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WBraun
climber
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Meaning is a product of eternity.
Everything in the whole cosmic manifestation is a product of eternity.
You are over educated and have lost your soul .......
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Really enjoying the depth and subtlety of these fine arguments.
My point about the perception that eternity is prerequisite to meaning is that it remains a vestige of Christian belief systems and yet ironically permeates the ideas presented by those that are anti-religion. Meaning it seams to me can only be what we make it and we should celebrate that fact and that meaning as every bit as valid and important as what would be found in what might be the eternal and in a sense it is the eternal.
but you understood the sentence.
Actually, no.
which is at least a goal or posting to this thread
What does the above mean?
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sempervirens
climber
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which is at least a goal or posting to this thread
Looks like a typo:
... a goal OF posting to...
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Meaning it seams to me can only be what we make it and we should celebrate that . . .
I can agree with your sentence up to that point. The rest of the sentence is awkward and unclear, but based on what I think you mean, I’d say it cannot be supported and is unnecessary.
. . . fact and that meaning as every bit as valid and important as what would be found in what might be the eternal and in a sense it is the eternal.
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WBraun
climber
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Meaning it seems to me can only be what we make it
You can't "make reality"
It always is "As it Is"
You are over educated and lost your soul .....
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Oh great another witch.
lol.+222
"This conspicuous behavior will get you nowhere, young lady!"
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Really enjoying the depth and subtlety of these fine arguments
;>)
Clearly meaning is both necessary and sufficient to reducing eternity to a sniveling mass of chronons that lack coherence with regard to probability waves. But that's the simple part.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Jan 23, 2018 - 05:35pm PT
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We don't make reality - Wener is right that reality is "As It Is."
We train our reticular activating system to filter reality around us for what we've "told" it we want to be aware of in the world around us based on what we've chosen to focus on.
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Lennox
climber
in the land of the blind
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Jan 23, 2018 - 10:11pm PT
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2018 - 07:42am PT
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Think of all the millions of people that have found help through their faith. Be it a belief in Christ or any other of the thousands of gods offered up in religious belief, think of the great benefit religious faith and practice have offered.
Is religion the opiate of the masses? You bet it is and when you're really hurting opioids are a damn good thing.
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sempervirens
climber
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Jan 24, 2018 - 08:08am PT
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Good posts Malemute. I think one has a slight error though. Were Adam and Eve created with the original sin? I thought they were without sin until Eve at the apple and then God created the rest of us with the original sin because of them.
Think of all the millions of people that have found help through their faith. Be it a belief in Christ or any other of the thousands of gods offered up in religious belief, think of the great benefit religious faith and practice have offered.
That is a good point. Also, Think of all the millions of people that have been murdered, raped, mislead, ostracized, sacrificed, beheaded, and/or manipulated to vote for tyrants by their faith. Be it a belief in Christ or any other of the thousands of gods offered up in religious belief, think of the great atrocities religious faith and practice have offered
How can you reconcile that? Are those benefits worth the trade offs? The atrocities are the result of religion.
What if we could hold onto the benefit of religion and drop the blind faith? That way, we could keep all the ceremony that people seem to love but remove the authority and all the bs from the Billy Graham types who deliberately manipulate the sincere but gullible believers.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2018 - 09:11am PT
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As Nietzsche said, “why man at all?” Or we might ask why consciousness at all? And “behind every great human destiny there sounded as a refrain a greater ‘in vain!’ “
Something is lacking in our existence: how to justify, to account for, to affirm ourselves. And virtually all human beings find suffering in their lives. How do we endure that suffering? By giving it or finding in it some sort of meaning. Humanity is, in fact, inclined to suffering if that suffering is predicated on some sort of meaning.
We suffer from the problem of meaning.
As Nietzsche said, “The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind…”
Without that meaning our plight is the existential unknown and the fearful void of pointless suffering and pointless achievement.
Religion enables that meaning.
Religion brings fresh suffering with it, though the enforcement of religious practice usually has more to do with political impositions than spiritual practice, but no matter, now that suffering makes sense in terms of a granted meaning.
Christian Martyrs in the arena went to their deaths singing and smiling, willingly and they deeply impressed Roman Pagans. Delusional? Perhaps, but they made the exit we all have to eventually make with a minimum of fuss and you might even say Joy.
Ultimately religion has done much more to civilize humanity, turn humanity to the good than it has done evil. Remember: people kill people religion doesn’t kill people.
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sempervirens
climber
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Jan 24, 2018 - 10:11am PT
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Ultimately religion has done much more to civilize humanity, turn humanity to the good than it has done evil. Remember: people kill people religion doesn’t kill people.
No problem with Nietzsche's discussion of suffering.
How much has religion benefitted or harmed humanity? How can you quantify that? If you can't quantify it then you can't defend your statement.
If religion encourages or demands killing people then doesn't it bear some responsibility for the killing? Granted that not all religions or religious people support killing, but many of their texts do. And since religion demands faith in its own doctrines, religion is at fault regardless of other nice things it might accomplish. Take credit if you wish, but then you must accept blame too.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2018 - 10:49am PT
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How much has religion benefitted or harmed humanity? How can you quantify that? If you can't quantify it then you can't defend your statement.
Common sense tells us that the far greater number of human beings practicing some sort of religion today don't engage in the imposition of those beliefs or murder or war or any of the other things some atheists like to blame them for. Quantification is as much your baggage as it is mine: before you condemn them what "quantity" of believers are imposing their views on others, murdering in the name of religion and so on?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jan 24, 2018 - 10:53am PT
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Religion enables that meaning.
But first, religion must enable the suffering. Religion, perhaps spiritualism in general, appears to fabricate, or reconstruct the universe around suffering as an a priori condition.
Nothing about human life as fashioned by natural history elevates suffering above and beyond other human experience. Both love and suffering are determined by man's unique and naturally evolving organic nature.
Before this was discovered , mythological forms held primary sway over the human mind. They were great scripts , and like most scripts needed heroes aplenty to struggle over and defeat the implacable outcomes of an apparently meaningless cosmos-- a cosmos like Tara in Gone With The Wind , not built upon soft Georgia clay but rather " upon hard suffering to its very core."
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sempervirens
climber
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Jan 24, 2018 - 11:09am PT
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I'm condemning religion but not for the quantity of its crimes. I mentioned quantity because you brought it up as a defense of religion but your statement is unsupported. So far, you're still unable to support it.
My condemnation of religion is due to its demand of blind faith and the inherent problems of blind faith.
I haven't claimed to be an atheist nor do I speak for atheists.
... I'll await Werner's "stoopid" reply....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2018 - 11:18am PT
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But first, religion must eneble the suffering. Religion, perhaps spiritualism in general, appears to fabricate, or reconstruct the universe around suffering as an a priori condition.
When you realize what life is, a kind if Ouroboros devouring itself in a compelling directive of survival, life feeding upon life in order to continue and as well its naturally short and brutal nature and the probability that most in the paleolithic period probably died from things like tooth decay, suffering seems to be intrinsic to what is and hardly a construct of any kind.
Religion gives suffering meaning and in doing so we are inclined toward it as we are to all meaning.
The great wisdom of Job is that that meaning is unknown to our understanding but nevertheless there, an opioid to our dilemma.
My condemnation of religion is due to its demand of blind faith and the inherent problems of blind faith.
Then make an argument against faith.
Again, common sense tells us there are many more faithful practicing their faith peacefully than not. To think other wise is absurd.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jan 24, 2018 - 12:03pm PT
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When you realize what life is, a kind if Ouroboros devouring itself in a compelling directive of survival, life feeding upon life in order to continue and as well its naturally short and brutal nature and the probability that most in the paleolithic period probably died from things like tooth decay, suffering seems to be intrinsic to what is and hardly a construct of any kind.
Suffering is intrinsic but no more intrinsic than love, betrayal, failure, gladness and the recognition of natural beauty-- therefore suffering need not be needlessly and existentially elevated to a priori status just because it provides the scriptural tension required for a good story. Such promotional tweaking thereby catapults suffering into the artificial realm of the iconic construct; because it must be fleshed out, hyper-extended, and made a modus operandi for nominally unrelated cultural forms.
BTW , I know this sounds like quibbling, but there is perhaps just as much death attributable to tooth decay in the contemporary world as in the paleo. Absent absolutely horrendous climactic conditions at various times, paleo humans experienced fairly good dental health , all things considered. Despite not having dentists they got a lot more sun, which resulted in much higher Vit. D sulfate levels as well as a generally higher redox potential (both essential to good dental functioning)-- factors modern humans are often deficient in, due to indoor living, primarily. Once humans invented agriculture and therefore aggregated into much larger settled communities the major culprit became infectious diseases.( The one thing noticed of bed- ridden invalids is that their dental health deteriorates rather quickly , absent intervention. This is due to a disconnection from nature, in general. The mitochondria in their gums, and jaw, as elsewhere, are little electrical engines deprived of optimal levels of incoming solar energy)
This characterization of life being "brutal and short" -- as compared to what? I suppose as compared to Valhalla or some other heroic throne of the gods where organic human life has been transmogrified into the purely ethereal-- thereby validated in ways safe from the draconian critique otherwise reserved for the savage life of tooth and claw and an unheroic, ignominious death from tooth decay.
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