vincentML
Posts: 9980
Joined: 10/31/2009
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ORIGINAL: eyesopened
Happy Thanksgiving to You and Yours.
Thank you, eyes. We eat out as a rule. The restaurant, extremely crowded last year, was quite subdued last night, and traffic was very light. The recession perhaps. In southeast Florida we depend a lot on the tourist trade. the French Canadians seem to have arrived from Montreal, but we are missing the snowbirds from the northeast States. They have not yet had their first heavy snowfall.
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It seems that we are in agreement over so many things! I really do understand why Christianity as it is practiced by most denominations today is rejected. I think it is a shame that so many atheists will take one or two religion's oft-spewed notions of god and accept it, then use it to reject god altogether. That really supports the 'evolution of God' but the current mutation stinks, in my opinion.
I suppose some none-believers are guilty of your accusation but it is due to laziness and a reluctance to think the matter through. The more credible ones (in my book) offer a thorough critique based on the foundation of Science. They are materialists through and through, rejecting the world of the supernatural.
I am eager to read this new book. The review I linked for you was intriguing.
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I have been attacked before for my beliefs. They are mine alone. While dear Martin Luther might applaud my questioning and searching, he'd spin in his grave if he heard me tell my children about reincarnation or God as Energy. I cautioned my children to be careful not to embrace fully or reject entirely any notion of spirituality because they could easily miss the message intended for them alone.
I cannot imagine what is so threatening about your beliefs to warrent attacks from others unless it is because you rejected their notion of god. Sadly, rejection is often motivation for attack.
I have always wondered, if reincarnation were true and I had a previous life as a human which I cannot recall, what good is it to me and how does that differ from Mark Twain's remark (paraphrasing) "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it was not inconvenient."
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ORIGINAL: vincentML
For me it is easier to accept the alternative hypothesis that mass/energy is eternal going in both directions: forward (as the Religious say) so why not backwards as well? If time began in this Universe with the Big Bang then perhaps there are multiverses where time has and does begin anew.
QUOTE = eyesopen:
I don't see your hypothesis as an alternative to there being a Great Spirit but perhaps a more accurate definition of such. There appears to me to be some Force some Intelligent (in a manner of speaking) Eternal Energy that draws to It our thoughts as though It and all things must be connected. Sir Issac Newton explored the natural laws in an effort to better understand God. Should his experiments be rejected because he sought God? And didn't Newton actually find God in his discoveries? Most would laugh at me but what exactly is God? We are most laughable when we try to create God in our image, dressing It up like a poodle and saying "See? Isn't that cute! Just like a little person!" To me, even the religion of Atheism holds a piece of the Truth and if I want to know the Truth, I need to be able to stay open to it as well.
The difference lies in the use of the term "intelligent" which suggests "willful" which in turn leads one to ponder upon a creator (I recall you do not) Another difference lies in the connectedness you perceive. The only connectedness the scientific atheists seem to observe is the wildly branching connectedness of the evolutionary process, and it with many blind alleys, dead ends, and wasted experiments all done in a rather haphazard fashion, Nature acting mindlessly and without purpose and yet driven by certain inevitabilities once constructs have been made and those genes survived in the hospitable environment of the time. One tiny blind step at a time. Richard Dawkins summed it up quite nicely in his book aptly titled The Blind Watchmaker.
As for Newton, I have heard he was heavily theological. I don't know which God he found. Perhaps a Deist god. You inspire me to read a bit about him.
The more important question I have for you is whether you anticipate within the construct of your theology the survival of your Personality (current consciousness) beyond the inevitable decay of your brain? Seems to me to be the key question that people dance around when they posit this or that characteristic about god. The god question appears to me to be a detractor from the more important question of personal existentialism.
Lovely chatting with you, eyes. Have a joyful weekend with your Master and children.
vincent
_____________________________
vML
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ~ MLK Jr.
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RE: Believer(s) of god are plague to this world. - 
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