I don't have more complex "needs" than a pack of animals. I need food, water, and sex.
and as we said, we're simply smarter than most of them and have used it to develop more complex ways to "stockpile" our needs... food production, shelter production, etc. it's not that abstract.
I don't have more complex "needs" than a pack of animals. I need food, water, and sex.
The same thing can be said about cats, yet they still pass the time playing with random objects around the house (mine love those little tear strips from milk carton caps). Had they more complex brains, they'd probably spend time playing mouse-catching video games, carting around town in tiny cars, and frequenting their favorite cat-nip establishments to watch the latest Fuzzball Championship.
and as we said, we're simply smarter than most of them and have used it to develop more complex ways to "stockpile" our needs... food production, shelter production, etc. it's not that abstract.
But how come other animals have failed to generate these complex ways? Somehow I think that it was no accident that we have become self-aware and highly intelligent animals when we were confronted with such great opposition.
What gives us the right to say that jewelry and fashionable clothing (which are unnecessary for survival) are mere coincidences of our overdeveloped minds.
Additionally religion, which some might say is a coincidence of our overdeveloped minds, is very unusual. If God isn't real, why have we developed various ways of explaining his existence? Our "overdeveloped" minds have failed, even in the age of enlightenment, to prove that God is not real. As mankind became more developed, his explanations for God's existence have only increased in number.
All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
-Enoch Powell
Had they more complex brains, they'd probably spend time playing mouse-catching video games, carting around town in tiny cars, and frequenting their favorite cat-nip establishments to watch the latest Fuzzball Championship.
Ah how I love the RainDog style.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Additionally religion, which some might say is a coincidence of our overdeveloped minds, is very unusual. If God isn't real, why have we developed various ways of explaining his existence?
Additionally Middle Earth, which some might say is a coincidence of J. R. R. Tolkien's overdeveloped mind, is very unusual. If Ilúvatar isn't real, why has Tolkien developed various stories to explain his existence?
i was gonna say 'i see' but i dont, hehe. maybe i need to read the book. your whole levels and stages of developmental awareness has never sat well with me though...
Actually, I read about the stages independent of the book, and then 'encouraged' someone to buy me the book for Christmas. I didn't find that the book added much. Although, when I'm breaking this stuff up in pieces throughout these posts, I'm definitely removing it from it's original context. (edit: and therefore am distorting it)
The ironic part is that according to these developmental stages, 'liberal' types supposedly are incapable of seeing the 'stages' because they don't want to accept the natural hierarchical nature of development. So, you not 'getting' the whole concept might just be par for the course! The typical liberal, lateral based view is the last level of development before there is a large leap to the tiny minority of integrated awareness. I'd like to see you read the book, however, because along with your liberal leanings, I think you also do see some natural hierarchy in life. You seem to integrate many views and in terms of being practical, too.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
But how come other animals have failed to generate these complex ways? Somehow I think that it was no accident that we have become self-aware and highly intelligent animals when we were confronted with such great opposition.
What gives us the right to say that jewelry and fashionable clothing (which are unnecessary for survival) are mere coincidences of our overdeveloped minds.
Additionally religion, which some might say is a coincidence of our overdeveloped minds, is very unusual. If God isn't real, why have we developed various ways of explaining his existence? Our "overdeveloped" minds have failed, even in the age of enlightenment, to prove that God is not real. As mankind became more developed, his explanations for God's existence have only increased in number.
because we have larger brain capacities and got there first. monkeys are able to do pretty much everything we do, they're just a few thousand years behind us. plus, since we got there first and developed that wonderful christian notion that god told us to rule this earth with an iron fist and make all other animals our slaves, monkeys will never have a chance to develop the complex social constructs we have.
once we had our basic survival needs met, we became bored. suddenly we had TOO much time, so our minds turned to things like baubles and trinkets and games and socializing and eventually to pondering WHY we did what we did. voila, god.
your last point defeats itself. if you're operating from the hypothesis that god is real and the vast number of our religions are simply attempts to explain his nature, then you admit that there is no more validity to your view of god than a hindu's. it's just a guess that you subscribe to. they're both simply different expressions of the same phenomenon. this destroys your ability to say that human HAVE to accept YOUR jesus to be "saved." is that really what you're trying to argue?
But how come other animals have failed to generate these complex ways? Somehow I think that it was no accident that we have become self-aware and highly intelligent animals when we were confronted with such great opposition.
What gives us the right to say that jewelry and fashionable clothing (which are unnecessary for survival) are mere coincidences of our overdeveloped minds.
Additionally religion, which some might say is a coincidence of our overdeveloped minds, is very unusual. If God isn't real, why have we developed various ways of explaining his existence? Our "overdeveloped" minds have failed, even in the age of enlightenment, to prove that God is not real. As mankind became more developed, his explanations for God's existence have only increased in number.
It was certainly no accident - it was natural selection.
Jewellry and unfashionable clothing are 'unnecessary' in one sense yes - but they are decorative embellishments (peacocks were fotunate enough to evolve their own) adorned to make us more sexually desirable. And sex is necessary for survival.
And I don't think its unusual for beings who evolved the intellectual capacity to be cursed with awareness of their own mortality to develop an emotional and psychological crutch to ease the resulting existential angst.
Actually, I read about the stages independent of the book, and then 'encouraged' someone to buy me the book for Christmas. I didn't find that the book added much. Although, when I'm breaking this stuff up in pieces throughout these posts, I'm definitely removing it from it's original context. (edit: and therefore am distorting it)
The ironic part is that according to these developmental stages, 'liberal' types supposedly are incapable of seeing the 'stages' because they don't want to accept the natural hierarchical nature of development. So, you not 'getting' the whole concept might just be par for the course! The typical liberal, lateral based view is the last level of development before there is a large leap to the tiny minority of integrated awareness. I'd like to see you read the book, however, because along with your liberal leanings, I think you also do see some natural hierarchy in life. You seem to integrate many views and in terms of being practical, too.
im not sure id like it. it sounds like a self-serving way to see things. it's like setting up an aristocracy... im more developed than you! i am superior becos I am in touch with things that you are not. you are BLIND. i dont like that way of thinking.
in any case, my liberal leanings aren't very strong.
im not sure id like it. it sounds like a self-serving way to see things. it's like setting up an aristocracy... im more developed than you! i am superior becos I am in touch with things that you are not. you are BLIND. i dont like that way of thinking.
in any case, my liberal leanings aren't very strong.
The point is that when someone is really 'seeing' and getting it, they truly embrace and understand the validity of all 'levels', having integrated the ones they've also travelled through. And within each day, we go in and out of aspects of each state, too. It's actually when people are stuck in their worldview and cannot see beyond it that they believe they are superior. This board provides ample examples of that.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
The point is that when someone is really 'seeing' and getting it, they truly embrace and understand the validity of all 'levels', having integrated the ones they've also travelled through. And within each day, we go in and out of aspects of each state, too. It's actually when people are stuck in their worldview and cannot see beyond it that they believe they are superior. This board provides ample examples of that.
i dont know, at times it has looked condescending to me. like pitying the pathetic people who can't see through their own biases like us higher developed folk.
i mean, i know i do it, but i do it becos im an arrogant prick and i know it
i dont know, at times it has looked condescending to me. like pitying the pathetic people who can't see through their own biases like us higher developed folk.
i mean, i know i do it, but i do it becos im an arrogant prick and i know it
All I've had to do is read the concept, myself, and like it or not, it definitely rings true against my experiences. Some people do predominantly view life through a good/bad fundamental religion world view. Many, for that matter. For others, science and science only is the "truth". It's about the person's centre of gravity being at one stage or another, even though it is much more complex than that. I see the 'proof' all over this board. And people can and do progress through these levels. It's not that we are stuck at any one stage--predestined to be there. Many people do get stuck in their progress, however, because they are unable to resolve some of the challenges each level provides.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
All I've had to do is read the concept, myself, and like it or not, it definitely rings true against my experiences. Some people do predominantly view life through a good/bad fundamental religion world view. Many, for that matter. For others, science and science only is the "truth". It's about the person's centre of gravity being at one stage or another, even though it is much more complex than that. I see the 'proof' all over this board. And people can and do progress through these levels. It's not that we are stuck at any one stage--predestined to be there. Many people do get stuck in their progress, however, because they are unable to resolve some of the challenges each level provides.
hmmm, illl have to read it. i got the impression it was more a hierarchical evolutionary thing... like the religious fundies are bottom rung, the science people are a bit better, the metaphysical philosophers are at the top... i dont know if im cool with that.
I honsetly believe there is a completely undiscovered science that encompasses the spiritual world....the after-life......our "soul's" energy force.
I have no doubt there is something before and after human life.
But I don't believe for one minute it has anything to do with any of what is taught, preached, fought-for and shoved down our throats by any of the human-created and human-practiced ........Religions.
hmmm, illl have to read it. i got the impression it was more a hierarchical evolutionary thing... like the religious fundies are bottom rung, the science people are a bit better, the metaphysical philosophers are at the top... i dont know if im cool with that.
Yeah, it sounds like the actual purposes of the original article get distorted based on what context I'm using it in.
But for example, you and I have "evolved" out of a traditional religious view, at least that's my understanding of what you've said out here re religion--that you've been there and moved on like I have. It doesn't make us better than someone who holds a religious view. And if we act like it, it shows that we haven't exactly evolved past that--instead we would reveal that we are actually still emotionally attached to being there if we have 'issues' with it. Again it's about center of gravity. We all act stupid, arrogant and petty from time to time. This is not about there being a "right" stage and "wrong" ones.
As a matter of fact, you, like myself, might recognise people on this board who have "moved beyond" traditional religion, t and yet because they haven't resolved some of their issues with traditional religion, they are "beyond" and yet still just as crippled in their lack of balance in their new stage. It is not black and white. Imbalance and 'issues' are what they are at any phase.
And being integrated doesn't mean one is a philosopher. It means they can flow through any stage at will and when the situation calls for it--including using the validity of the "lower stages" for suitable purposes.
"The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth." ~ Niels Bohr
Yeah, it sounds like the actual purposes of the original article get distorted based on what context I'm using it in.
But for example, you and I have "evolved" out of a traditional religious view, at least that's my understanding of what you've said out here re religion--that you've been there and moved on like I have. It doesn't make us better than someone who holds a religious view. And if we act like it, it shows that we haven't exactly evolved past that--instead we would reveal that we are actually still emotionally attached to being there if we have 'issues' with it. Again it's about center of gravity. We all act stupid, arrogant and petty from time to time. This is not about there being a "right" stage and "wrong" ones.
As a matter of fact, you, like myself, might recognise people on this board who have "moved beyond" traditional religion, t and yet because they haven't resolved some of their issues with traditional religion, they are "beyond" and yet still just as crippled in their lack of balance in their new stage. It is not black and white. Imbalance and 'issues' are what they are at any phase.
And being integrated doesn't mean one is a philosopher. It means they can flow through any stage at will and when the situation calls for it--including using the validity of the "lower stages" for suitable purposes.
ah, not a piecemeal kinda thing then. ill give it a look later.
Additionally Middle Earth, which some might say is a coincidence of J. R. R. Tolkien's overdeveloped mind, is very unusual. If Ilúvatar isn't real, why has Tolkien developed various stories to explain his existence?
For apologetics.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic his entire life and his middle earth depictions served to represent his Catholic beliefs in a different way. They are full of Christian themes throughout.
Tolkien developed these stories to explain the beauty of God's love. God sacrificed his only son on the cross for humanity - Frodo's quest is incredibly similar to that sacrifice.
All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
-Enoch Powell
It was certainly no accident - it was natural selection.
Jewellry and unfashionable clothing are 'unnecessary' in one sense yes - but they are decorative embellishments (peacocks were fotunate enough to evolve their own) adorned to make us more sexually desirable. And sex is necessary for survival.
And I don't think its unusual for beings who evolved the intellectual capacity to be cursed with awareness of their own mortality to develop an emotional and psychological crutch to ease the resulting existential angst.
What made "natural selection?"
All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
-Enoch Powell
Tolkien was a devout Catholic his entire life and his middle earth depictions served to represent his Catholic beliefs in a different way. They are full of Christian themes throughout.
Tolkien developed these stories to explain the beauty of God's love. God sacrificed his only son on the cross for humanity - Frodo's quest is incredibly similar to that sacrifice.
I'm very familiar with Tolkien's Christian beliefs; though, he openly disliked comparisons like the one you're making here. I'm just saying that humans have vivid and detailed imaginations. We've developed ways of explaining the existence of many different things - even ones that never existed at all.
Now, I'm not saying there is no God. I'm only saying that using the many different beliefs in many different Gods argument isn't going to prove anything. In fact, it's quite easy to disregard.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic his entire life and his middle earth depictions served to represent his Catholic beliefs in a different way. They are full of Christian themes throughout.
Tolkien developed these stories to explain the beauty of God's love. God sacrificed his only son on the cross for humanity - Frodo's quest is incredibly similar to that sacrifice.
want a big shock... i did my college senior thesis on this... christian themes in tolkien's work, though i focused specifically on the mythology of the silmarillion. they're rampant. hell, gandalf literally undergoes a resurrection. i wrote a separate paper on that in class, it's what gave me the idea for the thesis.
I don't have more complex "needs" than a pack of animals. I need food, water, and sex.
Tell that to the carribean monkey who has been known to use "seasoning" on his fruit. It was on animal planet the other night. These monkeys were dragging their fruit through the surf to give it a salty flavor, apparently.
finally some truthfulness from soulsinging!!!!!!!!!!!
"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot". Mark Twain
"I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees."
Emiliano Zapata
This is something that bothers me with atheist. They despise other people for their beliefs but still promote their own.
I believe atheism is another form of religion. They have dogma, something to worship (humanity and science) and extremists.
Why keep on bashing believers when you could just let them live their life like they feel? "If you hate something, don't you do it to".
i am an atheist and i don't despise anybody. i do not promote my belief simply because i have no belief. i have no doubt in any inch of my body that God does not exist. this is not a belief i hold but a conclusion i came to. therefore i do not believe in the non existence of God, i KNOW he doesn't exist. it is an absolute.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
i am an atheist and i don't despise anybody. i do not promote my belief simply because i have no belief. i have no doubt in any inch of my body that God does not exist. this is not a belief i hold but a conclusion i came to. therefore i do not believe in the non existence of God, i KNOW he doesn't exist. it is an absolute.
The despising part just went pass my thoughts. I don't think all atheist despise religious believers, I know some do though.
And the absolute knowledge of the inexistence of God you have may be turned around for a very faithful person who can have the absolute knowledge of his existence (let's say, if he saw him for example - and wether or not he had a dream is not the issue) and knowing he exists. How are you different from that person? Is he wrong to know God exists while you know he doesn't? I just think you both believe you know and have much more in common than you think.
The despising part just got passed my thoughts. I don't think all atheist despise religious believers, I know some do though.
And the absolute knowledge of the inexistence of God you have may be turned around for a very faithful person who can have the absolute knowledge of his existence (let's say, if he saw him for example - and wether or not he had a dream is not the issue) and knowing he exists. How are you different from that person? Is he wrong to know God exists while you know he doesn't? I just think you both believe you know and have much more in common than you think.
i am no different than that person. it is not wrong for him to have an absolute belief in God. however if he says 'there just has to be...' then i have to wonder about the strength of his belief. both of us can have absolute conviction and that's what makes the human experience a fabulous and unique thing for every individual.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
NEW YORK - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.
At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."
Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.
Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.
There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.
Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.
The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.
This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Books.
Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic http://www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.
Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal."
Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.
A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.
Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.
Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.
"In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot". Mark Twain
"I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees."
Emiliano Zapata
Comments
and as we said, we're simply smarter than most of them and have used it to develop more complex ways to "stockpile" our needs... food production, shelter production, etc. it's not that abstract.
Much like the body, the mind also has needs.
But how come other animals have failed to generate these complex ways? Somehow I think that it was no accident that we have become self-aware and highly intelligent animals when we were confronted with such great opposition.
What gives us the right to say that jewelry and fashionable clothing (which are unnecessary for survival) are mere coincidences of our overdeveloped minds.
Additionally religion, which some might say is a coincidence of our overdeveloped minds, is very unusual. If God isn't real, why have we developed various ways of explaining his existence? Our "overdeveloped" minds have failed, even in the age of enlightenment, to prove that God is not real. As mankind became more developed, his explanations for God's existence have only increased in number.
-Enoch Powell
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
The ironic part is that according to these developmental stages, 'liberal' types supposedly are incapable of seeing the 'stages' because they don't want to accept the natural hierarchical nature of development. So, you not 'getting' the whole concept might just be par for the course! The typical liberal, lateral based view is the last level of development before there is a large leap to the tiny minority of integrated awareness. I'd like to see you read the book, however, because along with your liberal leanings, I think you also do see some natural hierarchy in life. You seem to integrate many views and in terms of being practical, too.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
because we have larger brain capacities and got there first. monkeys are able to do pretty much everything we do, they're just a few thousand years behind us. plus, since we got there first and developed that wonderful christian notion that god told us to rule this earth with an iron fist and make all other animals our slaves, monkeys will never have a chance to develop the complex social constructs we have.
once we had our basic survival needs met, we became bored. suddenly we had TOO much time, so our minds turned to things like baubles and trinkets and games and socializing and eventually to pondering WHY we did what we did. voila, god.
your last point defeats itself. if you're operating from the hypothesis that god is real and the vast number of our religions are simply attempts to explain his nature, then you admit that there is no more validity to your view of god than a hindu's. it's just a guess that you subscribe to. they're both simply different expressions of the same phenomenon. this destroys your ability to say that human HAVE to accept YOUR jesus to be "saved." is that really what you're trying to argue?
It was certainly no accident - it was natural selection.
Jewellry and unfashionable clothing are 'unnecessary' in one sense yes - but they are decorative embellishments (peacocks were fotunate enough to evolve their own) adorned to make us more sexually desirable. And sex is necessary for survival.
And I don't think its unusual for beings who evolved the intellectual capacity to be cursed with awareness of their own mortality to develop an emotional and psychological crutch to ease the resulting existential angst.
im not sure id like it. it sounds like a self-serving way to see things. it's like setting up an aristocracy... im more developed than you! i am superior becos I am in touch with things that you are not. you are BLIND. i dont like that way of thinking.
in any case, my liberal leanings aren't very strong.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
i dont know, at times it has looked condescending to me. like pitying the pathetic people who can't see through their own biases like us higher developed folk.
i mean, i know i do it, but i do it becos im an arrogant prick and i know it
All I've had to do is read the concept, myself, and like it or not, it definitely rings true against my experiences. Some people do predominantly view life through a good/bad fundamental religion world view. Many, for that matter. For others, science and science only is the "truth". It's about the person's centre of gravity being at one stage or another, even though it is much more complex than that. I see the 'proof' all over this board. And people can and do progress through these levels. It's not that we are stuck at any one stage--predestined to be there. Many people do get stuck in their progress, however, because they are unable to resolve some of the challenges each level provides.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
hmmm, illl have to read it. i got the impression it was more a hierarchical evolutionary thing... like the religious fundies are bottom rung, the science people are a bit better, the metaphysical philosophers are at the top... i dont know if im cool with that.
I have no doubt there is something before and after human life.
But I don't believe for one minute it has anything to do with any of what is taught, preached, fought-for and shoved down our throats by any of the human-created and human-practiced ........Religions.
But for example, you and I have "evolved" out of a traditional religious view, at least that's my understanding of what you've said out here re religion--that you've been there and moved on like I have. It doesn't make us better than someone who holds a religious view. And if we act like it, it shows that we haven't exactly evolved past that--instead we would reveal that we are actually still emotionally attached to being there if we have 'issues' with it. Again it's about center of gravity. We all act stupid, arrogant and petty from time to time. This is not about there being a "right" stage and "wrong" ones.
As a matter of fact, you, like myself, might recognise people on this board who have "moved beyond" traditional religion, t and yet because they haven't resolved some of their issues with traditional religion, they are "beyond" and yet still just as crippled in their lack of balance in their new stage. It is not black and white. Imbalance and 'issues' are what they are at any phase.
And being integrated doesn't mean one is a philosopher. It means they can flow through any stage at will and when the situation calls for it--including using the validity of the "lower stages" for suitable purposes.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
ah, not a piecemeal kinda thing then. ill give it a look later.
For apologetics.
Tolkien was a devout Catholic his entire life and his middle earth depictions served to represent his Catholic beliefs in a different way. They are full of Christian themes throughout.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/november2001/feature7.htm
Tolkien developed these stories to explain the beauty of God's love. God sacrificed his only son on the cross for humanity - Frodo's quest is incredibly similar to that sacrifice.
-Enoch Powell
What made "natural selection?"
-Enoch Powell
Now, I'm not saying there is no God. I'm only saying that using the many different beliefs in many different Gods argument isn't going to prove anything. In fact, it's quite easy to disregard.
Do you believe in vampires?
want a big shock... i did my college senior thesis on this... christian themes in tolkien's work, though i focused specifically on the mythology of the silmarillion. they're rampant. hell, gandalf literally undergoes a resurrection. i wrote a separate paper on that in class, it's what gave me the idea for the thesis.
Tell that to the carribean monkey who has been known to use "seasoning" on his fruit. It was on animal planet the other night. These monkeys were dragging their fruit through the surf to give it a salty flavor, apparently.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=272825
finally some truthfulness from soulsinging!!!!!!!!!!!
"I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees."
Emiliano Zapata
just be warned... doesn't mean im wrong
Nothing 'made' it. It is a naturally occuring phenomenon.
I don't get why the assumption is that an intelligent entity has to have 'made' it? It's just a short cut to an answer that explains nothing.
i am an atheist and i don't despise anybody. i do not promote my belief simply because i have no belief. i have no doubt in any inch of my body that God does not exist. this is not a belief i hold but a conclusion i came to. therefore i do not believe in the non existence of God, i KNOW he doesn't exist. it is an absolute.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
The despising part just went pass my thoughts. I don't think all atheist despise religious believers, I know some do though.
And the absolute knowledge of the inexistence of God you have may be turned around for a very faithful person who can have the absolute knowledge of his existence (let's say, if he saw him for example - and wether or not he had a dream is not the issue) and knowing he exists. How are you different from that person? Is he wrong to know God exists while you know he doesn't? I just think you both believe you know and have much more in common than you think.
i am no different than that person. it is not wrong for him to have an absolute belief in God. however if he says 'there just has to be...' then i have to wonder about the strength of his belief. both of us can have absolute conviction and that's what makes the human experience a fabulous and unique thing for every individual.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
NEW YORK - A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God — more or less — based on scientific evidence, and says so on a video released Thursday.
At age 81, after decades of insisting belief is a mistake, Antony Flew has concluded that some sort of intelligence or first cause must have created the universe. A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.
Flew said he's best labeled a deist like Thomas Jefferson, whose God was not actively involved in people's lives.
"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."
Flew first made his mark with the 1950 article "Theology and Falsification," based on a paper for the Socratic Club, a weekly Oxford religious forum led by writer and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis.
Over the years, Flew proclaimed the lack of evidence for God while teaching at Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele, and Reading universities in Britain, in visits to numerous U.S. and Canadian campuses and in books, articles, lectures and debates.
There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.
Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, "Has Science Discovered God?"
The video draws from a New York discussion last May organized by author Roy Abraham Varghese's Institute for Metascientific Research in Garland, Texas. Participants were Flew; Varghese; Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder, an Orthodox Jew; and Roman Catholic philosopher John Haldane of Scotland's University of St. Andrews.
The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.
The letter commended arguments in Schroeder's "The Hidden Face of God" and "The Wonder of the World" by Varghese, an Eastern Rite Catholic layman.
This week, Flew finished writing the first formal account of his new outlook for the introduction to a new edition of his "God and Philosophy," scheduled for release next year by Prometheus Books.
Prometheus specializes in skeptical thought, but if his belief upsets people, well "that's too bad," Flew said. "My whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato's Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic http://www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.
Flew's "name and stature are big. Whenever you hear people talk about atheists, Flew always comes up," Carrier said. Still, when it comes to Flew's reversal, "apart from curiosity, I don't think it's like a big deal."
Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.
A Methodist minister's son, Flew became an atheist at 15.
Early in his career, he argued that no conceivable events could constitute proof against God for believers, so skeptics were right to wonder whether the concept of God meant anything at all.
Another landmark was his 1984 "The Presumption of Atheism," playing off the presumption of innocence in criminal law. Flew said the debate over God must begin by presuming atheism, putting the burden of proof on those arguing that God exists.
"I would rather die on my feet than to live on my knees."
Emiliano Zapata
-Enoch Powell