Quote:There's a great amount of irrationality in the comments that followed your noting as much, so...a wonderful demonstration of the claim. That a thing solving one problem creates others does not suggest, imply, or prove that there's anything greater, and if creationism is lunacy then intelligent design....which is a form of creationism.... is lunacy. Neither of these two things is debatable. One is a description of a non sequitur, and the other is an immediate self-contradiction.
I am not a believer in intelligent design either. Carl Sagan says that whatever force created the universe it left the universe alone after the Big Bang. So I will stick with him on this one.
What I am talking about is more like poetry. When I look at the entire process of evolution or of the creation of stars, galaxies etc. For instance, the formation of the earth: there was a mars sized planet that hit our planet some 5 billion years ago. Thank to this we have a moon, and the polarity of the world is oscillating and that’s why we have seasons.
Or take the place you live for instance. If everyone just left today, animals will be reclaiming the place in a matter of days. Vegetation in a matter of months. After a few decades no one will even know the place was once inhabited. And no one needs to organize any of this. That’s the intelligence of nature. Nature is intelligent.
So those bigots talking about creationism don’t know anything. All you have to do is stop talking and look. So that’s what I am talking about.
Near-Eastern cultures value gardens a lot. Or think of Andre Le Notre who created the gardens of Versailles for instance. Think of all the effort it took to build it and all the effort that is being done to maintain these gardens in good shape. Now think of the woods you are hiking in. No gardener, no maintenance in a million year and how wonderful and well-ordered everything is!
So that’s the way we like to see it. The Indian Guru Jadadish Vasudev is also a great admirer of your Native American societies. He describes them as a society that somehow managed to maintain its links with nature and its connection with the intelligence of the world itself.
So that’s my answer to those zealous I.cils: Just look at the process evolution itself. I think this (as an observable fact) is pointing to the intelligence of the process itself. At least that’s how I see it.
Quote:That sounds more like a thematic interpretation meant to suite your personal beliefs than any original sense of religion. Meanwhile, one wonders why we would assume reason wanted anything. Magic books, for their part, do have a tendency to invoke something like reason while saying unreasonable things. Old magic book, for example, in seeking to describe it's god as an obvious conclusion, asks "who but god could make a dragon?".
I’m talking about “A discourse on the Method” by René Descartes. He is the one who says that “reason is the signature of God (which is also reason according to him)” and that reason is inherent to all of us. My philosophy teacher once asked us: “Could you imagine alien species in the universe that thinks, but that doesn’t think by reason?” or could it be that there people in alpha-centauri who do not accepts the rules of Pythagoras or Thales?
- No. The rules of reason are universal. So if Archangel Gabriel came to me and said something that goes against reason itself… The next thing I would do would be to make an appointment with my psychiatrist. That would be how I would see it
Quote:I think that the abrahamic faiths are another good example of the set that you're asking us to consider. I wonder why people who can so easily see this dynamic in other faiths completely fail to see it in their own?
You’re still seeing faith a set of rules and dogmas that everyone has to follow no matter what. That’s not how I see it. As I told you, I see it as a dynamic process of personal growth and evolution.
Quote:There's plenty you could say to any given nut, though much of it would likely implicate your own beliefs- as we've seen. What does that mean? Think, think, think.
It means that the process is individual and that the road can be bumpy at some places. So when I do my research in those areas I will work on different ideas, see which ones are suitable for me, see if there are ideas that are too hard for me to understand. And I always ask myself “is that really true?” / “maybe this guy is just a nut or I am not really getting what he means by that” etc. etc.
In science you have a clear methodology and you have the ability to work in teams. In spirituality there is no clear cut method and you have to go on your own. So it’s your duty to find the illogical if you have decided to walk on this path. But do you really need to know these things?
Quote:Why, why would seeing magic books which say many silly things say another silly thing then turn those magic books into a mythology for you..and if so..why hasn't that already happened with your favorite magic book?
I don’t believe in mythologies. I seek some deeper meaning in these stories.
Quote:I like that I can always find at least one thing in your posts where you seem to have it exactly right. If true religion is irrational, then reason isn't applicable to religious ideations. We could still study it rationally, we could still study people who hold them rationally, but there would be nothing rational about the religions themselves or the reasons for peoples beliefs in them. A revealed faith tries to fit that that bill.
What would that make religions that are rational, though? Or a rational religion made entirely of true statements? False religion? What do you think of your own, does it fall in the true religion or false religion category? Takes us right back to the opq, doesn't it?
I am not saying that religion is a science. It is not. And being some sort of scientist myself I hate the idea of mixing these two things. There is this guy called Erich von Daniken who claim that ancient pyramids were built by aliens etc. and he claims to have scientific evidence to prove it. There is also this Joseph Selbie who has much more logical archaeological theories and some Quatum physics theories that are much more acceptable in nature but I don’t like that either. You must have heard of Deephak Chopra. He is a MD. Who likes to mix his Hindu Beliefs with modern medical theories. Although some of these guys may be right at some places, I don’t like the idea as a whole. I think science should be left to scientists and mysticism should be left to the mystics. Personally I see no coming together of these two approaches to life in the foreseeable future.
My idea of being reasonable while believing is about keeping your eyes open when you believe. Believing means thinking that something that is not proven can still be true. It doesn’t mean unconditionally following whoever it is that told you whatever nonsense about God and Religion as a whole. You have to be careful and you have to invest some energy in to it if you want visible results (like an increase in spiritual understanding for instance).
An I will repeat myself on this one: Being an atheist is the best way if you want to keep it simple.
Because just look at world: I don’t want anyone to join the “pro-life” movement because of anything I said either. You must have understood by now that my vision is deeper than some superficial dogmas that people are still referring to as “religion”.
