GENIUS FORUMS

Anna wrote:

Kelly wrote:If, as you say, you have been using God to mean Existence itself, then why did you say:

The god of this universe does not single out a particular people and tell them that they must worship by force.

as this implies that there is such a thing as a god of this universe that lets people choose how it should be worshipped.

You had asked for a proof of God. The proof of God is existence itself. The nature of God is more speculative.
You are sure there is no mind or consciousness, I am not. There are levels and layers of God. We may contact at different layers. I think there is a personal aspect, but I don't quite understand it.
Your belief system is dependent upon Darwinian evolution being true. That is one of the most unfounded faiths humans have ever fallen for, and it is falling quickly. Once it becomes more and more known and acknowledged that this life and this universe require a mind, what will you do then?

I certainly do think God lets people worship however they want. God lets everyone do what they want and couldn't possibly care less how they worship. But everyone worships. There are no exceptions and there is no escape.
Truth is a pathless land.

For a start, I don't have a belief system. Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution. It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time. Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things, this makes no difference to what I think.

You are pulling claims out of thin air about what I think.

Your claims about God also seem to be pulled out of thin air. It's hard to know what you're talking about. You say God is Existence, but never define Existence clearly. You say God has 'levels and layers'. So are you saying Existence itself has levels and layers? You need to be clear.

You say everyone worships. Do you mean that everyone knows what God is instinctively? If yes, then God is definitely an object born of egotism, because instinct never provides knowledge of God, but only of what nourishes the ego.

Anna wrote:[evolution] is one of the most unfounded faiths humans have ever fallen for, and it is falling quickly

This sounds like an attempt to insert a scientific evaluation of some kind. But it could just as well have been said by U.S. vice-presidential candidate Mrs. Palin.

While of course evolution as theory remains tentative, like all scientific theories and models, it's actually one of the most successful theories of the last age, as the evidence turning up is so overwhelming and literally countless predictions keep on falling in place every day. An evaluation reached by consensus and peer review. The idea that evolution would somehow corrupt or cause a downfall is a deep religious fear, a strange one too because there is not one good reason why [believe in] evolution would somehow endanger religious or spiritual belief, apart from challenging the clinging to some barbaric literalism, some materialist type of religion that needs a God or Governing Consciousness 'out there' as actual as a rock but at the same time as close and intimate as a lover. This mixing up of psychological and scientific processes is not wise.

Larger scientific pictures will keep unfolding which will cause evolution theory to be expanded to include yet unknown processes in the chain, or parts of it rephrased and re-examined, but that doesn't make it suddenly the most unfounded faith. It's science, it won't deliver us, it's not designed to.

The only god that is threatened by scientific method or evolution is a god that's already dead. The only people upset are the ones worshiping a shadow, a memory. Really, god moved on long ago, let go of his grave! And let science decompose the remains like the worms and fungi.

Anna's "thinking" is so muddled only a masochist would take it on with any degree of hope. Anna both knows and not-knows the same thing at the same time; she is both certain about and not certain about everything.

She says "God is existence." Does she forget that she elsewhere has repeatedly said she does not know what existence is, or that she doesn't quite understand it? Of course she forgets...

God for me thus far is obviously whatever it is for someone who recognizes "it" God apparently better than I could in the next 1000 years.

It has something to do with storing scientic fact and alien tecnology which we seem to be adept at "gathering".


I cannot prove what I am saying so trust me when I say that I am a drunken fool with no experience in anything but world domination of the Lame Market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTC_jUa ... ed&search=

Kelly Jones wrote: For a start, I don't have a belief system.

Are you sure that that is not a belief system?

Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution. It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time.

Are you sure your reasoning is not creating in you a belief system about the Absolute?

Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things

True, consciousness may create all things except consciousness.

Gods space ship must be a little cooler than ours with just a touch of newtonian democracy.


Either you are in the club or you just did not make the currency cut.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The only god that is threatened by scientific method or evolution is a god that's already dead. The only people upset are the ones worshiping a shadow, a memory. Really, god moved on long ago, let go of his grave! And let science decompose the remains like the worms and fungi.

Yes it's really very simple. You must not be attached to ceremony or tradition, for then it will suck the life right out of you. Respect it the way you would respect a cobra. If you find you must participate in ceremony due to familial obligations, for example, do so with utter detachment. "Let the dead bury the dead." God is about life, without which there is no science; therefore God and science do not exclude each other in any way. Anything that contradicts this simple truth should automatically be examined for tacit attachments to a tradition. The tradition itself need not be threatened by the removal of these attachments, since the attachments come away like a vine that is stripped from a tree. Anything worthwhile in the traditon will survive, and in fact prosper, much like the tree which is now not strangled by the vines. At its best, science cleanses religion of its superstitions which it accumulates as it evolves. At its worst, it supplants religion entirely. Religion is not merely something you do in a mosque, synagogue, or church. People tend to get it there and leave it there. I think that if one is a rational person, one will inevitably find within oneself compassion as well, and then one's spiritual life is free to grow unconfined by ritual.

tek0,

Gods space ship must be a little cooler than ours with just a touch of newtonian democracy.

What the fuck are you talking about?

Leyla Shen wrote:Anna's "thinking" is so muddled only a masochist would take it on with any degree of hope. Anna both knows and not-knows the same thing at the same time; she is both certain about and not certain about everything.

People are truly lazy and unwilling when it comes to spiritual progress. They will not do what they must; they usually have to be dragged kicking and screaming by others, if not by their own nobler parts. I say this universally: if there is any shred of egotism, then there is going to be a hell-fight. So it isn't necessarily masochistic to deal with this unwillingness. It's the only thing we can do.

Treat people like adults and hopefully they will become adults. Women remain muddle-headed and weak, because no one has expected them to deal with hard truths.

She says "God is existence." Does she forget that she elsewhere has repeatedly said she does not know what existence is, or that she doesn't quite understand it? Of course she forgets...

Of course. But we have to be mindful that it's not Anna's fault. She hasn't had people to push her; she doesn't trust in her own mind.

I personally had to be reminded over and over again of the simplest truths. My own experience of feminine-mindedness makes me more aware of how much patient effort is needed to encourage the smallest increments of consciousness.

Thanks to the you-know-what.

Carl G wrote:K: For a start, I don't have a belief system.

C: Are you sure that that is not a belief system?

Yes. But you need to work the proof out yourself. ;-)

K: Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution. It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time.

C: Are you sure your reasoning is not creating in you a belief system about the Absolute?

As above. My reasoning is definitely not creating a belief system about the Absolute. It points in the opposite direction to a belief system.

K: Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things

C: True, consciousness may create all things except consciousness.

Which means it cannot create anything at all.

What is consciousness?

Kelly Jones wrote:K: For a start, I don't have a belief system.

C: Are you sure that that is not a belief system?
K: Yes. But you need to work the proof out yourself. ;-)

I need to work out the proof for your certainty?

K: Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution. It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time.

C: Are you sure your reasoning is not creating in you a belief system about the Absolute?
As above.

K: My reasoning is definitely not creating a belief system about the Absolute. It points in the opposite direction to a belief system.

Well, I don't actually see how belief system can be avoided, despite there being some indisputable facts which can be established.

K: Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things

C: True, consciousness may create all things except consciousness.

K: Which means it cannot create anything at all.

Why not? Perhaps you define "create" in some special way to preclude it?

What is consciousness?

I would say mind.

Asking me whether I am certain about anything is pointless. What matters is an individual going through the reasoning consciously for themselves. If they don't bother, then their questions are going to be foolish.

Carl wrote:C: Are you sure your reasoning is not creating in you a belief system about the Absolute?

K: My reasoning is definitely not creating a belief system about the Absolute. It points in the opposite direction to a belief system.

C: Well, I don't actually see how belief system can be avoided, despite there being some indisputable facts which can be established.

There's no fact possible on which to base a belief system about the Absolute. Name anything and it will disintegrate.

K: Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things

C: True, consciousness may create all things except consciousness.

K: Which means it cannot create anything at all.

C: Why not? Perhaps you define "create" in some special way to preclude it?

K: What is consciousness?

C: I would say mind.

What is mind? Is it everywhere? Everything? If not, then what can it create, that isn't ultimately countless causal processes?

Can’t argue with your reasoning there (refer 12 Sep 2008 09:32), Kelly Jones. Though, there’s something to be said for consciously engaging the ego, to watch it wriggle and writhe as the noose tightens to squeeze every last breath out if it…

:)

.


-tek0-
Gods space ship must be a little cooler than ours with just a touch of newtonian democracy.

-tomas-
Truly :-)

However, I'm not a fan of apples :-(

Unless its The Beatles label..

Seriously, even Darwin backpedaled in his later writings.




-tek0-
Either you are in the club or you just did not make the currency cut.

-tomas-
I'm in (on the ground floor).



Peace Up


.

Kelly,

For a start, I don't have a belief system.

I think you do. If it is invisible to you, you will have harder time examining it. May I suggest the essay, On The Transmission of Mind.

Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution.

Either the universe with its laws and elements, and the life forms, required an intelligent input to bring them forth, or they did not. Since you believe that there is no consciousness but what evolves in life forms such as ours, you must necessarily believe in a form of evolution which is without intent or purpose and is accidental.

It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time.

I don't know that anyone thinks things are caused by time, but time seems to be part of the web of events.

Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things, this makes no difference to what I think.

This thought I do not understand.

You are pulling claims out of thin air about what I think.

I could of course be mistaken, but I don't pull them from thin air.

Your claims about God also seem to be pulled out of thin air.

No, they are intuitive understandings.

It's hard to know what you're talking about. You say God is Existence, but never define Existence clearly.

Yes, existence itself is the biggest puzzle and I don't know that anyone knows what it is.

You say God has 'levels and layers'. So are you saying Existence itself has levels and layers?

Not in the way I meant it when I said God = existence. Sure, our existence in the common way of meaning the entirety of life and the world, has many layers. But when I say God = existence, I mean the bedrock of existence itself, how it is that we have existence at all, how there is an uncaused totality.

You say everyone worships. Do you mean that everyone knows what God is instinctively?

Noooo....but you don't have to understand God to worship - there isn't anything available but God so everyone worships.

If yes, then God is definitely an object born of egotism, because instinct never provides knowledge of God, but only of what nourishes the ego.

Probably so, since instinct is some sort of hardwired knowledge that animals and perhaps people use to survive physically, which is the main job of the ego, to protect the body.

Diebert,

You see, your post is filled with assumptions.

This sounds like an attempt to insert a scientific evaluation of some kind. But it could just as well have been said by U.S. vice-presidential candidate Mrs. Palin.

I know nothing about her, but yes, it is most definitely a scientific evaluation.

While of course evolution as theory remains tentative, like all scientific theories and models, it's actually one of the most successful theories of the last age,

Sucessful, but not true.

as the evidence turning up is so overwhelming and literally countless predictions keep on falling in place every day.

This is the party line, the propaganda, but it isn't so. It isn't true, has never been very well supported, and becomes increasingly less supported the more we find out about biology.

An evaluation reached by consensus and peer review.

A matter of very little interest. Just proves it is a religion with a priesthood who guards the faith. Peer review has become a hindrance to progress. I admit that a certain amount of peer review might be necessary to weed out junky articles, but it is simply a catch-22 situation and it makes new thought very difficult because the peers all consist of people who prevent anything that isn't more or less already accepted from getting published.

The idea that evolution would somehow corrupt or cause a downfall is a deep religious fear, a strange one too because there is not one good reason why [belief in] evolution would somehow endanger religious or spiritual belief, apart from challenging the clinging to some barbaric literalism, some materialist type of religion that needs a God or Governing Consciousness 'out there' as actual as a rock but at the same time as close and intimate as a lover. This mixing up of psychological and scientific processes is not wise.

Well, actually that isn't so. But in a way you are right because many religious people believe in evolution. But they either don't really believe in the kind of evolution that we are really talking about - one in which processes are unguided and blind and accidental, or they make an illogical and truly bizarre appeasement of the atheist academics who run the show and their careers by accepting the nonsense of nonoverlapping magisteria or of insisting that this universe, with the God and even the scriptures of a personal and intervening God, somehow will leave absolutely no clue that it is a God universe and that such a thing can never be discovered in any way. In other words, if there is a god, then we can safely assume that our universe requires this God, and a universe that requries a god will not somehow, appear like it doesn't.

Larger scientific pictures will keep unfolding which will cause evolution theory to be expanded to include yet unknown processes in the chain, or parts of it rephrased and re-examined, but that doesn't make it suddenly the most unfounded faith. It's science, it won't deliver us, it's not designed to.

It masquerades as science, uses science, and of course often turns up good scientific evidence damning to its own theory. It is constantly surprised by what it discovers. Always what they did not expect to discover. But it is a faith, or it is a way of not having a faith, a way of explaining the universe to those who do not want faith. It requies belief in the unseen and the unknowable, against all odds.

The only god that is threatened by scientific method or evolution is a god that's already dead. The only people upset are the ones worshiping a shadow, a memory. Really, god moved on long ago, let go of his grave! And let science decompose the remains like the worms and fungi.

God, of course, can not be threatened by the scientific method. Darwinian evolution, on the other hand, is incompatible with God. Darwinian evolution requires no consciousness. It has nothing to do with being upset. If it were possible for God, say, to have made a big bang or something, and for things to have evolved by themselves from there, I would not be upset about it. If the evidence pointed that way, I'd figure it out. It's just that it doesn't

Iolaus wrote:

KJ: For a start, I don't have a belief system.

AO: I think you do. If it is invisible to you, you will have harder time examining it. May I suggest the essay, On The Transmission of Mind.

You can if you like, but if you'd like me to read it, you would provide a link.

KJ: Second, my reasoning isn't ultimately grounded on Darwinian evolution, or any scientific theory of evolution.

AO: Either the universe with its laws and elements, and the life forms, required an intelligent input to bring them forth, or they did not. Since you believe that there is no consciousness but what evolves in life forms such as ours,

There you go again.

you must necessarily believe in a form of evolution which is without intent or purpose and is accidental.

It doesn't appeal to my reason that consciousness or anything else should be completely explicable using a scientific theory of evolution. By the way, do you think evolution is blind because it is impervious to being helped-along by conscious decision-making?

But you could say that cause and effect is a form of evolution, and a completely logical explanation, that isn't dependent on time. It's not accidental, though, since it can't itself happen by accident.

KJ: It isn't based on the theory that things are caused by time.

AO: I don't know that anyone thinks things are caused by time, but time seems to be part of the web of events.

This shows that you, like many people, think of causation as a chronological process. That is, time necessary for causation rather than the other way around.

KJ: Thirdly, as it is not true that consciousness creates all things, this makes no difference to what I think.

AO: This thought I do not understand.

Consciousness isn't everything. So it can't create everything.

KJ: Your claims about God also seem to be pulled out of thin air.

AO: No, they are intuitive understandings.

They have to be consciously reasoned to be known as true.

KJ: It's hard to know what you're talking about. You say God is Existence, but never define Existence clearly.

AO: Yes, existence itself is the biggest puzzle and I don't know that anyone knows what it is.

If you don't know what God is or isn't, or how God does or doesn't behave, then you shouldn't pretend otherwise.

If you respected truth and rationality, you'd not have these long discussions spouting all your speculations about God, but say you don't know God from a bar of soap.

KJ: You say God has 'levels and layers'. So are you saying Existence itself has levels and layers?

AO: Not in the way I meant it when I said God = existence. Sure, our existence in the common way of meaning the entirety of life and the world, has many layers. But when I say God = existence, I mean the bedrock of existence itself, how it is that we have existence at all, how there is an uncaused totality.

This is a meaningless question. You are asking how the Totality comes into existence, ie. what causes it. But if you realise that it includes all causes, the question vanishes. There was no time when it wasn't.

KJ: You say everyone worships. Do you mean that everyone knows what God is instinctively?

AO: Noooo....but you don't have to understand God to worship - there isn't anything available but God so everyone worships.

If God is everything, then explain to me exactly what God can worship?

KJ: You say everyone worships. Do you mean that everyone knows what God is instinctively? If yes, then God is definitely an object born of egotism, because instinct never provides knowledge of God, but only of what nourishes the ego.

AO: Probably so, since instinct is some sort of hardwired knowledge that animals and perhaps people use to survive physically, which is the main job of the ego, to protect the body.

The ego fails us, because it usurps the place of reason, which is far more capable of telling how to do things well, than a selfish and incounsellable instinct.

The instinct of worship and submission to an external authority is the work of the Devil-mind, not of the God-mind.

Iolaus wrote:

Diebert wrote:While of course evolution as theory remains tentative, like all scientific theories and models, it's actually one of the most successful theories of the last age,

Sucessful, but not true.

The scientific method is not interested in some generic "truth value". I don't know why you think Kelly believes in "Darwinian evolution being true". I guess that's an assumption you made as you seem to have difficulty with the idea of seeing all empirical knowledge as fundamentally tentative and correctable, an idea which makes science possible as it creates space to investigate.

as the evidence turning up is so overwhelming and literally countless predictions keep on falling in place every day.

This is the party line, the propaganda, but it isn't so. It isn't true, has never been very well supported, and becomes increasingly less supported the more we find out about biology.

I've no idea where you're talking about and I'm fairly well read on the matter, including various pseudo-science. As a matter of fact I had a great life-long love affair with challenging the conventional views so I'm really curious where you base your statement on.

diebert wrote:An evaluation reached by consensus and peer review.

A matter of very little interest. Just proves it is a religion with a priesthood who guards the faith. Peer review has become a hindrance to progress. I admit that a certain amount of peer review might be necessary to weed out junky articles, but it is simply a catch-22 situation and it makes new thought very difficult because the peers all consist of people who prevent anything that isn't more or less already accepted from getting published.

No, it's all fundamental to the scientific process. There's a good reason "new thought" will have a difficult time to change the paradigm. It's just because 99,9% of "new thought" would take immense resources for going on wild goose chases - making science as a whole nearly impossible.

If an idea is really good and revolutionary - it will take time but it will get through. In the mean time a lot of baloney and bad science doesn't. Hallelujah!

But in a way you are right because many religious people believe in evolution. But they either don't really believe in the kind of evolution that we are really talking about - one in which processes are unguided and blind and accidental

What is the difference with meteorology, prediction of weather patterns and such? Is the weather 'unguided' or 'blind'? Do the models deny Thor and his hammer? From the weather forecast point of view: does it really matter?

This is why many scientists, including those working with evolution theory can still be very seriously religious. They just try not to confuse one thing with the other. They have their colleagues to help them remind.

Larger scientific pictures will keep unfolding which will cause evolution theory to be expanded to include yet unknown processes in the chain, or parts of it rephrased and re-examined, but that doesn't make it suddenly the most unfounded faith. It's science, it won't deliver us, it's not designed to.

It masquerades as science, uses science, and of course often turns up good scientific evidence damning to its own theory. It is constantly surprised by what it discovers. Always what they did not expect to discover.

No, science is about discovering what is expected by the theory or model underlying the experiment. If this expectation is not being met, a new model has to be made, new experiments designed and new tests being done. A discovery is not about something turning up and meaning something all by itself.

Darwinian evolution, on the other hand, is incompatible with God. Darwinian evolution requires no consciousness.

No, no, Anna, it's you who requires in a very strict, very fundamentalist way a compatible God. Compatible with your view on what God is supposed to be. That he must have a literal hand in creation or that he's some kind of consciousness overseeing all bits and pieces. That's in my view a terribly limited and conflicting way of comprehending what God can be.

Aside from that, I don't see why you think the evolution theory doesn't require this or that as extra element. The theory is not presented like that anywhere. But Occam's Razor requires that we shouldn't add elements without sufficient reason. For now, the theory and the predictions work fine without adding theology to the model. In that respect it's successfull.

What kind of meaning an individual derives from the theory - the truth value - is up to the person. But what reason could someone possibly have to reject such successful scientific theory unless he would state science as a whole just doesn't interest him?

Kelly Jones wrote:Consciousness isn't everything. So it can't create everything.

This means nothing, Kelly. The conclusion does not follow in any sensible way from the premise. But that's okay, because, to say consciousness "is everything" is a meaningless statement as well, just as it would be to say anything else "is everything."

This is a meaningless question. You are asking how the Totality comes into existence, ie. what causes it. But if you realise that it includes all causes, the question vanishes. There was no time when it wasn't.

I often disagree with Anna, but this is what I am disagreeing with at the moment. The Totality includes all effects. According to Kevin, it cannot include anything uncaused. Your statement that there was no time when it wasn't is correct, but only in the sense that time itself had a beginning, in the sense that it too was caused. It was caused, therefore it is an effect, and so is a part of the Totality. The Totality itself is only infinite in the sense that time is a part of it, not that it is eternal as well, meaning temporally infinite, which it cannot be, since it is entirely caused.

This shows that you, like many people, think of causation as a chronological process. That is, time necessary for causation rather than the other way around.

Time can be argued out of existence leaving just cause and effect and our perception of it, which we call time. This is my understanding of Julian Barbour's work.

If God is everything, then explain to me exactly what God can worship?

God is clearly not everything. To say God is everything or everywhere is one of those catechism pieces of horse shit that is used to hammer reasoning and questioning out of young minds so they will grow up to be compliant members or organized religion and tithe it for life. Such "education" borders on child abuse.

Your objection is just as silly, Kelly.

The instinct of worship and submission to an external authority is the work of the Devil-mind, not of the God-mind

This is silly, too. Any instinct to worship God, and not men, women, things, or money - that is, God and only God, which is not and does not include any of these things, has nothing to do with any "Devil," assuming you know what or who the Devil is. You can properly love the part of people that is of God, but you worship and submit to a personal God only, not a vague and dead Totality and not any other logical conclusion, nor any abstract concept such as "the rational mind" or "truth."

Diebert wrote:No, no, Anna, it's you who requires in a very strict, very fundamentalist way a compatible God. Compatible with your view on what God is supposed to be.

You go on to say two sentences later:

That's in my view a terribly limited and conflicting way of comprehending what God can be.

In other words, it's not compatible with your view on what God is supposed to be. Right?

In between you say this:

That he must have a literal hand in creation or that he's some kind of consciousness overseeing all bits and pieces.

To say that he is separate from creation altogether seems to me to be limiting him.

What kind of meaning an individual derives from the theory - the truth value - is up to the person. But what reason could someone possibly have to reject such successful scientific theory unless he would state science as a whole just doesn't interest him?

This just does not follow.

I get it. You don't want priests looking over your shoulder and granting you their dispensations for your ideas. In the US, we now have the Republican party and the religious right performing that function which the church used to do but people have shrugged off.

The unfolding of life is like an unrolling blueprint with a conscious design and intelligence behind every detail. To deny that is to misread it and is intellectually dishonest.

I think we are quite done killing the messenger. It is time to get serious and pay attention to the message.

brokenhead wrote: You go on to say two sentences later:

That's in my view a terribly limited and conflicting way of comprehending what God can be.

In other words, it's not compatible with your view on what God is supposed to be. Right?

The point was to show one just cannot say that "Darwinian evolution is incompatible with God". Of course someone's view of God can be compatible [or not] with another view of God. I'm sure you get the difference: evolution theory is not making statements about God, it's making statements about long-term development of organisms.

...your view on what God is supposed to be. That he must have a literal hand in creation or that he's some kind of consciousness overseeing all bits and pieces.

To say that he is separate from creation altogether seems to me to be limiting him.

Seems to me you've misread that part, ideas like a creator-entity of an over-seeing consciousness puts him separate from creation. It are those ideas which seem to be threatened by evolution theory in the eyes of some.

The unfolding of life is like an unrolling blueprint with a conscious design and intelligence behind every detail. To deny that is to misread it and is intellectually dishonest.

The intelligence could just as well be said to be in the details. Sounds more honest and real to me.

Kelly,

Surprisingly, I spent some time looking on google for the essay I had printed up and read, and couldn't. the first link has excerpts, the second discussion. But they look good. And apparently it is in book form, perhaps you could request it at the library. I think you'd like it.

http://www.geocities.com/lesliebarclay/HuangPo1.html

http://www.dharmaweb.org/index.php/The_ ... f_Huang-po

There you go again.

Go again with what? I clarified, re Darwinian evolution, that we have two possibilities. Either everything has arrived by chance in a mindless universe with no explanation even for the existence of matter, or it required the input of a mind and intention. There are no other possibilities. Your worldview, as I understand it (I don't say it is a belief system!) requires that there be no such mind or intention, therefore you must be dependent upon the Darwinian form of evolutionary theory or your worldview is wrong.

This is for Diebert, too, who seems to have missed that point. Now, evolution, things unfolding or evolving, many people think makes intuitive sense and so do I. I am rather referring to the mainstream academic teaching of evolution, that it has no purpose, no goal, no intention and needed no mind or intelligent input to occur.

It doesn't appeal to my reason that consciousness or anything else should be completely explicable using a scientific theory of evolution. By the way, do you think evolution is blind because it is impervious to being helped-along by conscious decision-making?

I cannot decipher your sentence. I do not think evolution is blind, but the mainstream theory is that it is. I am not sure what you mean about it being impervious. Either it requires such help or it does not.

But you could say that cause and effect is a form of evolution, and a completely logical explanation, that isn't dependent on time. It's not accidental, though, since it can't itself happen by accident.

Certainly cause and effect are part of any evolutionary process. Time seems to be a viewpoint of the movement or apparent movement of things through space.

AO: I don't know that anyone thinks things are caused by time, but time seems to be part of the web of events.

This shows that you, like many people, think of causation as a chronological process. That is, time necessary for causation rather than the other way around.

Time is caused. How do you see causation working outside of time, yet in our world of nature?

Consciousness isn't everything. So it can't create everything.

There is a profound dynamic between the one and the many. Between duality and unity. It does not reduce to anything other than neither/nor, both/and.

They have to be consciously reasoned to be known as true.

One should reason about everything, but things can be first experienced, and then reasoned about.

If you don't know what God is or isn't, or how God does or doesn't behave, then you shouldn't pretend otherwise.

One can know some things without knowing all things. I can know the universe requires a God without understanding all there is to understand.

If you respected truth and rationality, you'd not have these long discussions spouting all your speculations about God, but say you don't know God from a bar of soap.

But I do know God.

This is a meaningless question. You are asking how the Totality comes into existence, ie. what causes it. But if you realize that it includes all causes, the question vanishes. There was no time when it wasn't.

Perhaps it vanishes for you. I am not so easily satisfied.

If God is everything, then explain to me exactly what God can worship?

I cannot decide if this is a silly question...
There is a dynamic relationship between the One and the Many.

I agreed with you that instinct is not the way to know God, but not that one cannot know God intuitively.

The instinct of worship and submission to an external authority is the work of the Devil-mind, not of the God-mind.

One can surrender voluntarily to God as it is probably the wisest course and comes of an alignment of self with God, a merging. One empties oneself. A most delicate and rare thing. It is one of the reasons Jesus likened this relationship to the ravishment of a bride in the bridal chamber.

But most ideas of demanding submission and external authorities, I agree, are the work of the Devil-mind.

The process of natural selection IS intelligence responding adaptively to all situations. This is God (Consciousness) immanent in all forms of creation, including all individuals of all species.

Diebert,

The scientific method is not interested in some generic "truth value". I don't know why you think Kelly believes in "Darwinian evolution being true". I guess that's an assumption you made as you seem to have difficulty with the idea of seeing all empirical knowledge as fundamentally tentative and correctable, an idea which makes science possible as it creates space to investigate.

The scientific method is a method, and therefore has no interest, but those who use it are of course trying to uncover the truth.
About Kelly, I explained in my above post. Evolution as taught in academia has certain propositions about definitely needing no input of any consciousness and that atoms and molecules and chemical reactions are fully sufficient to account for the universe and the life forms.
I certainly do not have a problem with empirical knowledge being tentative and correctable. That is why I am happy to witness the coming corrections. The mainstream evolutionary paradigm was formulated in a time when our knowledge of biology as well as other aspects of the universe was vastly less than now. It is an unrealistic fantasy.

This is the party line, the propaganda, but it isn't so. It isn't true, has never been very well supported, and becomes increasingly less supported the more we find out about biology.

I've no idea where you're talking about and I'm fairly well read on the matter, including various pseudo-science. As a matter of fact I had a great life-long love affair with challenging the conventional views so I'm really curious where you base your statement on.

I'm well read on the matter too, having pursued the whole thing as a hobby for more than a couple of years. That that you use the word pseudo-science is a give-away as to a rigid attitude. And that, unfortunately, is what we generally find and is, I suppose, a main reason why the factions get nowhere with each other. What I have read on the topic comes from quite intelligent people, scientists and others, who are analyzing the data most profoundly. When I do read the other side, I am constantly struck by the way that they seem to look at things in less detail, rather than more. One might not agree, but to call it pseudo-science indicates a complete unwillingness to engage the actual issues. It is a form of ad hominem.

No, it's all fundamental to the scientific process. There's a good reason "new thought" will have a difficult time to change the paradigm. It's just because 99,9% of "new thought" would take immense resources for going on wild goose chases - making science as a whole nearly impossible.

If an idea is really good and revolutionary - it will take time but it will get through. In the mean time a lot of baloney and bad science doesn't. Hallelujah!

Would that it were so. Tell me, do you think human nature has changed fundamentally since the middle ages, and the time of Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno?

What is the difference with meteorology, prediction of weather patterns and such? Is the weather 'unguided' or 'blind'? Do the models deny Thor and his hammer? From the weather forecast point of view: does it really matter?

I'm not sure I understand your point. What relation has whether, which is damned complex, got to do with the evolution of living cells?

No, science is about discovering what is expected by the theory or model underlying the experiment. If this expectation is not being met, a new model has to be made, new experiments designed and new tests being done. A discovery is not about something turning up and meaning something all by itself.

One can find article after article, the whole history of the theory, in which each new discovery is quite unexpected.

No, no, Anna, it's you who requires in a very strict, very fundamentalist way a compatible God. Compatible with your view on what God is supposed to be. That he must have a literal hand in creation or that he's some kind of consciousness overseeing all bits and pieces. That's in my view a terribly limited and conflicting way of comprehending what God can be.

The last thing I am is a strict fundamentalist. I have no idea how consciousness produced living things. I rather think there is some kind of divine intelligence permeating all things, and probably the DNA. I would tend to prefer a theory like this. One thing that kinda bothers me, though, is that the inner workings of the cells is not only so much more vastly complex than any possible random process could create, it does not even look like my preferred inner intelligence. It looks quite exactly like a team of engineers designed them. So much so that I wonder if perhaps that isn't what happened. Something like great disembodied intelligences that are several steps removed from the Godhead literally designing the stuff. But, I speculate...

Aside from that, I don't see why you think the evolution theory doesn't require this or that as extra element. The theory is not presented like that anywhere.

Oh, yes it is. That is exactly how it is presented, that is why Dawkins calls himself an intellectually fulfilled atheist, and it is exactly what is insisted upon by the most famous academics like Dennett.

But Occam's Razor requires that we shouldn't add elements without sufficient reason. For now, the theory and the predictions work fine without adding theology to the model. In that respect it's successfull.

It is certainly the very strong preference of the majority of today's positioned scientists that they not have any messy metaphysics in the model. However, the model isn't tenable. Of course it's successful - what faith isn't?

What kind of meaning an individual derives from the theory - the truth value - is up to the person. But what reason could someone possibly have to reject such successful scientific theory unless he would state science as a whole just doesn't interest him?

I'm not even discussing personal meaning. I am talking about an either/or proposition, and whether the scientific method can uncover it. That being, can the laws of probability account for the mindless and purposeless evolution of life forms?

It is odd, extremely odd, your last sentence. In it you have shown your prejudice, which translates into an unwillingness to think, to assess for truth. In which case you have no freedom.
For the implication is that if I reject this theory, which you admit is tentative as all theories are, then it must mean that science bores me!

But I hardly ever encounter people who love and respect science as much as I do, and some of those I have are similar to me in having a spiritual metaphysical view. Science for me is nondifferent than theology. It is a form of worship. I believe science will prove the existence of God and spirit and have thought so for years.

Brokenhead,

I often disagree with Anna,

WHAT!!??

What kind of meaning an individual derives from the theory - the truth value - is up to the person. But what reason could someone possibly have to reject such successful scientific theory unless he would state science as a whole just doesn't interest him?

Oh, I get it now. You think if someone rejects the theory they are rejecting science. But what we have is a disagreement within science.About interpretation of data - the very same data.

The fact that those who are being disagreed with and having their turf threatened are resorting to such dismissive tactics, does not bode well for their state of confidene.