10-28-2004, 10:40 AM | #301 | ||
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Why should we remember? We don't even remember what we did when we were babies. I can't even remember what I had for lunch three days ago.
There's nothing in my own beliefs that discount the possibility of reincarnation, though I don't have any strong belief in it.
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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10-28-2004, 10:47 AM | #302 |
Warrior of the House of Hador
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Yeah but you remember being a baby don't you? And you remember that you did eat lunch three days ago. If reincarnation did occur you'd at least remember glimpses of your past life.
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Then Huor spoke and said: "Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and me a new star shall arise. Farewell!" The Silmarillion, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Page 230 |
10-28-2004, 10:53 AM | #303 |
Elf Lord
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Some interesting points Lizra. I can't even say I'm an atheist with any conviction! There seem to be three major strands to how the Universe came about: a) It has always been here, Big Banging then contracting ad infinitum, b) It just sort of created itself and c) A God of some description made it. All three are equally mind-boggling, to me.
Assuming we plump for c), how do we know what that god intended? There are profound differences between the religions on offer. Many rely on ancient texts - are we really sure these convey what they were originally intended to convey? Via manual transliteration, translation and, yes, downright editing? Is the New Testament that took shape under Paul what Jesus intended? I would have to say that belief is resorted to in the lack of knowledge. It's akin to prejudice in a sense: we probably can't eliminate it from the way we think, but those that come to rely on it rather than the data that knowledge provides inevitably cause problems for themselves and others. As for reincarnation: well, conservation of souls WOULD follow the general principles of the physical universe! But as the population has risen inexorably, where have the new souls come from? Is there a soul holding station that drip-feeds them into the universe? And whilst I'm on the subject, how come so many people who claim to have knowledge of past lives seem to claim big historical significance? All the stories I hear seem to involve warriors dying nobly fighting the Romans or hand-maidens of Cleopatra (or Cleopatra herself!). Didn't anyone in a past life, you know, just do some average stuff and die of a bad head cold in their seventies?
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10-28-2004, 01:27 PM | #304 | |
The Insufferable
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Ah, Nostalgia for the good old days on the unmoderated IGN boards. I do actually have... well, actually, no I don't have any questions at the moment, Rian. I have the seeds of questions which are slowly germinating, and if I will be allowed to shift gears and switch metaphors midsentance my mind requires further time to compile. Don't be hasty.
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned |
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10-28-2004, 01:40 PM | #305 | |
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I like your whole post Draken but the above part is most intriquing. |
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10-28-2004, 04:59 PM | #306 |
Elf Lord
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Without any intent to hijack the thread, Draken's observations on belief in the place of or absence of data are evident on the marriage thread. The data say one thing very clearly but beliefs replace data.
Another view of belief is that is the reliance placed on available data (not contradicting it) extrapolated to the next stage of action either for personal deeds or scientific inquiry ( a hypothesis is in fact based on a belief about the nature of the studied object and its predictable behaviour which is then testable for science or observable for verification). We cannot for instance test the BIG BANG by observation (a unique event) but we can postualte results of that and test those. A person may believe life begins at birth and we can see how they react to a miscarriage or stillbirth in the latter category. Everything we do is in fact predicated on belief that the known world acts in a reliable way - and we persist in beleief even in the face of quantum physics and the vast emptiness between atomic particles! Therefore I would submit that belief is not a last resort but the very source of our daily activities and thought and interactions.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
10-28-2004, 05:04 PM | #307 | ||
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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10-28-2004, 05:11 PM | #308 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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OK, Dylan, here's my next 2 questions:
3. Who are some of your favorite people, and what is it about them that you like? 4. What will happen when Brahma wakes?
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
10-28-2004, 05:47 PM | #309 |
The Insufferable
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Hmm. Allright. I've got one. And I'm not trying to be funny or clever with this, either. For once in my life.
So: "What is Truth?"
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Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned |
10-28-2004, 11:28 PM | #310 | |||||||
Elf Lord
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It's just about what you choose to do. I don't think theists are wrong, or atheists right, or vice-versa. I think we just have different routes. Quote:
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So I don't think one fails where the other succeeds. I think they are simply different. and they compliment each other. Quote:
As for people who claim to remember past lives, I would suggest that, most likely, these are people who are lying, or delusional. Quote:
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10-28-2004, 11:36 PM | #311 | |||
Elf Lord
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And I'm not sure which myth you are referring to. As one story goes, Brahma falls asleep between universes. He opens his eyes, and the universe is created. He shuts them to sleep, and the world dissolves. Or Shiva dances the cosmic dance, and all goes back to its potentiality. When Brahma wakes up again, he creates the universe anew. It's a never-ending cycle. Quote:
To look at it from a different angle, truth is a word, and a notion, an idea created by human beings, a thing to be transcended, and cast away. "Truth" is not the same as Truth.
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Falmon -- Dylan |
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10-29-2004, 06:15 AM | #312 | ||
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I love reading your posts Ñólendil.
What are some of the core beliefs of Hinduism? Of Buddhism?
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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10-29-2004, 10:26 AM | #313 |
Elf Lord
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Wayfarer,
Socrates defined Truth in one syllable words: To say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not; to not say of that which is not that it is or of that which is that it is not. Nolendil, does that accurately reflect your understanding or Hindu understanding of Truth? Nolendil, if the loss of selfhood is the goal of absorption into the divine (per above), then you believe that the abnegation of self-consciousness is the goal of all being. How is this not ultimately futile even for the All? And if retention of the self-awareness is the perogative of the divine and we are sparks of the divine, how shall we achieve this utter negation of the ground of being and become (for lack of a better tem) voided/negated/nothing?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
10-29-2004, 10:35 AM | #314 |
Warrior of the House of Hador
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Is there anything about your religions that you doubt?
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Then Huor spoke and said: "Yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of Elves and Men. This I say to you, lord, with the eyes of death: though we part here for ever, and I shall not look on your white walls again, from you and me a new star shall arise. Farewell!" The Silmarillion, Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Page 230 |
10-29-2004, 11:27 AM | #315 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
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Thanks again Noledil....Hinduism sounds very ...gentle...!?...I like that.
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10-29-2004, 12:14 PM | #316 | ||
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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3a. Re your friends - what made you choose to call them your friends? If they're friends, I imagine you spend more time with them (or at least would like to spend more time with them) than you do with people you don't like - why? What is it about them that would make you want to spend more time with them? If possible, please give examples of two different friends (you can change the names to protect the innocent ) Quote:
(otoh, we can't resist talking! ) Actually, I imagine I'm a bit different than you think ... Anyway, I had heard a story that men and gods are just a dream of Brahma, and when he awakens, they will perish. I had wondered if you had heard that story - have you? The story you've heard seems to be quite the opposite. Not to be disrespectful, but if the story I've heard is true, I sure hope he keeps sleeping, because there are many "dream people" that I know and love, and hope to know for all eternity. 5. In your first Tolkien cycle (if that makes sense), what was it that kept you so interested in Tolkien's works that you moved onto the Sil and HoME to such an extent that you are very knowledgeable?
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by Rían : 10-29-2004 at 12:18 PM. |
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10-29-2004, 12:20 PM | #317 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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Hey, they really ARE all one syllable words! But it gives me a headache to read them all! I like the definition, tho.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç å ™ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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10-29-2004, 03:12 PM | #318 |
Advocatus Diaboli
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while wandering the web i pulled out a term that fits me pretty well...
agnostic atheism ~ the position that holds both atheism and agnosticism to be true. A person holding such a position does not believe that any God or gods exist, and also that it is impossible to prove or disprove this position. the best of both worlds
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
10-29-2004, 04:50 PM | #319 |
Elf Lord
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Really avoids the difficulty of outright atheism which avers "there is no God", and agnosticism which avers "it is not possible to know if there is a God" so we get "it is not possible to know if there is a God there is no God" - or somethng like that, right?
I think this is known as an oxymoron.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
10-29-2004, 04:56 PM | #320 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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thus, i have my belief... followed by a statement of fact
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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