Science And Religion Aren't Friends

[Galien]

It takes a certain type of hardheartedness to exist successfully in the fat section of the bellcurve. The main reason I left christianity? Hardhearted men who have been christians for 30 years plus. Means its all bullshit.

[Rev R]

Why would you think that to be the object of our existance...perpetual suffering? Sounds like hell to me. "Whack" with the stick.

 

<takes stick back from end>

 

NO NO NO!

<WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!>

 

The fun part of the job.

 

 

Now.

 

1. suffering is not the object of existence, it simply comes along with the territory.

2. the reason we suffer is because we resist. we crave pain to end and we crave pleasure to last. this resistance creates a hell of sorts within our own mind.

3. this resistance, craving, thirst (whatever) can be soothed and possibly even overcome (transcended?)

4. the means to overcome resistance is cultivation of wisdom, ethical living, and mental discipline

 

That is all there is to it. No speculations about gods, afterlives, spirits or souls.

 

You are fond of water analogies Ed so try this one: we strive to make our minds like water, fluid and adaptable yet focused and able to wear through stone.

[Ouroboros]

I disagree. Even if you argue evolution, humans at this point have extreme capabilities that rocks and flowers and animals do not.

And stars, supernovas, and black holes have incomprehensibly extreme capabilities compared to humans.

 

Besides, rocks can do things humans can't.

 

In all honesty, what constitutes an extreme capability?

[Guest end3]

Why would you think that to be the object of our existance...perpetual suffering? Sounds like hell to me. "Whack" with the stick.

 

<takes stick back from end>

 

NO NO NO!

<WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!>

 

The fun part of the job.

 

 

Now.

 

1. suffering is not the object of existence, it simply comes along with the territory.

2. the reason we suffer is because we resist. we crave pain to end and we crave pleasure to last. this resistance creates a hell of sorts within our own mind.

3. this resistance, craving, thirst (whatever) can be soothed and possibly even overcome (transcended?)

4. the means to overcome resistance is cultivation of wisdom, ethical living, and mental discipline

 

That is all there is to it. No speculations about gods, afterlives, spirits or souls.

 

You are fond of water analogies Ed so try this one: we strive to make our minds like water, fluid and adaptable yet focused and able to wear through stone.

 

Two different methods....one employs a sovereign God as "what is" and certain mechanisms to resolve the suffering and one employs the universe as "what is". No biggie. Christians accepting "what is" in a larger sense as what God has willed for His sovereign outcome. Certainly part of the professed peace, even within Christianity, can be attained through submission to "what is".

 

I just see all the markers/signs that make sense to me to go with the Bible version. Bob, from what I read, was somewhat within one method during his marriage, that she was able to bring him peace through her grace, through the union, a different reality than him being by himself...and I see his happiness due to her method (and mine) supercedes his method as being true and possibly even by his admission. That's just me. What is frustrating to me is that clearly he has experienced two realities, subjective though they might be in definition, and then decides to meander back to his default setting. And these are sincere thoughts for me, with the best intentions for Mr. Bob. As I stated, I may be totally incorrect, and probably am, but they are what defines truth for me.

 

That we suffer to know each other even within discussion brings us to knowing each other, and yields trust and love...which I think is definately part of the Christian method. The suffering comes for me when I have to yield to and understanding that I don't agree with, and vice versa, yet in doing that, by suffering, the outcome is love and faith and trust, and an eclipse of suffering. So I see this in action and by my experience, I "know" it and it becomes valid....and affirming for me.

 

I think if we really discussed it in detail, we would probably discover that the methods are much the same or at least the relationships between them.

 

Edit: Anyway, he got a marriage proposal out of his stubbornness....lol, teasing again Bob.

[Deva]

I don't know. The jury is out in my mind on accepting "what is." Some good honest anger is worthwhile sometimes.

 

I also really have to think about what you have posted in this thread, DesertBob. There is a lot of truth in it, and you often write like a Buddhist, but there is something missing that I can't quite put my finger on. Hmmm...

 

End3 you are absolutely right here:

 

Christians accepting "what is" in a larger sense as what God has willed for His sovereign outcome. Certainly part of the professed peace, even within Christianity, can be attained through submission to "what is".

 

This resignation or acceptance is found in Christianity, and I have seen that it can help people (my mother is one of them) reconcile themselves to the unacceptable in life.

[Guest end3]

Eh??

 

 

Actually, no, resisting suffering breeds more suffering; to resist suffering is in essence the same as resisting "what is" -- and trying to make life something it is not is the very source of suffering (which I define as this resistance, and distinct from "pain"; you can have pain without suffering and you can have suffering without pain). I was speaking of overcoming our natural resistance to reality -- ultimately, to the fact of our own mortality. Of choosing dissolution. That is ultimately where everything leads us anyway.

 

Been screaming this for years. Now I don't have to scream any more. You are the man Bob.

 

Not that I expect you to get this, but this is a prime example, you "screaming", in essence "suffering" for years being unknown, and then someone "knows" you and you exclaim, "what a relief, you are the man". Sometimes the acceptance isn't accidental like this, but has to be suffered for by both parties.....but the products thereof, the knowing, produce the peace, the relief, the acceptance, and the perpetuation of your experience perhaps to another.

 

But fuck, this is off topic, so I digress.

[Rev R]

 

Not that I expect you to get this, but this is a prime example, you "screaming", in essence "suffering" for years being unknown, and then someone "knows" you and you exclaim, "what a relief, you are the man". Sometimes the acceptance isn't accidental like this, but has to be suffered for by both parties.....but the products thereof, the knowing, produce the peace, the relief, the acceptance, and the perpetuation of your experience perhaps to another.

 

But fuck, this is off topic, so I digress.

 

Gobbletygook

[DesertBob]

Two different methods....one employs a sovereign God as "what is" and certain mechanisms to resolve the suffering and one employs the universe as "what is".

Yes, but the implications of this difference loom large to me. Mainly because the universe, as I said, has no agenda. It has made me no promises, sought no relationship with me, has no character, has no claims on me. The Biblical god has all those things. He's proven to be a lousy father, a flaky provider, a capricious taskmaster, an ineffective protector, an abusive and possibly drunken bridegroom. I don't have time or energy to feel let down and/or violated and/or lied to all the time. I don't want to be an enabler, always making excuses to myself and others for his behavior or constant failure to be present for me and mine. Life is too short for all that anger, and all over a nonexistent being to boot.

 

A random universe I can accept. A god who represents himself and his laws as immutable and yet is random, I cannot. An impersonal universe explains my life experiences without the need for pious platitudes.

Bob, from what I read, was somewhat within one method during his marriage, that she was able to bring him peace through her grace, through the union, a different reality than him being by himself...and I see his happiness due to her method (and mine) supercedes his method as being true and possibly even by his admission. That's just me. What is frustrating to me is that clearly he has experienced two realities, subjective though they might be in definition, and then decides to meander back to his default setting. And these are sincere thoughts for me, with the best intentions for Mr. Bob. As I stated, I may be totally incorrect, and probably am, but they are what defines truth for me.

Yes, you are totally incorrect. My wife and I were both fully committed Christians from childhood. I did not piggyback on her faith and then go back to my godless ways when she died. My deconversion in fact predated her death by roughly five years. As usual, you struggle to understand the simple fact that I left the faith for rational reasons. You feel the need to fit it into the standard Christian model that I have a wayward heart that was shamed into submission by a good woman and now I'm back to carousing again.

That we suffer to know each other even within discussion brings us to knowing each other, and yields trust and love...which I think is definately part of the Christian method. The suffering comes for me when I have to yield to and understanding that I don't agree with, and vice versa, yet in doing that, by suffering, the outcome is love and faith and trust, and an eclipse of suffering. So I see this in action and by my experience, I "know" it and it becomes valid....and affirming for me.

Well, I appreciate the genuine effort to respectfully connect and find common ground. You seem to have turned some kind of corner lately, and I know it cost you something.

[DesertBob]

It takes a certain type of hardheartedness to exist successfully in the fat section of the bellcurve. The main reason I left christianity? Hardhearted men who have been christians for 30 years plus. Means its all bullshit.

I hadn't thought of it in those terms. I tend to view settled, going-the-distance Christians as incurious, unaware, and/or willfully ignorant more than anything else. Some have doubts but suppress them out of complacency or fear. To not have doubts after decades in the faith, requires a certain rigidity of thinking. Maybe it's this last thing -- rigidity -- that you see as hardness of heart, a certain miserliness of spirit, a certain stubbornness born of long-term ego investment in being "right"?

 

I'm curious though, if this is the case, you wouldn't say it's confined to men, would you?

[DesertBob]

I don't know. The jury is out in my mind on accepting "what is." Some good honest anger is worthwhile sometimes.

Yes, but not impotent anger. Anger that motives action that produces sustainable change, sure. But there's no point in being angry about some things. Death, lost/wasted youth, missed opportunities and a host of similar things can only be accepted.

I also really have to think about what you have posted in this thread, DesertBob. There is a lot of truth in it, and you often write like a Buddhist, but there is something missing that I can't quite put my finger on. Hmmm...

The essence of Buddhist thought resonates with me, though probably not things further from the core, the quasi-religious stuff like reincarnation I can do without, for example. If there's anything closer to the core that's missing, it's maybe that I lack the ability to groove on the "suchness of the moment". I don't buy that everything is as it should be. I consider life to be seriously whacked out. I recognize "what is" and to the extent I can't change it I accept it, but I certainly don't have an appreciation for it.

[Galien]

It takes a certain type of hardheartedness to exist successfully in the fat section of the bellcurve. The main reason I left christianity? Hardhearted men who have been christians for 30 years plus. Means its all bullshit.

I hadn't thought of it in those terms. I tend to view settled, going-the-distance Christians as incurious, unaware, and/or willfully ignorant more than anything else. Some have doubts but suppress them out of complacency or fear. To not have doubts after decades in the faith, requires a certain rigidity of thinking. Maybe it's this last thing -- rigidity -- that you see as hardness of heart, a certain miserliness of spirit, a certain stubbornness born of long-term ego investment in being "right"?

 

I'm curious though, if this is the case, you wouldn't say it's confined to men, would you?

 

No, but seeing they are the abusers who rule the roost in christianity I am much more conscious of the spiritual assfucking I was getting. One can only take so much do as I say and not as I do before one blows a headgasket, and I did, and it was fucking spectacular.

 

As for the ignorance, complacency, miserliness of spirit and longterm ego-investment in being right, thank fuck I have never had to contend with those things inside myself and I don't even pretend to understand them. I've been to busy trying not to be neurotic and suicidal. Doesn't leave a lot of room for ego.

 

See I'm a strange girl, if you wanna stand there on a sunday and tell me how to live, you had better be damn well better at it than I am or you have nothing to tell me. I just got sick of actually expecting the "christmindedness" of these so called chosen ones to become evident. All I ever saw were rare flashes of brilliance in decades of egotism. So for me it was never really about doubt, it was about the complete lack of character in those who "should" have had it if the bible were true and if god were true.

 

What I observed was just another sad ass social club,where conmformity reigns. Nothing supernatural there.

[Vixentrox]

What I observed was just another sad ass social club,where conmformity reigns. Nothing supernatural there.

I view this as an element of all religions that I have ever heard of. Nothing supernatural indeed...because there is nothing supernatural to begin with.

[Deva]

The essence of Buddhist thought resonates with me, though probably not things further from the core, the quasi-religious stuff like reincarnation I can do without, for example. If there's anything closer to the core that's missing, it's maybe that I lack the ability to groove on the "suchness of the moment". I don't buy that everything is as it should be. I consider life to be seriously whacked out. I recognize "what is" and to the extent I can't change it I accept it, but I certainly don't have an appreciation for it.

 

Yeah, that's a difference between us. I have never been able to accept that death is the end of consciousness.

 

I think that a lot can be done to alter our perception of "what is". That it "should" be something other than what it is makes for a lot of trouble.

 

The anger I referred to is mainly toward certain types of mental states we get into. Its sort of a determination not to let some kind of negative state continue, rather than trying to influence outside events. True, there is simply no point in being angry about many things.

[Vixentrox]

I have never been able to accept that death is the end of consciousness.

Why? Have you seen some peer reviewed science article that says consciosness continues after worms are eating your rotting brain? Or is it "faith" like a Christian, believing in absurd stuff? How is thinking that death isn't the end of consciousness any less absurd than talking donkeys, Jesus coming back from the dead, talking flaming bushes, and the like? Why would you stop beleiving in that ridiculous stuff but stick with this fanciful belief?

[Deva]

I have never been able to accept that death is the end of consciousness.

Why? Have you seen some peer reviewed science article that says consciosness continues after worms are eating your rotting brain? Or is it "faith" like a Christian, believing in absurd stuff? How is thinking that death isn't the end of consciousness any less absurd than talking donkeys, Jesus coming back from the dead, talking flaming bushes, and the like? Why would you stop beleiving in that ridiculous stuff but stick with this fanciful belief?

 

Perhaps your God -"peer reviewed science"- doesn't have the answer for everything. It doesn't have the answers for the mystery of living. Just because I left Christianity does not automatically mean that none of it had any truth or value. Have you ever heard of the mythic or the metaphorical?

 

You call it "fanciful" if you like. I really don't care.

[Rev R]

I think if we really discussed it in detail, we would probably discover that the methods are much the same or at least the relationships between them.

 

We get into these things in all the wrong places and time, and after this many years of jousting I think you deserve the "A" game. Tell you what Ed, let's take this to the arena for some friendly sparring. What do you say?

[Vixentrox]

I have never been able to accept that death is the end of consciousness.

Why? Have you seen some peer reviewed science article that says consciosness continues after worms are eating your rotting brain? Or is it "faith" like a Christian, believing in absurd stuff? How is thinking that death isn't the end of consciousness any less absurd than talking donkeys, Jesus coming back from the dead, talking flaming bushes, and the like? Why would you stop beleiving in that ridiculous stuff but stick with this fanciful belief?

 

Perhaps your God -"peer reviewed science"- doesn't have the answer for everything. It doesn't have the answers for the mystery of living. Just because I left Christianity does not automatically mean that none of it had any truth or value. Have you ever heard of the mythic or the metaphorical?

 

You call it "fanciful" if you like. I really don't care.

The mystery of living? Bio-chemical reactions, cellular activities, electrical impulses. It doesn't seem a huge mystery. Certainly I have heard of "mythic" and metaphorical. Saying you think consciousness goes on after death is a metaphor to you? And mythic:

 

Adj. 1. mythic - relating to or having the nature of myth; "a novel of almost mythic consequence"

2. mythic - based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity; "mythical centaurs"; "the fabulous unicorn"

mythical, mythologic, mythological, fabulous

unreal - lacking in reality or substance or genuineness; not corresponding to acknowledged facts or criteria; "ghosts and other unreal entities"; "unreal propaganda serving as news"

 

Underpants gnomes fit into that category.

[Antlerman]

I have never been able to accept that death is the end of consciousness.

Why? Have you seen some peer reviewed science article that says consciosness continues after worms are eating your rotting brain? Or is it "faith" like a Christian, believing in absurd stuff? How is thinking that death isn't the end of consciousness any less absurd than talking donkeys, Jesus coming back from the dead, talking flaming bushes, and the like? Why would you stop beleiving in that ridiculous stuff but stick with this fanciful belief?

Good lord, you really do know only one song. "What we are, that only can we see."

 

I don't believe she, or anyone suggested that the collection of images we store in our brains, the actual thoughts themselves about ourselves and others, or the very processes of thinking themselves, in other words all those things that go into making up what we call our personality - which so many and you included no doubt define as consciousness, is what survives death - any more than we would say our bodies survive death.

 

To keep it super simple, you could think of it in terms of the atoms and molecules of our physical bodies surviving death. Consciousness in the human is what is exposed through the abilities of our brains and the development of our minds, but it no more creates consciousness than our bodies create matter. What we conventionally call consciousness is really a form of it, rather than it itself.

 

You want scientific evidence? First, you produce scientific evidence that matter exists. Show me "matter". And handing me a rock won't do, nor will pointing to an some atom or particle. That is not matter apart from form. Those are forms of matter, but there is no "matter" as such that you can point to and identify as matter. Only forms of something that in all reality 'doesn't exist". But yet you would never argue otherwise - despite have no scientific evidence of it.

 

The human mind is no more the definition of consciousness than a rock is what defines matter. Do you presume to be the only form of awareness in the universe? Are humans the only thing in the world that processes consciousness? And you speak of the fantasy of talking donkeys? Are you sure you're applying that to the correct party in this discussion?

[Vixentrox]

So are you suggesting that your consciousness is some magical form of atom? I already said we are already connected at a molecular level. The atoms from Roman slave feces may very well exist in each of our brains. So what? Atoms are constantly reused in new forms. And matter is something occupies a space and has mass; things that are measurable. Do I presume to be the only form of awareness in the universe, no, animals have awareness of a sort. What does that have to do with anything? Not a damn thing.

[DesertBob]

... seeing [Christian men] are the abusers who rule the roost in christianity I am much more conscious of the spiritual assfucking I was getting. One can only take so much do as I say and not as I do before one blows a headgasket, and I did, and it was fucking spectacular.

Ah, yes ... I get it. A respectful relationship of equals is hard to come by, at least in fundamentalist circles.

[florduh]

I don't believe she, or anyone suggested that the collection of images we store in our brains, the actual thoughts themselves about ourselves and others, or the very processes of thinking themselves, in other words all those things that go into making up what we call our personality - which so many and you included no doubt define as consciousness, is what survives death - any more than we would say our bodies survive death.

Are you saying that consciousness in general exists and continues regardless of whether we personally participate or not? If that is the case, then nothing of who we specifically are survives body death. I wonder how it is relevant to me that consciousness exists independently if it is not my own consciousness. It seems no more relevant than to say a dried up lake still exists because the water vapor had to go somewhere. The lake that supported fish populations and plants does not exist any longer for all practical purposes. Energy and matter have stopped being a lake and are doing/being something else. Therefore, even if we accept on faith that consciousness is a non-local activity, I still fail to see how that changes anything on the local level.

 

Or did I misunderstand? I can do that, you know!

[DesertBob]

I don't believe she, or anyone suggested that the collection of images we store in our brains, the actual thoughts themselves about ourselves and others, or the very processes of thinking themselves, in other words all those things that go into making up what we call our personality - which so many and you included no doubt define as consciousness, is what survives death - any more than we would say our bodies survive death.

Actually I took Deva to mean just that. Otherwise why would she have a problem accepting that "consciousness ends at death"?

 

My response to Vixentrox's thoughts is that it should be no mystery that people would have some difficulty with that. S/he clearly does, or s/he wouldn't go to such strenuous lengths to build walls around the mere hint of a suggestion of an afterlife. It would be nothing more than an interesting mind game / discussion to a person who was truly okay with it.

 

There aren't very many possible responses to the fact of our mortality:

 

1) Decide (or pretend) that it doesn't matter

 

2) Make peace with the idea.

 

3) Accept some concept of afterlife so you don't have to make peace with the idea.

 

4) Completely avoid thinking about it or anything in life that makes you think about it. Act strangely around people who have lost a loved one. Speak of serious illness or accident only in stage whispers. That sort of thing.

 

Most people use 3, 4 or some combination of the two. Vixentrox presents as a resounding "1", but would be a "4" if s/he is using all this high dudgeon as a smokescreen for the terror of death, as opposed to just objecting to the perceived stupidity of others in believing differently than s/he.

 

I'm a "2", which doesn't preclude openness to information on the subject, the admission of a possibility that I or some aspect of me could be in a sense immortal, however unlikely. Personally I've come to not value immortality that much, because I no longer think of it in the popular sense of "more life, only minus the bullshit". It would probably actually be more of the same, and the idea of a nice restful oblivion actually appeals to me more than the alternatives these days. To me the biggest argument in favor of an afterlife is that oblivion would be too easy. An afterlife, particularly some hellish cyclic afterlife along the lines of reincarnation, would continue the pattern of life being an obtuse, ineffable treadmill; there's a certain symmetry to the idea, little as it appeals to me. But thankfully, that particular explanation seems pretty unlikely.

[DesertBob]

I wonder how it is relevant to me that consciousness exists independently if it is not my own consciousness. It seems no more relevant than to say a dried up lake still exists because the water vapor had to go somewhere.

+1

[Vixentrox]

I don't believe she, or anyone suggested that the collection of images we store in our brains, the actual thoughts themselves about ourselves and others, or the very processes of thinking themselves, in other words all those things that go into making up what we call our personality - which so many and you included no doubt define as consciousness, is what survives death - any more than we would say our bodies survive death.

Actually I took Deva to mean just that. Otherwise why would she have a problem accepting that "consciousness ends at death"?

 

My response to Vixentrox's thoughts is that it should be no mystery that people would have some difficulty with that. S/he clearly does, or s/he wouldn't go to such strenuous lengths to build walls around the mere hint of a suggestion of an afterlife. It would be nothing more than an interesting mind game / discussion to a person who was truly okay with it.

 

There aren't very many possible responses to the fact of our mortality:

 

1) Decide (or pretend) that it doesn't matter

 

2) Make peace with the idea.

 

3) Accept some concept of afterlife so you don't have to make peace with the idea.

 

4) Completely avoid thinking about it or anything in life that makes you think about it. Act strangely around people who have lost a loved one. Speak of serious illness or accident only in stage whispers. That sort of thing.

 

Most people use 3, 4 or some combination of the two. Vixentrox presents as a resounding "1", but would be a "4" if s/he is using all this high dudgeon as a smokescreen for the terror of death, as opposed to just objecting to the perceived stupidity of others in believing differently than s/he.

 

I'm a "2", which doesn't preclude openness to information on the subject, the admission of a possibility that I or some aspect of me could be in a sense immortal, however unlikely. Personally I've come to not value immortality that much, because I no longer think of it in the popular sense of "more life, only minus the bullshit". It would probably actually be more of the same, and the idea of a nice restful oblivion actually appeals to me more than the alternatives these days. To me the biggest argument in favor of an afterlife is that oblivion would be too easy. An afterlife, particularly some hellish cyclic afterlife along the lines of reincarnation, would continue the pattern of life being an obtuse, ineffable treadmill; there's a certain symmetry to the idea, little as it appeals to me. But thankfully, that particular explanation seems pretty unlikely.

After a lifetime of Christianity and the whole heaven/hell concept then the Buddhist rebirth thing.... oblivion sounds pretty darn good after death, the most logical and science based. Of course, if science proves there is some sort of afterlife, reincarnation or whatever, then I will change my views. Till then it is just so much rubbish no different than hundreds of other man-made myths about an afterlife.

[Guest end3]

 

Not that I expect you to get this, but this is a prime example, you "screaming", in essence "suffering" for years being unknown, and then someone "knows" you and you exclaim, "what a relief, you are the man". Sometimes the acceptance isn't accidental like this, but has to be suffered for by both parties.....but the products thereof, the knowing, produce the peace, the relief, the acceptance, and the perpetuation of your experience perhaps to another.

 

But fuck, this is off topic, so I digress.

 

Gobbletygook

 

The evidence supports itself I think Rod.

 

I'll consider your offer on the other.