Why Darwin Matters
POSTED BY: misbehaven
UPDATED: Monday, September 11, 2006 18:05
VIEWED: 12064
PAGE 4 of 9
Quote:Sorry. I tried.
Originally posted by rue:
Regrettably, it did not make too much sense to me. It's like thinking of a god who enjoys watching the soaps - except real children suffer then die for no reason except wrong place, wrong time.
My view is actually not too much different from an atheist's view. We're on our own. If we want the children to stop dying, WE have to do it. God provides the inspiration for us to do it, if I listen. But he can't do it for us.
For me God is like Music. I am the dancer. My dances can save the children, or not. The Music can inspire me to dance a saving dance, but he can't do the saving dance himself. Cause ya know, he's just the music.
If you prefer, I can answer that he chooses not to be omnipotent.
Ah well, if you don't get it, it's ok.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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So, CTS, you're equating life to a game, or homework? Interesting...
---
I'm a trouble-maker; Kaneman said so!
::points to 'I'm a trouble-maker' sticker on shirt and makes a platypus noise::
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Quote:Noo... I am trying to find examples in which a more powerful person would choose not to complete a task for someone who has a hard time completing the same task--because interfering would change the nature of the task. If a coach played in the game he's coaching, it wouldn't be the same kind of game anymore. If parents did their kids homework for them, it would defeat the purpose of homework.
Originally posted by yinyang:
So, CTS, you're equating life to a game, or homework? Interesting...
Apparently I am not doing a good job explaining this.
I will try one more time from a different perspective. Why do I believe in God. Because when I close my eyes, I can hear a sort of "music." An inspiration. I call this music "God." I believe that the entity that is this inspiration has the power to shapeshift if you will, and take another form other than "music" but that would change everything else as well. It would change who WE are and what the world is around us. So in that sense, for us to live this reality, God is not all powerful--he is limited to being simply the "music" in our lives. In this reality, WE are the only things with physical abilities to change our physical world.
Or maybe I just made things worse.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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FINALLY! Shermer's book ' Why Do People Belive Weird Things ' is one of the two great books that I consider must reading.
Well, 3, if you count Robert Bakker's Dinosaur Heresies 
( I think Wash might have had a copy of that one )
I can't lie and say that how I view evolution hasn't altered or affected the way I see God / Religion. But where ever the truth is, there's magic of some sort involved. That much I do know.
Signym -
Quote:What you're referring to is a misapplication to what Darwin was talking about in regards to BIO-evolution. Darwin detested the idea that others would distort his findings, as we saw Hitler do some 80 yrs later. Darwin was speaking of BIOLOGY,and nothing else.
FIRST- Without Darwin there would be no capitalism. And especially there would be no underlying philosophy for all those right-wing pro-business lunatics: SOCIAL DARWINISM!
Those 'greedy, right wing capitalist' you speak of have no need for the views of some 18th century naturalist to justify their business practices. Most likely have no idea who Darwin even is.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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CTS,
I think we've each come to unique places of personal meaning.
For you it's the harmonies you hear. (If you ever watch 'Good Will Hunting' there is a scene near the end with a couple seconds of music played with bells and chimes that sounds like the music of the spheres ...)
HK has direct experience with the larger reality.
For me it's the feeling of 'just enough' and light-hearted freedom.
If only we could experience that much of each others' realities we would be enlarged
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Quote:Yes, that's it. Religion to me is that place of personal meaning. I think many of us know that same place, we just call it different things.
Originally posted by rue:
I think we've each come to unique places of personal meaning.
Quote:Just to clarify, the "music" I'm am talking about is metaphorical, not literal. I am talking about, for lack of a better word, inspiration. I use the word music because when I hear a amazing symphony I get a very similar sense of inspiration. Or when I see a breathtaking view of scenery. Or am touched by some extraordinary kindness from a fellow human being. It's an awareness of a universal grandness so much bigger than ourselves--I call that grandness "God."
For you it's the harmonies you hear. ...
Quote:Cool. See, freedom is very grand and inspirational.
For me it's the feeling of 'just enough' and light-hearted freedom.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky
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Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
My idea of God is like a superhero coach in a football game. He is on the sidelines, watching, giving advice, inspiring, motivating. But he doesn't play the game. Can he help play the game? Well, I suppose physically, he can, but it would be against the entire raison d'etre of the game for him to jump in. In that sense, he can't play the game--it wouldn't count, it would defeat the purpose of the game if the coach jumped in and played.
Hi CTS
for me, that's a very ingenious explanation.
Quote:
RUE: Regrettably, it did not make too much sense to me. It's like thinking of a god who enjoys watching the soaps - except real children suffer then die for no reason except wrong place, wrong time.
People do not want, that God interferes with their life, and then, wen he doesn't, they get angry at him.
Freedom of choice doesn't make much sense, if you can't choose to harm somebody. So all God could do is to limit the harm we can do to eachother to a ceratin extent. And he did. Death is the border (well, not for Niska, I asume). Now that border seems pretty high to us, but only, because it's the highest we have ever known. We just cannot imagine something beyond that.
Sometimes, I imagine God to be something like a novellist - we are his novel. If you ever have written a fiction, you realize, how the figures can get a life of their own. With this special novel, however, if somebody dies (in the novel), he becomes part of the world of the novelist -that means he is taken out into reality. He becomes real. In this case, dying would not be such a horrible thing after all.
Strange thought, I know. Just appeals to me.
Esther
Love my captain!
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Quote:
Originally posted by misbehaven:
so what's the real agenda of I.D.?
They want the Judeo-Christian worldview accepted into American public life as policy. But the First Amendment says you're not supposed to do that. America is based on a diversity of beliefs and was founded on the principle of religious freedom. The conservatives want to blend public life with private life. But religion is private. It's nobody's business. Politicians have to announce they believe in God, and God bless America. But religion as public policy leads to a reduction of liberty and freedom for those who don't believe. It makes it harder for us to express our own beliefs without fear of condemnation.
Let's say that we passed legislation that requires the teaching of one dominant religion in public schools, which right now is Judeo-Christian. Hooray! Everybody's happy. Now let's say that Islam is the dominant religion 500 years from now. It most likely will be Europe. You still want that law on the books? Girls in public schools will have to wear burqas and, in fact, there will be no education for them after sixth grade. You still want the dominant religion legalized in America? No way!
first of all, God has almost no influence in America..when you read the Bible, this becomes obvious. when the Federal Reserve prints "in God we trust", the all seeing eye of Lucifer makes it obvious who theyre talking about; and a politician could say he believes in bigfoot or mothman, but it is his actions which are the true test, and this is where they constitantly fail
i wish people would understand that in reality Gods message is antithetical to authoritarian oppressive control, and stands in the way of the true globalists agenda. if the goal is to dehumanize people to the extent that we are mindless serfs, then they taught the wrong message. how does "love your neighbor as yourself" equate to degenerate suppressive overlords? if God forbids the love of money, or the love of anything before him, which is idolatry, then it contradicts this consumer driven nightmare world that we live in today. and Jesus' message of peace is an obsticle for an agenda to propogate citizens into wars of greed or conquest. time and again you will find these contradictions, as a general rule, it helps to study something in its entirety before settling on unsubstantiated conclusions like that
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Quote:Maybe not, but that's the idea. It's a pretty good one too actually.
first of all, God has almost no influence in America.
Extreme rightwing fundementalist christians, they do have sway, and they're influence is growing, and thats really very worrying, not just for American citizens but for others as well, because the fire and brimestone from these fruitcakes will be falling on all our heads.
Viva la American Inquisition.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:Quote:Maybe not, but that's the idea. It's a pretty good one too actually.
first of all, God has almost no influence in America.
Extreme rightwing fundementalist christians, they do have sway, and they're influence is growing, and thats really very worrying, not just for American citizens but for others as well, because the fire and brimestone from these fruitcakes will be falling on all our heads.
Viva la American Inquisition.
You're just still bent out of shape that your former colonies stuck it to you some 230 yrs ago, and haven't looked back since!
Granted, the whole ' Manifest Destiny ' con of telling land hungry newcomers that " God WANTED you to settle out west.. " worked like a charm. But your " Inquisition" remark smacks more of jealousy than anything. First of all, it was the SPANIARDS who pulled off the transfiguration of the American SW and the spreading of Catholocism to Central/South America. Not so much w/ the US Gov't.
And while you seem to be taking for granite the threat of Islam in not only Europe, but across the globe, you take a jab at some nonsenical 'Inquistion', which occured 100's of yrs ago in a country far,far away.
Priorities, mate. Time to put them in order.
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss
" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "
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