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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 08:41am PT
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show me a post where a specific portion of the "sacred" texts were referenced and the "astounding insights" into human nature were described in detail.
I've given plenty of examples on this thread and the thread that was axed previously. Of course you've got to read them. A page or two back I mentioned Bloom's interpretation of Leviathan as an insight into humanity's relationship to nature. He writes about it extensively in a book called "Where Shall Wisdom be Found." Check it out. But there are others from the creation story to the crucifixion to the apocalypse.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:01am PT
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AC said " in which case they are doing a shitty job of explaining the astounding insights their sacred texts reveal."
The explaining is just the map; the listener has to do the work in order to have the experience that brings the insight. In a way the explaining is just a sales pitch to inspire the listener to start on the path where the insight will occur with the required effort. Not different than climbing if you climb you will gain insight but you won't gain much insight from listening to a lecture about climbing.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:02am PT
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Show me a post where a specific portion of the "sacred" texts were referenced and the "astounding insights" into human nature were described...
"I've given plenty of examples on this thread and the thread that was axed previously." Paul
"Show me a post..." Okay, mine! "I've given plenty of examples..." Hey, me too!
I think you guys have short memories. Here, this was from just a couple days ago. Maybe nobody watched this religious leader give "astounding insight" "into human nature"?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
https://youtu.be/oo13WCT6G20
Maybe this time watch. And learn. The "sacred texts" were referenced by context and inference and by this leader's education. The context and insights concern two haram (sin) of primacy... sexual perversion and female dominance over man.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:04am PT
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Wow, a 2 sentence "explanation" of the human condition... astounding.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Try a real argument. Trolls don't get us very far. What do you think Bloom means? What is the tyranny of nature? Real insights for so long ago. Why I'd call them astounding.
Maybe this time watch. And learn. The "sacred texts" were referenced by context and inference and this leader's education. The context and insights concern two haram (sin) of primacy... sexual perversion and female dominance over man.
There are nut jobs in every endeavor. You flirt with fallacy when you extrapolate from the exception. It only proves the rule.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:08am PT
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The explaining is just the map...
Nice dodge, redirect or partisanship display. There are many and various different types of explanation (duh) and some carry a great deal more (valid and accurate and astounding) "insight" into the world and into human nature than others (duh).
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"Brevity is the soul of wit." -Paul
"Take the Sabbath breaker outside the camp and stone him to death." -Numbers 15"
Got it.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:13am PT
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Any clown can put on so-called religious garb and rant horsesh!t and millions do every day.
Until you fully understand and undertake the Science of the soul you'll never be able to differentiate the real from the fake.
Which you can't with your so-called modern science .....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:17am PT
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Changing gears...
re "spiritual" and "spirituality" and "spirit" (cf: "sacred")
Norton didn't answer but perhaps he missed it.
I am curious, how do you guys - naturalists and supernaturalists alike - feel about the use of these words, e.g., "spiritual," in a material, naturalistic context (outside religious or theological context re immaterial life ). Is it inappropriate?
Do these words need to be kept / reserved for use in strictly religious context and/or for use in referencing only immaterial life or immaterial lifeforms?
I've cited these examples here in the past: Tim's dog is a spiritual being having a canine experience. Tim is a spirtual being having a human experience. (2) When Ethan's body dies, his spirit dies.
spiritual: 1 designating or of a spirit, or spirits; 2 designating or of life; 3 designating or of a living thing or living things; 4 caring or concerned about spirit or spirituality (state of spirit)
Any views one way or another here?
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:20am PT
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Unfortunately, Buddha was an incarnation of God himself.
Thus your whole thing falls apart .....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:21am PT
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AC, no I didn't.
Hey I admire your tenacity, you're doing great work here.
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There are nut jobs in every endeavor. -Paul
Agreed!
You flirt with fallacy when you extrapolate from the exception. -Paul
Tens if not hundreds of millions of religious fanatics around the world (leaders and followers alike) hardly qualifies as the exception. Maybe change / broaden your perspective, step out of the American WASP neighborhood for awhile - whether figuratively or physically or cybernetically - and survey the rest of the world.
Curious, have you travelled much? Luxor? Jerusalem? Islamabad?
Really, all this in some sense is moot since this is the Age of Corrections. The world is losing its Abrahamic religious conservatives and fundamentalists by the millions every week.
If we wait long enough, Paul wins by default. That's cool, because in time, amongst the reasonably educated everywhere, there won't be any fundamentalist theists, only intellectual ones. And the rest of the world will have moved on.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:32am PT
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Jesus Christ is Saktyavesa Avatar and empowered soul from the spiritual stratum.
He was never killed nor can he ever be killed nor has he ever left.
The gross materialists do not have the consciousness to see that nor understand that ......
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:32am PT
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The whole Bloom thing is a rip off of Buddha's 4 Noble Truths, crammed into a mythology that necessitates faith in a higher power.
No, the Bloom thing is about the triumph of aesthetics. You might try reading it. Grand and lengthy explanations of the astounding nature of sacred texts.
"Take the Sabbath breaker outside the camp and stone him to death." -Numbers 15"
Do you honestly believe anyone in the Christian world believes that the laws in Numbers are to be enforced in contemporary society? Talk about misleading dodges. Again you use a straw man and untruths to promote what is essentially a generality based on an anomaly. No religious group promotes stoning people outside of the few misguided fundamentalists in islam.
Hey I admire your tenacity, you're doing great work here.
Tenacity is without value unless it supports something worthwhile.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 09:47am PT
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Do you honestly believe anyone in the Christian world believes that the laws in Numbers are to be enforced in contemporary society... -Paul
This has been addressed 1000 times. How many times do you need to grok it?
No, thank goodness. Because the Christian world has evolved - largely under pressure by the modern secular world - from its ancient and medieval states. Yet its ancient sacred text, along with others, remains as its core emphasis.
Bother enough to look at today's contemporary society in the Middle East. There you will find a pretty good mirror, a pretty good semblance, for much of our ancestral Europe's mindset, social norms, institutions and behaviors in the Middle Ages.
Tenacity is without value unless it supports something worthwhile.
lol
With all due respect, sometimes you sound like Klimmer. Is that what you really want?
Is Abrahamic religion, esp in its literalist fundamentalist fanatical forms (that cause so much destruction, division, despair, depression across communities, nations, tribes, even families and generations) not disintegrating? Is it not disintegrating? Even in the scope of just one generation (a mere 25 years).
Hopefully, after just a few more generations, all the bs and dystopia caused by religions of old will be gone. The Age of Corrections is now.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 10:00am PT
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This has been addressed 1000 times. How many times do you need to grok it?
Just until you get it.
The reality is that religion/spirituality have much to offer humanity. Much more good than bad. And the reality is if you approach your understanding of religion as a fundamentalist, meaning interpreting symbols as a crude and misguided attempt at scientific fact, not only will you not convince anyone of your position you will never really understand the importance to so many of faith.
Okay, I take it back... your explanation of Bloom is a rip off of the 4 Noble Truths.
You've got to try and make sense.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 10:02am PT
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The reality is that religion/spirituality have much to offer humanity.
Yes, of course. But since it's the modern age now, only really in the context of mythology, history and object lessons.
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if you approach your understanding of religion as a fundamentalist, meaning interpreting symbols as a crude and misguided attempt at scientific fact, not only will you not convince anyone of your position you will never really understand the importance to so many of faith.
So again, 100th time... Tell it to the fundamentalists, really even to many a self-identifying Christian conservative (under social masking, I suspect).
You, Paul, ask Lityua, Lutheran Christian who believes in "God" if he doesn't "believe" in ascension, resurrection, original sin, fall of adam, ghost in the machine, last but not least, living personal god... maybe even virgin birth of God Jesus... and then ask him, insofar as applicable, the extent of these beliefs.
This is the favor you should do yourself. Insofar as you value (a) updating your edu and credence; (b) choosing the battles that count.
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not only will you not convince anyone... -Paul
No need. Two points: (1) This amazing Age of Info, Internet and Corrections is convincing umpteen millions. Look around. (2) Believe it or not, I for one am happy, more than happy actually, with the current rate of change. I am old enough to remember this rate of change in the 1980s, say, in my young adult formative years characterized in part by faith healers on tv, etc. This 1980s rate of change, by my lights and likes, was glacial (that's a metaphor) by comparison. Today's kids - interested in getting right with nature and the environment, getting right with belief and life guidance, and last but not least just doing good in the world and their lives - don't know how lucky they are. In just a few generations we've come a long long way... from the horse n buggy, telegraph and cowboys and indians on horseback... to prospects of autonomous electric vehicles and colonizing Mars, globalization and advancing from H. Sapiens to H. superbus. How easily we take all this advance for granted or else dismiss it.
It's your choice, Paul. Continue defending the equivalent of Ptolemy's world view or move on to embrace the Copernican one. (Another metaphor.)
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 10:23am PT
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Some great engagement on this thread--with one exception. It's impossible to have a conversation with someone who is unwilling to reflect, posits untrue stories to support his views, fails to understand his own views, represents himself as someone he is not, and, finally, when cornered, pulls a faux medical disability card out of thin air.
Sorry, AC, put you're just a poser looking for some attention. Seek help.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 10:48am PT
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Just how insignificant might Western Abrahamic "religion / spirituality" end up several generations from now?
I think hints / glimpses are offered up by watching last week's 60 Minutes piece that profiled Kai-Fu Lee and his thoughts and views.
Apart from the intellectual informational side, you may be struck, just as I was, by all the smiling and laughing and happy Chinese youngsters running around in the video shots. They all seemed to be doing just dandy fine.
If I have any regrets, one on the short list is never having visited China (nor Japan, Jan)... and not being able to be young again, just so that I could visit this exciting place in the 21st century as a kid.
How Advanced is AI Today?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-ai-facial-and-emotional-recognition-how-one-man-is-advancing-artificial-intelligence/
AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order
Kai-Fu Lee
Note one doesn't need "religion/spirituality" and certainly not in any old-world forms to grok this...
"Because I believe in the sanctity of our soul. I believe there is a lot of things about us that we don't understand. I believe there's a lot of love and compassion that is not explainable in terms of neural networks and computation algorithms. And I currently see no way of solving them. Obviously, unsolved problems have been solved in the past. But it would be irresponsible for me to predict that these will be solved by a certain timeframe." -Kai-Fu Lee, 60 Minutes
Maybe just a good, solid grounding / immersion in nature, nature inquisitiveness and investigation, science and science education.
...
Statement by Rahaf Mohammed...
https://twitter.com/rahaf84427714/status/1085198785964236800
"I was not treated respectfully by my family and I was not allowed to be myself and who I want to be. As you know, in Saudi Arabia this is the case for all Saudi women, except for those that are fortunate enough to have understanding parents. They can't be independent and they need the approval of their male guardian for everything. Any woman who thinks of escaping, or escapes, will be at risk of persecution.
I want to be independent, travel, make my own decisions on education, a career, or who, and when I should marry. I had no say in any of this. Today I can proudly say that I am capable of making all of those decisions." -Rahaf
Nice, Canada!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 11:56am PT
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... is a rip off of the 4 Noble Truths crammed into a religious paradigm that requires the will of a higher power. Regardless, your attempt at explainimg these "astounding insights" is pretty pathetic in comparison to Ed's explanations of the physics in question.
There is syncrety in all religious thought. That's because the manifestations of religious belief have their source in the human psyche. They are manifestations of psychological needs as much as anything else.
However, it is generally thought that the story of Job emanates from Mesopotamian myth from as early as 1700 BC. It becomes part of the Hebraic tradition in the 6th or 5th c. BC. This makes it unlikely that Buddhism had any influence on the story since the Buddha was born in the 6th and possibly even the fifth c. BC. There's a great book about this period called "Creation" by Gore Vidal an unapologetic atheist who thought the period and stories from that period important enough to study and explain.
Buddhism does seem to have an impact on Christianity, however, as demonstrated in the gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi.
There is a higher power of sorts, if you mean by higher power something more powerful than ourselves. There is nature, after all, of which we seem to be both a part and apart. When we stand apart we are at its mercy and when we are a part we become a fragment of its sublime
character.
What Job describes is our relationship to that nature with God as its source and Leviathan as its manifestation. What it declares is that Job's suffering should be and the why of it is and will always be beyond our understanding. An insight into real life. Ripoff? No.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2019 - 12:21pm PT
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It's your choice, Paul. Continue defending the equivalent of Ptolemy's world view or move on to embrace the Copernican one. (Another metaphor.)
Do you understand this: I am not advocating for the reality of a literal interpretation of biblical stories.
I am not advocating for you or anyone who is without faith to turn to faith.
I am trying to point out to you that faith has its place among those who need it and find it helpful in their lives.
I'm trying to point out that the abuse of faith by a minority of folks shouldn't require the end of faith for everyone else.
I am advocating for the wisdom that can be found in sacred texts throughout the world. A wisdom that you seem unable to see/recognize based on some passages you think are unwise.
I'm not living in the world of Ptolemy or Copernicus (orbits aren't perfect circles), I live in the world of Einstein and possibly Bell. But I am enlightened as to where wisdom can be found. I am not so myopic as to throw the baby out with the bathwater and I have no anger toward religion. For many there is great comfort in faith and great wisdom to be found in sacred texts.
I suppose if you can't see it you can't see it. Likewise I suppose fundamentalists you despise have a similar problem.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Jan 15, 2019 - 12:45pm PT
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I am curious, how do you guys - naturalists and supernaturalists alike - feel about the use of these words, e.g., "spiritual," in a material, naturalistic context (outside religious or theological context re immaterial life ). Is it inappropriate
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I can't speak for the "supernaturalists." Not sure what that means?
And "spiritual in a material sense" is also a strange one. Not that I identify with "spirit" in the normal sense of the word, but what I think you are driving at is an attempt to "understand and explain and know" truths or at any rate the vantage points of so-called spiritual practices by way of material inquiries. Or perhaps have an "enlightened" take on the world and humanity bothering only to look at the topo, so to speak. Or perhaps deriving a kind of "modern" way of behaving and viewing the world based solely on what we can measure with sense organs and work up with math models and extrapolate from there by way of "up-to-date explanations" (a revised topo). No "magic" needed.
And per "immaterial life," I gotta hunch you are thinking anything not found on the topo is "imagined." When Ed climbed Chingando, did he HAVE an experience, or did he "only think he had an experience?" If he DID have an experience, and that experience was real, where might we find the experience itself on the topo, or any physical description? We are inevitably left with believing that the topo and the experience are selfsame. And that's a dead end regardless of forthcoming data.
I totally agree that we need to refraim our terms, but that does not mean translating them into Type A Physicalists terms, IMO.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jan 15, 2019 - 12:47pm PT
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C'mon Paul, you're supposed to be the Honnold of metaphors. It was a metaphor.
A metaphor for old-school. On the cusp of revolution.
You criticize those (like me, a religious critic) for their critique of old world Scripture as invaluable source of life guidance principles, helpful metaphors, priceless archetypes and such. When (a) just a verse or page over in "God's Word" they're associated time and again with old-world barbarisms; (b) theologians tell their flocks in the finest millenia-old traditions that they are actual truth to how they and the world work; (c) the modern world is awash in so many new, up-to-date ones that are so so so very much more productive.
You spend your energies defending an old school system (in tbd) when instead you could be using them to encourage any in your audience who would listen to embrace up-to-date explanations, to learn and teach resilience in a changing, challenging often sucky world, to acquire skills, lifeskills, to seek meaning, point and purpose in their own lives (to find it, make it, whatever the case) and to not expect it of the Cosmos at large (which by your own admission in truth and fact doesn't care).
You are a defender of old school. It is your choice, of course. To defend it, embrace it, teach it, encourage it in others, whatever. But insofar as the world of humans adheres to its current trends, this camp / this school of thought is going to be left behind. Ask Kai-Fu Lee.
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