Mercia Blackcat
Striker
Another draw but good to have come back from 2 down. Shame about the goal but he was offside.
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Happy St George's Day Guest
Damien Hinds thinks we are a christian country
- Thread starter Keawyeds
- Start date
Another draw but good to have come back from 2 down. Shame about the goal but he was offside.
Dibble
Winger
Im not reading all of that as Ive had a few drinks. I was however surpised to see you describe yourself as an atheist.
As long as you realise your thoughts arent yours, that the world is not how you percieve it to be, that you are walking on a tightrope most of the time and that your life is essentially meaningless outside of how you and your loved ones care for each other, then its fine not to believe in God. If you dont, its a great help, hence his existence in the human psyche.
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Kent_Mackem
Striker
I've often how the bell end JRM, who dresses like he is living in the C19th even on blazing hot days in New York with his family, feels about Matthew C19 V23.
zwartekat
Striker
Sounds like you think it's a big word.Dammit I cocked up the quotes in my haste for lamb chops.
@Mercia Blackcat
In the case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater of Christianity, I don't see it as being a bad thing. We can get moral lessons from within ourselves, from our peers, our society, and be mindful of our experiences without necessarily needing The Bible or any other "holy" book to teach us how to do those things.
And frankly, if I wanted to teach someone to be mindful, religious texts are the last place I'd send them to learn those lessons. It's not that those lessons couldn't be found there if you search hard enough but where you do manage to find them they're surrounded by the opposite lesson being taught ad nauseum: "don't think for yourself, think like this or you won't get into heaven!" in the case of The Bible.
The types of surrendering that I found in The Bible back when i was "saved" weren't surrender to your own experiences, they were surrender to our rules or you don't get to be in our club.
Whether that's just the modern interpretation after a couple of thousand years of manipulation of the texts is immaterial. You can learn the same lessons elsewhere without having to chore through all the bullshit that comes along with it, and the accompanying teachers are less likely to say "my way or the highway (to hell!)" when you question the teachings.
Are we born with innocence or with ignorance? If two babies are lying together and one gets his hands on a surgical scalpel and butchers the other one, not out of malice but just because it doesn't know any better, has no concept of the "clouds of the mind" like morality or mortality, is that really a mindset we should aspire to?
I argued earlier that we're not born human beings at all, but apes. Humanity is thrust upon us by experience among humans. It is not innate. It has been created, adapted, learned, expanded upon and passed on for a hundred thousand years. It is very different now for us in the developed world than it was when it first began to develop. Even now humanity is different depending on where you're born and how you're raised. It's all just learned as we grow up.
As such, who is to say that it is better to be human than to be ape? Should we not aspire to be animal rather than human, seeing as it is a more pure and unclouded state of mind? Yeshua won't have known we came from apes, won't have had the scientific or philosophical knowledge we now have at our fingertips, so even assuming any of his teachings made it into The Bible unchanged (which is unlikely in itself), why should those teachings be important for anything other than being historically interesting in the way the natural sciences of Plato are? We now know there's no such thing as an Ideal Horse that all horses unconsciously try to grow up to be, but reading about it is fun as it paved the way for the scientific ideas we now think to be more accurate. Fun as it may be, we shouldn't take it as fact.
The lesson to learn from it is that knowledge builds upon knowledge and you don't necessarily need to know the steps in the journey to understand the current state of it. You don't need to know that people once worshipped the sun and moon in order to know that some people now worship Jesus for example. It's fun to know but it's not essential to the lesson. You can learn that it's worthwhile to be good to other people without needing to know that Yeshua felt the same way.
Whoah there, Nelly. If we're being truly scientific then we don't accept anything as fact that can't be proven and repeated by other people. The many worlds multiverse interpretation of quantum physics that you describe is nothing more than a hypothesis based on maths. It isn't universally accepted as fact in the scientific community and is only one way to interpret the data. You're also getting it muddled up with the anthropic principle: it's not a coincidence that this universe is capable of sustaining life despite the incredible odds because if it wasn't then we wouldn't be here to observe it and discuss it. The latter is a logical truism, the many worlds interpretation is pure speculation.
This could well be true, but it's as much a speculation as the many worlds interpretation.
Indeed it is, and nobody with any scientific credibility would ever tell you that it is a fact.
You're reaching the limits of my knowledge on the subject but as far as I'm aware, supposedly it is expanding into nothingness: somewhere that space and time don't exist at all. It's difficult for me to describe as like I said this is getting towards my knowledge limits but as far as I've managed to gather, the entire concept of there being anything for it to expand into is a flawed mental image of what's supposedly happening. It's not like when you inflate a balloon with the universe inside the balloon while the whole thing is expanding into the space outside the balloon, it's more that the actual dimensions of spacetime don't exist at all outside the universe - or rather, the universe does not exist within spacetime, spacetime is a result of the universe.
That would one for the maths boys to answer. There may well be an answer to do with the mass of subatomic particles or the energy of quarks or the universal constant but this is a level above me. As interesting a question as it is, is this relevant to our conversation anyway?
I can't help feeling we're straying from the point somewhat.
Yes, this is correct as far as I understand it.
Yes, a singularity that contained all of building blocks that would become all of the matter and energy in the universe as the expansion happened. It was a single point within which "everywhere" was contained.
Well, I used to think that too, but after reading and watching various basic introductions to quantum mechanics, it seems that "something from nothing" actually happens all around us all the time, just at a level so small that we can't observe it with our naked eyes. There are even much stranger things going on down at that level than this. Once you've had a glimpse into it, "something from nothing" happening on a macro scale given enough time to achieve it actually seems downright plausible.
Perhaps so. Even if it sounds like the universe was visiting some kind of self-help pyramid scheme seminar in your description.
Sounds like you don't understand nihilism.
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
Well, Buddhists and Jains are atheist. There is no God in those religions. I'm not Buddhist but I like their cognitive psychological perspective. I like Humanistic psychology whose perspective is similar to Raja Yoga. I accept human beings can become fully enlightened or self-realised as is said in Raja Yoga and self-actualised in Humanistic psychology. I know that we can have the cognitive experience of consciousness in a vacuity where there is no thought, no sense of time or dimension but instead limitless space. Whether that survives death I don't know but even if it did it does not mean there is a God as conceived that created the universe and can act within it.
So the logic says either God or no-God. Either theist or atheist (non theist). In the absence of evidence I am atheist but not necessarily a materialist/physicalist atheist.
However, in my old age I am beginning to question some of the assumptions or theories of cosmology.
If we detected the presence and effect of God within the universe would we even be capable of recognising it as such.
Simply replacing the God of the Gaps with the Physics of the Gaps is not a valid argument.
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Dibble
Winger
God in the abrahamic religions is merely the balance to the ego in the illusory world, its the pointing to the void described in the Eastern religions, surely?
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
That is a good way of putting it.
Even in the Hindu religion, despite all the Gods that people refer to, the supreme is Brahman or Universal consciousness. In the individual it is Atman (individual consciousness) but Brahman and Atman are the same. It's a dualistic perspective in that the Atman is conceived as a drop that has left the ocean and the individual is seen as a stream or river returning to the ocean from which it came. In fact this concept of Brahman is called the Ocean of Satchitanand; Truth, Consciousness and Bliss. There is no doubt that Satchitanand can be realised as a cognitive experience when we are alive but that doesn't prove it will survive death. The Abrahamic religions are dualistic.
The Buddhists however, reject this dualistic perspective and state that we have always been part of the ocean but that we have covered it over in our delusion. They would claim this separation is an illusion and if we remove the thought coverings it will be experienced again when those transient aspects have dissolved into emptiness.
It's just a matter of perspective as the end is still the same.
So the Abrahamic God as you suggest could be a balance in the human psyche to counter the ego and point to the Void or Satchitanand.
However, the possibility of an external power that can respond to individual need or desires is something else and not realistic. If God was separate to the Universe then he would be outside the physical reality and for the permanent to act on the temporary, it would have to become temporary and would no longer be permanent. The only way would be if God was part of the Universe, part of the reality. That the Universe was God and rather than a creation, the Universe self-actualised. It would mean reconsidering the meaning of omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience.
It raises an interesting point about Jesus though who said that God was within.
By their works you shall know them someone once said.
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Kent_Mackem
Striker
Fruits, wasn't it?
I wonder what Boris Johnson (for example) thinks when he looks at himself on the mirror.
When I look at myself I wish I could see a more Brad Pittish look, but I sleep at night knowing I am not a lying, self-serving, greedy Tory bastard.
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
Who expects a front seat at Westminster Abbey whenever an important state function is being performed.
Randy Ostrich
Striker
Cow loses weight?
Ilios
Winger
I'm not so sure about that mind. Setting aside how we think we know anything 'Jesus' actually said, the Sermon on the Mount advocates for thought crime punishment, abdication of family and responsibility ('take no thought for life/the morrow' - let god fix everything essentially) and various other not so clever or even logically flawed advice, at times. There's some good stuff in there, no doubt - but there's some harmful and stupid things as well.
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
I don't think we should assume that we know everything Jesus said from the Gospels. I've no doubt many things were added by those who compiled the Gospels to suit their own agenda or that some of the sources they used were not authentic. Which is why I think we need to consider the overall context.
There can be know doubt that central to his teachings was Baptism with Spirit and it is described how this was performed by Jesus who breathed on the recipient, no doubt so they could synchronise and merge their breath with his. In fact spirit means breath. Hence Holy Spirit or Holy Breath. Ask and it shall be given, knock and the door will be opened. It must have been crucial for the recipient to then practice this going within on a regular basis as part of their practice of what Mark describes as the Way. As the historian Josephus confirms, Baptism with Water was performed after the disciple had practised the Way and already achieved a level of righteousness/virtue.
At the time sin was more about leaving the path of righteousness or the Way and falling out of practice. Prayer was also viewed differently at the time and was more about meditation/contemplation/prayer. Sin was not such a moralistic judgement as believed today. Jesus identified the mind as the source of temptation and sin. That the mind could distract away from focus and remembrance of Holy Breath. So he gave advice on mindfulness rather than thought crimes. In fact Ali Bin Talib, the nephew of Muhammad, also said later that it was best not to sin in the first place than have to deal with the consequences later. Jesus also advised against holding grudges from the past and not worrying about the future. He was again reinforcing the remembrance of Holy Breath in the here and now. He didn't say not to plan for the future but rather not to become too obsessed and worried.
I don't believe Jesus was as distant from his earthly family as the Gospels like to portray. In fact historical records reveal that his brothers James, Simon and Jude were heavily involved and no doubt was his mother and sisters. The family of Jesus are air brushed out of history by mainstream writers who wanted to create the impression of a divine incarnation who had no family. It was inconvenient for them to consider his family if he was born from an eternal virgin. The irony was that his brother James took over leadership of the mission after the death of Jesus.
This is the overall context in my opinion and is consistent with what the Essene practised based at Jericho and Qumran. Jesus often refers to 'The Poor' or Ebionites and Ebionite is considered synonymous with Essene. In fact the term Ebionite is used more extensively in the writings about James.
Jesus said the rich man, give your money to The Poor and follow me. The Ebionites, like the Essene, pooled all their wealth and lived an aesthetic life in practice of the Way. This central pool was then distributed according to need. In fact Acts describes such a practice by the followers of Jesus after his death.
Which brings us back to the original question about whether we have ever really been a Christian country.
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Keawyeds
Striker
Loads I'd have thought. A lot of progressive thinking stems from it. Fair, free, equal society. The idea that we should help those worse off and look after each other etc. The movements that abolished slavery stem from Christian groups. All the big Quaker businesses promoted a sense of community and collectiveness.
The majority of people may not follow a god but many of the values they believe in come from Christian values and ideas post civil war.
Keawyeds
Striker
Surely you can want those things without claiming they are christian values. Surely just being good to one another is a value everyone should aspire to.
These guys got it.
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Ilios
Winger
The abolition of slavery didn't come from Christianity, as Christianity is an openly slavery-endorsing religion. The abolishing of slavery came from people, influenced by things outside of their religion, and in some countries, had massive civil wars with fellow Christians who used the Bible as the justification for slavery. Those Christians who were fighting to abolish slavery were better people than those in favour, but they were doing so in conflict with their religion.
The will to abolish slavery, and the pressure to do so, came from British protestant groups as it did not fit with their religious values or beliefs.
Where did those values come from though? Why is it nice to be nice?
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Ilios
Winger
The will to abolish slavery came from all sorts of factors - economic, social, practical, religious. It was justified via appeals to religion, and revoked with similar - albeit far less solid - biblical grounds. But you'd have to explain why the religious people, who had accepted slavery previously, were then fighting against it. It cannot be the religion that is the cause, unless the religion changed - and why do religions change? Because the context changes - outside pressures cause reunterpretations. That's why you have thousands of denominations of Christianity, and even within a denomination, you could ask 100 people 50 questions and they'd all diffee on something. Jacob Rees-Mogg identifies as a Catholic, yet I've met Catholics who disagree with him on most things, despise him, and would call him a heretic!
Mercia Blackcat
Striker
Which Civil War? The American civil war was complicated although slavery was an issue before it started. The New Territories were opening up in the Mid West and the North wanted to prevent the use of slaves by the South in developing those territories, probably for economic reasons at heart. Although there was a minority movement against slavery in the North based on moralistic and religious reasons, Lincoln did not make his declaration of freedom for slaves until the war had turned in the North's favour after the Battle of Gettysburg. Even then it was not to give them equality and there was no indication they would be given the vote in democratic processes.
