Religion II

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

Without is one of the probabilities. Even in the case of colliding universes. It is convenient to believe a supreme being existed in nothing (although it was YOU who suggested God existed in his own universe, however that got there). And if God lived in that universe, the problem of without is solved. From his universe came the others. And if God lived in nothing, we need a new definition of nothing. It is inconceivable that something, even whatever you have assumed God is, could have existed in nothing.

Which it can. Once you decide the universe came into existence somehow, science has done a very good job of describing what happened from that point until now. Your problem is that you keep using the word origin to mean what you think is in conflict with the law of non-contradiction. Existing and not existing at the same time. The closed minded argument. If we are only concerned with the existence of this universe, we have theories (and you have stories) about how it may have come into existence that do not violate any laws of logic. On the day science is concerned with the origin of the first universe, assuming it is not this one, I'd say you should jump right in with your ideas. But as long as they focus on this universe, they've got some pretty, pretty tough to resist ideas.


There is your atheistic naturalism and your non-atheistic naturalism. There is no reason the collision of universes has to start with the assumption of atheism. Wherever the colliding universes came from is irrelevant if your purpose is to explain the the existence of this universe. It's like smelling a fart. Someone blew it, even if you don't know who. And it doesn't matter who blew it. What matters is it stinks. What is relevant is that the big bang occurred and we can explain what happened from that point forward. In that sense, naturalism is mathematically provable, and of course nothing in Genesis is. Naturalism cannot be false unless there is a proof of its falsehood. Genesis is not even historically provable through the prior questioning of eyewitnesses. Even in accordance with the Bible there were none. Humans arrived after everything was created.

I had conceded supernaturalism as having a probability. But what I would not concede is that many of the Genesis stories are anything more than that. Metaphorical stories. Of course for you, the kicker is we can't disprove the existence of the supreme creator either. Where you go off course is that when you leap to supernaturalism as the more likely of probabilities, you assume all other probabilities go to zero, which you can't prove mathematically or otherwise, or worse you call them false. The same burden of proof should apply to you, yet I won't call your assumption for the origin of the universe improbable. Just unprovable.

Yes, indeed. All the probabilities for a model of a universe that postulates that the universe has caused itself to come into existence (caused from within itself) go to absolute zero -- all because of the pesky law of noncontradiction.

Religious versions of naturalism are a non-starter for me because the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ is sorely compromised, thereby impacting more than a few highly important doctrines of the Christian Faith. For example, how utterly absurd does the gospel message become once a professing Christian abandons the clear creationist teaching of scripture, since Christ supposedly came into this world to conquer his and all his disciples' greatest enemy -- death. Death in both the spiritual and physical sense! Death was such an enemy of God that he raised his Son from the tomb on the third day to prove to the world that He is powerful enough to overcome the last enemy. But if physical death existed in this world gazillions of years ago, as as natural process as life itself, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how that would make a total sham out the gospel, most especially since the penalty of sin is supposedly death, according to scripture. Once the philosophy of humanistic naturalism is imposed upon the pages of scripture that is the death knell for the gospel. The gospel simply makes no sense any longer.

I leave it to the apostates within the church to embrace their heresies. After all, Jesus taught that the tares will inevitably grow up with the wheat in this church age. This is the bad news for all true disciples. But the great news is that at the end of the age, the tares will be separated from the wheat, and all the gathered tares will be burned up in everlasting fire.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

He was censored by his peers, (peer review), claiming for his theories on tides proved Copernicus theory.

The house arrest was for agitating against the Pope, not for his faulty claim.

This subject. of Galileo, has been beaten to death in the other thread. Feel free to read about Galileo all you want.

The bottom line: a scientist was persecuted by religious idiots for not bending to their dogma. And centuries later you want to justify that?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Actor

So, without pointing to particular passages, you are saying that there are passages in scripture which say that God is perfect?

Absolutely -- in more ways than one, I might add.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by Actor

Not his peers but the Inquisition. The Inquisition is no one's peer.
Again by the Inquisition.
boxcar's excuse. Anything remotely relating to religion can probably be claimed to have been "beaten to death" by someone on this thread.
So name just one. Preferably since Galileo.

Which inquisition do you believe applied to Galileo?

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by Actor

The bottom line: a scientist was persecuted by religious idiots for not bending to their dogma. And centuries later you want to justify that?

He was judged by his peers. I am not justifying anything, just the facts. Galileo was not placed under house arrest for being a scientist or his theory.

Was it justifiable to place him under house arrest for agitating against the Pope? Different times.

[Show Me the Wire]

Galileo Plays the Scripture Card. The Letters on the Sunspots is submitted to the censors. Every state in Europe had such censors, and the Papal State was no exception. The printing press is the Internet of the 17th century and governments want gatekeepers. Also, professions want peer review to ensure that whacky notions do not get published. The Papal censors insist on removing various religious references from Galileo's book. Where Galileo had written that "divine goodness" had directed him to openly discuss the Copernican model, the censors substitute "favorable winds." When he wrote that the immutability of the heavens was "repugnant to the indubitable truth of Scripture" and attributed the new astronomy to divine inspiration, the censors ask for revision. Galileo rewrites that the new astronomy was "most agreeable to the indubitable truths of Holy Writ," and the censor again demurs and Galileo then removes all references to Scripture. This is interesting. Galileo is appealing to "divine inspiration" and branding his opponents as "contrary to Scripture," while Church officials are reminding him that as a layman amateur he has no business interpreting Scripture.

[emphasis added] http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/...own-great.html

Galileo, as a fact seeking scientists, wants to justify his work by appealing to Scripture. What! And the big bad anti-science Church tells Galileo to remove religious references from his scientific work.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

ShowMe,

For your own edification, from someone historically fluent in both science and Catholicism, I have benefited greatly from Mike Flynn's series on "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown"...

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/...-table-of.html

Thanks.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

No, not at all.

Galileo proved nothing, he was censured by his peers for claiming he proved Nicolaus Copernicus' heliocentric system. Copernicus' theory could not be proven until the math of Sir Newton. Galileo was wrong claiming the moon's influence on the tides proved a heliocentric system. However, he furnished needed observational data.

Did you forget that when Galileo later expressed his views when he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he was accused of attacking Pope Urban VIII, alienating him and the Jesuits. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant.

Not to mention the Inquisition was on the closed minded side.

And let's not talk about how the Catholics treated the Jews during WW II.

And I have a very good reason for knowing a lot about the Catholics, at least the Catholics of the 60's.

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Being closed minded keeps you in science. In science, if you don't agree with the consensus you get ostracized. Believing in only what you can measure is close minded, that is what you don't understand.

In any type of belief system being closed minded can be beneficial to careers.

C'mon. I'm sure you're thinking about global climate change. But that's in the vicinity of the bacteria theory of disease for climate scientists. The evidence on one side is overwhelming, while the evidence of the other side is thinner than your average runway model. Many of the great scientific discoveries came as a result of thinking outside the box. Einstein's general theory was heresy in a lot of physics circles until it was repeatedly confirmed. You think that when Pasteur proposed vaccinating people against small pox using live virus everyone just said, great idea? You ever read the story of Alan Touring? The examples are myriad. While it often seems like scientists will glom on to certain theories in all the disciplines, there is still room for the dissenting view. The difference between science and religion is that in science, if you disprove the prevailing theory, you create a paradigm shift and you can become the prevailing view. In religion, you can be labelled a heretic. Of course in religion you can neither prove nor disprove most of the "theories."

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Thanks.

Your welcome. Be content to affect those you are responsible for, those you love.

There aren't many Leah Libresco's on the internet, particularly on a horse racing site.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing

Did you forget that when Galileo later expressed his views when he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, he was accused of attacking Pope Urban VIII, alienating him and the Jesuits. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant.

Not to mention the Inquisition was on the closed minded side.

And let's not talk about how the Catholics treated the Jews during WW II.

And I have a very good reason for knowing a lot about the Catholics, at least the Catholics of the 60's.


C'mon. I'm sure you're thinking about global climate change. But that's in the vicinity of the bacteria theory of disease for climate scientists. The evidence on one side is overwhelming, while the evidence of the other side is thinner than your average runway model. Many of the great scientific discoveries came as a result of thinking outside the box. Einstein's general theory was heresy in a lot of physics circles until it was repeatedly confirmed. You think that when Pasteur proposed vaccinating people against small pox using live virus everyone just said, great idea? You ever read the story of Alan Touring? The examples are myriad. While it often seems like scientists will glom on to certain theories in all the disciplines, there is still room for the dissenting view. The difference between science and religion is that in science, if you disprove the prevailing theory, you create a paradigm shift and you can become the prevailing view. In religion, you can be labelled a heretic. Of course in religion you can neither prove nor disprove most of the "theories."

The documentation opposing this, often from prominent Jews, is too numerous to launch. Anyone serious about it can do so themselves. I'm surprised here, since you come across usually as attempting to be fair-minded rather than, in this case, run with the post-The Deputy zeitgeist.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Yes, indeed. All the probabilities for a model of a universe that postulates that the universe has caused itself to come into existence (caused from within itself) go to absolute zero -- all because of the pesky law of noncontradiction.

Religious versions of naturalism are a non-starter for me because the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ is sorely compromised, thereby impacting more than a few highly important doctrines of the Christian Faith. For example, how utterly absurd does the gospel message become once a professing Christian abandons the clear creationist teaching of scripture, since Christ supposedly came into this world to conquer his and all his disciples' greatest enemy -- death. Death in both the spiritual and physical sense! Death was such an enemy of God that he raised his Son from the tomb on the third day to prove to the world that He is powerful enough to overcome the last enemy. But if physical death existed in this world gazillions of years ago, as as natural process as life itself, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how that would make a total sham out the gospel, most especially since the penalty of sin is supposedly death, according to scripture. Once the philosophy of humanistic naturalism is imposed upon the pages of scripture that is the death knell for the gospel. The gospel simply makes no sense any longer.

I leave it to the apostates within the church to embrace their heresies. After all, Jesus taught that the tares will inevitably grow up with the wheat in this church age. This is the bad news for all true disciples. But the great news is that at the end of the age, the tares will be separated from the wheat, and all the gathered tares will be burned up in everlasting fire.

The fact that you can't follow the blend of the supernatural and the natural (unless of course you are speaking of Genesis which does exactly that) is not a problem any of us can solve. You really can't get off the idea that any science theory of the existence of THIS universe has to be some version of exists and doesn't exist simultaneously. It doesn't.

But I understand your argument. Always did. And I'm absolutely sure no one has the power to dissuade you. Ah, to be certain that the observations in the physical world are illusionary. That is a trick very few of us will ever have the magical skills to perform.

[HalvOnHorseracing]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

The documentation opposing this, often from prominent Jews, is too numerous to launch. Anyone serious about it can do so themselves. I'm surprised here, since you come across usually as attempting to be fair-minded rather than, in this case, run with the post-The Deputy zeitgeist.

It is one of the great disputes that came out post-war, and perhaps rather than Catholics as a whole, it should have been more directed at Pius XII.

Among the various disputed accusations made against him are that he did nothing to protect the Jews of Rome as the Nazis and Italian fascists carted them away to gas chambers from their ghetto in Trastevere under the very windows of the Vatican; that he forbade monasteries and convents to shelter Jews trying to escape the Nazis; that he allowed the church to profit from looted goods taken from the Nazis' victims; and that he turned a blind eye to assistance given by Catholic religious orders, notably in Croatia, to help Nazi war criminals escape to start new lives in Latin America.


There are certainly passionate arguments on both sides, and unless the Vatican opens its records, the arguments are based on the perceptions of whatever witnesses tell their stories.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Which inquisition do you believe applied to Galileo?

How many are there?

[Actor]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Religious versions of naturalism are a non-starter for me because the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ is sorely compromised, thereby impacting more than a few highly important doctrines of the Christian Faith.

Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for "argument to the consequences"), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. This is based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy, since the desirability of a premise's consequence does not make the premise true. Moreover, in categorizing consequences as either desirable or undesirable, such arguments inherently contain subjective points of view. - Wikipedia

Originally Posted by boxcar

For example, how utterly absurd does the gospel message become once a professing Christian abandons the clear creationist teaching of scripture, since Christ supposedly came into this world to conquer his and all his disciples' greatest enemy -- death. Death in both the spiritual and physical sense! Death was such an enemy of God that he raised his Son from the tomb on the third day to prove to the world that He is powerful enough to overcome the last enemy. But if physical death existed in this world gazillions of years ago, as as natural process as life itself, then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see how that would make a total sham out the gospel, most especially since the penalty of sin is supposedly death, according to scripture. Once the philosophy of humanistic naturalism is imposed upon the pages of scripture that is the death knell for the gospel. The gospel simply makes no sense any longer.

You make my case for me.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire View Post

I read some of Nicoll's work before. At your suggestion, I read the New Man. Yes, he discusses concepts, but he did not address the methods used to gain this transformation. He touched on the sermon on the mount, though.

Nicoll wrote and taught much bout the Fourt Way of Gurdjieff........

http://ggurdjieff.com/maurice-nicoll/

By his understanding of the word, the teaching of the Fourth Way, Nicoll was able to remain ‘living and active’ and to renew and rebirth himself in a continuous process of Metanoia, the evolution of consciousness that is stimulated through real psychological effort and understanding. Nicoll spoke of the biblical parable as “a transforming-machine between two levels of meaning”. His life itself was a testament to the power and efficacy of this device capable of bridging the gap between two otherwise disparate dimensions, which are in some places referred to the as the world and the Kingdom of Heaven.

But I used Nicoll to discuss Esoteric Christianity as related to parables and the bible. Not the entire approach of the Fourth way. Nicoll also wrote extensively on the actual nuts and bolts of how to transform.

PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE TEACHING OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKY 6 VOL SET by MAURICE NICOLL (2015-05-04)2015

Meant primarily for students of the Fourth Way.

Unless you grasp basic concepts of self-observation and remembering oneself it does not make sense to try and pigeonhole this vast topic.

Also my earlier posts on man's many "I's and inner fragmentation, and my inner interpretation of the Exodus is my attempt to offer a brief practical understanding and application of trying to use some Fourth Way principles. My allegorical-like interpretation of the use of outer myths and legends to serve as "models" for the inner world and NOT AS actual literal historical events is vital.

The formula ‘As above so below,’ from the Emerald Tablets of Hermes Trismegistus… [drew] an analogy between the microcosm—man, and the macrocosm — the universe. The fundamental laws of triads and octaves that penetrate everything should be studied simultaneously both in the world and in man.” (from In Search of the Miraculous, p.287)