RE: Maybe there's something like a god out there.
June 4, 2020 at 8:40 am
(This post was last modified: June 4, 2020 at 8:42 am by Ryantology.)
TY, sir.
I don't know if it doesn't bring us closer to the truth. Imagination can run away from you, but it is also the key to opening the mind. It may not set you directly on a path to a hard truth, but allowing your mind to consider previously unconsidered possibilities is what leads to progress and understanding. Imagining there are monsters living under your bed isn't stupidity, it's how a child begins grappling with the concept of fearing the unknown. It's not about the monster under the bed, it's what that monster represents.
Take Jesus, as an example. Now, you won't say anything about the religion I haven't, but as a historical figure (and I accept that he was), he had some good ideas about love, compassion and toleration, and even if the organized religion he inspired has not honored those ideas very well (to put it very mildly), the ideas have always been there and filtered down over the centuries to form the bedrock of liberal, enlightenment ideals. Strip away all the mystical bullshit, imagine Jesus being a secular dude preaching love, denying vengeance, and encouraging us to live by the better parts of our nature, and there's good stuff there. I wouldn't worship the dude as a god, but I would hang out with him and encourage the spread of that message.
There's no way to ever know for sure, but it may very well have been that Jesus having these radical humanist ideas 2000 years ago could not have happened if he had not absorbed and interpreted all the wacky Jewish mysticism the way that he did. We would have a very different world today, and maybe not a better one, if it's lacking the seeds of humanism his existence eventually spread.
(June 3, 2020 at 11:27 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: The big bang didn't create physical laws. Those were in place.
The big bang is the result of change. The change came from instability and the energy of our universe expanded rapidly, cooled enough to make some elements like hydrogen & helium and the rest is history.
We can imagine all sorts of creatures and god like beings that could be out there, that could be watching us, that could be seeding planets so they can come back and harvest one day.
What does this imagination get us ? It gets us some really good stories derived from our creativity.
Does it get us any closer to the truth ?
NOPE
A child wonders what is under the bed or in the closet when the lights go out. It could be anything.
Tiny monsters that live under the bed and then grow to large size as soon as the lights go out.
Many a child has had nightmares about such things, but we grew out of that didn't we ?
Didn't we ?
I don't know if it doesn't bring us closer to the truth. Imagination can run away from you, but it is also the key to opening the mind. It may not set you directly on a path to a hard truth, but allowing your mind to consider previously unconsidered possibilities is what leads to progress and understanding. Imagining there are monsters living under your bed isn't stupidity, it's how a child begins grappling with the concept of fearing the unknown. It's not about the monster under the bed, it's what that monster represents.
Take Jesus, as an example. Now, you won't say anything about the religion I haven't, but as a historical figure (and I accept that he was), he had some good ideas about love, compassion and toleration, and even if the organized religion he inspired has not honored those ideas very well (to put it very mildly), the ideas have always been there and filtered down over the centuries to form the bedrock of liberal, enlightenment ideals. Strip away all the mystical bullshit, imagine Jesus being a secular dude preaching love, denying vengeance, and encouraging us to live by the better parts of our nature, and there's good stuff there. I wouldn't worship the dude as a god, but I would hang out with him and encourage the spread of that message.
There's no way to ever know for sure, but it may very well have been that Jesus having these radical humanist ideas 2000 years ago could not have happened if he had not absorbed and interpreted all the wacky Jewish mysticism the way that he did. We would have a very different world today, and maybe not a better one, if it's lacking the seeds of humanism his existence eventually spread.
