missing thread??

1journeyman

Active Member
Originally Posted by Kablamo
You say that because the bible is divinely inspired word of god that if you believe any of it, you MUST believe all of it, well, that would only be true if the bible were divinely dictated by god, too bad it wasn't and never claimed to be....
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Yet another statement about the Bible that is false: (I Timothy 3:16) "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,..."
Kablamo, you can state "enlightened" ideas, theories, etc. all day long. That doesn't make anything you say effect reality. If a person lays down in a parking lot do they become a speed bump? Of course not... function does NOT change matter. If you use an eggcrate to hold up a lamp the eggcrate is still an eggcrate. It's not a table...
Names are used to identify things, not to define them.
 

kablamo

Member
Originally Posted by hagfish
This still does nothing to explain God away.
I'm typing on a laptop right now. Whether you like it or not, it is there. Your philosiphies can't change that. It is not a part of my imagination. If I decided to call it an oven, it's function is the same. The names that you seem to think we are slaves to are irrelevant. These things exist and there functions exist, so what is your point?
Of course it does nothing to explain god away, it does everything to show the true nature of the ultimite reality of the cosmos, what you call god, and I call Tao, Brahman, or Shin Ryo or what have you. They all point to the same thing.
And I'm afraid you still don't understand my analogy, Calling your laptop an oven does not make it an oven because it won't behave like an oven. It is a laptop because it is "laptopping" Just like an oven is "ovening" But if your lap top is turned off, then it is "paperweighting" and now it's a paperweight, or a large book end, or while you listen to your mp3s on it, it's a stereo system.
Laptops are a great example of what I'm talking about and I'm glad you brought this up. Lets forget about the world external from your laptop for a bit and say your laptop is the ultimite culmination of reality.
Say you are emailing someone, your laptop changes from a computer to a messaging device, say you are looking at family photos, it's now a photo album. Say you are researching things, now it's an encyclopedia. Or drawing? Now its a set of paints and a canvas. But, underneath all of these things there is one common feature that they have, they are all the laptop. The laptop is like the Tao or Brahman or whatever you like, that really makes all of these things.
After a few years what will your lap top be? trash. Obsolete, useless, worthless trash. You treasured it once, now it sits and is a dust collector.
Things are what they do, end of story.
10 years ago, what was your laptop? plastic, silicon, and metal ore in the ground somewhere.
give it about 100 years what will your laptop be? plastic, silicon, and metal.
***)
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Originally Posted by Kablamo
...
Now maybe I'm just knocking down straw men, but I really think that's what it was.
I suppose I have answered all points now and await some good dialogue.
*Not even close... once again you took tithing out of context... churches are businesses? Ya, just another talking point for church bashers. My church budget is an open book. ANY member can see ANYTIME where the money is being spent... missionaries, food to the poor, helping the poor with bills, education, etc... "employees" are a SMALL percentage of budget.
*You also need to reread the NT. Jesus was referred to as "Christ" and the Son of God, Son of Man, etc. many times, in many places.
Kablamo, you may have some interesting points to make, but until you quit trying to deliberately misuse scripture the rest of your points are lacking any form of credibility.
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Originally Posted by Kablamo
Things are what they do, end of story......
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Absolutely false.
you sleep laying down.. does that make you a carpet when you are asleep? You eat; Does that make you a garbage disposal?
Much of the philosphy you are quoting is in reality simple science. There's nothing new or enlightened about nature abhorring a vaccum. Osmosis is a functioning part of creation. That's reality, nothing more or less.
 

kablamo

Member
Originally Posted by 1journeyman
Absolutely false.
you sleep laying down.. does that make you a carpet when you are asleep? You eat; Does that make you a garbage disposal?
Much of the philosphy you are quoting is in reality simple science. There's nothing new or enlightened about nature abhorring a vaccum. Osmosis is a functioning part of creation. That's reality, nothing more or less.
This kind of two dimensional thinking really perplexes me.
You are taking my analogies WAY too literally, but if you want to be literal, the answer is no, because when you eat you are utilizing food to continue your growth and other bodily function, so when you eat you are a builder, utilizing the minerals and vitamins and proteins and so on to your bodies needs.
And when you sleep, what are you really doing? what is your real purpose in sleeping? Yes you may not be vertical anymore, but that doesn't make you a carpet, carpets don't get upset and stop being carpets just from walking on it. You are a reenergizer, or a dreamer, or cut the crap and call yourself a sleeper.
I'm pointing to a MUCH bigger picture here. Have you studied string theory? well, i'm not very good at it but I believe I get the Jist of it, String theory states that all matter is made up of waves, and that all particles have "strings" that vibrate at certain frequencies and amplitudes, the frequency of which designates just what kind of material it might be, if you subscribed to that, then I am talking about the strings themselves.
I'm trying to point out here that the entire universe is just that a Universe. It is the unification of all known matter into one dynamic and collosal system, and if the universe were a tree, then i am a leaf, not a bird that settled on the tree.
Oh, and I like how you call it creation, there's just one problem though, the universe is not an artifact. The universe is not a creation. A creation is something completed and filed away. The universe was not "made" in the ordinary sense of the word. When you make something you assemble parts, or if you carve something you cut away to leave the creation behind from the cuttings, or, if you are a potter, you shape the vessle using a soft substance and wait for it to harden. The universe doesn't work that way, the universe, and everything in the universe but human creations, for that matter, GROW. When you grow, you gradually complicate yourself from the inside, and the two processes are quite different.
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Kablamo... You try to take parts of the Bible, out of context, literally. Then you say we are taking the very things you type here too literally. :notsure:
Now.. as to the latest post: where exactly do you get the knowledge of how the universe began and exists today?
This discussion has become to drift far, far afield. The thing is, you are trying to take scientific models and theories and apply them to your religion. That's fine, but it doesn't make it correct.
I'm an individual. I'm not a part of anything. I have free will. I'm not a part of the universe, and the universe doesn't know I exist. In order to be a part of nature and the universe both would have to be sentient. They are not. I am.
 

kablamo

Member
Originally Posted by 1journeyman
I'm an individual. I'm not a part of anything. I have free will. I'm not a part of the universe, and the universe doesn't know I exist. In order to be a part of nature and the universe both would have to be sentient. They are not. I am.

First of all, how do you know the universe doesn't know you exist, I tell you this universe would not be this universe without you in it. It would be a COMPLETELY different place altogether, if even a hair moved in a different way.
Ever heard of the Gaia hypothesus? How our bodies are made of trillions of cells while the earth is made up of trillions of similar peices, how the ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions have been and have stayed suitable for life for so many years, is that the earth actually does have a form of consiousness. You think sentience is required to be a part of nature, are trees sentient? are trees concious? I shall continue this discussion later.
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Originally Posted by Kablamo
First of all, how do you know the universe doesn't know you exist, I tell you this universe would not be this universe without you in it. It would be a COMPLETELY different place altogether, if even a hair moved in a different way.
Ever heard of the Gaia hypothesus? How our bodies are made of trillions of cells while the earth is made up of trillions of similar peices, how the ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions have been and have stayed suitable for life for so many years, is that the earth actually does have a form of consiousness. You think sentience is required to be a part of nature, are trees sentient? are trees concious? I shall continue this discussion later.
No..I think sentience is required to have self awareness. The "universe", "Gaia", "planet earth", etc. are just systems.
Take my aquarium, for instance. The fish, corals, inverts, bacteria, plankton, algaes etc. are all alive. They are sentient, to some degree or another. Is the "aquarium" as a whole sentient? Of course not. Does the universe "know" that my aquarium needs to be topped off today? I really don't think it does.
 

kablamo

Member
Originally Posted by 1journeyman
No..I think sentience is required to have self awareness. The "universe", "Gaia", "planet earth", etc. are just systems.
Take my aquarium, for instance. The fish, corals, inverts, bacteria, plankton, algaes etc. are all alive. They are sentient, to some degree or another. Is the "aquarium" as a whole sentient? Of course not. Does the universe "know" that my aquarium needs to be topped off today? I really don't think it does.
You still don't get it? You think, like most freudians, that conciousness is a very complex form of minerals, while I say that minerals are a very rudimentary form of conciousness.
What you don't realize is that you too are JUST a system. "Just", as if it wasn't amazing. Just a biochemical robot, because you can't play favorites here. You can't have been brought forth by this universe and disconnect yourself completely from it. You need this earth to live, more than you need your arms and your legs. But yet you think your arms and legs are more a part of you than the earth and all of the species on it.
This system will and has outlived you by the billions of years, and it seems a bit more spectacular than one mere life, except, when a life starts measuring the whole thing from it's tiny point at the corner of the galaxy, now THAT's amazing!
Think about it, what are you made of? Well, if you are a typical american, you are made of hamburgers, cola, and pizza. If you are a more healthy eater, you are made of salads and tofu and other such things. Did you know all of your bodies' cells are replaced every seven years? The whole of your physical being is replaced every seven years. By what? by the water we drink, the oxygen we breathe, the food we eat, and several other various sources that all come from the earth. There is absolutely no way around the fact that you are forever linked and a part of this world.
Now, let's look at your attemped reductio ad absurdum, and I know i use that phrase a lot, but you ALWAYS use them, So think about that for one second. If the aquarium needs to be topped off bad enough, let's say you have a 70 gallon with a sump, it will start blowing bubbles at you, seems kinda logical to me, don't you think? You act and it reacts, if that is not conciousness, then I don't know what is.
 

kablamo

Member
Oh, and why do things have to be sentient to be a part of each other? The only part of you that's sentient is your brain, your hand isn't sentient, is it a part of you?
 
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