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poll: a question for the religiously-inclined soulcaster

silverwhisper posted on Feb 20, 2008 | views: 1731 | Tags: faith, belief, religion, polls, Eat meat or not, behavior
there are IMHO some things about which you cannot speak knowledgeably without ever having actually been through 'em. you can get close, you can read descriptions or accounts of 'em, but w/out living 'em, i'm convinced that you really can't possibly know what you're talking about.

one of 'em is parenting. i know i don't know what that's like, and i know i can't without being one myself. sure, i've had my nephews and nieces over for a few days--but that isn't the same thing, i know: in a few days, it's over. and the thing i keep seeing in all the blog entries by soulcasting parents is that if parenting is like anything, it's like a marathon, not a sprint.

but another is faith, and that's a subject that has always fascinated me.

there are a number of soulcasters whose day to day lives are shaped and colored by their faith in a way that i know i cannot understand. i see the richness it adds to polar's blog entries, the strength that it provides to mamie's, the insight i regularly see in fearing's, the humility that always marks faithful disciple's...

a friend of mine, an orthodox jew, once observed to me that it's difficult to discuss theology with christians: that ultimately, it was impossible for someone to know who really was or wasn't a christian. for him, it was easy to identify jews: they followed the law as given to moses. but with christians, it wasn't about obedience to the law but why a thing was done.

all of which leads me to my question for the evening.



for those of you who practice a faith: in what way do you believe (or if you prefer, hope) that it's most evident in how you conduct yourself?

for those of you who do not: in what way do you believe that a person's faith is most evidence in his or her conduct?

ed

p.s.: as ever, my comments later, yadda yadda yadda...

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Comments

  • pickersplock said on Feb 20, 2008....
    Questions, questions, I'm not a practicing Christain in the sense that we don't go to church every week, but when I do there is a comfort.
    In my case, it's all about "making a joyful noise unto the lord", the forgiveness, the hope.  All of the rest is purely decorative.
    Have you read East of Eden, ed?
    The discussion of "timshel" is a key component of my faith as well.
  • CreativeWoman said on Feb 20, 2008....
    That is a very tough question, Ed.  I will give a simple answer, though. 

    I try to live my life treating others as I want to be treated.

    My hope is that the people around me will see that I am genuine.  I lean on God every day through prayer and hope that the goodness and mercy I show to others will be reflected back toward me.

    Nice reflective post.

    CW
  • bloc said on Feb 20, 2008....
    allow me to throw a curve ball as I'm known to do ;)

    I have faith, but it's not faith in a deity. My faith is twofold, that we can only live in the present moment and that nothing is permanent. I hope that my actions are a representation of this faith and that my words are unnecessary on the matter.

    This raise an interesting question. What is the difference between a religious belief and a philosophical belief? Are they the same?
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 20, 2008....
    pickers: i haven't read much steinbeck, so thank you for posting that. fascinating reading, that. :>

    CW: i think you do a superb job of demonstrating in word and deed the great wisdom of the golden rule. and thank you, i guess i was feeling overdue for one. :>

    bloc: well, i would argue that a philosophical belief such as you are propounding here is necessarily untestable in most meaningful ways. i think the operative word here is "belief", no? so at least in this instance, yes, religious belief and philosophical belief are synonymous, i would say.

    ed
  • dailyachesandpains said on Feb 20, 2008....
    This isn't easy for me to answer AT ALL!
     
    I was brought up as Catholic.  FORCED to attend church every holy day, and Sunday (and even the day that I fell out of a car going at least 30 mph).  I think that because religion was forced on me, I don't have much of 'it' in me.  However, I do pray and I know it's to a God, but I don't know who my God is.  I guess you could say that I just pray and have faith in a higher power to help me and guide me.  Agnostic?  Most likely.
     
    My Mother is still the worst person to debate religion with.  It's her way, or no way.  I think the day that she really pissed me off was the day I told her I lost faith in the Catholic Church due to all the scandals with those Priests that took advantage of children and everything being brushed under the rug by the church.  I thought that was VERY un-catholic.  She has a reason, of course, and it was because "people didn't talk about those things!" What!?  Was she kidding me?  As a Catholic, you don't tell lies.  Hiding that, is a lie.  The victims will never recover if they're even still alive as I know at least one has killed himself after he got his settlement.  It never goes away. 
     
    Then, you've also got the Priest that stalked Conan O'Brien.  Well, I have only told a couple of people here about this, but this man is someone my Mother became friends with.  His first funeral mass was my Grandmother's, and she was my best friend.  He actually vacationed with us.  HE BAPTISED MY DAUGHTER, that was his first baptism as a priest!  That she invited a psychotic priest into our homes and on our family vacations when she knew he was a little "odd", infuriated me.  I will say this about that specific priest, he was the best person for a religious debate and he willingly accepted my Sister's point of views and would actually say "I agree."  He was SO strange though.  I could tell you more about him, but I fear actually being called in as a witness!  He was overall and odd but nice guy.  Very hard to explain.
     
    There have been many reasons why I have abandoned my Catholic upbringing.  I do still have faith and pray to a God that I don't fear and I don't know who this person is. 
     
    Okay, I'm obviously having an ADD moment and my thoughts just came all out here about religion and I have no idea if I even answered correctly.  I need to take my medication so my thoughts stay straight. 
     
    Thanks,
    Daily
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 20, 2008....
    Answered elsewhere, but keeping this in my conversations.
  • GracefullyGrowing said on Feb 20, 2008....
    While I no longer ascribe to any particular religion, I am a woman of faith and of spirit.
     
    When I first decided to become a person of faith I asked to be taught to love as God loves.   So, in answer to the question, I hope that LOVE is most evident in the way I conduct myself.
     
    I'm also a realist.  *I* know that love sometimes means one has to poke, rather than hug.  It's hard for some to see that, so they don't know that I'm saying "I love you".   I don't blame them, I just wish they would see and understand.  It's difficult, this life of faith.
     
    ~Grace~
  • fearing said on Feb 20, 2008....
    How do I believe or hope my faith is evident in how I conduct myself? I doubt I'll even come close to answering that. You know, I'm always a little intimidated in answering this type of question. ;-) I know what I believe but I'm not very good in the explaining part. And faith is the thing I can't hold in my hand.

    In how I conduct myself - I "hope", I so very much hope, that The God I know is evident. I don't know how to say it other than I want others to see His difference in me. I'm human. To see a real God who loves them.

    There are lots of religious people in the world. I grew up in a very legalistic church where you were expected to do and behave certain ways. No one said it but it was almost like scoring points in being a good Christian. The older I got, the more I realized God wasn't interested in my attendance at choir practice, working in the nursery etc. He was interested in me. It sounds stupid but it is an earth-shattering moment when you find out He is real - knowable. I realize you don't share my belief but imagine for a minute that you did - honestly think about it. The God you've been reading about in the Bible, the cross, the empty grave - the reason for all that is suddenly personal. Real. It makes a difference.
    It is where we find out what faith is.

  • hinana said on Feb 20, 2008....
    Im not quite sure about your question..but im going to assume the question is that what makes your particular religion obvious from the way you act?
     
    Mine isnt evident i guess from the way i act..i just treat most people as kindly as i can..my particualr religion
    which is islam btw, is prolly most obvious from what i dont do. i dotn drink, eat a lot of certain things, etc..
     
    i dont know, i dont follow my religion very strictly, but i do believe.
    But i do what i think is right, and what i want, as long as i think its right.
  • the_infernal_optimist said on Feb 20, 2008....
    I would hope that my faith, which admittedly is a bit off the major paths, shows in my indomitable hope for the future, in my attempts to help other people and to do no harm in my day-to-day life, in my tolerance of those who do not believe as I do (on faith or any number of other topics)...I guess it just shows in the best parts of who I am, you know? It's hope and renewal and strength when I don't have much of my own. Believing in something bigger than me helps me get back up and keep trying, and I think that shows sometimes.

    I strive to roll with the punches and still have a hand out for anyone who's mired down, and to not let the not-so-great happenings dampen my spirit. Faith makes that more easily accomplished for me, and helps me take a long view when I get impatient with things in the here and now. It helps me trust that things are going to be okay again when they aren't right then, and the fact that I'm not broken speaks for itself. I might be, if not for faith (and some very good friends along the way in life).

    ~Infernal
  • Peanuthead said on Feb 21, 2008....
    I'm never one for living life according to set rules, or even worse, toeing particular steps just so that people might notice that you are indeed the religious person that you say you are.
    Though usually it creates a problem for me in that, i am Christian- by choice, i am a faith person, so there tends to be expectations of how you are supposed to act/ behave- just so you follow the status quo.
     
    Do we follow the status quo??Xtianity, for instance, says Yes- but its a tactical yes. E.g, Is it wrong to 'eat meat' when the 'law' says 'eating meat' is wrong. However, you, know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with eating 'meat', yet, people know you as a xtian and well knowingly or knowingly, sometimes, people do pattern their lives according to certian decisions you make. So, you don't want to tarnish somebody else's 'faith' by eating 'meat', so u do not eat 'meat', even though you personally know that all the stories about 'meat eating' being a sin, is all nothing but a farce!!!
     
    As one grows in well, Xtianity for instance, you're made aware of the truth of certian norms and misnorms..its like the more u grow,, the more u get unshakled of certain things. But now u know that there is 'absolutely nothing wrong with meat eating', but do u for that reason, go shouting naked down the road that; "HEY EVERYBODY, EATING MEAT IS NOT A SIN!!!' Nope, bcos u know growth for everybody is in phases, u keep your new knoledge to urself, bask in you new freedom, and (snickers), eat meat in private!!!
     
    PLS NOTE: The term 'EATING MEAT' should not be taken literally. I guess, well, the xtains know what i'm talking about. No pun intended!
  • lfbno7 said on Feb 21, 2008....
    People cherish their delusions. They go deep into their childhood, when they were first told these delusions. I suppose it has something to do with Santa Claus and Christmas presents, and something to do with being a good little boy or girl. As Hitler said, half the people in the world will believe anything you tell them. Between the belief in our current trendy religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc., to belief in the Holy Accidental Mutation, each of these delusions vies for being the most nonsensical. That's my opinion, and I don't enjoy discussing it. That's just it. Believe what you like, and more power to you. Nobody is convincing anybody of anything.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 21, 2008....
    daily: no, it isn't easy for most people to answer, i imagine. i got tired of the simple questions. :> i cannot understand your mother's response to that scandal: the church isn't exactly infallible, and the most cursory examination of history will reveal that--you should ask her sometime what she thought of the church's silence during the holocaust. :D wait--your priest stalked conan o'brien? WTF?! and just b/c you aren't catholic doesn't mean you aren't christian, daily. maybe a different sect would be better suited to you?

    TS: ah yes. you know, if you click on the flag next to someone else's comment (or your own), you invoke the postmark feature--thought you might find that of some use. :>

    grace: i think that's an admirable guiding philosophy, myself. and i agree that sometimes, love requires confrontation.

    fearing: when you say "i don't know how to say it other than i want others to see his difference in me", i believe that sums up everything i know about you and your faith. i know WWJD was a big thing a while back, but you've always impressed me as someone for whom that isn't mere marketing and i find that inspiring. that personal relationship with the divine about which i've heard countless sermons and witnesses is a powerful and beautiful thing, fearing. some day, i'd like to read a blog entry by you about how you were saved.

    hinana: that's mostly the sense in which i meant the question. obviously, halal requires that you avoid certain foods and alcohol, observe the five pillars. as to following one's faith, i've always felt that it's more to do w/ why you do a thing rather than what you do, you know?

    infernal: as i was reading your comment and nodding, i realized that i don't believe i know much about your faith. that's kinda funny, considering how long we've known one another in internet years. :>

    peanuthead: i've found in my travels that there are as many forms of christianity as there are christians, to be honest. by "eating meat" are you referring to the doctrine of transubstantiation? i've never quite understood the need for that particular doctrine, i'll confess. but yes, i think we've all known christians for whom "being a christian" was about conforming to a prescribed set of behaviors and little else. i've never been fond of that when i've encountered it, i have to say.

    lbf: i'm sorry but i cannot hold w/ the idea of religion as a delusion. maybe you haven't found this, but i know i've seen people whose lives were transformed by this so-called "delusion" and it's invariably been for the better.

    ed
  • RollingC said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Good question Ed, but don't have time as I'm going off to work.  This is a deep subject touching upon a deeper one.   Haven't had the time to read all comments but maybe later on tonight....     :^)
    Rc
  • polarheart said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Edikins, what a thought provoking post, thank you for probing us on this because there is much I esp can learn from others here. 
     
    This is probably the best answer I can give right now:  I hope to meet people where they are at and that God (Yahuweh) will shine His love through me. . .I guess that I hope my belief is made evident most through my availability to people; to provide encouragement, friendship, acceptance and prayer. 
     
    Whatever I give of myself I give in all sincerity. 
     
    Polar xox
  • uniquely-ironic said on Feb 21, 2008....
    I'm late to the party, but as a non-practising christian I do have a thought.
     
    When I was heavily into the church I had very rigid views and tolerances.  I might
  • the_infernal_optimist said on Feb 21, 2008....
    ed: That is kind of odd, isn't it? Maybe I should remedy that elsewhere.

    ~Infernal
  • LtCmdrWorf1 said on Feb 21, 2008....

    Ed,

     

    St. Francis said: “You must preach the Gospel everyday, and sometimes use words.”  There are 613 commandments, or laws in the Bible (the Old Testament). My Jewish brothers and sisters endeavor to keep every single one of them. 

     

    Christ was not a Christian, he was a Jew, and he died on the cross as a Jew.  His teachings are what we in the Christian faith follow, some of us more that others, and some of us (who claim to be Christians) not at all.  Christ gave us the two greatest commandments: “Love the lord your God with all your soul and all your mind and all your heart.”  The second he said was like the first: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

     

    Now, I try everyday to follow the two commandments as set forth in the Gospel, but I know that I fall horribly short.  So, I have to give my Jewish brothers and sisters mush respect for trying to keep the 613 in the Old Testament.  God is not a taskmaster.  God know that we will fall short from time to time, and it’s Gods grace shines on us all in spite of that.  A wise man said something to me the other day that stuck, he said: “God does not answer our questions, God questions our answers.  I leave you, and anyone who reads this, with that.  Peace and Long Life.

     

    Love Worf
  • uniquely-ironic said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Crap!  I hate it when I get cut off!
     
    Anyhoo....
     
    When I was heavily into the church I had very rigid views and tolerances.  I might have believed that someone might go to hell because they did not believe in God.
     
    Now, as long as a person is trying to better themself, treats others with respect and tolerance, I believe God honors that.
     
     
  • GracefullyGrowing said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Unique - That's exactly my personal experience as well.
     
    ~Grace~
  • dailyachesandpains said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Ed:  I'm surprised you didn't hear that story, it was national news.  He was arrested in NYC and it all went down before the writers strike, so a while ago now.  His father was a writer for 'Time Magazine'!  I honestly felt bad for the guy, but the more I thought about it, it was the last strike for me.  Oh, and he was part of a different parish.  My Grandmother lived about a half hour away from us, give or take.  So, he wasn't really our priest. 
  • quietone said on Feb 21, 2008....
    I was going to think aobut this but saw the title again and said wait a minute... I can say I am not "religiously-inclined"  I have faith and believe in a higher power...I don't "belong" to any particular "religion".  I believe that God is a part of us all.... it is an energy we all share.  This is how I see my faith working: by being a conduit for my higer power that he may work through me as he so needs me .  I am by far not perfect or am I that educated in the bible.....but I do believe and I do have faith~
  • beyondtheveil said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Ed- I have found in my experience with life through loved ones, friends, acquaintances, and strangers, there is no difference in general conduct as to whether they were religious or not.

    I have found more tolerance among the non-religious, but just as many good people among the religious.

    It comes from within, good teachings lie everywhere. No one thing is responsible. A person with good conduct within will obey the Commandments whether they have read them or not. Will treat others well whether they have heard of the Golden Rule or not.
  • Holly-Go-Lightly said on Feb 21, 2008....
    ed~ ol' buddy, ol'pal!! excellent question!!

    I was raised a Catholic, however, when I was young, my mother was a very strict Catholic, then later after her divorce, she felt jaded towards the church, and never went back. We grew up going through the rituals etc. of the Catholic faith, but never learning why we did these things. I lapsed for many years, but later had my kids baptized into the faith, and became very involved in the church. Currently I haven't attended for about 8 years, and I do miss the comfort of the well-known prayers, and the sanctuary of being still in a pew and talking to God. But, more than anything, I believe in my own personal relationship with God. In this personal relationship, I am not bound by ritual, but by faith alone. My prayers are conversations. My place of worship is among the trees in my yard, or most recently, my very own bed.

    I once read that sometimes it is we who need to be Jesus's hands here on earth.
    That is the way I have shown my faith most consistently over the years. I always taught my children that no matter how little we have, (and we did have little), that there is always someone who has less than us, and we can always find something to help them, even if it is only our time. This is my belief that we are all in a sense, our brother's keeper. No one left behind, etc. And I have found some of my greatest joy in being "his hands" here on earth. Feeding homeless families, sponsoring children, and animals, and programs for the needy, volunteering in the
    local soup kitchens, volunteering in classrooms, libraries, first aid stations, fund-raising, donating clothing, food, money, time, taking in teens with no where else to go, and other similar actions have given me a real sense of purpose and direction, and developed a solid ground on which to spread my faith.

    ~*~*~Holly~*~*~
  • Mamie said on Feb 21, 2008....
    I have no idea where to start my answer, can I just meet you for coffee and explain it verbally? :)) Holy moly...um....I believe my faith is most evident in how the light of Christ shines in my eye, which I ask for every day. amen.
  • namyogrl said on Feb 21, 2008....
    well I am a Buddhist. I practice Nichiren Buddhism. this practice stems from the belief that each of us already possessess the innate vitality, compassion and wisdom needed to live a fulfillilng, contributive life. I believe that true happiness is not found in all the things that happen in my life rather it is through determination of overcoming all obstacles that true happines unviels itself to me. So because I believe in cause and effect, I try to live my life according to that law. That for every cause I set forth in my life I will recieve an effect of that cause. This does not only mean physical actions but thoughts as well. In other words I chant to be happy.
  • tbs230 said on Feb 21, 2008....
    I think what makes the question so hard is that there are certain "guidelines" that a Christian must follow, yet we each have our own personal values that make interpreting those guidelines unique to each individual.

    I take it one step at a time. I treat others as I would like to be treated, with patience and kindness and forgiveness (for as many things as I can...I'm not perfect).

    I don't know how to explain it. I know there God is there (or for arguments sake, I believe He is) and I live in a way that I hope will make Him happy.

    I have no idea if I actually answered your question.
  • Trinov said on Feb 21, 2008....
    Hi, I thought I'd take a break from cooking for the Shabbat, (I've been up late all week translating and can't fall asleep anyway) for we do not cook on Shabbat, but enjoy the foods that we cook before hand, (and the desserts), in a parable of doing good in this world so that we will have our 'meals' in the next-external world.

    I have to say I was impressed by the people who wrote that they try to treat others as they want others to treat them. That is the basic rule for any type of decent society and from that rule all just laws can be extrapolated.

    And once a man came to the great Sage Hillel, he said he was thinking of becoming a Jew, and asked him to sum up Judaism by standing on one foot. He had just been thrown out of the house of the Sage Shamai, (who was a building engineer and of course as an engineer he was a stickler for rules) after the had asked that same question. Hillel said :"Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you, that is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary, go and learn the commentary."

    So how does my religion affect me? I try to make it shape my life--but that does not mean being stepped on or being a 'goody two shoes'. All the laws the were given to the Jews at Sinai, are laws "L'chaiot b'hem" --to live by. They are not meant to strangle but to provide a safe basis for growth. In Europe unfortunatley times were so hard that two classes of Jews were made, the scholars and the ignorant. And the scholars treated the ignorant badly and those ignorant masses were the majority who came to America in the 1890's--and they for the most part abandoned all Jewish behavior and only kept some rituals-without understanding them-- and tried to make their children observe these rituals without knowing why. This created lots of self hating Jews and Jews who ran to intermarry.

    Among Sephardic Jews there never was such a great gap, there were always books in the vernacular--Judaic Spanish or Turkish or Italian etc to keep the 'masses' informed of the reasons of the laws and the beauty of the traditions. So the majority of Jews of Spanish or Sephardic (also Eastern) Jews have a Jewish lifestyle if not a way of life totally within the laws of Moses.

    I was raised by a father who was not observant of all the laws but who was an advocat for his own people and for anyone getting a bad break in life, and he and my mother never judged anyone by religion or color of skin, but by how they behaved. And I guess that even when I became formally religious I still keep that basis--ie Is this guy for real or is he just faking it? And the only two Rabbis that we had who were --and are--our religious guides were (and are) men who share this attitude --of respect and compassion for people who are honest and try to do their best.

    And religion to me is not so much about faith that there is a Creater, for I know that intellectually, and I have been physically rescued in wierd circumtances so many times, besides having what you'd call 'mystical' experiences. (I sometimes can hear and see what you call 'angels' (they can be very sarcastic by the way, and they don't carry harps )). My faith comes in when I see good people die in terrorist actions or road accidents, or freak storms etc. I have faith that there is a reason for everything and that the Creator has the reasons and I cannot understand the overall picture. To paraphrase the Great Baal Shem Tov--we have come in on act seven or eight and haven't seen the whole long play--the guy who just got shot had shot the guy shooting him etc in another life time.
  • crybabylu said on Feb 21, 2008....

    I believe to be able to really live my faith, I have to walk in "the spirit" and to be dead to my own selfish desires.  Obviously, I don't always do that.  And when I step back into the path of chosing my own selfish desires, you usually can tell the contrast. I don't like the Dee I see when I am pursuing my own gain.  I like Dee better when I am walking in the way that his spirit leads me.

    I believe that is the Dee who is loving, caring, peaceable, longsuffering.....etc.

  • kelly said on Feb 22, 2008....
    "maybe you haven't found this, but i know i've seen people whose lives were transformed by this so-called "delusion" and it's invariably been for the better."

    Well, yes, but did you ever notice that god or the religion is really just a place holder for another addiction in these transformations?  Admittedly a less destructive one.

    I'm probably more in the lbfno7 camp.  I think faith, religion and belief in god are psychological defense mechanisms.
  • candylane said on Feb 22, 2008....

    I sing a song that goes "I Can't even walk without him holding my hand".

    People criticise that and say that we are weak minded and have to have a crutch in life, and can't cope like other people.

    There are several things wrong , I think, in that statement.   Looking at it as it might be true.

    I don't see a lot of people "coping" I see violence in our world, and plenty of it, I see hatred, and greed, and selfishness.  I don't want to "cope" in a world like that. 

    If religion is some kind of "delusion" to pacify our defense mechanisms and keep them in check, then I will glady take my "delusion" anyday.

    You do what works for you, and I will do what works for me. Thank you!

  • silverwhisper said on Feb 22, 2008....
    rollingc: hey, take your time, man--this blog entry isn't going anywhere. :>

    polar: when you say "whatever i give of myself i give in all sincerity", that's so perfectly self-evident to me. i think you succeed quite well in living your faith. great answer!

    u-i: i think your response got cut-off. oo, OK...you know, i would never have guessed you were like that, given the person i've come to know through SC.

    infernal: yes, yes it is. :>

    worf: good to see you gain, my friend! :> oddly, i've only ever heard christians refer to the golden rule, but not the other commandment to which you refer: do you recall the scriptural citation for that? i'll confess i don't seem to recognize it. and i like what that gentleman said to you--i like that quite a bit, actually. :>

    grace: :>

    daily: i know, i'm surprised too! that's really, really weird--i hope he's getting counseling or something!

    quietone: i like the idea of being a conduit for a higher power--i think that's really cool, actually. :>

    beyond: honestly, i have to confess my own observations have been the same as yours, at least generally. however, i've known folks who've become better people as a result--frankly, my mother is one. she was very, very unhappy for a long time and i've seen how her faith has made her happier, more patient and more kind. seeing her transformation has been wonderful.

    holly: hey, good to see you again! what a wonderful witness, holly...it's truly beautiful. i honestly don't believe i've ever known that you were religious, so this is doubly pleasant to learn. :>

    mamie: well, that's gonna be kinda tricky, to be honest, but i think that's an excellent answer despite the brevity. :>

    namyogrl: i don't think i knew that you're a buddhist--cool! i'd like to know a bit more about nichiren buddhism--is there a particular site you can recommend so i can become more informed?

    tbs: well, it's a question that can mean many things, if you look at the various ways other soulcasters have responded. :> so yes, that does answer the question, b/c it's the question you heard, and the question i asked was very, very open-ended, i agree. :> i think that when you say "i live in a way that i hope will make him happy" is a great answer. if you wanted to enlarge upon your answer, you could give an example of things that you do you hope will make him happy--if you have the time. :>

    trinov: ah yes, cooking for shabbat--what time is sundown these days in israel? interestingly, i asked this question at another of my online haunts, and my orthodox jewish friend quoted the same response by hillel (although translated slightly differently). that same friend is fond of quoting shem tov as well. :> ah, the reform jews...i was wondering if you were going to touch on them. :> i'm sorry you haven't been able to sleep this past week, trinov--suffice it to say that i understand. :> thank you for your very thorough answer. :>

    dee: i don't know, dee, i think that your heart is a pretty good one from what i've seen. :>

    kelly: in point of fact, no, i have not had that observation in most cases--although i have in a small number.

    candylane: indeed, if it's a coping technique, then it's a pretty poor one, i agree. which is why i don't believe that's the case, myself. :>



    my own answer: as someone who does not practice a faith, i believe another person's faith is most in evidence in how they treat a stranger. not that they should be outgoing or anything, but rather, if asked a reasonable question by a stranger, how they respond to him or her. to me, how we treat our loved ones is the same for sane people: with love and dignity. but how we treat someone with whom we have no connection--that's what i find most telling about a person.

    ed
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 22, 2008....
    BTW, ed, I knew about the flag thing. You told me about it before.

    I just felt like making a personal appearance and saying nothing instead of using the flag to anonymously lurk. ;-)

    I've enjoyed reading the responses.

  • namyogrl said on Feb 22, 2008....
    Ed i belong to an organization called SGI-USA this group of buddhist are practicing the buddhism I talked about and you can go to sgi-usa.org lots of information there. There are people practicing this Buddhism in over 160 countries. So we are out there.
  • LtCmdrWorf1 said on Feb 22, 2008....

    Hey Ed,

    Mathew 22:36-40

    36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."  Peace and Long Life

    Love Worf

  • silverwhisper said on Feb 22, 2008....
    TS: forgive me, as i looked at the comments in the linked blog entry, i realized that you already commented to that--my apologies. :>

    namyogrl: cool, thank you for the link! i know very little about buddhism as practiced so i'm always eager to learn more. :>

    worf: ah, thank you. odd that i don't recall seeing that before, so my thanks, as ever. :>

    ed
  • tbs230 said on Feb 22, 2008....
    I always have time for my friend!

    So, an example...I just saw The Color Purple on Broadway, and one of the songs said "I was born with God inside me".

    I'm a business student, the logical choice of careers would be to become a businesswoman. However, God is showing me a path that has little if anything to do with business. To make Him happy would be to make me happy. And as Aristotle said true happiness is to be fully human...or something like that.

    Anyway, I see my future as one that is used to make a difference, to help others. Can I do that as a businesswoman? Maybe, but right now, what makes me happy, and therefore Him happy, is to teach, to inform and guide and help as many as possible continue learning.

    Ignorance gets one nowhere. Plus, if He didn't want people to be knowledgeable, He wouldn't have had everything written down.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 23, 2008....
    [nods]

    i never heard any of the music from the color purple but i do like that quotation. :> and your degree may yet still come in handy in furtherance of the path you want to follow, you know. :>

    thank you for the explanation. :>

    ed
  • kelly said on Feb 23, 2008....
    "how we treat our loved ones is the same for sane people: with love and dignity. but how we treat someone with whom we have no connection--that's what i find most telling about a person."

    Well, yes, I entirely agree.  But what does that have to do with faith?
  • RollingC said on Feb 23, 2008....
    If you believe and have faith in your belief, you'll act accordingly.  The Christians are supposed to follow the teachings of Christ, our Lord. He distinctly tells us in his teachings that we are to Love our neighbor, indeed, our enemies, like we Love ourselves.
    A bit hard that to follow sometimes but if you continuously try because you believe, is that not following your faith? It doesn't really matter how many times you fail, but the fact that you pick yourself up and try again because of what you believe doesn't that tell you something about that particular person ? and could it be because of his faith that he acts this way as maybe before he would've acted a bit different ?  Not as kindly maybe?
    Deep subject this....  :^)
    Rc
  • RollingC said on Feb 23, 2008....
    Of course there are varying degrees of this and so many different ways of expressing yourself that it would be kinda hard to express them all but it boils down to treating others like you want yourself to be treated. Which some people don't. 
    I try not to judge people but like it's been said before up above, treating strangers with love and dignity says a lot about a person and chances are they've been exposed to good religious principles and   foundations at one point in their lives.
    :^)
    Rc
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 23, 2008....
    kelly: i find it relevant because when someone follows a faith, it should guide their behaviors--the responses of the various soulcasters who do follow such a path has made that quite clear in the other comments. the way i see it, the actions of a given believer speak to the degree to which he or she is an example of that faith. the more observant/devout, the greater the extent to which that faith should be in evidence--see also rollingc's most recent comment.

    rollingc: i see that we're of similar minds on the matter. :> there really isn't much more to be said, is there?

    ed
  • kelly said on Feb 23, 2008....
    silver:  OK, but what about the person who is kind and considerate and also an atheist?  I think I'm missing the point.

    "but it boils down to treating others like you want yourself to be treated."

    Yes.  But where I differ from everyone on this point is that you don't need a religion to teach you these things.  All you need is to grow up in an environment that stresses consideration of those around you.
  • polarheart said on Feb 23, 2008....
    So, Kelly, what if you did not grow up in an environment that stresses consideration of those around you? 
  • bloc said on Feb 23, 2008....
    @rolling
    "If you believe and have faith in your belief, you'll act accordingly"

    I think history makes this conclusion suspect. People have an amazing ability to rationalize their misdeeds through their "faith", and this appears to be true even of those with the best intentions.

    "and could it be because of his faith that he acts this way as maybe before he would've acted a bit different ? "

    The issue I have is that I've know just as many people without faith who behave equally as well. My conclusion is that faith is merely a coincidence when it comes to good deeds. Well, this depends on how one defines faith. I have faith of a sort as my first comment reveals, but I don't believe in a deity. 

    "but it boils down to treating others like you want yourself to be treated."

    Unless you're a masochist ;) Jokes aside, I agree, but I don't believe this requires faith in a God. Empathy through the recognition of oneself in others is my source of empathy. 

    @ed
    "when someone follows a faith, it should guide their behaviors"

    This statement revolves around the definition of "faith". Everyone will read this an immediately assume you mean a belief in God. Maybe you do, maybe you don't; this is the difficulty with loaded words. Do namyogrl and I have faith in your opinion? If so then I think you and kelly are arguing over the use of loaded words.

    Kelly and I have had this debate in the past and I've come to conclude that we have almost identical views, but we haggle over word choices :) My beliefs have changed a bit since Kelly and I first had this discussion a number of years ago.

    The best essay I've read on ethics without "faith" is the one by Steven Pinker in this book.
  • RollingC said on Feb 23, 2008....

    @ Bloc....

    True...I had a religious upbringing and my parents practically tried to shove religion into me.  At first I followed blindly but later saw the hipocrites of the church and fell away for many years.  But I still maintained the kindness towards others whenever possible.

    I imagine that some people are inclined to do this by their very nature without the guidance of any religious teachings. 

    As for me, I was away from the church for many years until one day I had an experience that moved me to come back. I'm still struggling with it but back I am and I'm there to stay. I'm also of the personality that would rather treat people with kindness and respect even without my religious background or experience, although I'll admit that I used to be much more abrupt and sometimes inconsiderate whenever it was to my advantage (back in my drinking and womanizing days), something which I won't do again even though I still fantize a bit whenever I see an attractive woman walking by.

    In short....I'm still the same person that I was back then but without a lot of the bad habits that I had. And I think my faith has something to do with that.

    My story is not yours and when it comes to walking the spiritual path, we all have our own path and nobody else can walk it for us...not even the church...all it can do is show you " a " way to do it that's all.

    My humble opinion....

    Rc

  • RollingC said on Feb 23, 2008....

    And yes....religion.....Catholic religion....has been used over the centuries as an excuse to violence.  But one must realize that it was just that.....an excuse....usually for greed and power hungry land grabbers like the Spanish conquest of the Americas. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples also.

    Rc

  • kelly said on Feb 23, 2008....
    "So, Kelly, what if you did not grow up in an environment that stresses consideration of those around you? "

    Then you probably won't be very considerate.  What is your point?
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 24, 2008....
    kelly: i don't recall saying that a person who doesn't follow a religion is not moral or ethical. indeed, i seem to recall saying the contrary. ?

    bloc: yes, i would say that you and namyogrl have faith--it simply isn't one dependent upon religion (in your case) or a judeo-christian one in hers. historically, people have used all manner of excuses to rationalize bad behaviors, yes: see also the crusades.

    ed
  • bluegum said on Feb 24, 2008....

    i dont know what god truly is i used to say i believe in god.the ten commandments sound ok .i'd like to believe like my wife does but it doesn't happen.what is faith ?,do some people realy believe in god or do they belive in a set of rules heaven ,the wonderful life with god, jesus whatever it is i have no desire for it .i enjoy most of this life ,this i can relate to.

  • silverwhisper said on Feb 24, 2008....
    bluegum, i'm sorry but i'm having trouble understanding what you're saying. ?

    ed
  • bloc said on Feb 24, 2008....
    @ed
    you inadvertently brought up I've wanted to blog about but haven't. namyogrl is a buddhist, what I said is straight out of buddhism, but I didn't use that label. Notice how you said that mine isn't dependent on religion and hers is ;)

    I was planning on making a post entitled, "Is Buddhism a religion?"
  • polarheart said on Feb 24, 2008....
    Kelly, my point is that in many cases (at least in my experience) religion (as I know it) gives an opportunity for people to change from the inside out i.e. to become kind and considerate and to actually become a benefit to society, even though they may not have grown up in a family where consideration etc was taught.
  • kelly said on Feb 24, 2008....
    polar:  Are you saying that only through religion one can change?  Or is it just 'a' way?
  • kelly said on Feb 24, 2008....
    "My faith comes in when I see good people die in terrorist actions or road accidents, or freak storms etc. I have faith that there is a reason for everything and that the Creator has the reasons and I cannot understand the overall picture. "

    Bingo.  Psychological defense mechanism.
  • polarheart said on Feb 24, 2008....

    No, Kelly, I believe you are the one who gave only one alternative for people to be kind and considerate:

    Yes.  But where I differ from everyone on this point is that you don't need a religion to teach you these things.  All you need is to grow up in an environment that stresses consideration of those around you.

     

    So, I am saying that religion gives an opportunity for people, who did not grow up in that kind of environment, to change.  I am sure that there must be some other ways people can change.

    What other ways do you believe people can become truly and sincerely "revamped"?  This is not a sarcastic question, I am honestly interested in your point of view.

    Thank you

    Polar

  • kelly said on Feb 24, 2008....
    Hm, I think that's an overly strict interpretation of my words.  You could just as easily include religion in that if you wanted to, provided you were actually raised in a religion that values those things highly.

    People often truly remake their lives when something catastrophic happens to them.   Say, a spouse leaving them or someone close dying or having an illness.  At these crisis points people often re-evaluate themselves in an intense introspection.  Some people turn to religion, probably because it comes with a ready made set of answers.  Others change their behavior based on conclusions they come to after heavy introspection.

    No one is motivated to change (even by religion) if life is going relatively smoothly, even if they happen to be complete jerks.  I'm sure mafia bosses go to church on a regular basis.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 24, 2008....
    bloc: word are power, which correspondingly must mean then that labels are meaningful too, no?

    the why of a thing is massively important, if you ask me. when dealing with the subject of motivation then, how a person assesses his or her own motivations is important. note that at no point have i or anyone else suggested that religion has a monopoly on ethical guidelines, much less ethical behavior. :>

    ed
  • polarheart said on Feb 24, 2008....

    Kelly, I agree with you that people often "take stock" of their lives when something really hits them / or their loved one hard enough.  Some people often turn to religion too after such events.  Some people change through increased strength of willpower.

    Furthermore, just because people go to church does not make them true followers of a religion, but I am sure you know that already ;-)

  • bloc said on Feb 24, 2008....
    @polar
    "What other ways do you believe people can become truly and sincerely "revamped"? "

    Introspection

    @ed
    yeah, labels are meaningful. I just found it interesting that two nearly identical beliefs were viewed differently simply because one came with a label.

    @polar
    "Furthermore, just because people go to church does not make them true followers of a religion"

    This is the typical catch-22 of religion. My view on life is that introspection, curiosity, and empathy are the foundations of good living. Religion is neither good or bad in my eyes. When it's good it's merely a reminder of the things I mentioned before, but it's those things, and not religion, that are important.
  • Trinov said on Feb 24, 2008....
    Hi, reading through a few answers , wanted to respond to a few--if this is too long then feel free to delete it--

    A human being, with a normal range of IQ, who has been in a position where he has had enough to eat, and time to observe the world, could be expected to come to the conclusion that, in most cases, a society can best function when everyone treats his fellow citizens with respect and so decide to act this way -If this same person, when put in extreme circumstances, such as being a refugee, or any kind of inmate, or a victim of a flood or a famine, can continue to keep his logical pattern of considerate behavior, then we all would agree that this person is someone of strong conscience and strong will.

    The only difference between this person, and someone who is religious, is that in the matter of person to person contact, this person might be considered on a higher level,--since an atheist sees this world as ownerless and purposeless, the product of "evolution" of random chromsomes, and a religious person, even someone who believes in many minor gods and godesses and jains and demons, conceives of the world as being purposeful to some extent, and not random, and having an Owner or owners and would fear some kind of retribution or punishment if he treated the creations of these powers with cruelty. Therefore, an atheist is acting in a way that is without any expectation of reward (or punishment) and therefore being truly altruistic.

    (The question comes up, how many were there like this in the history of our civilization who had this level of Derech Eretz-- as it is defined in Hebrew-which in English we would need a few sentences to define: ie a way of behavior that always considers the other-and the other's needs' as important as his own, whether the other is human or animal or plant, while not giving up his needs, ie a balance, and giving human beings the rights to protect themselves from the abuse of other species but not abusing or wasting any other creator .... ie a bit complicated to define )

    There are 'Midrashic stories', ie stories about Bible stories that were passed down orally or in non- religious books --such as Sefer HaYaShar, which tell of the people who built the Tower of Babel, whatever that structure really was--and they were living in what we would call a communistic society, or a communalistic society and each one was cared for by his neighbor and the Midrash says that the Creator saw them as good people, as long as they cared for each other, even if they had no belief or awe or understanding of Him . But when they, over some time, became a 'bottom line' society-- where only this enterprise--which we know as the Tower of Babel--became more important than the people involved in the enterprise--did the Creator see them as evil-and disperse them to lower levels of technology.

    And it cannot be assumed that everyone who becomes religious does so becasue of traumatic situations. Most of the people whom I know, who returned to become practicing Jews did so from an intellectual understanding and observation of the world, and some, especially the mathematicians and scientists, from 'seeing G-d' in the actions of science or mathematics. A cousin of mine and all his collegues become religious one day after seeing a certain physics experiment, mathematicians became religious after being asked to research the Torah codes (which are much more complex than the ones that only go in one direction and which supposedly can sometimes be found in other works--)

    So while a person without consideration or an adult conscience can clothe themselves in the words of various relgions, and use these religions in an abusive or demogogic way, and history has reams of these abuses, a person who sees the world as having an Owner or Creator, even a simple person who cannot sit down and independently philosophise about society and behaviors etc, and even a person with great greed and ambition, if they truly believe that this world is not random and ownerless, will be more likely to attempt to behave to others in a way that will not bring the wrath of the Owner down on his head. (Some forms of Budhism have very strict codes of behavior to all creatures, even though they do not acknowledge a Creator, but they believe in consequences of actions, which is also a framework of reward and punishment.) ,
  • bloc said on Feb 24, 2008....
    "even a person with great greed and ambition, if they truly believe that this world is not random and ownerless, will be more likely to attempt to behave to others in a way that will not bring the wrath of the Owner down on his head."

    I hear this often yet my life experience tells me that it isn't true. Or maybe 90% of believers don't really believe. Let me be more specific. The vast majority of slave owners during American slavery were believers yet it appears to have had no effect on them whatsoever. Actually, their religion was used to justify their barbarity.

    "Therefore, an atheist is acting in a way that is without any expectation of reward (or punishment) and therefore being truly altruistic."

    Great point.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 25, 2008....
    trinov: i never delete comments b/c they're lengthy. ever. were that the case, i'd have likely had comments of my own deleted in turn. :>

    i very much appreciate your saying what bloc reproduced in that second quotation and needless to say, i agree, although i wouldn't call that a "higher level".

    the point has been made by many people who consider themselves religious (no one in this discussion, mind) that were it not for fear of being disciplined that people would inexorably revert to savagery and barbarism. those are the people that worry me: turned loose, they would have no qualms justifying terrible things.

    in the midrash story you mention, i'm curious--the story w/ which i am familiar suggests that the tower was destroyed due to human arrogance to daring to reach towards the heavens but here, the reason is very different--it's almost like a very small version of the great flood, isn't it?

    bloc: well, come now, irrespective of the what, the why is different. religion will forever and always be a different thing than what we can derive and determine through the strict application of logic, wouldn't you say?

    ed
  • Trinov said on Feb 25, 2008....
    Hi, the Midrashim--or translated --the 'extrapolations'---are many and varied. I had a nice series of books in English with many examples of Midrashim--with the warning note that they were not meant to be taken literally. There are those meant to help children learn difficult subjects--ie they simplify and whitewash--think of teaching the story of the intended homosexual rape of Lot's guests to the fourth grade (--I said that they wanted to beat them up, for example) , and those with hints of much higher levels of understanding that only brilliant scholars can figure out.

    Why are there these Midrashim--because the Bible is written in hints inself and in order to understand the hints there are certain logical rules that are applied. The Midrashim sometimes explain what was actually going on in more detail than the Bible.

    When I was in college, in a comparitive religion class in a secular college (which in general managed somehow ususally to be deadly boring in spite of the potential in the material) we had to compare the Illiad and one of the scenes of war from the Bible. And what we saw was that while the Illiad mentioned every weapon and every company involved, the Bible mentions very little of the particulars of the wars.

    On the other hand, the Bible mentions every detail of the Mishkan(the portable Temple) in the wilderness that only existed for forty years or so. The conclusion is that the Bible is not a history book, or a do it your-self manuel, its function is to teach Jews the Jewish relgion-with the aid of the Oral Teachings that were given privately to Moses (and who "passed them to Joshua and Joshua to the Elders and the Elders to the prophets and the prophets to the men of the Great Assembly" until they were allowed to be written down in the Mishnah and later the Talmud.

    Other Midrashim extrapolate moral applications of the very concise stories and others set out the way laws are to be observed and other levels give hints of higher kabbalistic levels of understanding-- for the Torah of Moses has four levels of understanding--: the plain text, the moralistic level, the legalistic level, and the secret level --ie both Kabalistic level --and the Chassidic level, which comes out of Kabbalah.

    There are a lot of hints of a more technological civilization that existed in early times--the word Tzohar--which is usually interpreted as 'window'-- in the Ark is also translated in a Midrash as 'a gem that held all the wisdom of the world and which guided the Ark' --ie some huge computer and or computer chip ( a faceted gem equals lots of chip space).

    I remember a lesson from Rabbi Friendman in which he said that the technology of ancient Egpyt was very high. (There is evidence in the alternate archeology books--with reproduced pictures etc--that the Egyptian civilization had some type of electricity. ( clay electric batteries were found by the dozens in ancient Syria and some similar simple clay batteres were used by the town merchants in that area to gold plate copper jewelry and sell it to the Beduins as pure gold- as late as the 19th century). Gold models that look like advanced jets were in Egyptian tombs and when given to engineers to analyze--the conclusions were that they were highly aerodynamic jet planes. (The Egyptians had group tours to 'ancient sites' where they wrote graffitti and stole 'antiques'--- plus c'est change-plus c'est la meme chose.)
  • bloc said on Feb 25, 2008....
    "religion will forever and always be a different thing than what we can derive and determine through the strict application of logic, wouldn't you say?"

    Maybe, but what I said wasn't, and probably couldn't be, determined through the strict application of logic.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 26, 2008....
    trinov: i'm mildly familiar w/ the existence of the midrashim and the role of the blessed sages of memory. :> i think that the midrashim are something that most gentiles would find exceedingly novel--heaven knows i did when i first encountered the idea.

    are you saying the egyptians were that advanced, or that they were merely familiar w/ another culture that was? i'm familiar w/ the gold model to which you refer. ?

    bloc: you said you believe that we can live only in the present moment and that you believe nothing is permanent. those are indeed reasonable conclusions to draw through the strict application of logic, actually: we cannot live in past or future moments; and entropy is an inexorable force that wears down everything just as the glaciers carved fjords and mountains in the last ice age. ?

    ed
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, from my readings, and also from a lesson on tape from Rabbi Mannis Freedman, (not as I spelled it) it does seem that Egpyt itself-as well as other ancient civilizations had a higher technology than most historians admit to now. There is the issue of the maps--have you read : Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age by Charels H. Hapgood, for starters? It's a Dutton Paperback, NY 1979 edition that we have. This is ink on paper evidence that at various times in the past there were mariners or geographers capable of accurately mapping the whole planet.

    Then I've seen Portolano maps--used by Columbus from what I've read--which gave accurate maps of north america before Columbus, sometimes with Florida and California under water! One map said to be from the 1500's had California accurately drawn, with a note that there were gold mines there, as in Peru--this map is in Hebrew-- and may have been copied from the maps of the time of the First Temple when King Solomon had sent out minors to mine gold on joint Israeli- Lebanese ships.

    From the works of Barry Fell we know that the Libyans, with some Jewish navigators and sailors, navigated the whole world and had an international date line somewhere to the east of where we have it now, but the concept was known then. And they may have left some people on Hawaii, and in other places, from shipwrecks or inability to continue the shipping lanes.

    Our academic sources relay on Roman history, and the Romans were not that well informed about all the shipping going on. They tortured the secret of the sea currents that brought ships to India out of Arab and Jewish sailors, but they had no idea of the shipping going on to the Americas--or the currents from Spain to Ireland etc.

    The information that I have hinted about is actually in books in older academic libraries, for universities have contracts to buy everything published by such and such a publisher, and don't even bother to put all these books on the shelves sometimes. These books, however are findable and they have the real history of the world that the Roman/Germanic oriented historians don't want to deal with.

    Most people don't even know that there are Irish historians who have a different view of history, for the Irish are marginal to the English. Most Westerners don't have access to the accounts in Arabic (which I don't have personally either for I dropped out of Arabic classes unfortunately) or Persian or Amharic etc which give information that could blow our minds. What we do have are books by people like Barry Fell who could read a dozen or so languages and who is still not accepted by the academic 'Guild' for that is just what they are, and not a very honest guild either!

    So the possibility that the nobility of Egpyt could fly jets (while the peasants were hauling water by hand) is not so farfetched, hey it's more or less the reality today. In Iraq there are still people living on the rivers who could be in the early Iron age and in Ethiopia there are people in the country side in the late stone age in some respects--they may or may not have a transistor radio, but their home made tools in use everyday are possibly still of well chipped stone with wooden handles glued with tree resin-- I saw this in an anthropology magazine ten years ago and saved the article.

    High levels of technology are dependent on organization, and when organization is destroyed by wars or major earthquakes etc, what is left is the peasant survival level which may be in a different technological base completely, or there may be nothing left and the civilization disappears.
  • RollingC said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Trinov:
    Where could one find on the web some books or information about this? This is most interesting stuff.
    Rc
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, to RollingC--there is a website on alternate archeology, and these questions come up on a few websites we go to--I'll try to make a list since I can't recall all the names offhand.
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    "you believe nothing is permanent. those are indeed reasonable conclusions to draw through the strict application of logic, actually"

    So are you saying that a belief in a permanent soul is contradicted by basic logic? ;)
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    http://www.unexplainedearth.com/index.php

    http://www.mcremo.com/

    http://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/

    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/

    http://www.indiancountry.com/index.cfm

    http://www.asis.com/users/stag/americab.html

    http://equinox-project.com/drfell.htm
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, three more: http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:www.trends.net/~yuku/tran/tcoin.htm+%22
    http://www.trends.net/~yuku/tran/tcoin.htm
    http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n2/megaliths.html
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Here is a counter to one of those links.
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    @ed
    regarding what is and isn't religion. I think Einstein's thoughts may help illustrate the weird dichotomy we're discussing. Here are some of htis thoughts.

    "Yes, you can call it that," Einstein replied calmly. "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."

    "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

    Now, what Einstein believes is clearly not a monotheistic religion. Hell, most religious people on this site will not be able to articulate a difference between Einstein's thoughts and those they label nonreligious.

    Here is his explanation

    But throughout his life, Einstein was consistent in rejecting the charge that he was an atheist. "There are people who say there is no God," he told a friend. "But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views." And unlike Sigmund Freud or Bertrand Russell or George Bernard Shaw, Einstein never felt the urge to denigrate those who believed in God; instead, he tended to denigrate atheists. "What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos," he explained.

    Here are more of his thoughts

    "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

    "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

    ...

    "I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but I admire even more his contribution to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and body as one, and not two separate things."

    Do you believe in immortality? "No. And one life is enough for me."



  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, just a note, Einstein was a supporter of Israel, in spite of all his philosophy, and his rejection of a religious education that he chose in his teens. His actions somewhat contradict his denial of G-d as interested in history and the particular, and I wonder what he would say to Professor Branover and other religious scientists. He is also far from the only genious my people has produced, so we are not that impressed by him.
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, I found these links on Hapgood and the portolano maps and the book The Atlantean which tells of Celtic and other mariners in ancient times-- :

    http://www.buy.com/prod/the-atlantean-irish-ireland-s-oriental-maritime-herritage/q/loc/106/202231237.html http://www.geocities.com/athens/troy/6396/lightfall051.htm Re Hapgood's book: "This book contains the story of the discovery of the first hard evidence that advanced peoples preceded all the peoples now known to history. In one field, ancient sea charts, it appears that accurate information has been passed down from people to people ... We have evidence that they were collected and studied in the great library of Alexandria and that compilations of them were made by the geographers who worked there. Before the catastrophe of the destruction of the great library many of the maps must have been transferred to other centers, chiefly, perhaps, to Constantinople, which remained a center of learning in the Middle Ages ... Unbelievable as it may appear, the evidence nevertheless indicates that some ancient people explored the coasts of Antarctica when its coasts were free of ice"

    http://stumphengedesign.com/maps4.htmThe Portolano maps

    "These were maps drawn explicitly for Seafarers. The Dulcert Portalano map suddenly appeared in Europe around 1339. It was highly accurate.
    However it did not get any better but was simply copied over for the next two hundred years. The original maps from which these maps were copied contained an accurate ratio of latitude to longitude.
    It could only have been done if the original map maker had precise information of the relative longitudes of a great many places all the way from Galway in Ireland to the river Don in Russia."
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 26, 2008....
    bloc -- your last post sums up my own thoughts beautifully.
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    "Hi, just a note, Einstein was a supporter of Israel, in spite of all his philosophy, and his rejection of a religious education that he chose in his teens. His actions somewhat contradict his denial of G-d as interested in history"

    I didn't understand this.
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    hi, to bloc--many atheist Jews found it convenient not to associate at all with their people and to intermarry , for the basic connection is that we are a people who have a destiny that has been determined by G-d. There have been even Zionists who called themselves Caananites, and today there are leftist atheist intellectuals who go all the way and identify with the palestinians to the point that Jewish children loosing their hands or legs to Kassam rockets doesn't bother them, but Arab teenagers who throw rocks or molotov cocktails at Jews and get hurt by a rubber bullet make them ballistic.

    Einstein, whose egotism and the social isolation of someone with his IQ, made him a bad husband and a lousy father, still felt a deep connection to his people in general, which belies the statement that he did not see G-d as interested in history. For if he had no concept of G-d in history, he would have easily cut himself of from Jewish survival, just as easily as he cut himself off from his own children. That's my grasp of the situation--for he did not see himself as bound by usual emotional ties, and so his ties to fellow Jews was most probably philosophically based, not emotionally based.
  • RollingC said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Thank you for the links....I'll be following up on them.    :^)      Rc
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    "[He] still felt a deep connection to his people in general, which belies the statement that he did not see G-d as interested in history."

    I think this is nonense. The man said many times that he did not believe in a personal God that cared about the daily happenings of humans. The fact that he worked for world peace and to defend jewish people against Nazis is not proof of a belief in a personal god. Not even close.

    By the way, creating starwmen about the views of liberals toward the israel/palistine issue is not helping your cause.
  • Trinov said on Feb 26, 2008....
    Hi, they ain't strawmen, they are called Peace Now and some other names. And one's view of Israel is a cosmic test, those that fail, fail,-- I have seen that truth does not matter to most people anymore. Truth is available in spades on the internet, but most people prefer nonsence and propaganda.

    It's much more convenient to take the Arab money and hate the Jews, even to some liberal Jews. I truly don't give a damn if people with your viewpoint care if we survive or not. Your viewpoint is only your problem, not mine- I have other things to worry about.

    And so do you: You can worry about the declining wheat surplus, the dying dollar, all those people being foreclosed out of their houses, the TB epidemic that is coming from the new strains, US police and guards tazering people to death, fake oxygen containers on commercial airplane flights, the submarines of Iran and their new missiles that can go anywhere (read their English websites) etc etc etc.

    You liberals: "Love me, l love me,I'm a liberal" was a Pete Seiger song back in the 1960's. I've always been a radical myself. Oh and didn't Einstein say "G-d does not play dice with the universe"
  • bloc said on Feb 26, 2008....
    your babbling doesn't make much sense and assumes all kinds of things that you know nothing about. 

    My quotes above make clear Einstein's stance on God and religion. He did not believe in a personal God described in religions like Christianity and Judaism.
  • Trinov said on Feb 27, 2008....
    Hi, as a 63 year old who has read broadly from the time she was 10 years old on all sorts of subjects that you obviously have never heard of, and who had the privilege of knowing and learning from some geniouses, I can tell you that my babbling as you call it, has often had predictive value.

    I've been called a fascist and lots of other names in my time -- as when I insisted on preparing my kibutz for a war because of what I managed to observe and read and analyze, and when the war 'happened' people like you said "Oh my gosh, how did you know, you must have been psychic!"

    You are still so sure of yourself, and so young too. You are still very firmly in the matrix young man and so are in the control of others. And even as a senior citizen I'm never really sure of myself and am constantly testing the answers our there-- and know that I would have been dead 40 years ago had I been as ignorant and as self assured then as you are now. But ignorance is a disease that is always curable, if you open your mind just a bit it.
  • bloc said on Feb 27, 2008....
    "people like you"

    This is where your ignorance lies. You've created some nice little boxes, ultra simplistic, that you use to get through life. When you encounter something that challenges you, you find a way to stick it into one of your little boxes so you can dismiss it without considering the actual ideas present. this is what you are doing here with me.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 27, 2008....
    trinov: i have several things to say to you.

    1. OK, that's quite enough about speculative archaeology. there are quite clearly forgeries running around out there and some legitimate puzzles. you're delving very deeply into conspiracy theory-land and that's not a place i wish to visit.

    2. yes, we all know that no one group has a monopoly on genius. trust me, other people than you actually know this. frankly, i find it insulting that you seem to think that you alone hold this knowledge.

    3. i'm a liberal and i don't subscribe to the nonsense you claim liberals do. if you really believe all liberals are like that, you're pitiable, trinov, b/c for all you claim to have read, you have obviously learned precious little of real value. yes, some liberals believe that. but now it's my turn to teach you: this is a very small number of liberals, just like only a very small number of conservatives are nazis. why else do you think i read lbf the riot act when he made the same brainless charge months ago? it's ignorance, pure and simple. so either you can admit you overstated and we can agree not to discuss politics, or you can try to prove that your unwarranted generalization of liberals is actually valid. i hope you pick the former as the latter is going to be impossible.

    bloc: yes, i am saying that belief in a permanent soul is contradicted by the direct application of logic. why should it be otherwise? we can see things born, grow, grow old, wither and die every day of our lives. the idea of a soul itself is contrary to what we can prove through logic--which is part of why logic is a limited tool in the search for knowledge.

    strictly speaking, the notion of the soul and body as two separate things is actually an old christian heresy so i somehow doubt spinoza is the first philosopher making that statement.

    ed
  • Trinov said on Feb 27, 2008....
    Hi, I was aimed at Bloc actually not at at you at all-- I guess I should have specified--but I don't see you as that young, you're in your forties I'd guess? or late thirties.

    Why would you assume-- that I assume--that I am the only one knowing something?

    --re liberals, I've grown up with them, and have been arguing with liberals (friends and relatives for the most part) and other radicals and conservatives since the early 1960's and yes there all different types of liberals, but in recent years there has been a very anti-Israel trend on major US campuses, (The arab professor who got tenure at Barnard who believes that ancient Israel never existed for example) and on English campuses to the point of an attempted England wide boycot of Israel by academics and by a major labor union etc and where Israel students are treated abominably (and I can't understand why they are in England in the first place).

    And the Israeli liberals, who are in very vocal organizations here, are markedly absent when Jews on the borders are murdered or maimed and very vocal when any Arab is involved-- for instance I haven't read of Peace Now or Amnesty International Israel Branch making waves about Sderot and the two children maimed last week and I try to read all the headlines of all the on-line Israeli Hebrew newspapers every day at least once a day as well as many American papers,and the BBC and some Arab English papers also. But they do get vocal about Arab children who are hurt in Israeli counter raids,( and many of these Arab children end up in Israeli hospitals for their families perfer Jewish doctors).

    While I can't prove that all or most liberals are anti- Israel, that is not what I tried to prove, but neither could you prove that the majority of liberals want to see a strong Israel, one with defensible borders, with Jerusalem as its capitol and no PLO state, from any recent demonstrations of solidarity in print or otherwise, for if this solidarity exists, it hasn't been in CNN, or Fox, or NBC etc for the last few years for I go into them also as well as the Jewish Week etc etc. Sorry I offended you, but I had gotten the impression that you were more open to things than I guess you actually are--why for example are ancient maps considered part of a conspiracy theory? That is beyond me, actually. Hapgood is as good an academic as anyone else in the standard use of the term. And reading Irish historians? they have access to many interesting facts that say English or German historians don't have-- since they have a different civilization to fall back on .

    My main reason for blogging is bringing otherwise unavailable information to those others who might be interested. I see also that sometimes somebody needs an affirmation of their feelings or even some advice that I can reasonably give, having been a teacher and a also sometimes a social worker and being an older woman who has survived a few types of hell, and lived to laugh again. And I've been a collecter of information of all sorts since I am curious, and being a religious person does not make me a fool who believes everything written either. But I've had a good record of seeing things before they manifest themselves as major headlines, since I follow the news and the researches mentioned and very few things happen out of the blue.
  • tbs230 said on Feb 27, 2008....
    Discussing religion always seems so useless sometimes, because honestly, EVERYTHING we've learned and everything we hold dear stem from religion.

    To be kind and show people respect sounds like something a good person would have learned by growing up in a good community, but religion has been around forever, and therefore so has these beliefs.

    I don't think I'm making any sense...

    Show me an instance where someone's belief in what's right or wrong didn't come from religion. And I mean, hardcore proof. Meaning your parents weren't religious, no one in your community was religious, the country you're in doesn't have religious foundations.

    You might have decided that you didn't need God in order to be a good person, but you learned what was right and wrong because of religion. Even if you didn't realize it.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 27, 2008....
    trinov: my statement is informed by a number of things you've said on a number of occasions--your exchange with bloc is but a part of that. b/c in your comments, what i often feel is that you feel the need to play "advocate for israel and jews". that's a pretty big mantle for any one person.

    if you're trying to be informed about what others think of jews and israel, i really don't think that the newspapers are the best places to look. IMX, what's actually most helpful is talking w/ people who live in a given place, not the journalists. i know perfectly well that the near-election of le pen in france a few years back was a disgrace and horror to every right-thinking french citizen, yet it must've terrified the jews living in france, fearing that there was going to be another holocaust.

    so when you say:
    neither could you prove that the majority of liberals want to see a strong israel, one with defensible borders, with jerusalem as its capitol and no PLO state

    i kinda have to laugh, b/c you and i both know that journalists aren't writing about the truth half as much as they're trying to get attention. surely you've not been reading the media for that long and not understood this?

    see, the mistake you're making here is thinking that liberals have a unified, shared position about israel. this is simply false. i am a liberal as are a number of my friends. not one of us subscribes to the slanderous anti-israel garbage you vomited forth, so please don't tell me you know what all liberals believe: you're wrong.

    that does not however mean that i will turn a blind eye if israel does something i think is wrong--and that may be part of the problem here. let me ask you a simple question: in the past 10 years, has any government action taken by israel been morally wrong, in your view? i can certainly point at things my own country has done that are absolutely morally wrong (e.g., torture of prisoners).

    i have an exceedingly low tolerance for conspiracy theories, i'm afraid, and you can consider that narrow-minded if you like, but we'll simply have to agree to disagree on the matter. conspiracy theorists would also have us believe that 9/11 was faked or staged, and that's an ugly and horrible little web of lies.



    tbs: i've been having intense, serious online conversations for the better part of a decade. and never once have i found discussing religion useless. :> morality and religion certainly can overlap, but you appear to be arguing that morality only comes from religion. is that right?

    ed
  • bloc said on Feb 27, 2008....
    @ed
    I maybe using a narrower definition of logic. I'm thinking of absolutes, but your probably right. However, I think there are serious limits to what we can prove about anything.

    @trinov
    The only statement I made regarding Israel was about your strawman. Yet from this you created an even more fanciful strawman of what you think I believe. It's funny really.

    Your assertion that einstein believes in a personal God, inspite of the fact that he frequently stated the exact opposite, is absurd.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 27, 2008....
    well, i may be right, i may be wrong. :> but yes, there is definitely limited utility in "proveability" WRT the search for knowledge, IMHO.

    ed
  • tbs230 said on Feb 27, 2008....
    Hey ed, I'm not saying discussing it is useless, just that debating whether or not one can be moral without being influenced by religion just seems so...hard to prove, I guess is the right way to say it.

    Whether or not it ONLY comes from religion...I couldn't tell you (my morality certainly did)...but I think religion plays a huge role in societal morality.


  • bloc said on Feb 27, 2008....
    "I think religion plays a huge role in societal morality."

    And it plays an equally large role in societal ills.
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 27, 2008....
    I dunno about equal...
  • bloc said on Feb 27, 2008....
    the inquisition? Suicide bombers? honor killings? Abortion clinic bombings? Justification for american slavery and racism?

    I was shocked when I learned about early american religion. It was brutal to say the least. Things like exiling people from towns because they didn't believe in the right form of christianity or claiming that peoples children get sick and die because they don't attend church on sunday.

    Gay bashing?

    I think I can brainstorm this for a long time.


  • TinSoldier said on Feb 27, 2008....
    I didn't say that the bad points didn't exist. I just suggested that they are not equal to the good points, IMO.

    And also remember, that people are far more likely to remember and discuss injustices than the good things anyway.
  • silverwhisper said on Feb 28, 2008....
    tbs: sorry, guess i misunderstood you. i agree it plays a huge role. :>

    bloc: i'm not at all convinced it's a net wash. you would need to demonstrate in some meaningful way something that AFAICT is ultimately unknowable: why someone does something. haven't we already discussed the subject of people dressing up their ills in the clothes of religion more than once? i think blaming religion for an individual's stupidity/ills is disingenuous.

    ed
  • Trinov said on Feb 28, 2008....
    Hi, Of course journalists are not particularly honest, which is sad, since their whole reason for existence is supposedly to tell us what is really going on. That's what I remember learning in a journalism class many years ago, anyway.

    Of course I've had battles with various people in the media and -once when in the states I called into a radio station and explained to them that they had given wrong info re an incident in Israel and I got this answer "nothing succeeds like success". They basically didn't give a damn about truth anymore. Journalists have been caught falsifiying evidence, and there is a trial going on against someone who caught France 2 in an accusation that the IDF killed a child, and they are not even embarrassed about this, even though this particular 'news clip' caused riots and possibly the death of a Jewish reporter in Asia.

    However, that is not to say that every article in every paper is made up. And therefore I still read the news, and keep my files. Re the problem that I have with liberals in general is expressed in and article today in the Jerusalem Post by Amnon Rubenstein, called: Homemade Israel-bashers. You might find it interesting for it covers the problems that I have been documenting also, that the academic establishment in Israel and out of it, has an anti-Israel agenda, and it is to this agenda that I have been reacting to, for I have found it over and over.

    By saying that, I don't deny that there are liberals who are pro-Israel, and you and your friends would be among them. That is very re-assuring. But the ones who are making the policies in the universities are not the ones who are pro-Israel. My own alma mater is an example. I can't see that I will ever recruit or recommend anyone again to go to B-College, something that once I was very happy and proud to do, for with the appointment of an arab 'history' professor who wrote what many have critized as a very bad paper-denying the existence of ancient Israel, to a position with tenure, well it's on the level of a nightmare for me. I had experienced and incident of anti-semitism there, but I won the battle with the professor who abused me and she had to apologize officially. But when a student 30 years later was discriminated against because she kept religious holidays and I got involved as an alumna, I saw that things seemed to have gotten worse, not better.

    Re to be the advocate of my people is natural for me, we are fighting for our survival at the moment, and that is certainly more important to me than most of what goes on as news in the world, and which occupies the headlines in American papers.

    As to conspiracy theories, well history is made up of successful and unsuccessful conspiracies, if that is what you are referring to. The story on the Lincoln assasination won't be settled maybe for another hundred years. Or the reasons for the massacre of the Templars, or other fun subjects for historians who need to make a living also and these subjects are more interesting than say, the economic decline of aristocracy and the rise of capitalism and the middle classs etc .

    But there are levels and levels of 'discussions', and unfortunately, there are agendas on all sides. When some one comes up with historical evidence, and we are talking about discovered tools (an abacus for instance in the midwest) and stone monuments in the case of Barry Fell, then yelling forgeries doesn't hold water. And the Arabic inscriptions that he interpreted, were previously photographed by a univeristy who labeled them as 'native art' not recognizing the script, since it was not in their field. And Hapgood's maps have been around in various archives for hundreds of years. The portulanos are maps that were used for centuries by merchant marines and there is good evidence that Columbus had received at least one from his father in law etc. {I may get around some day to writing a book, or some essays ,on Columbus}(Since I was once a history major, I do have some tools of discrimination, and it was a matter of choice, not incompetance, that I did not take the recommendation of a certain professor, (who for some reason once (publically) called one of my exams 'brilliant' ) and procede with an academic career. I preferred going to Isreal and living a real life among real live people but that doesn't mean that my brain melted down in the interim and I can't understand what I am reading.)

    As to Israel, well in my comments on soulcast I've critized my government many a time, for they are nincompoops, but not for defending us, but for not defending us. The present government is a mixture of parties who know that they will not get re-elected and are holding on for dear life to their seats, and not doing what is necessary to protect the citizens of the state. If they don't go into Azza (Gaza) soon, most of the Israeli public outside of The State of Tel Aviv will be going ballistic.

    If you could read the comments in the newpapers-for Israeli on-line papers give readers a freeforum to comment on every article--you would see how angry many people are at the incompentence of the government in providing defense. On the other hand there was an article on B'Tzelem, another leftist liberal organization, which criticised Israel for all the palestinian casualities, but they did also make a rare criticism of the Chamas for shelling civilians, so maybe I should be over-joyed that some reality is sinking in, now that a college was targeted by the Kassam rockets, for academics go to colleges, as opposed to kindergartens, who have been the previous targets. (With google earth, they have learned to be fairly accurate, and boast about using google earth for their targeting of Israeli neighborhoods.)
  • tbs230 said on Feb 28, 2008....

    Hey ed, going back and reading my previous post, I did say discussing, so the fault was mine, not yours at all! Thanks for catching that!

     

    bloc, I have to agree with TinSoldier, I somehow doubt that the bad is equal to the good. If you think about it psychologically, we can say that the bad is equal to two times the good (sorry, just came out of a Marketing midterm)…

  • bloc said on Feb 28, 2008....
    @ed
    "i think blaming religion for an individual's stupidity/ills is disingenuous."

    Isn't attributing their good equally to religion disingenuous. We're approaching alienated territory if we deny the ills while attributing the goods.

    @tin
    I think it's easy to make the cause that it is a wash at best. Most people whom claim to be religious are no more moral than those that don't. Let's focus on one of my frequent topics. Those the defend our use of torture are often the most outspokenly religious. The first American President to attempt to legalize torture made religion a central part of his platfrom and in his case I don't not belief that he is insincere in his beliefs. A large reason that he was elected was the support of the outspokenly religious and they continue to defend him even after torture.
    If anything I think I can make a very solid case that the more secular element of the american public is clearly the more moral at this juncture in time.
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 28, 2008....
    I really doubt it, bloc. I think that maybe the evil that has been done by people who claim to be religious maybe blinds you a bit to the good that has been done.
  • bloc said on Feb 28, 2008....
    i was thinking about this since my last comment, and I think I can make my case better than I have so far. What you guys are implying is that religion is a source of good. That by learning about religion many people become more moral. If this isn't what your saying please correct me.

    Here is why I don't buy this. I believe that good people are good because of some quality they have and that religion neither helps or hinders their abilty to be good. First, allow me to argue in the negative. Almost every slave owner during american slavery was a christian. I do not believe for a moment that they were faking it, or using religion to further any personal agenda. I also do not believe that they saw them selves as bad or evil. What we do know is that they used religion as a justification for their behavior.

    I also know that my entire life experience has taught me that the frequency with which a person attends church has no bearing on their level of ethics or morality. I think it's safe to say that there are more religious people within the active user base of SC than their are secularists, yet I'll put the morality of the secularists on here (kelly, antimatter, myself) up against the most moral religious members. I'll also point out that the least moral members are mostly religious.

    I see absolutely no evidence that religion has any impact on the morality of the people that prescribe to it. It's very easy to pick out a good person that happens to be religious, but for every one of those I'll pick out 100 that are actively christian and anything but good moral examples.

    At the end of the day I believe that those who are introspective are highly moral, religion or no religion. And those who are religious are no more moral than those who aren't. Do either of you dispute these last two sentences? If not then what conclusion does it leave?
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 28, 2008....
    i was thinking about this since my last comment, and I think I can make my case better than I have so far. What you guys are implying is that religion is a source of good. That by learning about religion many people become more moral. If this isn't what your saying please correct me.

    Yeah, that seems pretty close to one thing that I am implying.

    I believe that good people are good because of some quality they have and that religion neither helps or hinders their abilty to be good.

    I have to disagree, because the first exposure that many people have to any kind of morality or ethics or philosophy is through religion. Nor can you judge all people who claim to be religious to actually be so.

    First, allow me to argue in the negative. Almost every slave owner during american slavery was a christian. I do not believe for a moment that they were faking it, or using religion to further any personal agenda. I also do not believe that they saw them selves as bad or evil. What we do know is that they used religion as a justification for their behavior.

    And the abolitionist movement also grew from religious people. Almost every abolitionist during American Slavery was a Christian. I do not believe for a moment that they were faking it, but they were certainly using religion to further a personal, and moral, agenda. They certainly did not see themselves as bad or evil, and they did use religion as a justification for their behavior.

    I also know that my entire life experience has taught me that the frequency with which a person attends church has no bearing on their level of ethics or morality. I think it's safe to say that there are more religious people within the active user base of SC than their are secularists, yet I'll put the morality of the secularists on here (kelly, antimatter, myself) up against the most moral religious members. I'll also point out that the least moral members are mostly religious.

    Frequency of attending church? I don't think that that necessarily reflects on an individuals religiosity. I consider myself a secular humanist, whether I believe in a deity or not. I also consider myself to be a moral human being.

    Heh. Like almost everyone else!

    I see absolutely no evidence that religion has any impact on the morality of the people that prescribe to it. It's very easy to pick out a good person that happens to be religious, but for every one of those I'll pick out 100 that are actively christian and anything but good moral examples.

    This seems to be a bit of an exaggeration to me.

    At the end of the day I believe that those who are introspective are highly moral, religion or no religion. And those who are religious are no more moral than those who aren't. Do either of you dispute these last two sentences? If not then what conclusion does it leave?

    Actually, I can agree with this. Again, maybe we should define the term "religious" a bit better, but for the most part I agree. Like I said above, and I think was implied in other posts, introduction to a religion is usually the most common thing to get the ball rolling towards becoming introspective in the first place.
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    Well, one of the most outspoken and famous abolistionist was a deist, henry david thoreau. I guess it depends on what we mean by religion, but I think this makes my point. Religion neither makes someone more moral nor less moral. There are far more people who come into frequent contact with religion, genuinely believe, and become no more moral.
  • tbs230 said on Feb 29, 2008....
    bloc:

    "There are far more people who come into frequent contact with religion, genuinely believe, and become no more moral." (bold mine)

    No more moral than what? If someone believes that to kill is wrong, "comes to contact with [a] religion" that says killing is wrong...will that make said person more moral than he was before?

    Where did he get his belief in the first place?
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    slavery in america is one example of religion not making people more moral. The defense of our use of torture by the religious right is another.

    But there is an easier way to look at this. Is the average religious person more moral than the average secular person?

    If you say no, then how can you also say that religion has any impact on a persons morality?
  • kelly said on Feb 29, 2008....
    "I have to disagree, because the first exposure that many people have to any kind of morality or ethics or philosophy is through religion."

    I would disagree with this statement.  Our first exposure to morality and ethics is through our parents.  Children mimic behavior long before they have any idea of philosophical arguments.  I do remember going to church when I was little and getting absolutely nothing out of it.  It was just a place where you had to be quiet while adults listened intently to someone blathering on about...something.

    At the same time I can distinctly remember several lessons of ethics and morality by watching my father return change when the clerk had made a mistake and given too much, or being scolded for treating someone else poorly or getting into really big trouble for stealing something from a store.

    I'm with bloc.  I think as far as promoting good in the world religion is a wash.
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 29, 2008....
    Heh. I guess that we have to chalk it up to differences in personal experience.

    My parents weren't religious, but as you said I guess that they taught me some morality and ethics regardless of that. As a pre-teen and a teen I went to church with just my brother and me, and it had a pretty strong effect on my beliefs of right and wrong, even if the "religious" bits didn't stick with me.
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    so you believe it's morally wrong to have sex before marriage? Do you believe that it's wrong for me to practice a religion other than christianity (this is one of the 10 commandments). Do you believe that I am immoral because I don't keep the sabbath (another commandment)?

    One problem I have with the claim that religion/church is a source of morality is that I'm certain you didn't buy into the church's version of morality. You yourself chose what you believe right and wrong, not religion. Maybe the church exposed you to some ideas that made you think, but that does not mean that religion is a source of morality anymore than anything else that would also expose you to such ideas. And you clearly do not believe in all of the morality taught by the church. If the religion/church is a source of morality why then isn't their entire morality platform right? If the platform isn't then your morality clearly doesn't have it's source within the church.

    I said earlier that I believe that anyone that practices introspection will become more moral and that religion is unnecessary. If religion is the source of morality then how do people become moral without religion? If people become equally moral without religion then how is religion a factor at all?

    Btw, I never went to church and my parents weren't religious. I'm trying to figure out why I'm not out murdering people ;)
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 29, 2008....
    I think that you are taking things too far into some kind of false dichotomy.

    so you believe it's morally wrong to have sex before marriage?

    No.

    Do you believe that it's wrong for me to practice a religion other than christianity (this is one of the 10 commandments).

    Really? Which one? While I don't really know any Jews except online, I'm sure that they would be quite surprised by this.

    Do you believe that I am immoral because I don't keep the sabbath (another commandment)?

    No. Do you believe that employers should be able to make workers to work seven days a week or face termination?

    Maybe the church exposed you to some ideas that made you think, but that does not mean that religion is a source of morality anymore than anything else that would also expose you to such ideas.

    Did you even read this comment? It is self-contradictory. If the church exposed me to (moral) ideas that made me think, then is it not a source of morality? Sure, there are other sources, but the church was the one that I encountered.

    And you clearly do not believe in all of the morality taught by the church. If the religion/church is a source of morality why then isn't their entire morality platform right? If the platform isn't then your morality clearly doesn't have it's source within the church.

    If Americans are wrong by torturing enemy combatants, then why aren't all of their ideals wrong?

    If religion is the source of morality then how do people become moral without religion? If people become equally moral without religion then how is religion a factor at all?

    Is religion a source of introspection? Are other sources of philosophy?

    If religion is one source of introspection and if introspection is a source of morality then haven't you answered your own question?

    Btw, I never went to church and my parents weren't religious. I'm trying to figure out why I'm not out murdering people ;)

    Sure, why not? :D

    You keep bringing up slavery. You realize that that was more of an economic concern for slave owners than a religious one, right? That the reason they grasped at any available straws was because their own well being depended on it?

    Like I have said, the abolitionist movement was at least as religious as the slavery movement. If not more so. You know as well as I do what kinds of things that people will use to justify their own positions.
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    "If the church exposed me to (moral) ideas that made me think, then is it not a source of morality? Sure, there are other sources, but the church was the one that I encountered."

    Maybe we are misunderstanding each other. I'm assuming that you guys are arguing that religion makes people more moral on average than someone who is secular. Otherwise I don't think we disagree. I'm sure religion makes people think which will make people reflect which will make some people more moral. I don't believe it is the religion that is making them more moral, but the reflection, and that many other things can have the same effect. I.e. religion is nothing special in terms of morality.

    "If Americans are wrong by torturing enemy combatants, then why aren't all of their ideals wrong?"

    This is very different because america isn't god.

    "That the reason they grasped at any available straws was because their own well being depended on it?"

    Their vanity depended on it, not their well being. They would not have starved without slavery which makes my point stronger since the church teaches that vanity is a sin.

    "Like I have said, the abolitionist movement was at least as religious as the slavery movement. If not more so. You know as well as I do what kinds of things that people will use to justify their own positions."

    Yup, which is why I'm arguing that religion is a wash morally.
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    I think we may be talking past each other a bit, and I've been working for 12 hours so my brain is a little tired, but let me take one more stab at this from a different direction.

    I believe that if we removed religion from society that people would not become less moral in time. Do you agree or disagree?
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 29, 2008....
    Then by your own arguments I could say that secularism is a wash, morally. And then we are stuck in the same circle.

    I'm sure religion makes people think which will make people reflect which will make some people more moral. I don't believe it is the religion that is making them more moral, but the reflection, and that many other things can have the same effect. I.e. religion is nothing special in terms of morality.

    I think that it is the religious precepts that cause people to reflect more. They are the source of the reflection.

    This is very different because america isn't god.

    I'm not sure what this means. Don't you believe that some people elevate patriotism to the level of religionism? I know that I do.

    Their vanity depended on it, not their well being. They would not have starved without slavery which makes my point stronger since the church teaches that vanity is a sin.

    I'm sure that some of them may have starved. Or at least my point that both the religious and the irreligious often hold the deprivation of material possessions above and beyond those of mere survival to be deleterious to their well being.

    Doesn't most secular thought also hold vanity to be a sin?

    "Like I have said, the abolitionist movement was at least as religious as the slavery movement. If not more so. You know as well as I do what kinds of things that people will use to justify their own positions."

    Yup, which is why I'm arguing that religion is a wash morally.

    I guess the question is whether the slave owner or the abolitionists were more religious?

    And I don't know if I have pointed it out yet, but sometimes I think that your arguments focus too much on the Christian religion to the exclusion of all the others.
  • TinSoldier said on Feb 29, 2008....
    I believe that if we removed religion from society that people would not become less moral in time. Do you agree or disagree?

    I disagree. I do not believe that we could have formulated secular morality if religious morality had not preceded it.

    Oh, and go and get some rest. I am enjoying our discussion!

    After all, it is making me introspective. :D
  • bloc said on Feb 29, 2008....
    "And I don't know if I have pointed it out yet, but sometimes I think that your arguments focus too much on the Christian religion to the exclusion of all the others."

    I'm usually the one complaining about people using hte term religion to refer only to the monotheistic religions so I agree. Althought I'm talking about all the monotheisms. I think they all are virtually equivalent on these terms.

    Check out my comment right before your last one in case you missed it.
  • oceanwaves1 said on Mar 02, 2008....
    Apparently this is a good question for you to have 115 responses, and I read the question and began reading some of the replies and a verse popped into my head.  I will present it for you and your readers Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?Whenever we ask Biblical questions I think it's always a good idea to see what our master says; because I had one discussion with a blogger claiming to be a Christian who actually said we did not have to follow Jesus' teachings to be a Christian.  When I ask her who our example should be she never replied back. Just so you know. I don't claim to be a Christian, nor do I claim to know any, but I do know God said it's His will we all be saved and no man can come to Him unless He calls them so fear not if you believe God we will all know what it's like to be a Christian one day.  PEACE-DL
  • bloc said on Mar 02, 2008....
    @tin
    The discussion we are having in my post about israel and palestine is a good example of religion causing bad. Many of this fighting is over a belief that someone has a religious claim to certain land. The land itself is a hell-hole with nothing worth fighting for other than some religious claim.
  • TinSoldier said on Mar 02, 2008....
    I've posted over there.

    But let me just share a thought that I had while pondering a bit (and watching too much Discovery Channel):

    Nature is amoral. Morality is man's attempt to impose order on his environment, like any other kind of technology.

    Religious thoughts, or trying to explain why bad things happen to good people, were probably some of the earliest conscious thoughts of mankind. It is all part of our questioning mind, wondering why things happen in order to reliably explain them and predict them.

    Extending those thoughts of morality, on how we should treat one another, to members outside of our family unit or clan or tribe or whatever has been quite an evolution, whether the extension has been because of religion or because of other forms of self-reflection.

    Even to the point of looking at and judging the actions of our ancestors through our current moral lenses.
  • bloc said on Mar 02, 2008....
    "Nature is amoral. Morality is man's attempt to impose order on his environment, like any other kind of technology."

    I don't believe this and I can refute it on many levels. I'll give one clear example. Nature gave us empathy and empathy is a our primary source of morality. I.e. nature is the source of our morality. Our brains our wired for empathy. It's also wired for other things, like fear overpowering our ability to reason.

    I think you are implying that religious thoughts were the earliest sources of morality. I think it's the opposite, that morality is wired in our brains from evolution and religious thought was merely rationalizing the truth that already existed.

    To take this one step further, I believe that our natural state is one of empathy and morality. This is why we have to demonize our enemies before we can go to war and slaughter them. Our brains won't allow us to slaughter people that we regognize as human beings.

  • TinSoldier said on Mar 02, 2008....
    I don't believe this and I can refute it on many levels. I'll give one clear example. Nature gave us empathy and empathy is a our primary source of morality. I.e. nature is the source of our morality. Our brains our wired for empathy. It's also wired for other things, like fear overpowering our ability to reason.

    Well, I meant nature in the big picture -- non-human animals as well as other primates. Morality seems pretty unique to humans.

    I don't know about our brains being "wired for empathy". That sure seems to contradict hundreds of thousands of years of human history to me.

    I think you are implying that religious thoughts were the earliest sources of morality. I think it's the opposite, that morality is wired in our brains from evolution and religious thought was merely rationalizing the truth that already existed.

    That sounds almost... religious... to me. What "truth" do you speak of? To what evolutionary purpose would morality be hardwired into our brains?

    I think that religion has probably been a big part of human evolution, and maybe that has influenced the development of morality in our brains? Of course, this is pure speculation on my part, as are most of my arguments.

    To take this one step further, I believe that our natural state is one of empathy and morality. This is why we have to demonize our enemies before we can go to war and slaughter them. Our brains won't allow us to slaughter people that we regognize as human beings.

    Really? So why are we so different from all the other animals on the planet, including other primates?
  • bloc said on Mar 02, 2008....
    "To what evolutionary purpose would morality be hardwired into our brains?"

    Because it increases our chance of survival.

    "Really? So why are we so different from all the other animals on the planet, including other primates?"

    I don't think we are that different. Other primates do show empathy. Most animals don't kill their own kind that often even though they frequenly fight. Ever notice how animals that fight for dominance (cats are one example) rarely seriously hurt each other. It's a bunch of chest pounding and showmanship. Eventually one of htem says, "ok ok, you are tougher than me" and that's the end. The tougher doesn't keep it up until the weaker is dead in most cases.

    Check this out regarding hard wiring and empathy. It doesn't mention it specifically here, but one of the doctors describing these claims that they cause people that see another human suffering to create brain activity as if they themselves were suffering. That this is the source of empathy (which is mentioned in the link).
  • TinSoldier said on Mar 02, 2008....
    Because it increases our chance of survival.

    How, exactly? Because that seems to run counter to every other animal species.

    I don't think we are that different. Other primates do show empathy. Most animals don't kill their own kind that often even though they frequenly fight. Ever notice how animals that fight for dominance (cats are one example) rarely seriously hurt each other. It's a bunch of chest pounding and showmanship. Eventually one of htem says, "ok ok, you are tougher than me" and that's the end. The tougher doesn't keep it up until the weaker is dead in most cases.

    Maybe that is actually a failure on human beings' part? Both the refusal to back down as well as the tendency to pursue fights to their logical conclusion?

    Not to mention the males of many species kill the young of their own species in order to ensure the survival of their own genetic lines above those of other males.

    Also note that at least chimpanzees do kill others of their own kind, especially interlopers from outside of their own community.

    Check this out regarding hard wiring and empathy. It doesn't mention it specifically here, but one of the doctors describing these claims that they cause people that see another human suffering to create brain activity as if they themselves were suffering. That this is the source of empathy (which is mentioned in the link).

    One, I notice that this link hasn't been found in monkeys. Two, you've already mentioned that we tend to dehumanize our enemies. Maybe it is to overcome this specific bit of hard wiring? Or maybe it takes extra effort and learning to see "the other" in the same way that we see those in our tribe or in our clan?

    Interesting link about chimpanzees. I'm sure there's more -- just Google for "chimpanzee murder".
  • bloc said on Mar 02, 2008....
    not killing each other, i.e. empathy, increases our species chance of survival.

    "Or maybe it takes extra effort and learning to see "the other" in the same way that we see those in our tribe or in our clan?"

    This is part of what that doctor I mentioned talks about. It is easier for us to see ourselves in those closer to us. OUr brains actually function as if events happened to us when we have learned of htem happening to those close to us. This may be why the legacy of slaver persists as much as it does. If a grandmother tells her grandchildren stories of being a slave then this science suggests that those grandchildren will internalize it as if it happened to them.

    This also explains why situations like that in israel/palistine are so difficult. People on both sides internalize the suffering of those around them.

    I know that primates kill each other, but my understanding is that it isn't frequenty. Hell, if we go to the zoo we don't frequently find chimps killing each other. but they certainly do behave much as we do both in empathizing and in going to war. I wonder if they have to see the other as less than a chimp to "go to war" the way they do. Interesting stuff.

    "Two, you've already mentioned that we tend to dehumanize our enemies. Maybe it is to overcome this specific bit of hard wiring? Or maybe it takes extra effort and learning to see "the other" in the same way that we see those in our tribe or in our clan?"

    I think it's a bit of both.
  • papajack said on Mar 02, 2008....

    I trust God with everything in my life. I trust him so much that I don't even think about whether I am trusting him or not. It is just second nature. I know he loves me and I know that he is actively working in my life for the betterment of my family and myself, and as I go through each day, I trust he is helping me make wise decisions, and I do so with the hope that he will use me in a special way to touch the people's lives that I come in contact with.

    I noticed the comment before mine. and the one before his, and they are discussing conflict of sorts that mankind has with each other, be it on a personal level or countries,etc.

    I tend to be a bit of a pacifist, I guess, but not because I am afraid of war, but more so that I don't perceive myself as having any enemies.  I do recognize that in world affairs, we as a nation have enemies, and I have thought a great deal about what should be done about that, and have thought of no solution of my own.

    However, I do think we as individuals can do a lot to strive for peace with each other, and I approach everyone in my mind as a friend, because I don't see them as an enemy. I can't ever remember even one person I perceived as an enemy, nor can I remember anyone ever treating me like I was their enemy. 

     I have to think that perhaps my faith has helped in that. I don't know for sure, but I know this is how I have been since I was 19 yrs. of age, and before then, I had lots of character flaws, and an unrestful mind, but I have't since I was 19 when I became a Christian.

  • bloc said on Mar 02, 2008....
    @papajack
    I have almost identical views, minus the God part. Interesting that we both come to virtually the same conclusions through different sources.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 04, 2008....
    trinov: there's a lot to cover in your comment and sadly, i don't have the time just now to go point by point. i'm aware that some liberals (and it seems particularly european liberals) do have an anti-israel agenda. that's incontrovertible, so please understand i'm not saying anything differently. re: your government not defending you--i have a friend who i met as a foreign exchange student in the US from tel aviv. i got in touch w/ him some years ago again and he mentioned that the israeli government actually protected arafat, under the "devil you know" theory. is that the kind of thing you're criticizing when you criticize your government for not defending the israeli citizens? i want to be sure i understand your meaning correctly.

    tbs: no big deal, it's an honest mistake and there've been a ton of comments. :> you asked an interesting question that appears to have been missed by the others: where does a sense of morality come from if not religion. it comes from an understanding that all around, the best strategy for getting the things you want in life is to be a nice person, not a jerk. people want to help other people b/c all of us recognize that the golden rule makes sense. every day, we see evidence of it in our interactions with people. which stranger who wants directions would you rather help, the one who stops you politely and asks, "excuse me, i think i'm lost, i'm trying to get to...?" or the one who shouts across the sidewalk, "hey, where's [location]?" it's the same thing, but taken on a bigger scale, IMHO.

    oceanwaves: well, a lot of the comments are borne of the fact that the major participants in the past few dozen comments know one another--don't make the mistake of thinking many comments = good. some of the best blog entries i've ever read have only a handful, which i find sad. i generally like to use bible gateway for scriptural references, b/c you can get many translations--i prefer the NIV for scriptural discussions. that particular scripture makes sense, although i'm puzzled--you don't call yourself christian, yet your familiarity w/ scripture and the significance of that particular passage would seem to be indicative of a christian--?

    bloc: honestly, i think part of the problem you're having here is in the definition of who is/isn't religious. people who attend church on christmas and easter call themselves christian, as do people who honestly make the world better every waking day. neither you nor i can know who truly is b/c that's dependent upon a person's why, not what. for example: i know that ltcmdrworf1 is a christian, as are faithfuldisciple, polarheart, mamie, fearing and a host of others on SC. we know that trinov is a jew--it informs every single comment i've seen by her. and i'm sure they would agree about the problem with self-applied labels.

    TS: man, i hate it when people refer to morality as a "technology". i really think that's stretching the word beyond the point of utility, to be honest.[/curmudgeonly bastard]

    papajack: hey, good to see you! thank you for saying that without witnessing--it's a difficult feat to pull off for many, and i appreciate it. i agree that we can do a lot to strive for peace.



    i think that part of the problem in this discussion, or similar discussions, is the problem of self-applied labels. but another is that i think we tend to conceive of religion as a what, not a why. look at the tenor of the comments here, esp the past few dozen, and i think that becomes very, very evident. this goes to the heart of the self-applied label thing, IMHO.

    ed
  • TinSoldier said on Mar 04, 2008....
    Heh. Then what would you call it? Has anyone else referred to morality as a technology? I was searching for the proper term...
  • bloc said on Mar 04, 2008....
    @ed and tin

    I think may have  finally found a way to articulate what I'm thinking. If religion (in the form of books by God and churches/mosques/etc) were to magically disappear the people that are moral today will continue to be equally moral tomorrow. If those same people had never become religious they would still be equally as moral.
  • polarheart said on Mar 04, 2008....

    Bloc, I had a similar discussion with Kelly earlier. . .some people have become moral through finding religion/faith whereas before they were on a road to destruction.  I have heard countless testimonies of this occuring and also experienced it first hand with people over the past 23 years.  Many people who today are believers were not born into moral families or were just rebellious by nature.  And I keep getting the feeling that athiests want to discount any of the good effect that having religion has made in people's lives.

    Perhaps you should just amend your last sentence to:

    "If those same people had never become religious they would still be equally as moral or immoral."

    That would at least be more accurate.

  • bloc said on Mar 04, 2008....
    "If those same people had never become religious they would still be equally as moral or immoral."

    Absolutely, and that's my point. I think the source of the morality or lack thereof is the person more than anything else.

    "some people have become moral through finding religion/faith whereas before they were on a road to destruction."

    My experience, and I've known many people in such situations, is that once their lives become a total disaster they become receptive to change. I.e. they become more introspective. Many find ideas for change in religion, but I don't believe religion is the source of the change. It's their newfound introspection and that if religion didn't fill the need they have they would still fill it, and they would still change for the better.
  • pickersplock said on Mar 04, 2008....

    Therein lies the difference between being a religious person, and being a spiritual person.

    Religion is not the answer, spirituality is.  Recognizing that you are part of a larger whole, knowing that you have choice and you choose to do good things, always choosing to act with love.

    If you take away all the petty details people seem to get hung up on, you are left with the essence; and that my friends, is what's important.

     

     

  • Trinov said on Mar 04, 2008....
    Hi to Silverwhisper: yes that and unfortunately lots of other actions and non-actions. For example, I was living on one kibbutz in the north of Israel. We were at that time not being shelled (there were terrorist infiltrators going through our fields nightly and they had battles with the army, but for us it was just a light show from the roof of the clubhouse). However, in Kiryat Shomah, at the same time, there was shelling day after day and people were killed and injured.

    So what happened? The government told us that we are getting, like it or not, protected rooms and that they would pay for it.( Many on the kibbutz, the Americans and Europeans objected to these extra rooms! because they were not 'esthetic'.

    What about Kiryat Shomnah? They could only have protected rooms if they paid for it! And they were the ones dying!! And building an extra room on a four story building is expensive, and the people living there at that time were barely upper-lower-class at best in income.

    Why this gross unfairness???: our kibbutz was part of the Mapam party which was in the government. Most of the people then living in Kiryat Shmoneh were Sephardic Jews who mostly voted for the Likud which at that time was not in the government. Also most people on kibbutzim at that time --not all but most--were Ashkenazy and there was then a very big gap between the Sepharidic or Oriental Jews and the Ashkenazy Jews.

    Now the gap has narrowed, but still, Sderot and Kiryat Shmonah are Sephardi towns who still vote Likud or maybe HaPoel HaMizrachi, or Shas. And so their welfare is not as important to the government as is that welfare of Tel Aviv or its wealthy suburbs

    There are other things:how an advance armor was developed for tanks and it was sold to a European country, but as of the last Lebanese war our tanks did not receive it and our boys and men died because of this.

    I could go on and on with examples which I read about or experience every day, of an attitude that some places are less important than others --just yesterday I think Ramon said that well rockets on Sderot you could deal with, but not rockets on Askalon! Lots of people commenting went ballistic on this.

    Of course a rocket nearly hit the home of a government minister, but the exact same thing happened in Sderot. In Sderot the minister was Pertz, who looks and talks like a tough Puerto Rican Labor Leader (and was damn good as a labor leader too, but was way out of his league trying to play Minister of Defense--when all the had been was a lieutenant in the quartermaster corps) , a Sephardi, and in Ashkalon the minister is Aviv Dicktor, from the Mosad if I remember correctly, an Askenazy.
  • bloc said on Mar 04, 2008....
    @pickers
    exactly, and that's a good semantic distinction between those two words.
  • polarheart said on Mar 05, 2008....
    Pickers, I also agree.  The reason I use the word religion is because that is the word that I find most others use/understand.  However, personally I dont like the word religion, I prefer faith. . .the reason I have not used the word "faith" here in this dicussion is because I think is difficult for non-believers to grasp and because athiests find it laughable.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 05, 2008....
    TS: um...i'm thinking "idea" or "principle" make a whole buttload more sense than "technology".

    bloc: actually, i think there is definitely a portion of the population that, absent any kind of enforcement (e.g., hell, what have you), would become solely id-driven animals.

    polar: i really like your addendum to what bloc said. and i wouldn't be scared of using the word faith--if it's the best word for the task, it's the best word. not all atheists are contemptuous of faith. :>

    pickers: oo, very nice indeed! :>

    trinov: the heart of what you're saying then is that government's foremost role is to protect its citizens and that all other considerations are secondary then, aren't you? the armor thing: is it possible the armor was just too expensive for the IDF to add to their tanks?

    ed
  • Trinov said on Mar 05, 2008....
    hi, why develop armor for others and let your brothers die? The major role of a goverment is to 'provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare' is it not?

    The Israeli government is going to waste millions on a stupid 60th aniversary party, they want to pay huge fees to out of country artists, possibly getting Barbara Streisand, for instance-- as it was written up in the Jerusalem Post, to sing HaTikva. While I love her as a singer, she is not needed here to sing HaTikva. I don't say that she wouldn't know the words by route, most Jews in my generation do.

    But the priority of a government is to make sure that they have a country to govern, not to be the puppy dogs of corporations, or the patsies of bigger countries by doing their dirty work for them (as Israel has done in the past for the US and then of course taking the blame).

    I want to know that my country will defend each and every citizen against our enemies, whether they come from without or within the borders of the state. That is not too much to ask. And that the soldiers whose parents can't afford to pay for a an anti-shrapnel vest will not be without a vest--that the vest should be paid for by the government, not the parents or grandparents of the soldiers!

    I want to see our government keep normal industry here (many many factories here were exported to Jordan or China, leaving both Jew and Arab from the working classes up the creek, and then they are blamed for not working!) and not only hi-tech industries which only basically employ those with a post high school education or training. And then many of the hi-tech industries started here are bought up by foreign companies who have no interest in the well being of the employees. And it is rare to find anything manufactured here anymore and my husband and I try to buy Israeli products if they are available. We are inundated with Colgate and other products when our local stuff is equivalent. This puts our people out of work.

    The globalization that the left is promoting here has caused so much poverty, while we have all these products on the supermarket shelves coming from all over the world. But if one third the country is below the poverty level, including the majority of children, then who needs this variety? The poor are eating bread and margarine, and whatever is on sale in the outdoor markets or the indoor markets. And the child support money was reduced to a pittance etc. That is why I am very angry at my government.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 05, 2008....
    that you're angry at your government is no surprise, trinov.

    simple defense is a basic concept, but isn't there more to what government can do for the people? globalization isn't favored by liberals, incidentally: it's uniformly favored by pro-business people, trinov. i don't know what the deal is w/ the liberals you know in israel, but here in the US, when the WTO had a conference two years ago, people calling themselves liberals protested it.

    there appears to be a massive difference b/n liberals you know and liberals in the US.

    ed
  • tbs230 said on Mar 05, 2008....
    What exactly is the Golden Rule anyway? Isn't it to "treat others how you want to be treated?"

    ...isn't that what Jesus said?
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 05, 2008....
    i've always understood it as "do unto others as you would have others do unto you". :> as to how it's expressed, i suppose that depends upon what biblical translation you're using. :>

    ed
  • Trinov said on Mar 05, 2008....
    Hi, here definitions are sometimes dafi-itions. Left and right are mixed up now, and what was right 40 years ago is now centrist to left --but it is monied left.

    Here the left has more money than the right. Why? my parents, who were labor zionists said that they never met a poor communist. Applied economics. The Bank HaPoalim, literally the laborers' bank, is owned by the richest woman in Israel,( she was number 159 worldwide a few years ago). So, left or liberal here is not quite like anywhere else, and the Liberal party was always the businessman's party here --"liberal"-- as in laissez faire capitalism-- and they were married to Cherut by Sharon to make the Likud party.

    But I am also reacting to certain groups of American liberals--on the leftist fringe mainly, who, in abandoning Israel, especially the Jews among them, have lost their integrity. They seem to worry about the palestinians exclusively.

    For instance, have you heard of anyone in the States, England or France protesting the arrest and sentencing of a respected Saudi professor, for meeting a female student in a cafe to help her with a personal problem at her request? He is sentenced to jail and lashes. Where are the liberals? Or the poor woman, who is illiterate and 'signed' a confession that she was witch, who is going to be executed? Why are the 'rights of the palestinians' more important than the rights of other Arabs? Or the Okfir children who spent 19 years in the equivalent of a concentration camp in Morroco. What were they not a cause celebre? (The Teddy Bear Teacher got some coverage, that is true, but I wonder if it was because it was so bizarre and had a catching title.)
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 05, 2008....
    trinov: OK, that's a very, very different reality than what i'm accustomed to!

    trinov, remember that a lot of people in the US and europe simply don't get to hear a lot of the news that you do, just by dint of not living in the area. heck, i suspect most americans are lucky if they even know the word "knesset"! :>

    what english-language news source would you consider least subjective about the news in the middle east?

    ed
  • Trinov said on Mar 05, 2008....
    Hi, we don't have any non- subjective newspapers.

    What I could suggest is three papers alternately: one the Jerusalem Post, http://www.jpost.com/ which is less flaky than it was years ago, and it is the oldest English Paper in Israel, and it has different editorial positions in op ed articles. It's news covers a lot of ground, but its attitude is generally leftist and anti-religious in its supposedly straight news.

    The other paper is Yediot Achronot or Ynet online, http://www.ynetnews.com/home/0,7340,L-3083,00.html which is a more or less a straight translation of a popular Israeli tabloid which covers the news and what is in general going on in Israel. They are also slanted to the left, but the general public who write in are of all parties, and are a wide variety of people, and you get a feel of what the public is experiencing.

    The thiird paper is Arutz 7 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/ which used to be a radio station, and it has its own TV news on line now, and it represents the religous right of center population, and presents news nobody else wants to publish about things that are going on. For example it exposed certain special unit policemen who had attacked demonstrators who had already been arrested and were unable to defend themselves, and this news was not in the other papers until recently when the police officers were finally arrested and charged with major assault. I've been following them for about 20 years now and they are very straight with their reporting, but you should note their orientation and that they don't cover everything going on. Also the English version and the Hebrew version are quiet different for many articles, ditto for the French version.

    There is one more paper, which covers a lot of news, and it is the New York Times Wannbe, called HaAretz, but as one Israeli complained, "they have never taken a pro-Israel attitude". This is a bit exaggerated, but unfortunately only a bit. I read their 'skim page' every day but I take them with a grain of salt. The people who write into the comments area-- in Hebrew-- generally don't agree with them either. http://www.haaretz.com/ Their English and Hebrew seem to be identical, which is the one good thing I can say about them.

    You could try one paper-- and then the next time another paper,-- and see which one you prefer.
  • bloc said on Mar 05, 2008....
    "bloc: actually, i think there is definitely a portion of the population that, absent any kind of enforcement (e.g., hell, what have you), would become solely id-driven animals."

    I'm highly skeptical of this.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 06, 2008....
    trinov: i'm confused--why should a newspaper take an explicitly pro-israel attitude?

    bloc: you and i are already acquainted w/ one such person here, are we not? :>

    ed
  • Trinov said on Mar 06, 2008....
    Hi,--what I meant was that HaAretz takes an explicitly anti- Israel tone and anti-right wing slant without too much concern for any type of balance --consistantly. It does annoy,from the comments, people on all sides, who try to read it for actual news. Why do we bother? for it does try to cover a lot of newstories and not features. But only when I start comparing its coverage with coverage in other sources do I get a balanced picture. If I want to read a consistently anti- Israel paper I can always read the BBC, or the Teheran Times (also on line).

    On the other hand, when I could get a hold of the Pakistan Times in New York, their coverage of Israel was sometimes more objective and so more positive than some leftist Jewish newspapers!! for they had, at least 15 years ago, a tradition of reporting news and not spouting propaganda

    It's like the joke we had in the left in the early 1960's: If you want to know how many people showed up at a demonstration, you look at the Communist party's paper and divide by one hundred, at the New York Times and multiply by three, add them together, divide by two and you have a more or less correct figure.

    Each paper has a slant, but when the slant becomes a joke, then informed people always take their reporting with a lot of salt and pepper. When I was taught journalism in high school, with the "New York Times" ciriculum as they called it then, the object of a newsreporter was to try to be as objective and coherant as possible in reporting the facts, not any type of opinion. Now, nobody seems to see objectivity as a goal in reporting anymore.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 06, 2008....
    ah, i wasn't sure what your meaning is. i agree that objectivity is an awfully rare creature in journalism these days. it's sad, really.

    ed
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 06, 2008....
    trinov, a friend just pointed me to this article about a speech given by french president sarkozy. i think you'll find it most welcome reading. :>

    ed
  • bloc said on Mar 06, 2008....
    @ed
    I'm familiar with someone that is good primarily out of fear?
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 07, 2008....
    yep: some months ago, i believe mobil said something to that effect.

    ed
  • oceanwaves1 said on Mar 07, 2008....
    Silverwhisper I also use the two references you mentioned. As you probably know familiarity with scripture is not what makes you a Christian; don't misunderstand me I am a believer, but I don't believe that is what makes you a Christian either.  As I stated in my comment this is what makes you a follower or a Christian according to our Master Luk 6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?  I also feel a need here to let you know I am a univeralist because I believe ALL humans will be saved- WHY  because I believe GOD, and He said it was His will that ALL be saved, and that none can come to Him unless He draws them.  He will work out the details.  I must apolize because I thought I replied to your comment the next day, but I must have made a mistake someplace-SORRY PEACE-DL
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 07, 2008....
    that's quite all right, oceanwaves--that sort of thing about thinking i replied to a blog has happened to me more times than i care to remember. :>

    ah, i'm only mildly acquainted with universalism as a spiritual path. as we have future discussions, i hope to learn more. :>

    ed
  • bloc said on Mar 07, 2008....
    @ed

    well, there are always outliers/exceptions. I'm not counting it unless I know them well enough to confirm it.
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 07, 2008....
    when someone offers up a comment like that voluntarily and w/out prompting, i tend to be willing to accept it at face value, myself.

    ed
  • oceanwaves1 said on Mar 08, 2008....
     

    LtCmdrWorf1

    I may be a little dense here because if I am reading what you are saying correctly  Jesus can't be a Christian Jew? He must have been one confused individual when here on earth to know He was having to live a Jewish life, but teach a completely different set of laws.  Are you saying the two commandments Jesus gave us took the place of the other eight?  If yes what verse are you basing that on?

    I am not sure I am aware of the 613 laws you are referring to unless you are referring to the ceremonial laws which have nothing to do with the 10 commandments.  The only connection I see is how God gives us ten and man adds on 603.  A little like today God gives us one Christian denomination to follow called Apostolic faith and man adds on about 499 more because I guess we know more than God.

    I could not agree more with you ,than on your closing statement which is why I always say what I believe means no more than what you believe if it can not be proved by what God says. Mat 18:16 But if he will not hear [thee, then] take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.  I will end with this question if we are not to follow Jesus example who is our example?  PEACE-DL

  • bloc said on Mar 08, 2008....
    @ed
    I don't accept to many claims at face value. If I did then I'd think alienated is the arbiter of all things moral ;)
  • silverwhisper said on Mar 10, 2008....
    bloc: self-implication is to me an acceptable exception. :>

    ed
  • oceanwaves1 said on Mar 10, 2008....
    BLOC:I suppose you have heard the saying guns don't kill people; people kill people.  I don't think religion is bad, but people cause it to be bad;  We need to remember who created this land we call earth, and realize it belongs to Him we are but caretakers.  Have you ever seen a person living in a cardboard box on the street?  If that is all you have then it's worth fighting for.
     bloc I tried to find your post but was not able, but just from the comment above it doesn't sound like it would be positive toward Palestine, and this seems to be the bias I hear from people I know.  I believe Israel is in a unique situation because of their history most people feel a connection with them, and so do I, but Israel is no longer that poor downtrodden country, and now find themselves the only country in the area with nuclear weapons.  They are now treating the Palestinians people as captives.  If you back a dog into a corner he will bite you and this is what Israel is doing to Palestine-every country has a right to protect themselves.  I would like to make it clear I am against terrorism, but if this is the only means left for fighting we will take that act just as we were accused of doing by the British.  I would like to add what we have done and are doing to Iraq is worst than what Israel is doing to Palestine for the simple reason Iraq has never done anything to harm us.  I would like to make a request about your comments by requesting you place something at the beginning so I will know exactly which comment applies to my comment.PEACE-DL 
       
  • soaringraven said on May 24, 2008....
    One of the largest problems have found in following this string of comments is the  frequent confusion between faith and religion which have little to do with each other in reality.
     
    I have known many religious individuals who had no faith and many people of faith who professed no religion.
     
    Religion is a man created structure designed to deal with a collective faith.  Faith however, can stand alone without a structured religion.
     
    So when one attributes either good or ill to any given religious structure or organisation they may well be speaking truth in both instances.  That however does not address the good or ill with regard to individuals of faith within said structure.  Not all adherants to a religion follow said religion's principles, and those who do rarely do so blindly.
     
    To those who cannot seperate faith from the religious structure that may surround it,  my statement may well make no sense at all.  But for those of faith, regardless the source of said failth, who can recognise the difference; the meaning of my words is clear.
     
    One can certainly reject religion withhout rejecting faith.  It is equally possible to reject faith without rejecting religion.
     
    Just my thoughts on the matter at the moment.
     
    soaring
     
     
  • soaringraven said on May 24, 2008....

    And of course I failed in the above comment to respond to the origional question. Namely in what way should my faith, or lack therof, be reflected in my daily life?

    If one believes, as I do, in a redemptive deity, in  a loving and forgiving one; I would suppose that one's life should reflect those qualities daily.  This should be true whether dealing with those dear or with those with whom there is reason for contempt.  As most, I fail miserably in this regard.  This fact in no way diminishes my belief that that is the manner in which I ought to conduct myself.

    Take for example my recents posts and comments about my ex wife of many years.  I spoke ill of her despite my understanding that I ought have been more forgiving of her and her actions.   She was and remains simply another piece of the puzzle of my life which has yet to be fully revealed. 

    My words, with regard to her, were certainly more harsh in this format than they have generally been over the years in 'real life'   That fact however is almost irrelevant, because my attitude toward her has been quite uncharitable for some time.  To a certain degree that shall always be I might suppose.  This does not reflect well when stood up against that which I believe should be. 

    I attempt in all, or most, my dealings with others to demonstrate a certain level of civility without regard to how I am or might be treated in return.  I think this might be the essence of the 'golden rule' which is in fact a basis or foundation upon which civility is established. 

    soaring

    I have little use for religiosity.

  • RollingC said on May 24, 2008....

    I'm kind-a-late in commenting this but I just came across this blog.   Marking for later commenting as I want to read the comments first.

    Rc

  • silverwhisper said on May 27, 2008....
    SR: many people don't make a distinction b/n religion & faith IMX, but i agree the two are separate things that can but do not necessarily overlap. you've said a great deal although i haven't the time to respond more meaningfully--will be back at some future point to address.

    rollingc: hey, you know that w/ my blog entries, they aren't ever going anywhere.

    ed
  • bloc said on May 27, 2008....
    the definition of faith is a fascinating issue. Does faith require a belief in a personal God?
  • RollingC said on May 27, 2008....

    Didn't realize that I'd marked this before....oh well.  :^)

    I was raised Catholic and upon growing up I saw all the hippocrates that attended church so lost interest.  Then one day I had a revelation/personal experience and have been back ever since. 

    I've always tried to treat people the way that I would like to be treated (with a few exceptions) so I didn't really need the teachings of the church to teach me that.  It was something inherent in me I guess for it goes with my personality.  But now I sit down and actually pray for an individual or a particular thing - like for someone to get better after an operation for example.

    That I never did before.

    Prayer also brings me a sense of peace that is hard to explain.

    @ Bloc - I think that faith has been associated with religion so much that now it's taken for granted that if you have faith you are religious.  The basketball player that throws that impossible shot usually throws it 'cause he's got faith in his ability (due to many practice sessions probably) in making that shot.

    Rc

  • silverwhisper said on May 28, 2008....
    bloc: IMHO, no, not in the least. certain religions however do. i guess the difference, at least to me, is that faith requires a belief, whereas religion dictates the object of that belief.

    rolling c: you know, i'd be curious to read about your revelation some day.

    ed
  • mixmaster777 said on Dec 23, 2008....
    Seeing Life Through Eyes of Faith John Simmons The word 'faith' means many things to many different people. It is a word that has been defined, and re-defined in the minds and languages of many different peoples, all over the world. In a generalized way, 'faith' means to most people the ability to place confidence in someone or something. 'Faith' is a word that can apparently be defined in many different ways, depending on who is creating the definition of the word. In the sense of 'faith' meaning our ability to have confidence in a power that is higher than ourselves, in our Creator-Sustainer: the meaning of faith is narrowed down to our belief, and confidence in the Ability of God. To born again Christians, the definition and meaning of the word 'faith' is conveyed to us by the Author and Finisher of our Faith: God Himself. He gives to us more than just a definition of the word, He alone is able to give us an experience of living faith. The word 'faith' occurs 247 times in 231 verses in the King James Version of the Bible. The first mention of the word 'faith' is in Deuteronomy 32:20 which says: 'And He said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end [shall be]: for they [are] a very froward generation, children in whom [is] no faith.' The last time that the word 'faith' is mentioned in the KJV is in Revelation 14:12 which says: 'Here is the patience of the saints: here [are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.' A noteworthy contrast, from faithlessness in the front of the Book, to faithfulness, in the back of it. A Scripture that I have always considered to be one of the keys to unlocking our understanding of the nature of Biblical faith is this one. 'For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.' Galatians 5:6 The circumcision spoken of was of great value to the Jews of old, and to those today. God had commanded the Jews to circumcise their children, as an outward sign of a man's participation in Israel's covenant with God. An outward sign in the flesh that was meant to be an indication of consecration and connection to God. Male children who were not circumcised were thought to suffer the penalty of 'kareit', which means to lose one's connection with their divine source. The Jew's at the time of Paul's inspired dictation of God's New Word had focused for centuries on trusting the keeping of the Laws that God had given them to make them righteous before God. Paul was illustrating how the old outward laws and customs were only meant to be a type and shadow of the reality of what God has done for us, in Christ. We read now that the Laws were given to us as a 'schoolmaster', to teach us that we need God's Righteousness in us, that God's Love in us is the fulfillment of the Law. Love works no ill to one's fellow man. No laws are necessary where Divine Love rules the heart. Part of the duty of the Mosaic Laws was to show us that we could never keep them, by our own righteousness. Our spiritual natures, without Christ, are natures of disobedience to God's Supreme Law of Love. 'Faith that worketh by love' as a new and living concept was a threat to the legalistic priests, scribes and lawyers who not only condemned Jesus Christ, but also Paul, who God used in a great way to channel the major portion of His Living New Testament through, onto the pages of History. Our obedience now, in Christ, need only be obedience to the Law of the "Faithfulness of Jesus Christ", Who now lives within us, as His adopted spiritual children. All of the original Ten Commandments, and other laws that were given to the Jews are fulfilled by Christ in us, by the Law of Faith that worketh by Love. There is no greater obedience and faithfulness to our Father than that which is out of love and total devotion to Him. Christ Who now lives in us was obedient, out of Love, to His and now our Heavenly Father, even unto death. I had originally planned for this blog to be primarily about the supernatural Ability of God, through faith, to work miracles of healing and deliverance. Yet I felt led to change horses in the middle of the stream. What could be greater than an eternal miracle? I have heard it said that the greatest Miracle that could ever take place in this world, is the Miracle of God changing our hearts, by giving us a new Spiritual Birth, in Christ. Our eternal spirits, that God has made in His Image, pass from spiritual death unto His Life, when we are "born again." What we call "miraculous events", that occur and have occured in the physical realm actually pale in comparison to this Greatest of all Miracles. God is a God of Faith. From cover to cover, the Word of God tells us of His Acts of Faith. Everything God does, and has done, He has done by His Faith. His Faith that works by His Love. When He Spoke, Creation sprang into Being. We know this by the faith He has given us, faith to know that His Word is true. Hebrews 11:3 KJV "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." The Power of His Spoken Word brought forth the vastness of the Universe, and all things therein. The Word tells us that He knew the End of all Things, every event that would occur within His Creation, even before He Spoke His first Creative Word. All things are contained within Him. The Lord knew the End of all things even before He created the Beginning. He knew everything that He Himself would ever "do." He knew every choice that any and all of us would make in life, everything we will ever think, or do. The choice we all make as to whether or not we choose to accept, love and serve Him through Christ in us, is the only part of His Creation that He left to each one of us to decide. He will not force His Will on any of us. Even His mighty holy angels were created with the power of volition, the will to choose between serving Him, or not. God has said in His Word that He has given to every man a measure of faith. The primary function of this faith is given to us first of all to enable us to make that choice, whether we will yield ourselves unto Him, or no. The fantastic things that we read of in the Word, the times and ways that faith in God wrought great deliverance, mighty wonders, stopped the mouths of lions, even stopped the world in it's orbit around the sun: these are all an aside to the first purpose of our God-given faith. As wonderful as His unlimited miracle working power through faith is, the first function of our faith is to enable us to choose to love and serve Him. The choice is ours as to whether or not we will allow Him by our faith to Work the Greatest Wonder that He could ever do in our lives: the Wonder of giving us a New Birth, in Christ.
  • silverwhisper said on Dec 23, 2008....
    i hope for your sake that was a copy & paste of something you wrote previously, rather than something you actually typed.

    ed

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