666...the Devils Moving Average
- Thread starter crackhead
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The following are quotes from the book "Dancing With Lions" by Trader X.
"We live in a dangerous world. It is dangerous for us who live here because that is the nature of reality as it was created. It is also dangerous because we, meaning enough of us, have chosen to make certain distinctions about this nature of reality . We have chosen to protect ourselves as much as possible and have taken certain actions to do so. Once those actions have been taken we find ourselves in conflict with the nature of reality and because, by virtue of its nature, it was not the initiator of this conflict, we will always be subject to its will anytime we attempt to impose our will on it.
What does this mean? It means the more we legislate, the more we suffer.
It means the more we attempt to protect ourselves the more we find ourselves at the mercy of the results of that attempt. By creating conflict, that conflict is seeking a resolution by the very nature of the two wills in opposition. It will never be any other way until God himself chooses to create something else as the nature of reality. Until that happens we are continually going to be in a contest of wills of our own choosing unless we as a group decide to do otherwise. because this group is made up of individual wills this is intrinsically impossible unless every one of us chooses to stop the conflict. As long as one person chooses to keep the conflict in play it is not possible. This is why " history repeats itself," why there is "good" and "evil," why there will always be "long" and "short".
Some enlightened people have come to understand this. The only person who could understand this completely is the individual who created the "rules" of play in the first place. Since He made it, He must have formed distinctions for himself as to why it was made this way and why there would be a reason to do so. He, whoever He was, gave us this same ability. That is why we are always being called "Sons of God" by enlightened individuals and why the currentlyly unelightened individuals in the initiating conflict group feel there is something "out there" or "there is something I think is spiritual" or "something isn't right" or "it shouldn't be this way" or any number of little ways of saying the same thing. No matter how you slice if, the very nature of this thinking betrays why this is so and will never be any other way.
If you make any distinctions such as "right" or "wrong" there must have been something behind, and above, that distinction which you made a comparison to. That something is beyond the issue in question because you cannot make any distinctions without a standard of comparison that must, by definition, be neither. What is that something? It doesn't matter how you choose to define what it is. You came to the conclusion that some conflict (that you had a part in) is seeking to be resolved and the standard of comparison is known but unrealized to you. Or you are confused about its true nature. Everyone has this ability but always chooses to place it's final outcome within the perspective of an intended result. This is why two individuals can be so sure they are "right" about someone or something and the other is "wrong." Nobody in that particular conflict is asking if it just "is."
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"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin
"We live in a dangerous world. It is dangerous for us who live here because that is the nature of reality as it was created. It is also dangerous because we, meaning enough of us, have chosen to make certain distinctions about this nature of reality . We have chosen to protect ourselves as much as possible and have taken certain actions to do so. Once those actions have been taken we find ourselves in conflict with the nature of reality and because, by virtue of its nature, it was not the initiator of this conflict, we will always be subject to its will anytime we attempt to impose our will on it.
What does this mean? It means the more we legislate, the more we suffer.
It means the more we attempt to protect ourselves the more we find ourselves at the mercy of the results of that attempt. By creating conflict, that conflict is seeking a resolution by the very nature of the two wills in opposition. It will never be any other way until God himself chooses to create something else as the nature of reality. Until that happens we are continually going to be in a contest of wills of our own choosing unless we as a group decide to do otherwise. because this group is made up of individual wills this is intrinsically impossible unless every one of us chooses to stop the conflict. As long as one person chooses to keep the conflict in play it is not possible. This is why " history repeats itself," why there is "good" and "evil," why there will always be "long" and "short".
Some enlightened people have come to understand this. The only person who could understand this completely is the individual who created the "rules" of play in the first place. Since He made it, He must have formed distinctions for himself as to why it was made this way and why there would be a reason to do so. He, whoever He was, gave us this same ability. That is why we are always being called "Sons of God" by enlightened individuals and why the currentlyly unelightened individuals in the initiating conflict group feel there is something "out there" or "there is something I think is spiritual" or "something isn't right" or "it shouldn't be this way" or any number of little ways of saying the same thing. No matter how you slice if, the very nature of this thinking betrays why this is so and will never be any other way.
If you make any distinctions such as "right" or "wrong" there must have been something behind, and above, that distinction which you made a comparison to. That something is beyond the issue in question because you cannot make any distinctions without a standard of comparison that must, by definition, be neither. What is that something? It doesn't matter how you choose to define what it is. You came to the conclusion that some conflict (that you had a part in) is seeking to be resolved and the standard of comparison is known but unrealized to you. Or you are confused about its true nature. Everyone has this ability but always chooses to place it's final outcome within the perspective of an intended result. This is why two individuals can be so sure they are "right" about someone or something and the other is "wrong." Nobody in that particular conflict is asking if it just "is."
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"We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are."
Anais Nin
I understand the basics of your reasoning and logic behind what you are saying and I'm not saying you guys don't have some good points. But my point was not to comment about the logic of why you arrived at where you are. Here's what I am talking about "NO MATTER WHAT CRAP YOU BELIEVE OR WERE BRAINWASHED INTO BELIEVING". I am simply saying that, short of maybe his sex life or how he raises his kids, you are insulting the most sensitive area of a person's life w/o even realizing that much of what you believe is just as much by faith. That's all...
If I DON'T believe in something for lack of evidence is this faith?
I don't think so.
I don't believe little green men live on Mars, is my position from one of faith? No [with the exception of faith in reason.]
So I don't believe your argument holds water that GG or I am operating from a position of faith in our disbelief.
You, on the other hand, BELIEVE in the face of insufficient evidence, and that my friend IS faith.
You are doing something totally different than we are.
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Shoeshine:"Yes yes... like live active volcanos created by GOD, with lava
flows which spurt out and burn innocent babies to death
in unimaginable horrific ways. To top it off, he KNEW this would
happen BEFORE he created the volcano since he is omniscient.
What a nice god" --axe
This is Venomous? Just a clear example of the hypocrisy of religious claims.
So I shouldn't bring up obvious examples like this which make my case
because your so thin skinned that this upsets you?
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I know you guys missed me.
Actually, I wasn't clear about the above: the statement that you made above I do not consider "venemous". It was the cussing and swearing at God that got to me. I agree that the statement above is simply a way to make a point (which we both know could have been a chapter out of Candide). This argument is one of the three or four biggees of atheism and I admit the subject of Pain and Suffering is not an easy one. But why not just say that and present it rationally instead of cussing and swearing at what every Jew and Christian on the board holds dear?
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That's because there is nothing to admit.
There is no faith based belief here.
Atheism has NOTHING to do with the beginning of the universe, and therefore does not require any kind of faith.
Get your facts straight.
Atheism is simply the lack of belief in god or gods.
It makes NO statements amount the universe, or evolution, or
ANYTHING outside of the lack of belief in god/gods.
I DONT KNOW what happened at the beginning of the universe,
and therefore have nothing to prove.
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I understand what you're saying here. I thought about what you wrote in a previous thread and it is interesting how pivotal Darwinism is to your thinking. From your standpoint, if macroevolution is true (and the supernatural is thrown out), then all life and processes are explainable by natural, chance causes. So I believe I see your underlying assumptions and the conclusion you have drawn...
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Im aware that science has THEORIES about what happened
at the beginning, but I technically dont "believe" in theories,
I take them as is, which is a hypothesis with supporting evidence.
This is far beyond the fairy tales theists have to offer, and forced
to choose between the two, a rational person would obviously
choose the hypothesis that has at least some evidence to back it.
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This is where we differ. You act as if there is no scientific evidence for a Deistic/Theistic/Einsteinian alternative. Imo that simply is not true and flies in the face of the conclusions of some our greatest modern cosmologists. (It also assumes that all supernatural experience is fictional and fabricated, another huge assumption.) The word "fairy tale" should be reserved for something that has no evidence which simply does not apply here...
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whereas the big bang may get at 5+. Just a fuzzy guess, since im not up to date on big bang theory.
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The idea that there was an "explosion" and that the universe is expanding, etc., isn't going to go away. Now what happened in the first microinstant of the universe will probably not be decided until we build a particle accelerator from here to Jupiter. But the general idea of an explosion can be verified by muliple and independent lines of scientific verification such as COBE, Hubble mapping, solving Einstein's equations, abundances of Helium and Deuterium, etc. I'm not saying it might not get tweaked or modified, but nobody is going to turn around in 20 years and say, "We've got a steady state universe here, boys..." This one deserves a 9.9 since it could get slightly modified...
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Don't try and cubby hole atheists all into a neat bunch.
It's just one attribute of a human, and does not describe anything
beyond a lack of belief.
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Fair enough...
yeah!
Not true. Just for starters, a diehard materialist has faith unless he can reasonably prove 1) every supernatural experience of man is psychological in nature, 2) evolution (or some similar natural process) is responsible for all life on earth, 3) the origin of life on earth was created by natural processes and 4) the origin of the universe was created by an impersonal First Cause.
#1 is impossible.
#2 is highly debatable.
#3 has ZERO evidence - in fact quite the opposite
#4 is impossible at this time.
Sorry, but I don't see how you are any less "religious" than I am...
1) every supernatural experience of man is psychological in nature
if its supernatural then it is not psychological is it? and if it's psychological then it is not supernatural. if i see something i cannot immediately explain by materialistic means, i don't make that grand leap of faith to the supernatural.
2) evolution (or some similar natural process) is responsible for all life on earth,
no, there is sufficient evidence for evolution to call it FACT
3) the origin of life on earth was created by natural processes and
reasonable proof of this exists.
4) the origin of the universe was created by an impersonal First Cause.
if god created the universe then what created god? if you say nothing He always existed, I say to you then why not just accept the explanation that the universe always existed. if god requires no creator then why would you conclude the universe does??
Let's start with #3. I can only speculate that you are reading from a 1960's text book. The origin of life research is in complete disarray. Let me explain:
1. Fully formed cells show up in the fossil record as far back as 3.5 billion years, and limestone, formed from the remains of organisms dates back 3.8 billion years. This is also verified by the C/C ratio found in certain ancient sediments. These 300 million years were a period of intense bombardment from asteroids, comets and meteors. Astronomers estimate that there must have been AT LEAST 30 life exterminating impacts during this time period.
2. Prebiotic soup experiments, after decades of coaxing from the greatest biochemists on the planet, have shown virtually zero propensity for self-organization and self-replication.
3. In the late 80's atmospheric physicists established that the earth's atmosphere has been highly oxidizing for at least the last 4 billion years. This is the "kiss of death" for amino acid self-assembly. In an oxidizing environment nucleotides operate 30 MILLION times more slowly.
4. Molecular biophysicist Harold Morowitz calculated the odds of self-assembly . He said that if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions (which would NOT be earth's early atmosphere) would be one chance in 10 to the 100,000,000,000.
So to summarize: the materialist must believe that an event that has a one in 10 to the 100,000,000,000 likelihood event occurred over 30 times in an impossibly harsh chemical environment.
How is that not faith by any definition of the word?
______________________________________________Quote from LongShot:
For starters I want Him to do away with famine and pestilence and suffering and death beginning with the children working up to us atheists..
Then sprinkle a good strong dose of Happiness over good ol mother Earth so we can all live in peace and harmony.
That cant be too much to ask of an omnipotent ruler of the universe type being, afterall it's not like I'm asking for a major overhaul of the whole Universe!
If there were two indentical earths in existence and the other one had the conditions you describe above on it, which one would you chose to live on?
The only other qualification for living on the other earth would be to believe in God, turn your life and decisions completely over to Him, trust Him to rule that earth as He started out to rule this earth.