Does it take an intellectual to knock God??

[austintorn@aol.com]

perhaps a mechanism would be to bring together a few recognized leaders from science and religion
- to lock 'em in a room together and told not to emerge until they've gotten their 'heads around' the other's point of view.

At the Really Big Religious Meeting Referenced Above

Many of the claimers of absolute knowledge had been gathered into a conference room, for here they would be face to face with all the variant and differing proved beliefs of ultimate truth that were so indubitable to each of their sponsors. Here there would be none of the ‘neglect’ of contradictions, for while the individual beliefs were very personal and unassailable since they each had thought of them, there would be unavoidable conflict.

We knew, too, that they would get angry and so, to accelerate the process, itching powder had been sprayed into the air beforehand.

“There are no gods, just ways of life indicated by the consciousness of the universe.”

“Nope, there is one God.”

“Ha, hardly. There are many Gods, Krishna just being of of the better known ones.”

Wham! “Go eat a sacred cow!”

Baam! “There is no Heaven or Hell.”

Whammo! “Have a nice trip there.”

“My all loving God wouldn’t torture anyone in Hell; that’s more like a Devil would do.”

Punch! “Don’t call my God a Devil.”

“No change to what ‘is’ is needed.”

“What! One must greatly reduce or banish the ego altogether! It is Satan.”

“Well, can’t use an ego to banish an ego.”

“The ego will surely be gone after death.”

“But we never die; we are an ongoing dream.”

“Jesus was Divine, Jewish-head.”

“No way, Islamic monster; You stole that concept.”

“Death to you, infidel. Mohammed is the main man, for an Angel told him everything to do.”

“God talked to me and said that the Book of Mormon is the true faith.”

“Go home to your 12 wives, you nut case—and I hope you run out of Viagra.”

“Your faith is a wrong one; die unsaved!”

So, whence come beliefs of faith about the unknown unseen supernatural? From imagination, just as with all myths. How do we know? The imaginations came up with so many differing claims.

Whither whence do we all hurry hence, willy-nilly, thrust into this world not knowing? Should we use science to tell what can be known? Or imagine imaginings to ‘tell’ us what is [not]?


Well, what do you think, people? Wait, don’t just tell me that your own variation is the right way, for others could say that, too, and so it would be meaningless.

The general template for stating one’s Supernatural beliefs:

I believe in the _______ such and such that appeared in my mind as a idea about the supernatural although it has never been observed during all of time and I cannot conceive of how to observe it or ever prove it, but it seems like a good idea so I’m saying it anyway.

Standard answer: All one can know is what is seen and that one is here, so, just be free [in it], as is, and enjoy.

[SB_UK]

If the various groups can't reconcile their views -
and live harmoniously

then th'end.

Pretty sure that everybody (here's) right -
always the way with the innate -

- the problem is that the animal we're about to get over needs another to be wrong
to be correct.

A problem - is that.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Originators of Myth

Some mammals got together on a pale blue dot of a planet in the middle of nowhere of a Space so large as to be incomprehensible.

“Hey guys, the Universe is getting older and is spreading apart, so I guess it had an origin.”

“Hey, ya, a lot of stuff appeared 13.75 billion years ago. What a massive outpouring of material!”

“Some kind of rift or cleft in space?”

“Can’t say.”

“Some stuff just had to be and so it went forth?”

“Who knows.”

“It was around forever someplace else and it came here?”

“Well, I don’t know, but it’s here. Let’s go with the origin thing.”

“OK. What’s this origin?”

“Can’t say any more about the origin. Really.”

“Anything unusual about the stuff?”

“Well, it combines into composite stuff.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Who knows; there is not much trace of the origin itself.”

“What did it do in the early days?”

“Stars formed and some exploded.”

“Well, we know the rest of that story.”

“True, what can we make up about the origin?”

“Nothing more to say.”

“I mean, how about just for fun and meaning?”

“Well, let’s say that it is a Giant Person Being.”

“Where did It come from?”

“Who knows, but let’s continue.”

“Let’s say that that we are very special creatures.”

“OK, that’s great. Then what?”

“So, then, let’s say that It really wanted to make us in particular and so that’s why It made the universe.”

“How come?”

“Who knows.”

“Make something up.”

“It wanted to test us?”

“Why?”

“Who knows.”

“Is this Giant Person Being smart?”

“Who knows, but let’s say that It knows everything.”

“What does it want?”

“Who knows, but let’s just say that it wants adoration and acceptance of Itself.”

“OK, but what should we make up for the rest of its will?”

“Let’s say it wants us to remove our egos.”

“That’s not likely. How about that it wants to bring us where It is. Remember the testing thing?”

“Yes, let’s say that there is a great place that we can go to if we pass the test.”

“Oh, I’m all for that—and if we fail the test we’ll go someplace really bad.”

“Hey, you guys, I was thinking of this kind of stuff and the origin talked to me.

“What! You saw It?”

“No, it spoke in my mind to me.”

“Good, you can be our prophet. What did It say?”

“It will mate with a teen-age Jewish Earthling woman and have a child.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, and the child will wash away all our sins. Then the Jews and the Romans will kill him and the Jews will not believe that he was the son of the origin, but some Romans will grow to like him after his death when he reappears for a few days.”

“That’s a good one. OK, let’s go tell everyone.” …

… “Hey people, we made up some things about the origin, like that which you made up about good and evil spirits in nature, only this is way bigger and better.”

“Thanks, let’s pray to it and ask for things.”

“We could build a whole ceremony around this to make it look more real, you know, with some holy-holy motions.”

“We’ll make special buildings for this purpose.”

(later) “Hey, some other groups made up some different stuff—and they have buildings too, but with statues of Angels in them. And there’s more, some with many Gods, some with no tests, some that say they alone have been chosen, one even with the ego banning thing, some with just a human founder, and one with 72 ladies a-waiting.”

“Those fools are making us look wrong. Let’s go wipe out those wild maker-uppers.”

“Yes, for it’s our way or the highway.”

“But, we made it all up! No one can know the unknowable.”

“No one realizes that anymore. They have absorbed it and it is a part of them. Heck, it is them now.”

“But, we are no more special than any of the other 40 million species that evolved from the environment!”

“So what. The other invented beliefs are damaging our credibility. Let’s call them weird and wipe them out.”

The origin yet remains silent to this day, having gone away, perhaps to originate some stuff somewhere else, wherein the creatures will again paint it in their own likeness.

Somewhere: Some stuff appeared…

Wait! There’s a tiny crack. Something is seeping out. They’re trying to patch the opening. Some stuff is appearing. Oh, no—it’s a great rift; it’s ripping and growing larger exponentially! Massive amounts of material are rushing out. Oh my God! I’m out of here.

[The phenomenon of reliably consistent creation by causal intelligence lying behind it is philosophically and logically impossible without more causal intelligence lying behind it, etc., that is, a system of intelligent mind is a system, having parts beneath that are more fundamental than the resultant system. Where does it end (begin)? It cannot be with mind, for mind is composite. The regress must end.]

[SB_UK]

The problem rests with man and not with religion per se.

The uneducated mind will reach out for a God which it can believe.

The only solution to this problem comes through construction of a logical argument
- offering it as simply as possible to another
... ... ... and then waiting.

We're in danger of alienating the very people we need to communicate with if we're openly critical.

Guess it comes down to what we want to achieve -
if it's a better world
- then we're going to have to learn to talk in the language which other's can hear.

The classical fundamentalist will be difficult to educate -
- but he'll have friends.

Tough to educate without touching another's sensibilities -
I think it may only be possible by laying out the facts
'as is'
and hoping.

Change from above in the hierarchy of religions would be the fastest route to change -
- I don't really know how open-minded the highest level are (within the religious community) -

however the Dalai Lama seems nice.

(from his wikipedia page)

(Unlike GB and Arthur I don't know anybody).

[SB_UK]

and strive to know fewer.

I don't much like people.

~*~

The incapacity to understand that the individual has the greatest shot at happiness if all individuals around him are happy.
Instead he chases an exclusive detached home with double garage in the posh part of town.

~*~

The problem lies with man.

[austintorn@aol.com]

however the Dalai Lama seems nice

I knew the Great Lama of the U.S.…

Well, do wonders never cease—our New Hamburg Cafe, my “office”, has closed, but, its Garden of Peace and Serenity, surrounded on three sides by 30-foot rocks, the “Himalayas”, is still open, and, anyway, it’s time to move my “office” outdoors, not that I would ever do any W-O-R-K there, for that is a four-letter word to a retired person.

The Cafe was an American-Korean restaurant recently, run by Sin-Ha and Su-Nee, but, before that, it was run by (and is still owned by) the Buddhists, mostly by the Buddha Girls from the monastery on Shafe Road, home to one of only two Lamas in the entire United States, and the only one on the east coast. The Cafe was called “Himalayas on the Hudson” and the Lama often came to eat there, with his entourage of higher-ups and bodyguards. Because I was there often, as well, I got to know the Lama, his bodyguards soon retreating, and I taught him how to do high fives and low fives and such and so we we began to talk about the connectedness that underlies all things, the reaching of which state through the removal of all thoughts during meditation is the very heart of Buddhism. In addition, I always gave him the weather for the rest of the day and for the next day, always saying that it would become sunny if it was raining, and that it would be still sunny if it was already sunny. And if it was really raining forever, we both knew that it was sunny on the inside.

I remember, thinking upon first meeting him that “here he is”, the great one, and so I have a chance to ask a deep question of him without having to go over to Tibet or India and climb up a mountain, so, I pointed to an article in the newspaper that said “We may never know who won the Presidential election, Bush or Gore” and I asked him for his wisdom on the matter. Well, he thought for only a second or two and said “Who cares!”, and such it sunk into me later that this was a great wisdom, indeed.

The Cafe workers, the Buddha girls, didn’t wear the flowing gold and reddish robes that the visiting Buddhists wore, but wore regular clothes and had long hair, and many of the hectic type customers, unknowing of this, wondered at the peace and joy that the workers radiated like some sort of serenity field, and I suppose the workers were chosen for their outgoingness as well. I talked with them about “String” theory, the fairly recent theory that the differing vibrations of really small “strings” gives rise to all of the elementary particles and forces, and, so, we related this to all that is absolute and fundamental beneath this projection of reality in which we live out our life-dream.

Buddhism is not a religion, but a way of life, and they can still have friends, outside jobs, sex, and what-for, although some of them spend a lot of time on the inner world which, like meditation, can only be described as “not what you think”. So, miracles of miracles, today, after saying good-bye to the Koreans at the Cafe and taking home 50 eggs and many bags of chocolate chip cookies, I went back to the Cafe garden to sit under an umbrella table in the rain, and there was the old Lama himself, just sitting there alone, having just shown the building to someone who might lease it. I hadn’t seen him in 6 months, for he had been off to other continents. He gave me a medium high five and I told him that the sun would be out tomorrow, and that it was always sunny on the inside.

Then I told the Lama about the one who had recently sprung into another level of being, literally by “dying into life” and saying to him: She blossoms, so colorfully, like a spring flower, because the energy was in the bulb all along, deep within her, life’s music wanting to sing through her, and, so, now it has begun.

There, on some remoter shore of human soul
To which I helped restore life and spirit,
I learned that love was the only flame that lit
This life—for she had taught me how to give it.

(and that, furthermore)

What once I was has dimmed, physically,
But, I am a star, still bright in the night,
Though, when the sun rises, I disappear into her.
For, no one looks for the stars when the sun is out.

No, I did not just disappear—
I am just completely soaked in her qualities.

The drop has become the ocean—
Now I drink from her spring of eternal youth.
And to think that she once hid inside her coat.

Do I feel some memory of elsewhere?
Do I dare to look into the setting sun?
No, I’ll pretend that it’s coming up.
It shines through me, illuminating me.

I am re-energized.
I am glowing bright.
I am becoming a supernova.

There is a longing,
Between Body and Soul,
That reassures us
When we go with the flow,
And tugs at us when we don’t. . .

That is the mind within the mind.

I drink the very wine that moves me.
I freely let life’s spirit play through me.
I live its rhythm and music.

Life, though anguishing sometimes,
Must be lived fully,
For that is all we have.

The world crashes, out there,
But the flowers grow, in here.
For, I am the garden.

And the Lama said to me:
“Rumi lives.”
“Yes”, I answered, “Rumi lives again in the heart of his friend. I just read a book on him.”
“He never left—it is him, and you, too.”
“His spirit wanders ‘long the Milky Way,
With an houri, life’s moments drank away
In some sweet wood far from the noise of day—
Where with her he yet lives, sings, laughs, and plays.”
“What do we seek?”
“We long for the source—the human soul turns inward to find its way home.”
“Why do we wander around in the middle of the night?”
“Well, if I knew the answer to that, I would have been home hours ago.”
“Where would that be?”
“I don’t know. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.”
“How do we see this “home”?”
“Close both eyes, to see with the other eye.”
“How do we hear of it?”
“Listen—the blossoms drop their blessings all around.”
“What quenches our thirst?”
“Break the wineglass, and fall toward the glassblower’s breath.”
“Why?”
“We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours it. Plus more—we are even that which makes the drink taste so refreshing.”
“Where is the Light?”
“There is a light seed grain inside you. You fill it with yourself, or it dies.”
“Where do we go, do we climb mountains—the Himalayas?”
“A mountain is but a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness.”
“And what of her, your beloved?”
“There is a window open between us, mixing the night airs of our beings.”
“How’s that?”
“Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I meet her there.”
“And then do we see the light of day?”
“This day that I seek is outside of living and dying.”
“Do we not tire, always walking and looking?”
“At first, I did, yes, but then came a moment of feeling the wings I’d grown, lifting.
“We fly?”
“The rhythm lifts me—the living music plays through me.”
“From. . .?”
“It was fully fashioned even before it came into being, like an idea.”
“What do we feast on?”
“I am tasting the taste of eternity this minute.”
“Are we not afraid.”
“I have long since wet my robe in the shallow water. Now, I dive deeper, under, and naked under, and deeper under the surf. The drop becomes the Ocean, as the Ocean, too, becomes the drop.”

(Some months passed, and, later, upon return, after a long time, and seeing the Lama once again.)

“Where have you been?” asked the Lama of me.

“Well, everywhere, and nowhere. I did not cease from exploration, and after all my exploring I have returned to the place that I started from, and now I know the place for the first time.”

[leskey]

Hi, Arthur.

Your perception of my posts does not correspond with my intent (as seems to be the case with many others), and your criticism of editing is...I was going to say, unfounded...but, have settled upon, curious.

Anyone could mischeivously induge in the now-famously-censored, lengthy and highly descriptive verbal account of your personal fettish for anal effluvia. It's what stops the majority (at least in this forum) from doing so, that is more worthy of note.

Of course, you can continue in this vein for as long as your peers, and Robert, wish to tolerate it. The only motives I can see are anarchistic arrogance and provocation directed at individuals on a personal level.

Now, Arthur, don't misinterpret me...here, I'm being simply frank and pragmatic, so please don't overwrite your inclination toward emotionalism. The anwser to "does it take an intellectual to knock God" is:

Who cares? Unless I could be assured of your best-intentions toward your fellow man, nothing you say could be considered worthy of my attention.

[austintorn@aol.com]

The lively couple meandered on through the ToeQuest threads, even fancying that they were not alive, but then smiling because they were. The hours were fresh and mild, like cleansing showers, and so the partners could retrieve all of the wingéd hours that time had attempted to devour. As they walked, the peace of the forum was shattered by the sound of someone bickering and quarreling in an all too common way. He and she approached the noise. The squabbler just stared at them at first, but then started arguing about anything and everything.

“Save your breath,” she urged. “Don’t expend it on fighting and arguing. Fighting saps your energy and forever undoes love’s promise. Your breath is dear and your breath is precious. Enjoy all that life can give, ere comes death. Yelling drives people away; soft and gentle voices, whispering even, brings them closer. Tell him more, partner.”

Her partner continued, “There are large worlds of life to live in. But, here you are, trapped in a little tiny cell of arguments, resentments, and animosity, wasting all your breath therein. Stand back and realize life’s total space—and note that quarreling occupies but a small place in that which can be accomplished by the human race.”

The hopeless criticizer kept on ranting, getting mad at every single thing. If he ever had anything important to say, it was now lost in the quagmire that he ever created.

She sighed, “Well, sir, if you’re not busy living, then I guess you’re busy dying. All the world’s riches cannot extend the power which drains the cup and withers the flower. What would be the price of even your wasted breath, purchased from the hand of death at the final hour? Loving is what this life is all about. To have it is to live all out. Then why, oh why, do you not seek it out?”

The oblivious quarreler kept on arguing and bickering and criticizing.

[SB_UK]

The oblivious quarreler kept on arguing and bickering and criticizing.

This is what I despise about people.

However criticising people for arguing, bickering and criticizing won't help.

The solution :

1. Explain reality using scientific methods (done) - ToE
2. Explain the metaphor of religion (most notably covering God, faith, love and resurrection) - pretty much done
3. Wait until the tide changes

Religion really isn't the problem here -
- it's the tendency of man to abuse religion for their own selfish needs
- an inevitable consequence of ignorance.

The various religious texts are just descriptions of how to be nice (I think).
It's the Institution which drives division in an effort to maintain identity.

No human Institution can exist if all people are a member -
- and that's the problem.
We're all members of the same species.

The animal module in man (to divide and strive for money and power) is expressed in the Institution -
is expressed in the religious (as an example of) Institution -
- where the abuse which we associate with the religious Institution is amplified (relative to other Institutions) because of the nature of faith.

Wars between religions have caused us great problems
- as have
(to be fair)
wars between countries and between competing political ideologies.

Though
God save the Queen, God bless America, God be with you and God is on our side
apply.

~*~

So - given we've an interesting problem here -
How does one go about explaining why anybody within any Institution (or Ideology (economic, political, religious)) is wrong
and
that their competing model (each of which defines one another) is equally valid.

Social care (unchanging) and Social progressive (dynamic) economic approaches to Social (all people) development are both simultaneously necessary.

Left and Right wing politics are not competitor groups -
but are both simultaneously necessary
(the basis to (the now widespread) centrist policies)

Eastern and Western religions are both simultaneously correct (post-unravelling of metaphor).

~*~

We're in danger of making the problem quite considerably worse if we attack religion -
need to drop down to the more fundamental basis to Institutional crimes

- need to delve into the evolutionary psychology -
to identify the beast
(shortly to be excised)
within.

[SB_UK]

Unless I could be assured of your best-intentions toward your fellow man, nothing you say could be considered worthy of my attention.

Exactly -
it doesn't really matter whether we're wrong or right -
- simply trying to do the right thing will eventually 'get us there'.

Why?

The desire to do the right thing opens up our mind to the better (more internally logically consistent argument) -
where the most internally logically consistent argument (or model) over reality
(model of reality - the mind which understands the World around)
confers
morality.

~*~

... using fewer words:

Best Intentions -> Open mind -> Capacity to change one's mind -> Neuroplastic changes resulting in brain/mind settling on optimal (stable) structure -> Wisdom (morality)

~*~

I'm trying to suggest that 'best intentions' opens ears which (otherwise) cannot hear.