Old Souls

[flipflop]

Richard Dawkins is the epitome of arrogance.

I'm just glad he doesn't have to suicide bomb himself and others to further his "arrogant" viewpoint.

Cheers

[denise]

Richard Dawkins is the epitome of arrogance.

I'm just glad he doesn't have to suicide bomb himself and others to further his "arrogant" viewpoint.

Cheers

of course he doesn't, why do you think God invented the English language?

cheers, yourself

[flipflop]

of course he doesn't, why do you think God invented the English language?

So you could butcher it the way you colonials do

Chee-arse

[Sri Lanky]

....because a handful of lunatics suicide/homicide bomb we're supposed to deny spirituality all together?

The Russians are the biggest slimeballs on the planet....because they tried to kill any semblance of God thinking man could do it on his own.


Arrogance.

[flipflop]

....because a handful of lunatics suicide/homicide bomb we're supposed to deny spirituality all together?

Nope, only the parts with the big guy in the sky and the "spare-rib" crap, eating crackers that are the literal body of Christ, immaculate conception, and maybe the 72 virgins and killing of apostates parts etc, etc

The Russians are the biggest slimeballs on the planet....because they tried to kill any semblance of God thinking man could do it on his own.


Arrogance.

What was Soviet Communism if not a secular religion? The Red bastards even have their own deities - Mao, Lenin, Kim etc. Remember the 'socialist biology' of the USSR, which was supposedly a counterpoint to the 'reactionary' Darwin?

Anyway, the Soviets oppressed all sections of society, including the Russian Orthodox church, but I bet they never did it for, or in the name of 'atheism'

Instead of calling Dawkins et al "arrogant", why not try arguing against their points, with serious points of your own. That's how rational people behave - think of the alternatives, better still, don't bother - watch them on the daily news bulletins from the Middle East

Cheers

[Kurt]

of course he doesn't, why do you think God invented the English language?

So you could butcher it the way you colonials do

Chee-arse

They are separate but similar languages but share the same name. It is the reason we appear to be gormless when the word gormless is used. We don't use it except in examples.

[Sri Lanky]

I completely agree with Dawkins as to the evolutionary process but so what?

I'm saying it's only a part of reality,a part of the truth.

It's not the whole story.

I myself do not believe in a separate external intelligent creator.My spirituality is fluid,constantly changing. It comes from within.

Who cares about molecules?

[flipflop]

I completely agree with Dawkins as to the evolutionary process but so what?

I'm saying it's only a part of reality,a part of the truth.

It's not the whole story.

I myself do not believe in a separate external intelligent creator.My spirituality is fluid,constantly changing. It comes from within.

Who cares about molecules?

Your own spirituality is fine, it's harmless to the outside world, my beef is with organised religion and it's absurd concepts. I'm not so blinkered I can't see the limits of scientific progress. There may be things we will never find out about the universe - we will never see the "edge" anyway, it's expanding faster than the speed of light (and speeding up) and therefore can never be "seen" by the human eyeball - unless the 'big crunch' begins.

I take on board the epistemological argument that all human knowledge may be built on a straw bed - we can only experience what our sense data tell us about the universe and the ultimate reality behind our puny five senses may be something entirely different. But that situation remains in the minds of philosophers and mystics for the moment, perhaps forever. You can't argue a viewpoint that can't be proved or disproved, it's a futile exercise and remains an abstract problem.

I can't put a higher form of existence/power in the universe without evidence - that's the key word here - evidence, without it I can't accept any worldview that has unprovable tenets. There may be a point to it all, a higher purpose, but it remains in fantasyland until that undeniable evidence comes in.

Cheers

[Sri Lanky]

Well,there always has to be a mystery otherwise life wouldn't be worth living.

The infinite doesn't require evidence.

Fuck,everytime I get a sense of this I get stuck...I think it's that dual/non-dual thing.

[flipflop]

Life can be both meaningless and worth living, it's how you go about living it that counts. A good writer to read on this very subject is Albert Camus, especially his book []The Rebel[/i]. Or check out Epicurus - the so-called "Dark Philosopher" - for an earlier refutation of religious dogma and love of the good life. Though of the latter we only have fragments of his philosophy, predictably enough the Catholic Church destroyed most of his writing and repressed any thinking attributed to him. The Bastards.

Cheers

[Sri Lanky]

This is part of the problem. The Church has done more damage to peoples' attitude towards spirituality than anybody else.

I mean,priests giving it to boys in their poopshoot.....c'mon.

The biggest turn-off for me is evangelism.

A lot of Saints were previously killers and thieves so I think you have to understand evil within yourself to really know the good. It's no good going through life praying to little baby Jesus and expecting spiritual growth....you have to step on that path,which can be dangerous. But when your dealing with the smashing of the human ego.....

[Wayne]

Yorick, do you know Mike Tymn? (metaphysics scholar, former national caliber runner who now resides in Hawaii?)

He's a friend of a friend. I was just curious.

Thanks.

[Sri Lanky]

Cool

[denise]

it is interesting that you mention meaning, flipflop. i remember thinking it odd when i would talk to people about there lives and they would relay it to me as if it were an ongoing narrative, when i never thought of my own life that way. i have a mind that seems pre-programmed with an unceasing desire to understand everything, and as a result i spent a lot of time thinking about the cosmos, particularly the vast and the minute with the unspoken hypothesis that if i could unlock their mysteries, i could understand the nature of everything in between. i also, like a great many others, spend a great deal of time observing, questioning, and thinking about human nature.

there came a time not so long ago when i realized that my life was a story, too. and that i was more reactor than writer or director of the tome, and that not only did it have meaning, but potentially a very important meaning. that my life was not just a series of haphazard events, but specific and directed, and that it was the innate person underneath it all that what left to respond to the circumstances. for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health as they say. and that knowlege has made life more difficult for me, believe it or not. my outrage and the assault on my pride and autonomy have been almost impossible to overcome yet nothing compared to the shock of finding out that my entire worldview was not only inaccurate, but incomplete in the profoundest yet most fundementally simple way. let's just say i know the true meaning of nihilism. it is something your kind expects but would never desire with an intensity that outstrips all other reason and emotion, even if you were morbidly suicidal. the desire to cease to all existence because there is nothing that can compel you to exist. one cannot know the meaning of freedom or choice unless one understands true reality, and true reality is very hard to take.

anyway, i still love astronomy and quantum physics, but i now devote myself to the struggle here. on this planet for these people and for their future.

[denise]

yorick love, i need to edit this a smidge, and not for content.

conversely, you could delete the whole fucking thing ;)