| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/19/2005 : 15:16:43
heh, well not quite.
Been talking of late about religion, faith and belief. Thought I would continue the conversation on here. So some questions. Do you believe in God and do you have faith? Were you bought up into your religion or did you choose it for youself? Do you ever examine, I mean look real hard at your religion and question it? If so what do you find? If you do not believe and have no faith what made you decide it and where do you feel it most? Does faith live in the heart or the head or somewhere else? When looking at religion do you see just "bullshit" or do you see certain sensible underlying principles? Have you ever considered changing religions? How much do you know about the belief systems in other religion asides from your own? Are religious belief and faith intertwined or can they be seperated, by this I mean can you still believe and have faith and not be a member of a religious group/denomination etc? Is deciding you don't believe an easy way out? Is religion an emotional refuge or is it more than that?
Lot of questions I know and they don't all apply to everyone. This isn't meant to be a right vs wrong set of questions, not a rally cry for either side of belief or non belief I'm just very interested on peoples takes on this. Someone made a comment on forum a while back now and I've been talking about it off forum and it's quite interesting. True believers, people with true faith always seem so serene and wholesome and grounded (which makes most atheists and cynics sick with jealousy - not that we'd admit it), someone told me once religion was a crutch for the emotionally weak, a support for people who couldn't support themselves. Another person told me once that having God in your life meant never feeling alone.
I'm pretty well documented as having no faith, but wasn't a lightly taken thing. I was raised into a strict catholic family, my grandparents were devout and my father was up until a few years ago. I went to catholic school and attended mass every week but as soon as I was old enough to decide for myself I didn't go anymore because I didn't buy it. I had to question though, if it was God I didn't have faith in or the Catholic church. Starting with christianity I read around and visited the places of many different denominations. salvation army, pentecostals, baptists, quakers, church of england and on and on and on, many different ones. I spoke to people in the churches/places of worship and asked them questions and none of it really sat right and did nothing for my lack of faith. You could see a determinable difference in those that really believed and really had faith and those that didn't, it was almost like being in a big dark room with some people who had torches and some who didn't. The people with the torches could move around happily and those without bumped into things and questioned everything they came across and were secretly envious of the torch carriers whilst knowing we could never carry a torch ourself. Thats a pretty flawed metaphor there and I am sure some athiest will kick my ass for this but it's like they know a secret we don't.
So I didn't believe in a christian God, but does questioning religion have to stop at the religions local to you? Where I was raised was a very multicultural area. I left Catholic school and went to another junior school where I was one of only three white kids in the class and that was the same throughout the school so when we prayed in assembly it wasn't just Christian prayer there were lots of prayer, we had easter and christmas as well as eid and diwali, we learned about hinduism, islam, sikhism, judaism. When I was a lot older I'd read about eastern religions and philosophy, taoism, buddhism etc etc. So much I don't remember now, but I know still none of it sparked anything resembling faith. I can see logical aspects in all of them, but nothing that would direct me to faith.
So this is my non aggressive thread, none of this right and wrong bullshits please, personal evolution, what you believe and how you arrived at it is what I'm asking. Plus if anyone has looked at, questioned or studied this in great length I would love to know more.
Me, I looked and had no faith. However, my Catholic upbringing has left it's mark in guilt. Catholic guilt is not a myth, I have it, like the guy said in that film, you know it....
I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him
yeah thats the one
The easiest way to sleep at night is to carry on believing that I don't exist |
| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| VoVat |
Posted - 10/28/2005 : 15:34:20
quote:
It's bugging me that I can't remember who the quote is from (it may even have been Einstein), but it was something along the lines of "Christianity may well be a delusion, but its a very nice delusion to have". Idea is you're a winner on both counts: if you're right, you go to heaven, if you're wrong it doesn't matter, but you've had a happy life in anticipation of what you believe you'll get.
I think you might be talking about Pascal's Wager. Of course, that only works for people who are capable of believing in Christianity. (I have some other problems with it, too, but I'm not going to get into them right now.)
"If you doze much longer, then life turns to dreaming. If you doze much longer, then dreams turn to nightmares." |
| Newo |
Posted - 10/28/2005 : 14:51:24
Anticipation is the keyword, that´s how organised religions (and many secular institutions) string people along: delayed gratification, put up with the shit now but tomorrow will be better, always tomorrow. ´There´s a place where money grows on trees / and the only way to reach it is on your knees.´ Anybody who talks about anything but right now you can safely ignore.
P.S. Tre, if you´re reading anything by or about Plato, I let you know that his most famous work, The Republic, is a blueprint for a police state. That´s not to say don´t trust anything about Plato but do keep an extra set of antennae in the air when investgating him.
--
Buy your best friend flowers. Buy your lover a beer. Covet thy father. Covet thy neighbour's father. Honour thy lover's beer. Covet thy neighbour's father's wife's sister. Take her to bingo night. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 10/28/2005 : 14:31:12
[quotequote:
Is this kind of depressing?
Kind of. The idea of no longer existing after a finite amount of time on Earth is a scary one. [/quote]It's bugging me that I can't remember who the quote is from (it may even have been Einstein), but it was something along the lines of "Christianity may well be a delusion, but its a very nice delusion to have". Idea is you're a winner on both counts: if you're right, you go to heaven, if you're wrong it doesn't matter, but you've had a happy life in anticipation of what you believe you'll get.
 I have joined the Cult Of Frank/And I have dearly paid |
| VoVat |
Posted - 10/28/2005 : 14:05:55
quote:
my second goes out to those who are atheistic/agnostic/generally non religious: How much stock do you hold in the philosophical idea of the self or soul, do you think we have one?
I can't say I believe in the soul as a representation of a human's personality. I think that is something that exists in the mind, and does not continue on after death. If there IS such a thing as an afterlife, I actually somewhat prefer the idea of reincarnation. That's not to say that I believe in reincarnation, but it sort of makes a little more sense in that the Heaven/Hell cosmology essentially has every single person who ever lived still existing as a unique personality, which just seems a little hard to swallow. In fact, some religions not only think the personality survives, but also apparently that the afterlife is experienced in some sort of corporeal form. After all, how would one suffer the torments of Hell or enjoy the pleasures of Paradise without a body? I recall hearing that Muslims believe that they'll go to a Paradise full of sherbet and sex slaves, both of which would be pretty useless to a disembodied spirit. I don't know enough to declare that there's definitely no Heaven or Hell, but I think there are some flaws in the popular conceptions of these places.
quote:
Can there be more than this without a spiritual/religious belief?
I don't know. I tend to think that belief in the soul is spiritual in and of itself. So I guess the answer to your question would be no.
quote:
Is this kind of depressing?
Kind of. The idea of no longer existing after a finite amount of time on Earth is a scary one. On the other hand, I suppose it's better than an eternity of torment, which is what some religions think those who don't agree with them will receive. And I don't know that too many people would want to live forever. I mean, at my current age, I can see the appeal of not dying. A longer lifespan than the one currently afforded to humans would be nice. But I think it might be a bit much to live for thousands of years.
As for whether evolution and creationism are compatible, the technical answer is yes. Evolution could be guided by a creator, or a creator could have set life in motion and then left it alone. On the other hand, many of today's Intelligent Design proponents define themselves as opposed to Darwinian theory in general, so their ideas are not compatible with evolutionary biology as we know it.
"If you doze much longer, then life turns to dreaming. If you doze much longer, then dreams turn to nightmares." |
| darwin |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 13:45:05
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
Darwin, I did think about the failures, I think the book described them as losers who didn't matter because they didn't exist (or something like that). I didn't know how to put it though.
But they do matter. They figure into likelihood of something that has been observed actually occurring. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 07:19:25
Sorry Llama, not having internet access at home meant not having anything to distract me while I sat there with a vat of coffee and a pile of books. If it helps, thats shorter than it was and you seem to have gotten my general meaning.
still, sorry.
I'm thinking about your physics thing now, I'm going to go digest that. I have a (some)thought(s).
Darwin, I did think about the failures, I think the book described them as losers who didn't matter because they didn't exist (or something like that). I didn't know how to put it though.
-
Master of Science |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 10/27/2005 : 01:38:19
quote:
Desire not to be jingling as jade
nor solid as stone
From that I take that the truth is usually not an extreme, but somewhere in the middle. I'm not really clear on 'jingling as jade' but I suppose it's the opposite of 'solid as stone'.
quote:
where do the frogs come from?
I want to try and construct some kind of relationship between frog spawn and a cosmic soup here, but it's not quite coming together in my head. If you take that back even further then you could have the old joke about a 'big bang'. I'm sure there was something relevant to this in the New Scientist a couple of weeks ago with a piece on the direction of time, but I can't find it right now.
I think I'm an evolutionary agnostic. I'm certain evolution occurred, but I'm not sure that necessarily discounts the existence of a basis for religion. I do tend to believe however that there is no soul and that fundamentally we cease to exist when we die. In my more fanciful moments I merge quantum physics with religion and wonder if death is merely the passing from one (parallel) universe to another. That would be cool, so that's maybe why I like the idea.
quote:
what qualifies as life in the first place
I've always thought of it in scientific terms, where I think bacteria are considered to be alive, but most viruses aren't (I think the ones that are on the cusp are fairly large, with sheaths and can exist for a while outside a host).
Um, there was a lot to try and digest in you post Tre, I'm not sure whether I've processed it that well.
That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
|
| Carl |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 17:52:46
I need a personal revolution. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 14:06:59
You know, I think that's maybe the best-put argument for a non-created earth I've seen, and it makes absolute sense to me.
Of course, I don't base my views on science, but thanks anyway!
I have joined the Cult Of Frank/And I have dearly paid |
| darwin |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 12:16:39
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
Something the book gave me the idea about is the impossibility of my existence. I'm not talking about creation vs. evolution I'm talking about the probability of my birth. The way the book puts it a father is explaining this to his son, and saying that at around the time of the bubonic plague he had thousands of ancestors and all of them had survived the plague. Thousands of ancestors because he has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grand parents, 16 great great grandparents and so on and so forth and if one have them had died, any single one of them back through time he would not exist.
To address just one point. You can't properly observe an event and post hoc judge the rarity of that observed event. In your example above there are billions of potential people that could have been sitting here and saying wow it's amazing all the things that had to happen for me to exist. But, they aren't here, because at least one of those didn't happen. A lot things did have to happen for you to exist, but you are one success in a sea of many failures.
The same could said for life on earth. Perhaps very rare things had to happen for life to start and persist on Earth (not the least being the size of the planet and its position around the sun). And the improbability of those events my make you think it had to be a miracle. But, if they are and were billions of opportunities for life to start somewhere in the universe, it is not improbable that it started somewhere and you have to exist to ponder the improbability of it happening. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 10/26/2005 : 10:19:01
where do the frogs come from?
Everyone knows what to do when they find a frog, the only sensible thing to do is chase it around for a bit and try to catch it. Why, I don't know why it's just what you do!
still, where do the frogs come from?
Unemployment is taking its toll.
I have been reading tonight and it surprised me . I bought a load of books from a charity shop the other week to keep me entertained and one of them was Jostein Gaarders Solitaire Mysteries. I was surprised because I actually liked it. I, like many other people, read Sophie's World first and I don't know how other people found it but it pissed me off. Struck me as very contrived. Stay with me here, this book is pimped as a layman introduction to philosophy, which is the exact reason I read it. I like to learn about lots of things me, and philosophy is one of those things that those who know something about it like to discuss, but rarely with those who don't know anything about it. No one likes to give an adequate place to start or a brief summation of ideas so you can explore those that draw you first. People talk philosophy amongst those who know philosophy but never with the plebeians it seems. I know fuck all so when I was told about Sophie's World being a bit of a Dummies Guide to I did a mental ooh and made a point of looking for it in the charity shops. I'm curious, yes, but I'm also cheap. About four years ago I found it in a charity shop in the lake district and bought then read the book. I hated it, I can't wholly remember why now but I hated it. It struck me as very contrived I think. I think the parts that were useful (the XYZ theorised/philosophised ABC) were over shadowed by the stupid story. I thought it was stupid and tossed the book and the author into my mental pile of fuck that for a game of tin soldiers. So when I bought this book from a charity shop, the solitaire mysteries that is, I was surprised I was bothering, and chances are I wouldn't have if it weren't for the buy two get third free thing they had going on. I didn't read it first because, well, I wasn't looking forward to it. However, pissed off from reading that Will Self book I figured if I was already in an angry book mood I might as well get this one out of the way. I read it this evening (although I have just thought by the time I post this it will be yesterday evening but you know, that's neither here nor there) and I really, really liked it.
So why frogs, why this book and why this thread and why am I wittering.
Stay with me.
I was reminded of this thread while I was reading, I probably wouldn’t have been had it not been for the frog, and I wouldn't have even thought of the frog had I not mentioned it yesterday and the question of where does the frog come from came up. The frog by the way, I found in the garden the other night and chased it around until it hid under the kitchen. What I was going to do with a frog I don't know.
Tenuous huh?
So this book is supposed to be another philosophy for dummies deal and I liked it better because it was subtle, it's all sorts of boring to get facts and opinions shoved at you but to get ideas hinted to you is too many kinds of fun, there's a lot of thought around ideas that you don't get so much with the statements. There was this section, I'll type it, I'm going to do this a few times probably and I realise this is so long winded but I think it's easier if I take you through this the way I went through this in my head. ok so:
"A young child sits building sandcastles in a sandbox. It constantly builds something new, something which it treasures for only a moment before it knocks it all down again. In the same way time has been given a planet to play with. This is where the history of the world is written, this is where the events are engraved - and smoothed over again. One day we'll be modeled here, too - from the same brittle material as our ancestors. Because we're not standing on solid ground, we're not even standing on sand we are sand.... You cannot hide from time. You can hide from kings and emperors, and possible from God, but you can't hide from Time. Time follows our every move, because everything around us is immersed in transient element.... Time doesn't pass and time doesn't tick. We are the ones who pass and our watches tick. For a fleeting moment we are part of a furious swarm. We run around on earth as though it was the most obvious thing of all. But everything will disappear. It will disappear and be replaced with new multitudes. Shapes and mass come and go new ideas are always popping up. Themes are never repeated, and a composition shows up twice... There is nothing as complicated and precious as a person and we are treated like trash... We skip around on earth like characters in a fairy tale. We nod and smile at each other as if to say hi there we're living at the same time! we're in the same reality - or the same fairy tale.. Isn't that incredible? We live on a planet in the universe but soon we'll be swept out of orbit again... If we had lived in another century we would have shared our lives with different people. Today we can easily nod and smile and say hello to thousands of our contemporaries, or perhaps I can bump into someone open a door and shout "Hi, Soul!" We're alive, you know, but we live this life only once. We open our arms and declare that we exist, but then we are swept aside and thrust into the depths of history. Because we are disposable. We are part of an eternal masquerade where the masks come and go. But we deserve more. You and I deserve to have our names engraved into something eternal, something that won't be washed away in the great sandbox."
"Don't you think there might be something which isn't washed away in the great sandbox?"
"Here" he said and pointed to his head "There's something in here that can't be washed away.. Thoughts don't flow. Plato called this the "world of ideas" The sandcastle isn't the most important what is important is the image of a sandcastle which the child had pictured before it started to build. Why do you think the child knocks the castle down as soon as it is finished?... Have you ever wanted to draw or make something but you haven't been able to get it right? You try over and over again, without giving up. It is because the image you have in your head is always more complete than the representations you try to form with your hands. It's the same with everything we see around us. We think everything could be better, and do you know why we do that? It's because the images in our head has come from the world of ideas. That's where we really belong not here in the sandbox where time snaps at everything we love"
"So there is another world then?"
"It was our soul before it lodged itself in a body, and it will return when the body succumbs to the ravages of time... Our bodies have the same fate as the sandcastles in the sandbox, nothing can be done about it. But we have something time can't gnaw through. That’s because it doesn't really belong here. We need to look up from everything flowing around us and see what it is a representation of"
I cut this down a bit (honestly!) and was reminded of something else I read about Christian mysticism and religio-philosophical thought again harking back to Plato (see how I'm getting back to this thread hmmmm):
"Plato postulated a higher and more real spiritual world above the ephemeral material world and imagined the soul floating free of the body in order to ascend to the world of immaterial ideas"
So in both of these readings so far there have been discussed two states, that of the material state, the world the body and the solid things we touch and then the other state being the home of the soul and according to both so far from what I gather we get one shot at each. We inhabit the material world for a time until it becomes irrelevant and our tine is done and then we pass to the immaterial where the only continual process is this of the soul. The Buddhist texts I have read take a similar viewpoint but it's less fixed. The two universe idea (Kathryn correct me if I am wrong) where there is the physical universe (bhajana) and the universe of beings (sattva) which I am assuming is the same as the other idea of the soul. In Buddhism however instead of being linear as is depicted in the Christian texts I have read this is cyclical hence the reincarnation and karma deal. When our physical universe declines our soul caries on to reincarnation and this is dependant on karma, on our previous actions. Continual fall and rebirth. In the Japanese religious principle from what I gather the soul (tama) is severed from the body at our death and sent on to the world of the dead. The idea that the soul or tama is an entity that continues after death.
Staying with me so far?
I looked in the Tao Te Ching Kathryn kindly sent to me, and in this translation it suggests that Tao (The Way) represents the cosmic and Te (integrity) represents the inner, the soul, following Hindu principles of Brahman and atman. There was a passage I was going to copy from the Te, basically three in ten live with life and three in ten live with death and three in ten live with life but walk to death, I think it is suggesting that these 9 in ten are preoccupied with state and it's preservation whereas one in ten will walk through without fear because "on him there are no mortal spots". I think (again correct me) this is suggesting his integrity, that which makes him who he is, cannot be affected by all that goes through life/death state neither emotional or physical because nothing can alter the constant which is the soul, in life or death. I like Taoism up to a point, I like it's symbolism the un-carved block, I like that. The potential in an un-carved block, the idea that as soon as you fiddle with the block the potential is lost and the more you fiddle with life the more potential you lose and the more complications you encounter. I don't like it that much though, I don't like the idea that you should move though life closed and unfussy, this is the impression I get.
I liked this though
Desire not to be jingling as jade
nor solid as stone
how would you read that? what meaning would you draw if any at all?
my second goes out to those who are atheistic/agnostic/generally non religious: How much stock do you hold in the philosophical idea of the self or soul, do you think we have one? Does it continue after our shell expires or do we die and that's that? If you think there is such thing as a soul then how would you define it? is it some spiritual thing? Are we a chemical process, is individuality a cause of an arrangement of genes or is there more?
Can there be more than this without a spiritual/religious belief?
Is this kind of depressing?
To the other folks, what is the soul? I'm interested. I know this is verging away from personal evolution but I kind of think this is linked, am I wrong?
Back to where did the frog come from.
Something the book gave me the idea about is the impossibility of my existence. I'm not talking about creation vs. evolution I'm talking about the probability of my birth. The way the book puts it a father is explaining this to his son, and saying that at around the time of the bubonic plague he had thousands of ancestors and all of them had survived the plague. Thousands of ancestors because he has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grand parents, 16 great great grandparents and so on and so forth and if one have them had died, any single one of them back through time he would not exist. If any of his ancestors had passed away during the bubonic plague he simply wouldn't be there. I never thought about this before, but it makes sense. If you take it even further back it gets a bit headachey thinking about all the people that had to survive through to age of childbearing to ensure your existence. It harps back to the start of life. (It's actually more awesome the more I think about it, I almost feel like I should be embracing more and be more grateful than I am that I am, if that makes sense. I'm getting a weird urge to run round and do things right now and call people up to tell them things, at 2.30am.. bad idea) So this got me thinking about life and what it is and how it started and how it is defined. Whenever there have been evolution vs. creationist arguments started before (oy the headache thinking about it right now) one of the definitions that confused me is what qualifies as life in the first place. Is this a definition that is related to the soul? to action and beating hearts? to thought and movement? to breathing and existence? to biological fundamentals, can a strand of DNA be said to possess life? Neither the scientists nor the other folk have given a definition. Brian asked earlier on in this thread about evolution and creationism and if they could co-exist and I had to confess that my knowledge of either is flaky at best. Been a long long time since catholic school and university was generally spent looking at bits of DNA and going ooh. I think it'd be cool to open this question out to the floor. I feel again the need to state there is no getting at anyone here people, opinions may differ but there's no need to be an arse about it. Question and Debate, not argument. What is life? how did it start? and why do you believe this over other versions, do you accept the possibility of a correctness in other theories or is one totally dismissed by you?
Where does the frog come from?
Last thought, promise (for now)... there's bound to be people who know more than I about this sort of thing on here, feel free to pipe in and tell me if I have gotten something wrong or picked a particularly poor quotation for something but if you're going to do that elaborate and phrase it better rather than just the haha oh dear please.
And don't forget the frog!
-
Master of Science |
| danjersey |
Posted - 07/13/2005 : 13:59:32
you got it, are there any people here that are into Wica ( thats the word right?) well the whole Druid "pagan" earth worship came to mind when i heard this Aaron Donahue (A.D. cute) in a interveiw. now the whole lucifer thing seems like a big distraction but the idea that Earth is dying and that we can't turn things around as a population (5.3 billion) did'nt sound that far fetched. i use to think we the human race would die out by our own hand, after we were gone the earth would still live on and fix itself. now i can see that we will drag the planet down with us till the bitter end, still trying to find ways to live on without Earth as we know it. basicly trash the place that gives us life then scurry off as some mutated version of a human being. fuck! |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 07/13/2005 : 02:39:36
the voice of lucifer?
and you're questioning the sciences
and questioning religion
you're looking like an idiot
and you no longer care.
|
| danjersey |
Posted - 07/13/2005 : 00:12:17
have i missed this or has no one mentioned Aaron Donahue, i wont post a link but if you can handle the fringe google his name. some of his thoughts make sense, over all though he just comes off as a cult leader. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 07/08/2005 : 03:43:36
Divine intervention? Is God going to tell me I need to go into rehab?
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 07/04/2005 : 06:06:36
I get a free divine intervention! I wonder how I'll use it...
How's that for a slice of fried gold? |
| Newo |
Posted - 07/04/2005 : 05:52:55
That´s brilliant.
--
Never fuck a gift horse in the mouth. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 07/03/2005 : 08:22:01
http://bytebrothers.org/QC-God.htm
Sometimes, no matter how shitty things get, you have to just do a little dance. - Frank
|
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 15:58:10
quote:
Originally posted by VoVat
quote:
I guess I'm not the person to ask about this sort of thing. I'm not really in a position to comment as to what constitutes 'bad' when you don't have the ultimate example of 'good' to compare it against.
In that case, in order to decide what's "good," do you have to weigh it against an ultimate "bad"?
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied.
Depends whether you're just being argumentative  .
The ultimate good would be perfect right? So anything thats less than perfect would be 'worse'.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of an antithesis of perfect, 'pure evil' I suppose. I guess anything 'better' than that could be called good to some extent.
However, the Christian faith is one of extremes. You can't be good [i]enough[i/] unless you're perfect, if you see what I mean. I'm not sure I explained all this well.
How's that for a slice of fried gold? |
| VoVat |
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 15:49:01
quote:
I guess I'm not the person to ask about this sort of thing. I'm not really in a position to comment as to what constitutes 'bad' when you don't have the ultimate example of 'good' to compare it against.
In that case, in order to decide what's "good," do you have to weigh it against an ultimate "bad"?
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| Newo |
Posted - 07/01/2005 : 03:25:05
--
Never fuck a gift horse in the mouth. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/30/2005 : 05:43:05
I would Owen but I've paid for them now, and I got a bookmark.
Actually I might toss the bookmark it's annoying the living piss out of me. It's one of those metal clip ones and it's shit.
I want to live, breathe, I want to be part of the human race |
| Newo |
Posted - 06/30/2005 : 04:56:14
I think you should toss the books away Tre, cut out the middlemen (especially the Buddhism one, if you´ve ever read the Book of the Dead it´s got some stuff about the negation of the self that makes it quite understandable that Hitler sent expeditions to Tibet carting back a load of Buddhist teachings and monks)
--
Never fuck a gift horse in the mouth. |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 06/29/2005 : 06:35:36
if you want a really interesting, intelligent, modern Catholic writer, check out anything by Henri Nouwen. he just passed away a few years ago, but all of his writings are phenomenal. he wrote on just about anything you could want to know about Christiainity wise, check out the Nouwen Society for a booklist: http://www.henrinouwen.org/
what impresses me most of Nouwen is that the last 10 or so years of his life he dedicated himself to working one on one with a handicapped person, and was that peron's primary caretaker. he really lived the words he preached.
PS - sorry i'm late with the book recommendation, i'm mid-move!
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
|
| Llamadance |
Posted - 06/29/2005 : 02:18:16
I think it's great that you're questioning things and reading broadly around the subject to gain a better understanding. Whether it be religion, what we do day to day/week to week, what music we listen to or even what we eat or drink, too many of us (myself included) stay in a comfort zone and hardly ever venture out in any meaningful way. We may dip a toe in the water, but usually snatch it back quickly with our teeth chattering. So more power to you and your questions.
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No power in the 'verse can stop me
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| Doog |
Posted - 06/29/2005 : 01:55:07
"Half of me is nature and half of me is nuture, which means nothing really is my fault"
-a song I don't remember the title of by a band called the Naked Apes. Sorry, I just like that lyric.
 "Join the cult of Ray/He was the best Ghostbuster"
www.myspace.com/doog - www.doog.tk |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/29/2005 : 01:01:34
In my earlier post I just said this is a questioning time, I've been talking about this before I started the thread and it amazed me how much I'd forgotten and how much I didn't realise (c.f. the world is so big...) I'm not looking to believe anything, because I don't believe. I'm sort of looking to understand. The thread exists because it's not easy to talk to people about this sort of thing without their eyes glazing over. I just needed questions and discussions, make sense?
I need to reaffirm my position because I doubt my own judgement sometimes, I wanted to know how other people thought. I thought it might be interesting.
The books, because I've lost all perspective on this, I used to study Islam and I've forgotten, I used to go to catholic school and I've forgotten, I used to love the little tales of hinduism and I've forgotten. Forgotten so much! and so much I never understood in the first place.
I just want to understand things a little better. Seemed as good a place as any to start.
I want to live, breathe, I want to be part of the human race |
| danjersey |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 20:57:10
i can't help but to ask starmekitten, what are you are looking for in these books? what do you need to believe or not believe? i'm curious, i look for your topics, they're all provocative but this topic has found me numb. i remember faith like an old lesson. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 15:54:27
Ah! I'm so confused, I thought I was agreeing with you.
I guess I'm not the person to ask about this sort of thing. I'm not really in a position to comment as to what constitutes 'bad' when you don't have the ultimate example of 'good' to compare it against.
How's that for a slice of fried gold? |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 15:49:07
Well, I have to disagree. If you don't believe in God, then you can do something wrong (break a moral code) without commiting a sin. In essence, if don't believe in God or any higher moral authority then there are no sins. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 15:22:17
I would say the same thing, yeah. i.e. there's no way you could do something wrong without it being a sin, and there's no way you could sin without it being wrong.
The book sounds a little all over the place, I dunno. Obviously, I would suggest that as all the books are going to be talking about it anyway, you should read the Bible, but if not, 'Mere Christianity; by CS Lewis is a good start.
How's that for a slice of fried gold? |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 14:34:53
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
what I still don't really get (sorry guys) is the difference between doing wrong and sinning, aren't they fundamentally the same thing, one within religious guidelines under the name of Sin and one in personal guidelines under the category of Morality?
Am I way off base in my thinking?
I think you're right. It's just semantics that sin implies a rule from a higher spitual authority. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 14:01:18
bubblegum check:
So reading my bubblegum book on Christianity it talks about sin and says that in the new testament the good news is Jesus and his arrival on earth, that he came to save us, but if that was true this meant there was bad news in the sense that we needed to be saved. And this imperfection is sin. It then goes on to say St Augustine linked the problem of sin to the genesis Adam and Eve story. It says there’s two ways to interpret the story, one being that it’s metaphorical and a tale of the infancy of the human race (how much is metaphor by the way anyone, and how do you know if that’s the case, the interpretation is right? Or is it just a matter of common sense?) and the fruit represents loss of innocence and passage to adulthood. It says this isn’t how St Augustine thought though, he thought it was literal and that Adam was the biological father of the human race and his sin corrupted human kind forever and was transmitted through sex (I guess that’s where the sex is bad things come from huh? The sin-memory). This meant that if St Augustine was correct we’re all damaged goods and all we can do is repent. People like Thomas Aquinas and some branches of eastern Christianity didn’t buy that though and thought that we were still able to discern the existence of God and basic right from wrong. It says that most Christian branches accept though that we are all basically flawed and powerless to save ourselves If we are not to lead wretched lives on earth, and still more wretched lives in the hell that awaits us after death, we require the assistance of a heavenly saviour (It’s interesting though, but I don’t like the way they present it, seems, I dunno) so concludes this little bit on sin with saying hell is less discussed in modern Christianity but the sin emphasis remains in liturgy and hymns.
So what do you think? Should I toss this book away or does it seem like it might be a good introduction?
what I still don't really get (sorry guys) is the difference between doing wrong and sinning, aren't they fundamentally the same thing, one within religious guidelines under the name of Sin and one in personal guidelines under the category of Morality?
Am I way off base in my thinking?
(and repeating myself)
I want to live, breathe, I want to be part of the human race |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 09:48:07
Ok, don't laugh but I am approaching this time of questioning from the point of retard so I got these Oxford University Press short introduction books(buy two get third free at blackwells woo hoo):
and from oxfam book shop I picked up a battered old copy of the good book :) actually it's really sweet and has a little inscription on the inside that reads To Nelly Beuhaman Brown on her 9th Birthday From L.A.B. 18th April 1866
tomorrow I have to go get (because they didn't have it in the one book store I went to, but they do in the hallam blackwells)
Not exactly heavy reading but interesting enough, and as the name suggests, a nice little short introduction to..
Do you guys think it's a bit too bubblegum?
I want to live, breathe, I want to be part of the human race |
| Broken Face |
Posted - 06/28/2005 : 08:55:37
quote:
Originally posted by PixieSteve
quote:
Originally posted by Broken Face
i hope i didn't really 'slap' steve down, i was just trying to make a point that all organizations change and err.
i'm recovering...
call me Jack White, bitch
-Brian
If you move I shoots!
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