killings specifically enumerated in the Bible."

Of course, many conservative Jews would say the atrocities reported in the Jewish scriptures are all myths. They have a point since there is no archeological evidence to show these atrocities took place. Other Jews who hold to the literal readings of the Jewish scriptures must be quite humbled by these reports. Or are they??

When I first heard that Obama chose the Porcine Purveyor of Purposeful Drivenness as his keynote theurgist, I thought it was a bold and clever move, even a little cynical - "keep your enemies close", and all that...

As this here blog of Susan J's shows, the liberal commentariat loathe Obama's apparent entente with Warren's brand of HumVee hoodoo, but for Obama the price of disjointed liberal noses is a small one to pay. After all, they're hardly going to disown him already, and bigger political dividends are there for the taking. By courting Warren, Obama will extend his reach into that great mass of GOP-tending evangelical Wal-Mart stampeders who - let's face it - are a force to be reckoned with in the US electorate. That's the realpolitik, and Obama has shown himself to be a shrewd player. Obama knows his man too - despite the bog-standard evangelical rhetoric Warren is more a tepid lifestyle guru than a fundie firebrand, yea, he's a mere meaning-monger for empty suburbanites. Warren's Hell burns no more fiercely than a sputtering jiffy-lighter at a Saddleback barbecue. Flatter him with ceremonial dignities like the presidential inauguration, and he may very well become Purpose Driven Putty, along with his substantial blancmange fan-base.

It will be interesting to see how Obama's gambit turns out.

Counterw:

Looks like maybe you and Rick should read your own book:

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
Luke 18:9-14

He spoke also this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others.

"Two men went up into the temple to pray;
one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this:

'God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’

But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."
-------------------------------
Boy, them Greek pharisees sure were an interesting lot. (Never mind, Dear, it's beyond you.)

"just identifies sinners like any minister would /should do."

Ah, yes, I missed this, Frederic, thanks.
----------------------
Now, Counteww,

We still await your saving vision.

Counterww:

"Identifying sinners", as you think every decent minister should do, to me is equivalent to moral bankruptcy.

There is a neat little poem by the German humorist poet Eugen Roth, where a man ponders over Jesus' parable of the pharisee who thanks god that he is no "sinner or tax collector". The man finally thanks god with all his heart that he is no pharisee.

Counterww

There was an article in the Economist a couple of months ago that mentioned his shift away from homophobia and antisemitism to HIV/AIDS, etc. Certainly for the best now that he is inaugurational and all.

O, Great Christian, Counterww, I bow to that Christian love, that caritas that shimmers forth in your post to me. If Warren has changed his views on Jews going to hell, on gay marriage, post and cite, please.

I await your saving grace.

Farnaz, where you have evidence that someone that has given his life to help others, including aids victims and the poor, and call them the typical straw man homophobic label, I don't know.

Have the IRS audit Warren all you want.

It is obvious you don't know the man. Or have even tried to understand him.

Opportunistic? Not at all... gives his money away.

Homophobic..hardly....... just identifies sinners like any minister would /should do.

Morally bankrupt?

That is a hoot.

Judgmental?

Look in the mirror.

"Some of us believe that Jesus' real message was that it is up to US to create the "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth, by treating each other with justice and grace"

There is a word for this: Judaism, more specifically, Tikkun Olam.

Rick Warren is antisemitic, homophobic, and anti-Islamic in his "ministry." Do I think he is stupid? No. Opportunistic, racist/bigoted, morally bankrupt? Yes.

Methinks I hear ancient voices sweetly whisper to the IRS, "Audit, audit, audit...."

The likely truth is that fundamentalists are of typically average intelligence - there may be a few here and there that are highly accomplished in their chosen fields....certainly more than a few fundmentalist ministers range along an economic continuum from affluent to wealthy. Can we take a quick look at Rick Warren's tax returns for the last 10 years?

We know now that many canny politicians have manipulated this population without ever so much as sharing a single common religious belief.

Inquiring minds not of the fundamentalist persuation simply want to know how it's possible for these beliefs to be as pervasive and widespread as they are in an age when science and modern education have been increasingly advanced, available, and in evidence since the age of the enlightenment. See the link below for an interesting view of how fundamentalism has effected American culture and the culture of science.

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5898

Dear CK1LFP:

Regarding: "Obama is the first Democrat in a long time to understand that "liberal purity" (the flip side of fundamentalism) is not the goal."

This point is important. One of the commonplace occurrences on these blogs is bigotry against conservative Christians and "fundamentalists". Not all of these people are stupid, and it does not help to treat them as if they were.

Not So Great Scott,

"Some of us believe that Jesus' real message was that it is up to US to create the "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth, by treating each other with justice and grace"

Hear hear. It boggles the mind that this is not obvious to all.

And this is a message far more powerful than "believe that I am the son of God or burn in Hell. People need inspiration by example, not threats.

Hello Observer12:

You write:

Is this true? I ask because our home is flanked by short adults (SAs) on both sides. Although we don't live in Louisiana, Texas, or Florida, one never knows. Better safe than sorry, I always say.
----------------------------
Since you don't specify which part of my earlier post you're referring to, I'll assume you're questioning the whole.

The answer, then, would be no, on all counts, at least to the best of my knowledge.
---------------------------
However, antisemites have caused the earth to move. This was witnessed by both Jews and gentiles. Rick Warren might want to comment on this, although it wasn't really miraculous.

You see the antisemites buried Jews alive.

Thomas Baum wrote: "Isn't it something that God's Plan is for everyone to be in The Kingdom, even tho many don't seem to even want it to be, for some as long as they get to the "good place" that is good enough for them."

Some of us believe that Jesus' real message was that it is up to US to create the "Kingdom of Heaven" here on earth, by treating each other with justice and grace.

Take care, MAKE ready.

Rubytues63 wrote: "Fewer than 15% of Americans believe that there is no God... then at least 38% of God-fearing voters also voted for Obama."

Isn't there a difference between believing in a god and fearing God?

"Putting Warren on the inaugural podium is as disrespectful to people of liberal faith as it is to Americans of no faith." As a liberal Christian (unitarian church member in fact) who supported Obama I totally disagree. Fundamentalists represent a huge portion of our society, and Warren has at least made some baby steps forward. We must find common ground, and I am happy to have this preacher pray for our president and our nation. We need everyone's prayers, not just those of the liberals and the good wishes of the humanists. Get over it, this nation includes a huge number of fundamentalist Christians and if we don't stop demonizing them we will just go back to the national politics of the last 8 years. Obama is the first Democrat in a long time to understand that "liberal purity" (the flip side of fundamentalism) is not the goal.

Dear Ms. Jacoby,

Wonderfully cogent argument against anti-rational fundamentalists and all the weird trappings of religious investiture at Barack Obama's upcoming inaugural ceremonies. I always knew there had to be something screwy in Rick Warren's popularity---his books were [are?] bestsellers here in Fresno, a place with way more than its fair share of Fundies.

Yes, Jamil, and just imagine, what an authority like Luther said about witches.
Luther May 6th, 1526 in a sermon:

"It is a fully just law that witches have to be killed, because they do a lot of damage, which is sometimes ignored: They can steal milk, butter and everything out of a house; they can cast a spell on a child. They also can create mysterious diseases in the human knee, so that the body is consumed. They create damage to body and soul, they distribute drinks and curses to create hatred, love, bad weather, all turmoil in the house, on the field, over a distance of a mile and more they make people limp with their witch arrows which nobody can heal.

The witches must be killed, because they are thieves, adulterers, robbers, and murderers. They create all sorts of damage. They must be killed not only because of their damage, but also because they have intercourse with Satan."

Just figure, damage to one's knee, and over a distance of more than a mile! Terrible.

Hi Farnaz,

You write:

"Short people slow pedestrian traffic and cause hurricanes. See the October issue of "The Ambulater" and "The Journal of American Meteorology" 6.3. Unsurprisingly, both Louisiana and Texas have the largest number of short adults (SAs) in the United States, with Florida coming in close in third place (JAM 26)."

Is this true? I ask because our home is flanked by short adults (SAs) on both sides. Although we don't live in Louisiana, Texas, or Florida, one never knows. Better safe than sorry, I always say.

jamil51,

You wrote: “the facts about homosexuality cannot be denied by ill-reputing a person etc.”

Hey Jamil, Paul Cameron ill-reputed himself. Read this (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=997):

An Associated Press journalist recorded a confrontation between Cameron and a reporter for the Gay Cable News Network.

"All we're saying is, screen and quarantine until we come up with a cure," Cameron said. "Rights have run amok in our society, particularly sexual ones. Homosexuals were hung 300 years ago in our society."
"Is that what you're advocating today, that gay people be hung?" the gay journalist replied.
Cameron continued, "Homosexuals were castrated 200 years ago."
"So things are getting better then?"
"Homosexuals were imprisoned 100 years ago."
"What sort of concentration camps do you have in mind, Dr. Cameron?"

And also read this in the same blog cited above:

While Cameron describes homosexuality as a "crime against humanity," he seems fascinated with the mechanics and pleasures of gay sex. In a widely publicized 1999 interview, he said, "Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does. If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one's own personal amusement, if all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get, then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men."

About what you consider facts, take few minutes to check opposite views on Cameron´s pseudo-scientific research (http://www.geocities.com/ninure/cameron.html):

“Moreover, the fact that Cameron was only able to obtain 133 Lesbian obituaries out of a total of 6516 Gay obituaries over twelve years would seem to suggest that obituaries from Gay newspapers are hardly reflective of the Gay and Lesbian population, unless one is willing to conclude that the vast majority of Lesbians live forever.”

Best wishes to all,

JAC

CounterWW

YOU: "Why did the founders have Chaplains in the Senate almost from the beginning ?"

Same reason they owned slaves. Delusional beliefs. Welcome to the 21st century.

YOU: "I doubt seriously that the wall you describe was ever meant to be as high as you would want it, or the , or how high the courts have interpreted it to be"

Separate is separate. There are no degrees. Separate is separate.

YOU: I find your assertions irrational.

What assertions? Be specific.

YOU: Having people like you decide for the rest of us what is "irrational" and not rational is a hoot.

I don't decide. The definition that society gives that word decides what irrationality is. The only question remaining is, are your beliefs rational or irrational.

YOU: News flash- mankind has limited reasoning ability- if he did not, there would be alot less war , poverty, and such"

Most people don't reason well, but this is not due to limited ability. It's due to a lack of education.

YOU: It's mankind's weaknesses(yes, his sin) that leads him down the path of destruction, nothing els"

How could mankind have a weakness if we were supposedly created by a perfect God. You've just pointed out a logical fallacy in your religion.

YOU: Greed, overwrought love of money and things, etc, that leads us where we are. Reasoning can never solve this issue or problem. It does not mean we should not attempt to reason things out, but we must be cognizant of our limitations there. This is where faith comes in, along with hope and love. Those things should have weight in all of our lives"

Give me a specific example of where faith can help you where reason can not and I will show you that it's not true. Are you up for the challenge?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it.

Good Solstice to all who celebrate it.

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it.

Best of the season to all.

Short people slow pedestrian traffic and cause hurricanes. See the October issue of "The Ambulater" and "The Journal of American Meteorology"
6.3. Unsurprisingly, both Louisiana and Texas have the largest number of short adults (SAs) in the United States, with Florida coming in close in third place (JAM 26).

As usual , people like Timmy carry the sep. clause too far. The Fathers had no intent of taking religion out of the public square or completely out of the political process. They just did not want one particular denomination to be the "church of the US".

Washington in his farewell address said that ...

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

There was obvious disagreement with Jefferson about this. Washington believed, and the founders did also, that people that are religious contribute positively to our government- that with education and refinement of their beliefs they are "indispensable supports" as GW said.

Why did the founders have Chaplains in the Senate almost from the beginning ?

http://www.senate.gov/reference/office/chaplain.htm

I doubt seriously that the wall you describe was ever meant to be as high as you would want it, or the , or how high the courts have interpreted it to be.

As for calling Christians beliefs-"irrational"-

I have read through the crapola that you and others have posted on the web. Your definitions and self appointed labeling of what is irrational and not irrational, like the crap that CCNL posts.

Quite the opposite- I find your assertions irrational. If all you can do in life is try to PROVE everything through your own "reason"- that is a very sorry state to be in.

Having people like you decide for the rest of us what is "irrational" and not rational is a hoot.

News flash- mankind has limited reasoning ability- if he did not, there would be alot less war , poverty, and such. It's mankind's weaknesses(yes, his sin) that leads him down the path of destruction, nothing else. Greed, overwrought love of money and things, etc, that leads us where we are. Reasoning can never solve this issue or problem. It does not mean we should not attempt to reason things out, but we must be cognizant of our limitations there. This is where faith comes in, along with hope and love. Those things should have weight in all of our lives.

Jamil51 - do you have any stats on the medical consequences of obesity? If so, please pass it on to Rick Warren. He needs to know.

I hear fat people die young.

JOHN R. DIGGS, JR., M.D.

Says:
Sexual relationships between members of the same sex expose gays, lesbians and bisexuals to extreme risks of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), physical injuries, mental disorders and even a shortened life span. There are five major distinctions between gay and heterosexual. relationships, with specific medical consequences.
The only epidemiological study to date on the life span of gay men concluded that gay and bisexual men lose up to 20 years of life expectancy

justacomment
fredric2

I am not talking of history. Ask a greek today and he will tell you what his thought of his act in their community.
the facts about homosexuality cannot be denied by ill-reputing a person etc.
Here is another ref for those who wish to open their eyes.
Obituaries numbering 6,516 from 16 U.S. homosexual journals over the past 12 years were compared to a large sample of obituaries from regular newspapers.
For the 829 gays who died of something other than AIDS, the median age of death was 42, and 9% died old. The 163 lesbians had a median age of death of 44, and 20% died old.
Medical Consequences of Homosexual Sex
Death and disease accompany promiscuous and unsanitary sexual activity. 70%25 to 78%x,13 of gays reported having had a sexually transmitted disease. The proportion with intestinal parasites (worms, flukes, amoeba) ranged from 25%18 to 39%19 to 59%.20 As of 1992, 83% of U.S. AIDS in whites had occurred in gays
Surveys indicate that about 90% of gays have engaged in rectal intercourse, and about two-thirds do it regularly. In a 6-month long study of daily sexual diaries,3 gays averaged 110 sex partners and 68 rectal encounters a year

Rubey,

The minute Obama was elected President it became his job to look out for every American - if he didn’t he would be a lousy leader.

Hear hear. This is a great argument for no religious invocation.

YOU: In a democracy populated by mostly God-fearing people, do religious invocations matter?

No. Religion is for private matters not government ones.

YOU: Does creating an environment of political inclusion mean including everyone except the 85% of Americans who believe in God?

You make our point for us here. A ceremony with no religious invocation includes everybody. A ceremony with religious invocation excludes atheists and agnostics. Make that invocation by Rick Warren and now you are excluding Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and all others who are, according to the invocation giver, going to burn in Hell for all eternity.

YOU: Were the atheists among you expecting him to renounce God when they gave him their vote? Did you expect Obama was going to use his office to belittle the evangelicals and every other group you did not agree with?

Having a non denominational give the invocation would have belittled no one. This is what you don't get.

Hey Frederic2, you don’t need to go back to the 17th century. Just read in Wikipedia who is Dr Paul Drummond Cameron:

“His work has been criticised for alleged misrepresentation of data by the American Sociological Association and Canadian Psychological Association. In 1986 the American Sociological Association officially repudiated any claims that Paul Cameron was a sociologist and condemned his misrepresentation of sociological research. The action was taken following a report on August 30, 1986, commissioned by the ASA Council from the Committee on Homosexuals in Sociology which chronicled Cameron's activities since 1982.”

This is from an anti-homophobia blog published by Dr. Gregory M. Herek:

“On December 2, 1983, the American Psychological Association sent Paul Cameron a letter informing him that he had been dropped from membership. Early in 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association received official written notice that "Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists" by the APA Board of Directors. Cameron has posted an elaborate argument about his expulsion from APA on his website, claiming that he resigned from APA before he was dropped from membership. Like most organizations, however, APA does not allow a member to resign when they are being investigated. And even if Cameron's claims were accepted as true, it would be remarkable that the largest professional organization of psychologists in the United States (and other professional associations, as noted below) went to such lengths to disassociate itself from one individual.”

Also read this page: http://www.geocities.com/ninure/cameron.html

Best wishes to all,

JAC

Yes, Jamil, and I just read that in the 17th century a lutheran lawyer, Benedict Carpzow, in pursuit of truth wrote that homosexuality causes earthquakes, floods, „Saracenes“(!), famine, pestilence, and the appearance of particularly fat and voracious voles!

Go figure!

There is no argument based on religious teachings for those who are non-believers.
There is no argument based on universal accepted morals, for those who flow with their wishes and melt in their own lust.
Tomorrow you can believe in lies and reject truth as a virtue if it suits some to get what they want.
While I travelled in the 90's through Europe I saw a marked change in the behaviour of homosexuals as they come to know the dangers of AIDS due to overt sexual behaviour. It was as homoexuals disappeared from the scene at that time.
Are they look for such evidence to back-out?
Here is a summary of a research:

Expert Research Finds Homosexuality More Dangerous Than Smoking

PHILADELPHIA, April 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Studies have shown that years of smoking shortens the lifespan of the smoker from 1 to 7 years. Recent analysis of the age of death in Norway and Denmark for gays who are legally married suggests that engaging in homosexual behavior reduces lifespan by 24 years!

So reported Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron at the annual convention of the Eastern Psychological Association on March 23.

"What justification is there for condemning smoking and endorsing homosexuality?" asked Dr. Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute, a Colorado-based think tank. "Today, all across the Western world, school children are being taught the acceptability of homosexuality and the wrongness of smoking.

According to the Cameron research, married gays and lesbians lived 24 fewer years than their conventionally married counterparts.

In Denmark, the country with the longest history of gay marriage, for 1990-2002, married heterosexual men died at a median age of 74yrs., while the 561 partnered gays died at an average age of 51.

In Norway, married heterosexual men died at an average age of 77 and the 31 gays at 52 yrs. In Denmark, married women died at an average age of 78 yrs. compared to 56 yrs. for the 91 lesbians. In Norway, women married to men died at an average age of 81. v. 56 for the 6 lesbians.

CCNL:

FYI:

Alcoholics Anonymous, Philadelphia, PA, 19135 - YELLOWPAGES.COM
Get directions, reviews, payment information on Alcoholics Anonymous located at Philadelphia, PA. Search for other Drug Abuse & Addiction-Information ...
www.yellowpages.com/info-LMS56153341/Alcoholics-Anonymous - 27k -

Hmmm,

To Thomas, the Hallucinator, Baum:

Your "reasoning" makes god the father guilty of filicide.

To the topic of RW's lack of support for gay unions:

Again through all the rhetoric, gay sexual activity from below, on top, backwards, forwards, from this side of the Moon and from the other side too, is still mutual masturbation caused by one or more sexual defects. Such defects are visually obvious in for example the maleness of DeGeneres, Billy Jean King and Rosie O'Donnell.

To the topic of BO's winning the presidency:

The fastest growing voting demographic: The 70 million "mothers and fathers of aborted children" whose ranks grow by two million per year. These "moms and dads" are correctly labeled the new Immoral Majority. They easily put BO in the Blood-Red House!!!!

Merry Christmas to all you very interesting, very engaged people. Have a helluva holiday y'all.

Persiflage,

Pleez...Can't we leave Mick Jagger out of this? Is nothing sacred?!

RUBYTUESDAY - get a grip. Didn't you notice all the professed Christians that objected to Rick Warren's selection for the invocation - because of his extreme and polarizing positions? This is not an atheist vs theist issue .....

By the way, given your chosen handle, do you think Mick Jagger believes in God? Just wondering.....

Fewer than 15% of Americans believe that there is no God.

Obama won the Presidency with 53% of the popular vote.

Therefore, it would seem reasonable to assume that if every single atheist and agnostic voted for Obama, then at least 38% of God-fearing voters also voted for Obama. (And I am sure that at least a few non-believers chose to cast a vote for McCain).

To assume that Obama is the ‘atheist’s candidate’ is foolish and wrong. To assume that Obama owes his secular constituency more than he owes his religious constituency is stupid. The minute Obama was elected President it became his job to look out for every American - if he didn’t he would be a lousy leader.

In a democracy populated by mostly God-fearing people, do religious invocations matter? Does creating an environment of political inclusion mean including everyone except the 85% of Americans who believe in God?

Obama never pretended to be anything other than a church-going Christian. Were the atheists among you expecting him to renounce God when they gave him their vote? Did you expect Obama was going to use his office to belittle the evangelicals and every other group you did not agree with?

If so, you have only been fooling yourselves.

Perhaps, of interest to all Rick Warren bridge-builders, here is the Aryan Nation web site.

http://www.uiowa.edu/policult/politick/smithson/an.htm

You can find information about Pastor Mark Thomas and others of his ilk there and all over the web.

It might be too late for the President-elect to invite Rev. Thomas to the inauguration, but, surely, in time for an invite to another bridge-building event.

He, too, is homophobic, antisemitic, anti-Islamic, sexist, and anti-Black, to boot. What more could one need for bridge-building?

Timmy,

Te: Doubt: a History. by Jennifer Michael Hecht

IMHO, a good read, yes, but that's about it. She's done much more scholarly work and is also a highly accomplished poet. Timmy, whether or not you like poetry, you've got to read "Funny." It's really brilliant, and we need all the humor we can get now. You can find a lot of reviews on google.

CCNL

Did God kill God-Incarnate or did we?

Not only did Jesus take the sins of the world upon Himself but He offered the invitation to "Come follow Me" and many have taken Him up on that invitation over the years.

What do you think being a "Christian" is?

Do you think that it is: Judging others, condemning others, not forgiving others?

The aforementioned are just some of the things that one might gather by listening to some who call themselves "Christian".

Jesus, God-Incarnate, is not the hollowed-out caricature that you think that He is.

Just because some think that it is "almost heavenly child abuse", does not mean that they have a clue because they don't, Jesus chose to become One of us even knowing that plenty of us would be ingrates.

Isn't it something that God's Plan is for everyone to be in The Kingdom, even tho many don't seem to even want it to be, for some as long as they get to the "good place" that is good enough for them.

Well, that is not good enough for God, God cares for ALL, no exceptions.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

BenBowden,

I agree with you, and am willing to give Warren the benefit of the doubt. Yes, I have serious differences with him, but he is a possible bridge to dialog. As Churchill said, "Better to jaw-jaw than war-war".

Timmy2;

Thanks for your comments back there, they're appreciated.

Two really good books to recommend

Doubt; a History. by Jennifer Michael Hecht.

Subtitled "The Great Doubters and their legacy
of innovation, from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickenson." 550 pages.

A wonderful read. It's interesting to note that JC himself was a doubter, even while on the cross. Christians don't see it that way, of course.

The French writer Michel Onfray's "In Defence of Atheism" is now out in an excellent Penguin paperback edition...220pp

Please if you haven't heard of one of my personal favorite atheists - Pat Condell... go to Patcondell.net right now and be prepared for some outrageously blunt common sense regarding the Man upstairs, etcetra.
If you are familiar with him, well he's got some new christmasy stuff that's worth a listen.

Regards.CN

BenBowden Author Profile Page:

Susan,

Rick Warren: (1) is not a "televangelist," considering none of the sermons from his church can be viewed on television; (2) is an excellent choice for Obama in light of the fact that he (Obama) is trying to bridge the gap between liberals and evangelicals and everyone else in between; (3) appears to be more tolerant than you do based upon reading your response. I do not agree with many of Warren's views, but I do think that he has a right to believe what he chooses to believe (just as you and I do). Fighting intolerance with intolerance can only make things worse.
_____________________________

Oh. So, why then, doesn't Obama invite Rev. Mark Thomas, Aryan Nation?

Susan,

Rick Warren: (1) is not a "televangelist," considering none of the sermons from his church can be viewed on television; (2) is an excellent choice for Obama in light of the fact that he (Obama) is trying to bridge the gap between liberals and evangelicals and everyone else in between; (3) appears to be more tolerant than you do based upon reading your response. I do not agree with many of Warren's views, but I do think that he has a right to believe what he chooses to believe (just as you and I do). Fighting intolerance with intolerance can only make things worse.

Hi Pam,

"Barker is now co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation"

Isn't that the group who just put the atheist sign in the Washington State capital building right next to the nativity scene?

If that is true, he seems to have lost some of his gentle touch.

I was actually not a fan of that sign, believe it or not. Nor of the nativity scene. Neither of those things have any business being on display in a government building.

Here we go again with the sacrifice of Jesus as the "Unblemished Lamb of God". Give us a break!!!

Reality 101 with Professor JD Crossan:

(from his book, "Who is Jesus" co-authored with Richard Watts)

"Moreover, an atonement theology that says God sacrifices his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their sins might make some Christians love Jesus, but it is an obscene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse, and may infect our imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us."

"Traditionally, Christians have said, 'See how Christ's passion was foretold by the prophets." Actually, it was the other way around. The Hebrew prophets did not predict the events of Jesus' last week; rather, many of those Christian stories were created to fit the ancient prophecies in order to show that Jesus, despite his execution, was still and always held in the hands of God."

"In terms of divine consistency, I do not think that anyone, anywhere, at any time, including Jesus, brings dead people back to life."

One wonders what Thomas, the Hallucinator, Baum does not understand about this???

T-Bomb said:

"I am the guilty goat sent out into the desert of sin blessed by Aaron"

Keep your eyes peeled for the oasis of sanity.

Take care, be ready.

Timmy,
I think you'll like "Godless." It has a wealth of good arguments - more and better than most of the other books (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al.).

The thing that makes it better than most for believers to read, is that Dan Barker was once a committed fundamentalist preacher (began preaching at the age of 15), and he begins the book talking about those years; in effect easing them into his later enlightenment (then giving them the full force of his very capable mind). Barker is now co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Arrogance and stridency are a turn-off for believers (and pretty much anyone) and you end up with people who metaphorically put their hands over their ears and chant "nah, nah, nah, can't HEAR you!"

Bart Ehrman's story is similar, and his books have the same characteristic of imparting information without being insulting.

Merry Meet, Farnaz, and thank you for the kind words. I hope to live up to them, but there are days I can feel my knuckles dragging on the ground, if you know what I mean. (Mom believed in evolution, and also believed some of us were on the return trip!) :-)

EFave,
Comments are held (actually they're rejected) if they contain certain forbidden words, too many hyperlinks, or are over a certain length.

If the latter is the problem, just break up your post into parts.

Ah, Wiccan, you are such a human-type being. I will never be so evolved as you, unless I get to the secular equivalent of a monastery run by the equivalent of a deity.

jAMIL:
"The greeks,the tourch bearers of human rights and home of present day democracy, thinks that the earth shakes when a man lie with a man - that it is such a great sin.
how shamefully today we are trying to sanctify a vile act by claiming that gay marriage should be made legal.
I think warren is right to oppose it."

Sir, I admit that I'm just an ignorant Pagan, but I am capable of learning. Why is it such a great sin for a man to lie with a man? How does it cause the Earth to shake? (Is it like the metaphor, "I could feel the Earth move"?) How could it affect others than the two men involved? Just what is so vile about it that two humans who love each other must be kept apart? Is the vileness the same if two women are involved?

Jamil:

"The greeks,the tourch bearers of human rights and home of present day democracy, thinks that the earth shakes when a man lie with a man - that it is such a great sin."

See Plato, "The Republic."

The greeks,the tourch bearers of human rights and home of present day democracy, thinks that the earth shakes when a man lie with a man - that it is such a great sin.
how shamefully today we are trying to sanctify a vile act by claiming that gay marriage should be made legal.
I think warren is right to oppose it.

anyone else having trouble posting? My comments are being held for review. lets' see if this one posts.

TIMMY2

In the bible, Jesus is referred to as the Unblemished Lamb of God and He Is.

I am the guilty goat sent out into the desert of sin blessed by Aaron.

Merry Christmas.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Monotheism is powerful and viberant faith, its followers converge on divine Books - a froce keeps them one. Gay marriage is a sin for them.
On the contrary aethists are a group of people having divergent views - without any centripital force to tie them down.
Their views are their own imaginations and conjectures.
Then how the mice can bell a cat - Warren

CNNL

Go look at the commnets on Susan Thistlethwaite's thread. That guy Fitz4 needs your assistance. Please help him with your thoughts on "marriage sex" and other stuff like that.

CCNL,

Kindly recover from your current statistical perspective. What would it tell us about you and your rights? The best scientific minds say you are sui generis.

"He will continue to preach homosexuality is a sin punishable by eternal damnation, and other such hateful rhetoric that he is known for."

While I agree about the hatefulness of the rhetoric, I had the impression that Warren is less extreme overall than, say, James Dobson or Pat Robertson. Is that not the case?

I have no doubt that the choice of Warren is political, a calculated political move by a calculating politician. I voted for Obama knowing he didn't walk on water.

That isn't the point.

Somewhat surprising is that no one has brought into the discussion the number of gays in the USA.

For a fair analysis, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation#Modern_survey_results

From this analysis, it would appear gays alone do not have near the voting power to pass Federal gay "marriage" laws. Heterosexuals however might join forces if said gay unions were defined as unions of persons having certian sexual defects.

Timmy, Timmy, Timmy,

Get thee to course on basic sex. Might also want to check out Grey's Anatomy from your local library.

Pam,

With the rest of the western world so far ahead of us, I think it's time for "strident".

But I will read "Godless"

Colinnichoas and Pam,

Very well said Collin.

Pam, I really do get your philosophy, and Obama's. I hope that it will achieve exactly what you say. In fact I know that it will. But I'm not so sure the down side isn't worse. The message to the rest of the very secular western world is that Warren types still carry power in American politics.

And I can't stress enough, Colin Nicholas's point about the "group think". He said it better than I could. And Rick Warren's invitation onto the inaugural stage strengthens that "group think" quite powerfully. It's not a good thing. Then there is the insult to the GLBT, and the Jews, and the Muslims, and all those scheduled for eternal damnation.

I get the Obama strategy. But even he still believes in the sky fairy. And our world is in peril. And Obama, and everyone else who believes moderately or extremely, needs to hear what me, and Colin Nicholas, and Dan Dennet, and Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris, and Steven Weinberg, and Bill Maher and Carl Sagan, and Albert Einstein, and so many more are saying.

We should not stop saying what we are saying, any of us.
God is most unlikely.
God of the Bible is a blatant lie.

Hi again Timmy,
I hadn't seen parts 2 & 3. Just a couple of comments:

"Of course not. He's a sky fairy believer himself."

I'm not so sure of this. He says so, I know, but his actions and political positions don't say so. I think Michelle might be a believer, and Barack might just go along to get along, but his mother was not a believer, nor was his father, although the latter is not of much import. I tend to doubt the conversion. Call me a cynic, but I think it may have been more with an eye to political ambition.

"Raising awareness is so vital. Don't you think that the popularity of the new atheist books, and movies like Bill Mahers "religulous" are helping? I sure do. I'm just trying to pitch in. We all should."

I agree that we all should. I do. Not sure about the books and movie. I think they're brilliant, of course, but I can't get any of my religious friends to read/see them. Their heads are buried firmly in the sand. I think this media mainly ends up preaching to the choir. It was the same with Al Gore's movie, and all of Michael Moore's. If they are inclined to think the other way, they just won't go.

I do think that Dan Barker's Book, "Godless" is one that you might get some to read. It's less stridently written than some of the "always an atheist" books, and was written by someone who was once very religious himself. (But have them skip the Hitchens intro, or remove it.) Ditto with any of Bart Ehrman's books, such as "Misquoting Jesus."

CCNL
YOU: "Again, after all the rhetoric, gay sexual activity with or without a government-approved monogamous unions is still mutual masturbation"

So is hetero sex that does not result in a baby.
Which is almost all of it.
So pretty moot point.

YOU: "Gay sex" can never be called marriage sex because it fails to meet the basic physical and biological criteria.

Nonsense. There is no biological criteria for secular marriage.

YOU: And yes reiteration is a great educational tool

Unless point reiterated is moot. Then it's just sad.

Timmy2 and Pamsm

There's a strong groupthink effect that reinforces faithiness. When atheists speak out it weakens it a little bit and sometimes - a lot. Remember the Inquisition? Doubters weaken the groupthink so must be gotten rid of. Faith is fragile when doubt is about.
So we have to keep making sense, and like Timmy says attack the irrationality of it all.
Religious folk have to know that some people think that what they believe is totally absurd. It might be news to them, and make them think, and then to doubt and ponder.
It's about all an atheist can do, isn't it?

Again, after all the rhetoric, gay sexual activity with or without a government-approved monogamous unions is still mutual masturbation.
"Gay sex" can never be called marriage sex because it fails to meet the basic physical and biological criteria.

And yes reiteration is a great educational tool.

OK, Timmy. :)
I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye on this subject, but we're on the same side.

If you want to reach the largest numbers of believers, though, you should probably spend less time on Susan's page, where only a handful of very committed believers post.

Check out Fr. Joseph Langford's essay on Guest Voices if you want to read some really off-the-wall Catholic thought.

Hi Pam,

Part 3

YOU: They aren't looking for simple affirmation that God exists, or that Obama thinks so.

They already know both of those things.

YOU: They revere Warren because they think his book is full of wisdom. Have you ever looked at it? It's not a rant against gay marriage or a fire and brimstone treatise.

I know. It's his behavior beyond the book that is the problem.

YOU: It makes them feel more warmly towards Obama, and more likely to open up to his ideas

I hope so. But I don't have a lot of confidence. We need another front going at the same time. The new atheist front. Raise awareness. Criticize irrationality. Promote reason and science. Mock superstition. Make it embarrassing like it is now embarrassing in most areas of the country to be a racist. It became a thing that ignorant people are. We didn't get rid of racism by being nice to racists. We made it an embarrassing thing to be. Because it was irrational. Ignorant.

YOU: I don't think Obama aims to rid them of religion

Of course not. He's a sky fairy believer himself.

YOU: Not fast enough for you, I know; but Timmy, you aren't going to rid the world of religion overnight.

No no. Never said I could. We just need to speed things up and catch up the the rest of the western civilized world. Europe, Scandinavia, Canada, Australia..... The US is miles behind the western world's enlightenment. It's time to get busy.

Hi Pam,

Part 2

YOU: I don't recall a single convert in the time I've spent here. I can only hope that there are a few who will be inspired to think or read a bit more, but I'm by no means certain of it.

That's the best we can hope for on here. But work mostly with people you meet. I had some Christians come to my door the other day, right in the middle of my blogging. They asked if they could share a Bible verse with me. I said of course and I invited them in. There was an older woman and a young girl about 21. I told them that I was a non believer and they asked me why. I went through my reason and logic and I could see that the elder was not hearing me at all, but the 21 year old girl had never heard this stuff before. I could see it in her eyes. I got to her. I shook her faith, not in God, but in the people who have been telling her about God. I doubt she calls herself an atheist now, but she will begin to question and search and reason, and there is hope.

The more of this that we all do, the better. It all helps. But separation of church and state alone is not going to get us to where we need to get to fast enough. We need to work on those irrational beliefs. We need to do our best to undo the brainwashing done to people when they were children.

Raising awareness is so vital. Don't you think that the popularity of the new atheist books, and movies like Bill Mahers "religulous" are helping? I sure do. I'm just trying to pitch in. We all should.

YOU: "No. A step towards the people. By recognizing, rather than spurning, someone that they respect as a great and wise man"

Choosing someone else would not have been spurning him.

YOU: Maybe not, but neither would they have been drawn in.

Drawn into the inauguration? It will be a spectacle. Everyone will watch no matter who is giving the invocation.
Drawn into Obama's point of view? I don't see much hope of that.

YOU: (about the website) Maybe. Maybe not. You don't know what kind of deal was struck.

Watch.

Hi Pam,

YOU: "But these are your family and friends, and by your own admission, people who held no strong convictions"

Most religious moderates hold no strong convictions. The believe out of convenience, or lack of deep thought about it. One of my friends thought that there were verified historical records of Jesus' life and crusifiction. He was unaware that the gospels were written decades after the supposed life of Jesus by people who never met Jesus. And he had never been made aware of the problem of infinite regression in the God hypothesis.

YOU: This isn't the same as embarassing the vast Christian majority out of their beliefs.

No I never claimed we could do that. But there are millions and millions of moderates who have never thought about it deeply enough to consider the problem of infinite regression. Those who don't know that science can explain altruism and love. Most people who believe softly are unaware of the massive mountain of evidence , historical and scientific against the truth claims of the three main monotheisms.

YOU: Strangers, on the other hand, feel much the same, I imagine, about your attempts to change them, as I feel about Jehovah's Witnesses.

They might, but I don't approach it like I'm trying to change them. I just ask them questions about what they believe and then get them to go into more and more detail until they hear themselves sounding irrational. I point out the problem of infinite regression and other awareness raising exercises. The Jehovas would have stopped doing what they do long ago if it didn't work.

YOU: So I repeat, how do you reach them? By posting on this forum? It tends to attract the committed, on both sides.

Not all. It helps for everyone to hear the truth. Wether they are changed by it now, or later or never. They need to hear it. It's like putting the nasty pictures of cancerous lungs on a cigarette pack. Most smokers hated it but It worked on a lot of people.

Part 2
You said:
"A step towards irrationality and placating bigotry? No thanks. Never necessary."

No. A step towards the people. By recognizing, rather than spurning, someone that they respect as a great and wise man (and they do - no matter how wrong that seems to you and me). It's the way to open a dialogue. Who knows, maybe Obama is working on Pastor Rick, himself.

You said:
"And none of them would have been alienated by another choice."

Maybe not, but neither would they have been drawn in. I, on the other hand, would still have been offended that religion enters into it at all. :)

You said (about the Web site):
"For now. He'll be back to his old tricks in no time. Probably right after the inaugural."

Maybe. Maybe not. You don't know what kind of deal was struck.

You said:
"Any other member of the clergy would do the same trick. You really think that Warren's flock are going to listen more to Obama's liberal views because he let their pastor speak? Nope. They will just see it as a victory for their ideals and be all the more convinced that they truly speak for the real America."

I don't think so. They aren't looking for simple affirmation that God exists, or that Obama thinks so. They revere Warren because they think his book is full of wisdom. Have you ever looked at it? It's not a rant against gay marriage or a fire and brimstone treatise. Apart from its religious nature, you probably wouldn't find it terribly offensive.

These followers/admirers (and many, if not most, of them are moderate) are impressed when they see that Obama and Warren seem to be friendly - smiling and touching. It makes them feel more warmly towards Obama, and more likely to open up to his ideas.

I don't think Obama aims to rid them of religion - I don't think he has that power. But I do think that he feels that he can reach them on some level - at least a softening of their social views, or less of a knee-jerk reaction to liberal politics in general. It's a start. Not fast enough for you, I know; but Timmy, you aren't going to rid the world of religion overnight. Not saying you shouldn't try, but you should be steeled for disappointment.

Part 1

Hi Timmy,
You said: "...by raising awareness of the irrationality of these beliefs... I embarrassed my own mother out of her moderate belief in God... I have done the same with several of my friends..."

But these are your family and friends, and by your own admission, people who held no strong convictions. I've done the same with such people. This isn't the same as embarassing the vast Christian majority out of their beliefs. Friends and family are inclined to listen to you, unless they're, as you say, "too far gone."

Strangers, on the other hand, feel much the same, I imagine, about your attempts to change them, as I feel about Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormon missionaries knocking on my door, or proselytizers of various stripe accosting me in airports.

So I repeat, how do you reach them? By posting on this forum? It tends to attract the committed, on both sides. I don't recall a single convert in the time I've spent here. I can only hope that there are a few who will be inspired to think or read a bit more, but I'm by no means certain of it.

Arminius,

"As religion is concerned, the separation of church and state is what protects us, and prevents such misbegotten beliefs from taking over. The separation of church and state is our shield"

It hasn't worked. Gay people do not have equal rights. Global warming deniers vote for "Drill baby Drill" and our planet continues to heat up at a catastrophic rate, while one of our candidates for VP can't even admit that it is human caused because her religious beliefs deny science. Stem cell research which other countries are miles ahead of us now, continues to be stifled by religious belief alone. All of our law makers and the president of the union suffer from the God delusion. You have got to be kidding me that separation of church and state protects us from the heavy influence of irrational beliefs in our public policy. Clearly it has not. Clearly, it alone will not do the trick.

Hi Pam,

YOU SAID: "But you keep repeating that we need to educate people out of said superstitions, and how do you do that? Not by telling them that they're stupid. Not by ignoring them"

No, by raising awareness of the irrationality of these beliefs. Irrationality and stupid are not synonymous. I embarrassed my own mother out of her moderate belief in God, and it wasn't that hard. I just took her through the logic and history of it. And then pressed her to tell me why she believed and in what exactly. She is now an atheist. I have done the same with several of my friends. Two months ago, if you asked the singer Michael Buble if he believed in God he would tell you yes, he certainly does. Now he would say no. Because I talked him down. He had a moderate belief that he really hadn't thought about too deeply and he now calls himself an agnostic instead of a Christian.

For the far gone, this can not be done, I admit. But it does work on some moderate believers. It really does. And there are millions and millions of them.

YOU: "If you want them to listen to you, you have to take a step in their direction"

A step towards irrationality and placating bigotry? No thanks. Never necessary.

YOU: Like it or not, Warren has a huge following. His book, The Purpose-Driven Life, is second only to the bible in sales. This cannot be just from his own congregation - he has a following of religious moderates, too."

And none of them would have been alienated by another choice.

YOU: Changing his Web site is already a step in the right direction - that's millions of people who won't be reading that particular piece of nasty propaganda"

For now. He'll be back to his old tricks in no time. Probably right after the inaugural.

YOU: If you want all of his followers to hear what *you* (as in Obama) have to say, you start by getting them to tune in, not by writing them off and dimissing them out of hand"

Any other member of the clergy would do the same trick. You really think that Warren's flock are going to listen more to Obama's liberal views because he let their pastor speak? Nope. They will just see it as a victory for their ideals and be all the more convinced that they truly speak for the real America.

T Bomb,

You wrote: "Since you believe that some people's beliefs are irrational, do you think that your belief should be forced on others?"

No. Do you think that is what I'm doing by just talking about it?

YOU: "In what they, the founding fathers, wrote, they were equally against, coersion for and coersion against religion"

In government. Me too.

I think we're on the same page here.

TIMMY2

You wrote, "You wrote, " We need to fix people's irrational beliefs as well as shutting them out of government."

Then explained, "Shut "them" out refers to the religious beliefs, not the people. And the constitution is clear on that. Separation of church and state was of utmost important to the founding fathers.

As for irrational beliefs, I'm talking about other people, not you. Your belief is not irrational because you have had direct contact with God.

Since you believe that some people's beliefs are irrational, do you think that your belief should be forced on others?

I happen to believe that the founding fathers were divinely inspired when they wrote about freedom of religion because belief does not come from coersion and they also did not wish to set up any kind of theocracy, which keeps in line with what Jesus said when He said, "My Kingdom is not of this world".

In what they, the founding fathers, wrote, they were equally against, coersion for and coersion against religion.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Timmy says:
"I do not act like spidey, and I have never called anyone an idiot. Nor do I condone such behavior. I am always polite to people. But not to irrational beliefs. "

I wasn't accusing you of acting like Spidey - I was just saying that Obama shouldn't go to that playbook.

Look, Farnaz doesn't need to keep quoting the L.A.Times article to convince me that Warren's thinking is about as far as possible from my own, and you don't need to convince me that it would be far better if everyone gave up their superstitions. I'm there. But you keep repeating that we need to educate people out of said superstitions, and how do you do that? Not by telling them that they're stupid. Not by ignoring them.

If you want them to listen to you, you have to take a step in their direction.

Like it or not, Warren has a huge following. His book, The Purpose-Driven Life, is second only to the bible in sales. This cannot be just from his own congregation - he has a following of religious moderates, too.

Changing his Web site is already a step in the right direction - that's millions of people who won't be reading that particular piece of nasty propaganda.

If you want all of his followers to hear what *you* (as in Obama) have to say, you start by getting them to tune in, not by writing them off and dimissing them out of hand.

WaPo op-ed writers, E.J. Dionne and Richard Cohen look at both sides of this controversy in today's columns. Both are interesting reads, but Dionne's resonates more with me - see both here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/?hpid=opinionsbox1

"Love thine enemies - it'll drive 'em nuts"
~"Brother" Dave Gardner

I'm a straight Pagan woman, and I'm offended by Rick Warren giving the invocation. Not only for my GLBT friends, but because he's a Dominionist, has called for the assassination of a foreign leader, thinks all Jews are going to Hell, and is a snake-oil salesman. And yes, a Christian friend of mine who has read his work thinks he's a snake-oil salesman and a fraud.

If Obama wanted to reach out to the Christian Right, why couldn't he have chosen someone like Rev. T.D. Jakes, who actively supported him besides their differences? Warren set up a trap, and Obama walked right into it. I'm wondering how much this invitation was a quid-pro-quo for attending Warren's little gab session back in September.

Timmy,

'Mobarchy' is rule by the mob, irrational rule by the majority. One intent of our Constitution was to prevent this.

Yes, of course, any irrational beliefs of the mob will affect public policy. As religion is concerned, the separation of church and state is what protects us, and prevents such misbegotten beliefs from taking over. The separation of church and state is our shield. Yes, we need the sword of legal and political activism to bring about the change of equal rights to all, including gays.

Stinker,

Sorry about the name thing. I always misread these punny names.

"You said that nobody on the atheist side is trying to take away people's rights. CCNL shows this rule to be false"

Incorrect.
The "atheist side" is that God does not exist. That is all the atheist side is. This assertion takes away no ones rights. CCNL's homophobia is not "the atheist side". That is CCNL's side. Even though he may be an atheist as well.

The religious side does however try to take away other peoples rights, as a group. Their book calls it a sin. That is the religious side. There is no "atheist side" when it comes to gay marriage. That is an individual choice.

You seem to be making the old theist argument that atheism is a thing like religion is a thing. Atheism only exists in the discourse of God or no God. It does not factor into Gay marriage. But religion does.

-----------------------------------------------

YOU: People have every right to vote based on their religious or any other beliefs"

Of course, I never said otherwise.

YOU: They do not have the right to impose those beliefs on others and the separation of church and state in our Constitution generally prevents them from doing so.

No. See prop 8 and other government bans on gay marriage.

YOU: Thus, separation of church and state which is almost always enforced by the Constitution is absolutely useful for stopping the Sarah Palins of the world from forcing their irrational beliefs on everybody else"

How, when they can block stem cell research and new energy policies with their vote based on irrational beliefs? This they have been doing for decades.

YOU: "And as long as they don't force their irrational beliefs on others, their irrational beliefs are almost completely harmless"

How does separation of Church and state stop parents from forcing God belief on their children (our future) via brainwashing (child abuse)????

This, by the way, is the only reason so many people still hold these irrational beliefs, like "Gay is a sin" and "global warming is in God's hands". The child abuse of parents sending their kids to Jesus Camp, or just holding a little Jesus camp rith in their very own home.

Criticize irrational beliefs wherever you find them, hear them, see them. Make it embarrassing to hold these irrational beliefs. Separation of church and state alone will not do the trick.

I will add, having Rick Warren speak, does the exact opposite of "making it embarrassing to hold the opinion that gay is a sin". It makes it mainstream.

Arminius,

"So, then, are you saying that mobarchy in America will defy our Constitution, and the rule of law? Do you really think that Americans will overthrow our First Amendment?"

I am not familiar with the term "mobarchy" so I don't know what you mean here.

I am saying that even with separation of church and state, the irrational beliefs of monotheism will still affect our public policy so long as a large majority of the public continue to hold these irrational beliefs. (eg. Gay is a sin)

Separation of church and state alone is not enough. Gay people will never get their rights until we fix people's irrational beliefs. And we do that by being outspoken about irrational beliefs. Make it embarrassing to hold the position that gay is a sin.

Daniel,

"And then ONE minute later, not a single person in the entire United States will be able to remember what he said"

Nonsense. Warren will then continue on as he is. He will continue to preach homosexuality is a sin punishable by eternal damnation, and other such hateful rhetoric that he is known for. And every time he does, everyone will remember that he is the guy who gave Obama's invocation. In the eyes of his followers, his bigoted views will be vindicated, because the prez, who also believes in the magic sky fairy asked him to speak.

I couldn't disagree with you more on this point. The sky will not fall, but this will not be forgotten about so long as Rick Warren continues to be Rick Warren. And we know that he will.

YOU: It is possible that Obama has not really even given it much thought. With the banks freezing up, and the car companies going bankrupt, and all the cleaning up after Bush's mess, and fumigating the Whitehouse, maybe he just didn't get around to caring about this"

Again, this is nonsense. If this were the case, he would not have chosen Warren. This was a calculated move to be sure.

YOU: "I am sure he will make mistakes, and do things that I will not like, but I would like to give him a pass on things, AT LEAST until his term as President starts"

Well I'm not calling for impeachment. Just pointing out a bad move.

T Bomb,

"This seems to speak volumns of what you think of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution"

Shut "them" out refers to the religious beliefs, not the people. And the constitution is clear on that. Separation of church and state was of utmost important to the founding fathers.

As for irrational beliefs, I'm talking about other people, not you. Your belief is not irrational because you have had direct contact with God.

Take care. Be ready.

TIMMY2

You wrote, " We need to fix people's irrational beliefs as well as shutting them out of government."

This seems to speak volumns of what you think of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

I am expecting Rick Warren to speak for a few minutes, maybe only 2 or 3, maybe even less. I am expecting a boiler plate prayer. Even though I am sure that he voted for McCain, I expect that he will rejoice that America has elected a black President, and will pontificate a little about how great that makes America. And he might dabble a little into America being the greatest country in the world. And he might touch on the recent economic down-turn, and say a little something about humility, a pray for the people suffering now. And yada-yada-yada- and he's DONE! Presto!

And then ONE minute later, not a single person in the entire United States will be able to remember what he said. And if Obama had picked someone "better" or "worse" than Warren, the prayer would be the same, and we would all forget about it just as quickly.

I understand the principle here that people are trying to make. Yet, really this is almost a royal coronation, with an entrenched protocol that "one follows" because that is how it has "always been done."

It is possible that Obama has not really even given it much thought. With the banks freezing up, and the car companies going bankrupt, and all the cleaning up after Bush's mess, and fumigating the Whitehouse, maybe he just didn't get around to caring about this.

I don't fault him for it all. I am sure he will make mistakes, and do things that I will not like, but I would like to give him a pass on things, AT LEAST until his term as President starts.

Timmy said,

"Like I have said, you can separate church and state all you like, but if the voting populous have irrational beliefs, and they apply their beliefs in their voting, separation of church and state is useless."

So, then, are you saying that mobarchy in America will defy our Constitution, and the rule of law? Do you really think that Americans will overthrow our First Amendment?

Timmy2,

FYI it's FreeStinker, not Freethinker. It's an important distinction!

------------------------------------------------

I said:
"I agree with you in general but all it takes is one atheist homophobe (like CCNL) to break your rule"

You asked:
What rule is that?

You said that nobody on the atheist side is trying to take away people's rights. CCNL shows this rule to be false. Generally true, but not always. We should be careful not to generalize the way that many relgionists do. It's sloppy thinking or at least imprecise writing.

-----------------------------------------------

I said:
"If you support equal rights and church/state separation, these distintions are very important."

You replied:
"Indeed.
I don't think that helps any though with global warming and the Sarah Palin "It's all part of God's plan" problem. Like I have said, you can separate church and state all you like, but if the voting populous have irrational beliefs, and they apply their beliefs in their voting, separation of church and state is useless. We need to fix people's irrational beliefs as well as shutting them out of government. Two fronts are better than one."

I disagree. People have every right to vote based on their religious or any other beliefs. They do not have the right to impose those beliefs on others and the separation of church and state in our Constitution generally prevents them from doing so. Banning coersive prayer in public schools being just one of many examples. Thus, separation of church and state which is almost always enforced by the Constitution is absolutely useful for stopping the Sarah Palins of the world from forcing their irrational beliefs on everybody else. And as long as they don't force their irrational beliefs on others, their irrational beliefs are almost completely harmless.

E Favorite,

"In this case, when I said "...a lot of people don’t make the connection between one set of prejudices and another...." I wasn't insinuating anything about atheists, or any other particular group. I meant it generally, just as I stated it"

My bad. I've just heard that line a million times on these threads that by trashing irrational beliefs we atheists are trying to deny the rights of the believer to believe.

YOU: "Regarding the other quotes you responded to -- they were not mine. Look closely at my post and you'll see I said that I lifted those quotes from comments on WaPo columns today as examples of other Obama supporters who were not offended by having Warren give the convocation"

Sorry, I assume you posted them because you agreed with them.
Oops, there I go assuming again.

Free,

"That's true but you do hoodwink the dividers when you force them to divide themselves"

And how does the Warren invocation do that?

---------------------------------------------

"He is solidifying his mandate by alienating the idealogues on both sides"

How does asking the leader if the right wing ideologues to speak alienating them?

----------------------------------------------

Let's not be so idealist when pragmatism will likely produce greater results.

I see no pragmatism in having a raving lunatic who offends so many speak when there are a million choices that would have sent a real message of inclusion without offending anyone in Warren's church.

Timmy - in the future when you think I'm insinuating something, please ask me if that's what I'm doing before calling me on it. I'm not one to insinuate, but it's possible that I might do it sometime. If it's pointed out to me, I think I'd admit it.

In this case, when I said "...a lot of people don’t make the connection between one set of prejudices and another...." I wasn't insinuating anything about atheists, or any other particular group. I meant it generally, just as I stated it.

Regarding the other quotes you responded to -- they were not mine. Look closely at my post and you'll see I said that I lifted those quotes from comments on WaPo columns today as examples of other Obama supporters who were not offended by having Warren give the convocation.

Freethinker,

"I agree with you in general but all it takes is one atheist homophobe (like CCNL) to break your rule"

What rule is that?

If you support equal rights and church/state separation, these distintions are very important.

Indeed.
I don't think that helps any though with global warming and the Sarah Palin "It's all part of God's plan" problem. Like I have said, you can separate church and state all you like, but if the voting populous have irrational beliefs, and they apply their beliefs in their voting, separation of church and state is useless. We need to fix people's irrational beliefs as well as shutting them out of government. Two fronts are better than one.

"You don't show a new era of inclusion by asking a clear divider to speak."

That's true but you do hoodwink the dividers when you force them to divide themselves.

---------------------------------------------

"He is wasting his mandate."

He is solidifying his mandate by alienating the idealogues on both sides.

----------------------------------------------

"Let's not be so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance."

Let's not be so idealist when pragmatism will likely produce greater results.

You don't show a new era of inclusion by asking a clear divider to speak.

He is wasting his mandate.

Let's not be so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance.

Timmy2,

I agree with you in general but all it takes is one atheist homophobe (like CCNL) to break your rule. Likewise, there are plenty of theists who support gay marriage and would never use the law to force their religious opinions on anyone else. If you support equal rights and church/state separation, these distintions are very important.

Opinion
Rick Warren is an insulting choice
Preacher Rick Warren's views are simply too extreme for Obama's supporters.
By Katha Pollitt
December 22, 2008

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton -- or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that in a million years. Republicans respect their base even when, as in McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor.

Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters -- feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war, members of the reality-based community -- by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Continued--On Rick Warren--From LA Times !2/22/08

Most Americans who've heard of Warren know him as the teddy-bearish, Hawaiian-shirted head of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County and the author of "The Purpose Driven Life." Perhaps they also know he's the rare right-wing Christian pastor who sometimes talks about poverty and global warming and HIV. His concern for those issues has given him a reputation as a moderate and has made him the darling of Democratic Party think tanks, ever hoping to break the Republican lock on the white evangelical vote.

But on the signal issues of the religious right he is, as he himself has said, as orthodox as James Dobson.

And as inflammatory. Warren doesn't just oppose gay marriage, he's compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn't just want to ban abortion, he's compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis and the pro-choice position to Holocaust denial. (Hmmm ... If a fertilized egg is as precious as a born Jewish human being, does that mean a born Jewish human being is only as valuable as a fertilized egg?)

Speaking of Jews, Warren has publicly stated his belief that they will burn in hell, presumably along with everyone else who hasn't accepted his particular brand of Christianity (i.e., the vast majority of people in the world). And forget about evolution -- the existence of homosexuals, he's argued, disproves Darwin. And while we may not know how old the Earth is, the Saddleback website assures us that dinosaurs and humans coexisted.

Warren claims that his views are mainstream, pointing out that in 30 states, the majority of voters have banned gay marriage. Popular doesn't mean right, of course, but regardless of what Americans think about gay marriage, on other so-called social issues, he's way out in far-right field.

Take abortion. Most Americans, whatever their personal feelings, are pro-choice. On election day, anti-choice initiatives went down to defeat in all three states where they were on the ballot. Most Americans do not think the one-third of American women who terminate a pregnancy are running a concentration camp in their wombs, and would have no trouble choosing between saving a Jew from a gas chamber and a fertilized egg from a fire

Continued from L.A. Times 12/22/98

Or take marriage. At his Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband's "leadership" even when he's wrong on important issues, such as finances. Never mind if she's an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids' college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be "yes, dear." Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?

Or take foreign policy. In electing Obama, Americans overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's Wild West approach to foreign policy. Apparently Warren didn't get that memo either. Unlike many evangelical preachers, he issued a statement against torture, but despite his access to Bush, he told Beliefnet.com that he never raised the subject of torture with him. ("I just didn't have the opportunity," he said -- although he apparently found plenty of time to lecture Obama about abortion.)

On "Hannity & Colmes," he agreed that the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should be killed because "the Bible says God puts government on Earth to punish evildoers." Really? The Bible says the United States should murder the leaders of other sovereign states? How many other heads of state does Warren want to do away with? If Ahmadinejad, who is, after all, a more-or-less democratically elected leader, had shared his inauguration with an imam who had called on national television for the assassination of President Bush, Americans would be calling for the nuking of Tehran.

In a news conference Thursday, Obama defended the choice of Warren: "It is important for the country to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues." That's all very well, but excuse me if I don't feel all warm and fuzzy. Obama won thanks to the strenuous efforts of people who've spent the last eight years appalled by the Bush administration's wars and violations of human rights, its attacks on gays and women, its denigration of science, its general pandering to bigotry and ignorance in the name of God.

I'm all for building bridges, but honoring Warren, who insults Obama's base as perverts and murderers, is definitely a bridge too far.

Katha Pollitt, a poet, essayist and critic, writes the "Subject to Debate" column in the Nation. She is the author, most recently, of "Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories."

Freethinker,

"I've been arguing with one on another site for weeks"

One is not plenty. CCNL is the only one I've seen on this blog and he's just playing troublemaker.

"Atheists are right about the complete lack of evidence for any supernatural beings but they have yet to corner the market of reason across the board"

Atheists are not a group or a religion with any doctrine of any kind. Other than disbelief in a ridiculous unfounded posit, we have nothing else that binds us together in a group. The anti gay atheists you have come across are not anti gay because of their atheist beliefs, where as theists are definitely bigots due to their bigoted faith. This distinction is of utmost importance.

My point to E Fave was countering her insinuation that the atheists who are being vocal against religion were guilty of trying to deny the rights of anyone. They are not.

"No one on the atheist side has suggested denying a single right to anyone!"

Timmy2,

Not true. There are plenty of atheist homophobes who seek to deny a marriage license to same-sex couples for no good reason. I've been arguing with one on another site for weeks. Atheists are right about the complete lack of evidence for any supernatural beings but they have yet to corner the market of reason across the board.

E Favorite,

YOU: "from what I’ve seen a lot of people don’t make the connection between one set of prejudices and another. They demand rights for their own group, while blithely and unconsciously denying rights for other groups"

No one on the atheist side has suggested denying a single right to anyone! The same obviously can not be said of the Rick Warren side. It is they who deny the rights of others. All we do is criticize those who are delusional in their beliefs. That is not denying anyone anything. It is just constructive dialogue that is necessary. We call for no ban on religion. What are you on about here????

E Favorite,

"By inviting the enemy in is the first step to quash the ideals (of Warren and other Righties)"

By letting Warren give the invocation he legitimizes their ideals in front of the whole world. This puts the end goal further away and up hill to boot. You act as though the alternative is to slap warren in the face and start a war with him. Nonsense. Getting another more inclusive member of the clergy to give the invocation would not have offended a single Warren follower. Unless they somehow caught wind that Obama had made some kind of deal to have him speak and then took it away. But that wasn't the case. Your implication that the alternative to having Warren speak is starting a war with his flock is absolute nonsense. No one would have been offended at many many other choices. Millions in America and around the globe are offended, and rightly so, by Warren.

YOU write: "The dogmas of the church is slowly but surely eroding"

To bad our environment isn't eroding at an equally slow pace.

YOU: OBAMA's message of inclusion may be exactly what the liberals need!

Warren is no message of inclusion. That is yours and Obama's disconnect here. So many other members of the clergy would represent a message of inclusion. Warren does not.

YOU: "Bring in the Right and from there we may have a chance to moderate them!"

You can bring in the religious without using a divider with exclusionary ideals to give your invocation. We're trying to reach out to the religious right, not to Rick Warren's flock. A less controversial preacher would do the trick just fine.

There are choices that would have offended no one. Not atheists, not Rick Warren's flock or anyone in between.

American can not afford to move away from religious bigotry and ignorance at the pace set by this move. Global warming will have consumed our species long before this plan gets around to making delusionals realize that we are in fact the cause of it. This plan will have us hearing the chant "drill baby drill" for decades to come. We just don't have that kind of time.

The community that you think we need to placate have been marginalized by the people's landslide choice of Obama. Obama was given a mandate to shut them out. (not republicans, just the loons on the far right of that party) Take the mandate Obama! Use it! That's what we gave it to you for. There's no time for legitimizing a charlatan like Warren. There's no need to.

Daniel,

It doesn't worry me either. It's still the wrong decision.
You don't show how you are going to be a uniter by asking a divider to speak. As a uniter to speak. There are plenty of clergy who are uniters. There are plenty of options available to Obama that would offend no one, including members of Warrens church.

Once more, from Bill Maher:

"Lets not be so tolerant that we tolerate intolerance"

CBH,

Your posts are 0% argument and fact, and 100% ad hominem attack with no back up.
Nice work.