GENIUS FORUMS

Shantideva's "A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" ?

Nyaya-Vaisesika: Isvara is the cause of the world.

Madhyamika: Then explain who Isvara is. If he is the elements, so be it; but then why the tussle over a mere name?
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If he does not depend on anything else, why does he not always create? There is nothing whatsoever that is not created by him, so on what would he depend?
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If Isvara depends on a collection of conditions, then again, he is not the cause. He cannot refrain from creating when there is a collection of conditions, nor can he create in their absence.
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If Isvara creates without desiring to do so, it would follow that he is dependent on something other than himself. Even if he desires to create, he is dependent on that desire. Whence is the supremacy of the creator?

There is no logical, ethical or rational reason for God. God doesn’t solve any philosophical problems, and just creates more of them.

There are many mysteries in the universe and the atheist is not obliged to try to explain them. If there always was an underlying complexity in the universe then you don’t need god. If the universe was once very simple, and no more than a blank canvas, then how and why did complexity arise? You can’t say that god created it, because we just agreed that at its genesis, the universe was very simple.

There does seem to be a “life force” but it isn’t a god. I don’t believe the life-force is conscious in itself; it’s more an effect that runs through the world. Particles tend to clump and form more complex particles. Why do they do this? Does a Christian God, or any other deity, explain this? If you accept the Big Bang theory, and maybe accept that as one universe winds up (ours) another winds down (the other one) why this imbalance of energy in the first place? Why isn’t matter just homogenously scattered although the universe as you would expect in a Big Bang? Why were clumps of matter attracted to other clumps of matter in the first place? What’s in it for them?

Is consciousness a distinguishing feature of the universe, and does understanding this make it any easier if it’s a god? If it doesn’t, then why bother? Maybe all matter has within it the potential for decisions, even if to a very limited degree. So any particle that occupies any space has a choice to go either this way or that, and this feature is inbuilt in its physicality. You could call it pantheism but is this more for emotional comfort than pure philosophy?

Particles tend to clump and form more complex particles. Why do they do this? Does a Christian God, or any other deity, explain this?

It's easy. If two particles collide from different directions their energy is equal, and opposed, therefore they stop moving. You have to forget about the big bang however, and change this to lots of little bangs in different places, and you could even change that to just an increase in energy in many different places.

If I syncretize "the Presence of the Past" by Sheledrake and the original Aryan Creation myth, we solve the problem of god. There is no god. Occam's razor.

Chaos was the primordial substance, and is still with us.
But if you iterate random numbers long enuf, you get a self replicating sequence like "Gaia".
And because Gaia iterates still immersed in Chaos, errors occur, She changes. Evolves.
That evolution produced the process which still goes on to create order out of Chaos.
While Gaia achieved sentience, like all Mothers, She gives birth to let each of us fulfill our own destiny. (not some divine plan)
We are still connected to Her, and together, we are still evolving.
The ultimate end of evolution is the Singularity.

Til then, do whatever floats your boat.

daybrown wrote:If I syncretize "the Presence of the Past" by Sheledrake and the original Aryan Creation myth, we solve the problem of god. There is no god. Occam's razor.

Chaos was the primordial substance, and is still with us.
But if you iterate random numbers long enuf, you get a self replicating sequence like "Gaia".
And because Gaia iterates still immersed in Chaos, errors occur, She changes. Evolves.
That evolution produced the process which still goes on to create order out of Chaos.
While Gaia achieved sentience, like all Mothers, She gives birth to let each of us fulfill our own destiny. (not some divine plan)
We are still connected to Her, and together, we are still evolving.
The ultimate end of evolution is the Singularity.

Til then, do whatever floats your boat.

Never read this before...Yes. That works just fine. It doesn't really need a woman's name however. I suppose that makes it easier to understand. Just replace the name Gaia with the word Atoms or molecules, and it works.

Bilby,

There is no logical, ethical or rational reason for God. God doesn’t solve any philosophical problems, and just creates more of them.

Did you read his challenge before writing this?

Atoms, molecules, gravity, radiation, et al, dont impose order on Chaos, but are evidence of order being imposed. I dont claim that the Goddess is sentient as we understand the term. She could be little more than a Turing machine whose code randomly evolved enough to create what we call Natural Law.

There are those who have experienced altered states of consciousness that report some kind of data connection with the Reality generation software, and like Plato in his escatology, think that every action is recorded. As may be. But like a backup hard drive, not the kind of thing that requires a personality like Jehovah, Allah, Jesus, or even Buddha.

There is this dramatic diff in the general acceptance of the Goddess by a population which is easily understood when you consider the problem a demagogue would have trying to rile up a mob or an army by claiming that *he* speaks in *HER* name. So, whether you are atheistic or not, you would do well to promote the concept of the Goddess to replace that of the male gods- which have been so often used to drag bastards out, like atheists, who thot differently.

If people wish to worship the Great Mother Goddess, I dont have a problem with it; they are not going to use Her name to go after me cause I dont have the name right.

Astarte?

I dont have a problem with the name "Astarte", but wish those who embrace it would do more research on genuine archeological sources rather than the crap sold at Barnes & Noble. But even so, they are unlikely to get sucked into some of the more damaging demagoguery of religions with alpha male warrior gods.

Where the rubber hits the road is what a religion does to a culture. We have Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin to show us what atheism can do. But where are the crusades, genocides, and repressions carried out in the name of Buddha, Confucius, or Lao Tzu? They are, to say the least, obscure.

But the best example of the result is outlined by Gimbutas in "The Language of the Goddess" on the chalcolithic SE European faith in the Great Mother Goddess, aka Gaia, Venus, and many other names. Joseph Cambell wrote the forward to that work, which he closes with:

"The message here is of an actual age of peace and harmony with the creative energies of nature, which for a spell of some 4000 prehistoric years anteceded the 5000 of what James Joyce has termed the 'nightmare' (of contending tribal and national interests) from which it is certainly time for this planet to wake." [his parens]

This contention of peacefulness has been hotly debated on archeology lists, but I've not seen anyone show us any *evidence* from the digs in SE Europe to refute Gimbutas & Campbell. Goodison & Morris, "Ancient Goddesses" mention the controversy on the flyleaf, and explain they set out to dig into a virgin tel to specifically look for signs of warfare.

The usual is a general layer of burnt rubble left after a place has been attacked. And sure enuf, they did find a layer of burnt rubble, but then trenching out, realized it was a single house fire. Which apparently, because of the placement of figures in the corners of the house, ritually burnt. I note that they dont have the balls to actually mention in the book itself what they set out to find, but did not see.

5000 years ago, the whole region was abandoned for scores of years; looks like Anthrax. But parts of the culture used the first domestic horses, and moved onto the Steppes to become the Amazons. And part of that culture founded the independent city states of the Silk Road in the Taklamakhan desert like Urumchi, Loulan, & most famously, Kucha.

Which existed until over run by the Mongols. And, as you'd expect since they were in business, literate. So while Gimbutas makes her case out of iconography and snippets of myth retained in oral tradition in obscure parts of Europe, in Kucha we actually have written documents proving matriarchy.

in 1974, the Chinese found the Maitreyasamiti Texts in Tocharian A, written on paper in a Brahmi Sanskrit font which dates from the 5th century. It is a dialogue between the Gautamid Queen of Kucha and the Living Buddha. They do not discuss the diety at all. The main issue is the appropriate way for her to perform traditional Ayran rituals. In the very same era when Christian Aryan monks were burning witches and their books, Buddhist Aryan monks in Kucha were *making copies*.

Why modern 'wiccans' dont access these genuine sources rather than the drivel about Astarte or "The Craft", escapes me. But anyway, the upshot of the conversation is that the Gautama and the Buddha agree to go to consult with the monks at Sibushi, the monestary 12 miles north of town. Need I point out, that had Kucha been run by a king, the Buddha would have been talking to *him*?

Anyway, this is but one sample of over 100,000 documents and artifacts that the Chinese and Brits are scanning and putting online. And from what has been translated so far, we see that while these independent matriarchies were able to defend their own interests, they never warred with each other.

If we want to live in peace and freedom, convert the masses to the faith in the Goddess.

Atoms, molecules, gravity, radiation, et al, dont impose order on Chaos, but are evidence of order being imposed. I dont claim that the Goddess is sentient as we understand the term. She could be little more than a Turing machine whose code randomly evolved enough to create what we call Natural Law.

A Turing machine is way more evidence of order being imposed than an atom.

Oh well, I don't know what you mean now.

My theory = I have Dark Matter first. then it vibrates to send mini waves through space. then the waves bump to create particles, then the particles bunch together. I'm not sure what part is Gaia. Perhaps all of it. So it is just a simplified version of my theory, missing all of the stages out.

Maybe a God is just a word to simplify science.

daybrown wrote:
Where the rubber hits the road is what a religion does to a culture. We have Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin to show us what atheism can do.

I would argue Mao,Stalin and Pol Pol were every bit the theist-Communism was their God,Marx their prophet.One doesn't attempt to acheive 'year zero' unless he has a plan of what God to replace it with.

Ultimately nothing can be done 'in the name of atheism' .To commit attrocities, the budding despot needs a doctrine.If that doctrine involves ideas like "lets expunge Christianity or Islam-ie theism" - then it is not atheism, it is anti-theism.