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[R K Singh]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:

A. In your heart. You have to ...
B. Once you understand how ....

Well said Tony

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:

A. In your heart. You have to switch on the search light of your brains to seach in your heart.

I have so much to say to that However I might not have time now.. so I'll just quote you part of the Sheryl Crow song for now :
"if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad"!
Is this somewhat generally how you would look for God's commands in your heart? Whatever the heart feels "happy" with? I'm not mocking, seriously just drawing an alagory..

[Younes Essouabni]

Originally posted by Axel Janssen:

As far as I heard the Burga or lesser forms of the same thing had a revival in different arabic societies as Tunesia, Turkey, Egypt.

That is totally false. Tunesia and Turkey are the two most intolerant countries. In Turkey there is no bearded man in the administration, they are purchasing the muslims. In Tunesia it is forbidden for girls to wear a scarf on their head at school, men are forbidden to go pray the first pray (+-05.30am) at mosque. Those two countries, are more intolerant than any western country( so sad). Really no fredom in those countries.

[Anonymous]

Just for my knowledge (pardon my lack of it), what does ss stand for in "Prophet Muhamed (SS)"?
And one more: what is the difference between a suny, a shia, and a kurd ?

[Michael Ernest]

perhaps some of mathematical constructions were created to interpret reality, but many I surmise were not. It happened that Euclidean geometry describes our world and thus would seem "true" and non-Euclidean geometry "false", yet later they discovered that it is "true" for special kind of spaces - curved spaces (surface of sphere is a trite example).
This is a chicken-and-egg problem, I think. Does the mathematician intuit a construction of arbritrary relationships without regard to the real world? Or does one intuit some abstraction of reality, whether the meaning of that realization is clear at the time of invention or not, and then find one or more of its applications consciously later on? There's no way to know that, of course.
This is from Paul Ernest's "Is Mathematics Discovered or Invented?" article.
"Mathematicians are all the time inventing new imagined worlds without needing to discard or reject the old ones."

I have a daughter who feels the same way about keeping toys on her bedroom floor. :roll:

[Thomas Paul]

Map, there are moral absolutes but they are not always spelled out in the Bible and they may need to be interpreted. For example, I think we can agree that slavery is a moral wrong. The Bible does not specifically condemn slavery. However, in one of his letters, Paul says that slaves must be treated as you would treat your own brother. For a long time this was interpreted to mean that slavery was OK as long as you treated the slaves well. But if Paul meant what he said, then slavery would be immoral. How could you enslave your own brother?

[Mapraputa Is]

Tom wrote:
Map, there are moral absolutes
This is interesting. How do you know that some statement is a moral absolute? We can agree that "slavery is a moral wrong", but there are people who think it's Ok. These slaves are too dumb to act on their own anyway, so it's only for their own benefit that they get food and shelter etc. etc. etc. Symmetrically, some people believe to eat animals is a moral wrong, while most of us apparently do not have any problem with that. So for any practical use those are not absolutes, but statements that some people find true and some find wrong. Why call them "absolutes"?
Maybe this is just a problem with terminology, as usual... I would call them "postulates" to mean they are not supposed to be questioned just because we need to base our moral system on something. If there are no "postulates" there is no morale. In this sense they are "absolutes". But in a different system of moral beliefs they perhaps wouldn't considered as such, this system has its own postulates...
Does this fit your view?

[Shura Balaganov]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Map, there are moral absolutes but they are not always spelled out in the Bible and they may need to be interpreted. For example, I think we can agree that slavery is a moral wrong

Not to rain on one's parade...I strongly disagree with you, Thomas. I don't believe there are any absolutes. These are morals, and socialy accepted norms.
Barbaric examples. A group of people is dying without food (for instance, lost in underground caves) and decides to kill and eat one person for everyone else to survive. A soldier with arms and legs destroyed by a mine explosion asks to kill him in a name of mercy. A team of patriots attacks highjackers on a plane and makes it hit the ground; hundred of other passengers are killed in a "heroic" effort. Police catches and kills "in the name of justice" a cop killer. or, how about abortion? I can come up with examples all day long, where murder is justified by the moral of society or common sence. Now, saying that "do not kill" is a moral absolute is just not right.
Anything "absolute" sounds very suspicious, except maybe for ABSOLUTE itself...
Michael Ernest: Does the mathematician intuit a construction of arbritrary relationships without regard to the real world? Or does one intuit some abstraction of reality, whether the meaning of that realization is clear at the time of invention or not, and then find one or more of its applications consciously later on?
Problems arise in the real world, and some of them do get solved by means of mathematics. There are also concepts that seem to be either far fetched or too far from the real world to be applied anywhere. Would you say that mathematics is corrected by real world? Fundamental flaws are very rare if any, and the theories that break just bring the model closer to the real deal. Approximation through iterations?
Shura
[ September 26, 2002: Message edited by: Shura Balaganov ]

[Shura Balaganov]

Derived from above:
Is ABSOLUTE absolute?

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Michael Ernest:
My point is that equality itself is more than just a "given" as Eleison stated, it's a useful interpretive construct.

I agree. For example, let's take this statement, whether true or false, this is of no interest for us:
"Women's abilities to program computers are equal to those of men".
Now let's reverse it:
"Men's abilities to program computers are equal to those of women".
Due to the equality 's property of symmetry (if a = b then b = a), these sentences are bounded to express the same idea, but they do not. Not for me anyway, I translated my inner speech and perhaps did not do it well...
There are only two real sciences: mathematics and linguistics, because these are the only who deal with real things: numbers and words. Other sciences deal with so-called "real world", which, as we know, is a vapor.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Tom wrote:
Map, there are moral absolutes
This is interesting. How do you know that some statement is a moral absolute? We can agree that "slavery is a moral wrong", but there are people who think it's Ok. These slaves are too dumb to act on their own anyway, so it's only for their own benefit that they get food and shelter etc. etc. etc. Symmetrically, some people believe to eat animals is a moral wrong, while most of us apparently do not have any problem with that. So for any practical use those are not absolutes, but statements that some people find true and some find wrong. Why call them "absolutes"?

Map, I agree with you 100% ! No human being can define moral absolutes, by the inherent meaning of absolutes (apply to all time and all people)
For absolute morals to exist, they must be defined by an entity who is *common* to all time and all people...GOD!
If you do not beleive in GOD, then you must also ADMIT that you do not beleive in absolute morality!!! Issues ranging from slavery, to theft and even rape become in the EYE OF THE BEHOLDER !!!

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Jason Menard on the sixth page of this thread and ignored by me for a while:
Stating that you believe something to be true because it has been "scientifically proven" is no better or worse than stating that you believe in something because of your faith or religious beliefs. All science allows is for you to quantify your beliefs in a manner that can't often be done through religion.

"often" - sometimes it can? Let's replace "religion" with "fortune telling with turkish coffee" (shortened to "Reading Coffee") in your subsequent text and see how it fits...
"So it seems shortsighted to me to dismiss any Reading Coffee claims simply because there is no scientific evidence since a) science only speaks to our current level of understanding and b) we know that we don't understand everything.
Reading Coffee, being based on faith, is not burdened by scientific proof. That much of it doesn't fit our scientific understanding (which remember is only in relation to man's current understanding of the universe), wouldn't seem to be overly relevant (as science itself requires faith)."
- as soon as we free ourselves from burden of scientific proof, there is no more stupidity or fraud that would be impossible to say.
When it comes down to it, is there really any appreciable difference between science and religion?
Imagine you project a new model of airplane. Would you use the Laws of Physics, potentially fallable and into which we can have only a certain level of faith, or you think simply to pray would be enough?

[Javed Sardar]

Alcohol is ban also.

Hey Ravish, Is alcohol banned in Hinduism, I do not know, seriously. Then what is 'madhira' ? I always thought is alcohol consumption is allowed in hindusim.
Almost all hindu friends I have do consume alcohol. Dose that make them non-hindus ? All my bramhin friends except a few eat non-veg, consume alcohol.
Now, is that they are not hindus/bramhins, or they are hindus but not follow hinduism? Or you suggest that whatever is written in Vedas has to re-written to fit the needs of today ?
with due apologies to all my hindu friends

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Michael Ernest:
It used to be quite popular to cite the Golden Rule as an idea which all religions seem to share (at least the ones that profess tolerance): Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You.

Originally posted by Shura Balaganov:
Barbaric examples. A group of people is dying without food (for instance, lost in underground caves) and decides to kill and eat one person for everyone else to survive. A soldier with arms and legs destroyed by a mine explosion asks to kill him in a name of mercy. A team of patriots attacks hijackers on a plane and makes it hit the ground; hundred of other passengers are killed in a "heroic" effort. Police catches and kills "in the name of justice" a cop killer. or, how about abortion? I can come up with examples all day long, where murder is justified by the moral of society or common sense. Now, saying that "do not kill" is a moral absolute is just not right.

The Golden Rule is a challenge... To continue Shura's line of reasoning, imagine this situation. Foreign troops invaded your country. Would you fight against them and kill their soldiers? Many would agree this would be an act of heroic behavior. Now let's suppose you are on military duty and your country sent you to another country to Save the World or something like that. You probably do not want local heroes to kill you as soon as they get a chance. So basically you are perfectly doing to other what you do not want to be done to you. It's not such a imaginary situation, the President of Chechen Republic served as an Army officer in the Soviet Army during Afghan War, and then happily killed his former fellows when they invaded his country.

[M Suguna]

Originally posted by Javed Sardar:
Is alcohol banned in Hinduism

Well, if Christianity is liberal towards alcohol and Islam prohibits it, Hinduism takes a midway between these two.
Consumption of alcohol is not totally banned by Hinduism, but it advises to stay away from it (Not a rule, just a recommendation).
Unlike Islam, Hinduism doesn't command, but rather advises.

[Mapraputa Is]

Gee, Michael pointed to the interesting site.
"One of atheists’ gravest mistakes when speaking about God, the true God, is that they bundle God along with His limited creation, as though He is subject to it’s environment, it’s Laws and it’s entanglements. They devise invalid situations and conclusions which do not and cannot apply to a God infinitely higher than what their deranged and minuscule minds can conceive of."
I am curious, why is Christian God always being referred to as "he"? What is it in "his" nature that make everybody believe God is "he"?
"If you are an atheist, you are already visiting this page with bias hatred. Remember, since you call yourself "scientific" you must approach all statements on this site with the attitude that any statement can true and should not be rejected unless scientific analysis proves beyond doubt that any statement is false."
I thought it's the other way around. If you are making a statement, the burden of proof it is true is on you. Maybe this is "the appreciable difference between science and religion" we are trying to define... With religion you can claim that approximately 125 angels can dance on the top of a needle and then wait for somebody to disprove it.

[Javed Sardar]

What are we guys trying to prove here ? Might be silly question after all these posts, but still........

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by <Amro>:
If you do not beleive in GOD, then you must also ADMIT that you do not beleive in absolute morality!!!

But what difference does it really make whether you believe in absolute morality or not? For you cannot know what God's intentions are, for Her (until proved she is he) words need to be interpreted, for our limited intelligence and experience... The result is the same like if there were not. We can ask if there are moral absolutes or not, but it doesn't change anything.

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Javed Sardar:
What are we guys trying to prove here ?

Before we can start to prove anything we need to figure out what we are talking about! What are "moral absolutes", for example, is not clear to me. I think, we are trying to clarify.

[Michael Ernest]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:

...So basically you are perfectly doing to other what you do not want to be done to you. It's not such a imaginary situation, the President of Chechen Republic served as an Army officer in the Soviet Army during Afghan War, and then happily killed his former fellows when they invaded his country.

Rules are made to be broken, and some rules arise from examples like the above. I think someone who chooses the death of others as a way of insuring his own survival would be an example of why the GOlden RUle is a good idea.

[omar khan]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
What are "moral absolutes", for example, is not clear to me.

An example of moral absolute could be.
"Do not abuse of children."
In which circumstances -if any- do you think that it is admissible?
If we cannot find any then we must agree that it is a moral absolute, that is to say a "moral invariant".

[Anthony Villanueva]

I watched a National Geographic feature a few weeks ago on Incas mummies. They were apparently victims of some religious rite. Some of them were children.
It's difficult to step outside one's culture, to judge evrything from its perspective. If someone is abusing a child in my presence, I would be horrified and try to stop it.
And yet... and yet, logic tells me that a given culture, (to be specific, its moral norms) is manmade, therefore arbitrary. Moral codes could possibly be the optimum response to the prevailing conditions. For example, in conditions of plenty and security, being martial, pugnacious and aggressive may be looked down as vices. But in a country at war, perhaps the same former vices now shine as virtues, and being hesitant or diplomatic is condemned as being cowardly or short-sighted.
Perhaps human sacrifice was a response to the condition that food suppply was inadequate, in the same way that modern people on a lifeboat with limited supplies may draw lots on who gets to live (a common enough scenario on ethics classes). Perhaps polygamy was a response to the condition that infant mortality was high, and it was society's implicit nod to practicing primitive eugenics among the fittest warriors. Perhaps the Spanish Inquisition was a response to the condition that Spaniards equated Catholicism with Spanish nationalism, and the loyalty of Moriscos were suspect, in the same way McCarthy apparently identified communistic leanings with disloyalty. etc etc

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Me:
All science allows is for you to quantify your beliefs in a manner that can't often be done through religion.

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
"often" - sometimes it can?

Yes, I'm sure there are some instances where it can. Now I don't believe that these would necessarily be the same beliefs which you would quantify via science. However keep in mind that religious texts, and therefore religion, are often based on historical fact, not merely spiritual beliefs.

Let's replace "religion" with "fortune telling with turkish coffee" (shortened to "Reading Coffee") in your subsequent text and see how it fits...

I personally don't have any faith in the divination powers of Turkish coffee, but I guess on the other hand I can't totaly dismiss this. Although I should point out that the mystical powers of Turkish coffee have not been documented to any extent in terms of relations with historical events, people, and places. What is the role of Turkish coffee divination in the history of man? How are the mysteries of coffee divination explained? Even religion, as with science, provides some sort of explanation for its mysteries. But even given all that, how does replacing the word "religion" as you did do anything to bolster the case of science?

as soon as we free ourselves from burden of scientific proof, there is no more stupidity or fraud that would be impossible to say.

I do not say that scientific proof has no place, but keep in mind that even religion has methods to provide "proof". As an example, the Catholic Church has methods they use to verify or disprove things such as reported miracles and even cases of posession. Do you think they have any less faith in their methods than you do the scientific method? Can you explain why the scientific method is of any more or less value than these methods that religions use to provide verification of religious phenomena?

Imagine you project a new model of airplane. Would you use the Laws of Physics, potentially fallable and into which we can have only a certain level of faith, or you think simply to pray would be enough?

Well science would be the correct thing to use in this place as its realm is the physical and the observable. Religion generally (not always) deals with the realm of that which is not physical or readily observable.
Let's look at a different example. The problem you are facing is that you are required to comfort a deeply distraught person. Would you most likely be more successful turning to science and explaining the physiological effects of grief and stress on the human body and their potential negative outcomes, or might you be more successful solving the problem by comforting the person spiritually?
While I was saying that there is really no appreciable difference between science and religion, I did not mean to imply that they may be necessarily applied to the same problem set (although there are places where they can overlap and even coexist).

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by OMAR KHAN:
In which circumstances -if any- do you think that it is admissible?

The term "abuse" is not well defined. Given that, if a 13 year old came at you with a carving knife intending to cause harm to you, the act of disarming him and protecting yourself might involve what some would consider abuse being inflicted upon the child. As the term "abuse" is not absolutely defined, this cannot be a moral absolute.
Although given an instinctive definition of what I believe most people agree is child abuse, yes it is absolutely morally wrong.
[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by OMAR KHAN:

An example of moral absolute could be.
"Do not abuse of children."
In which circumstances -if any- do you think that it is admissible? If we cannot find any then we must agree that it is a moral absolute, that is to say a "moral invariant".

You are saying "we" must agree that it is a moral absolute. But notice that "we" are a group of people specific to a certain time span
and possibly certain place. A moral absolute will hold for all time and all people.
Hence moral absolutes must be defined by an entity who is *common* to all people and all times..GOD And a child abuser might disagree that child abuse is immoral.
we have already covered this point above on the same page. Whether "we" being finite and limited in time and place can understand those moral absolutes fully is a different story that we can argue for/against....but our limitations to quantify them does not deny their existance.

[Anonymous]

We cannot prove God's existance in the way we prove scientific knowledge
Scientific knowledge is testible as the matter is perceivable. God is above the laws of the physical world as He has surely created those laws, and created our minds,
the tool to know these physical laws. God is infinite and our minds cannot comprehend infinity. We can surely resemble it by symbols but we cannot fully understand it, and even if we were to "attempt" to perceive or look at what is infinite, we will only be looking at part of it because we are finite...which means we will still not be able to prove it scientifically.
We can Know God in the way *He* showed us to know him. He did not leave us in a constant riddle to figure out who we are and who created us. He sent us messages through his messangers. He showed us signs of him to ponder upon in the universe. You can still chose to reject His messages or accept them. You will have to search within your *soul* to justify your choices.
And yes, speaking of your soul, can you prove it exists?Is it not the factor that makes you "alive" and separate from let's say a machine with similar intellegence(if one exists)?
And we refer to God as *HE* because God refers to Himself this way, and we can only know about God through what He tells about Hismelf
This does not mean Knowing God through the way *He* wants us to know him(His messages and messangers) has to contradict with science.
It does not contradict with science.
Science is a system of knowledge based on a scientific process (in it's simplest form).
A process by definition implicitly or explicitly defines a domain to which the process
is applied . If it does not deine a domain it does not become a process anymore,
it becomes EVERYTHING. Knowing God through His messages may be another process. It does not
have to contradict with the former process. They are both among others, processes in our
set of knowledge. They don't contradict but go together hand in hand. You can be a scientist
and a beleiver in God just as you can be a musician and a surgeon.
If you chose to be only a scientist
then don't talk about moral absolutes as they must be defined by God (refer to post above) ."Morality" will then be whatever a group of scientists agree on, in some point in time in some place. However it will still not be "absolutely moral" (common to all people and all time and defined by a commmon entity to all people and all time: GOD)

[Tracy Woo]

Originally posted by <Amro>:
[b]And we refer to God as *HE* because God refers to Himself this way, and we can only know about God through what He tells about Hismelf

This might sound funny but He and She evolved for mammals solely for reproduction. Does refering to God as He, means "it" is a mammal? And needs to reproduce (that's why it is "He")? If it really is He, then there has to be a She (well, at least there was at some point of time ) If there isn't, He must be very lonely up there all alone in the whole universe :roll:
And hey, how do you know He refers to himself as He??? Did you talk to "him"???
In Hinduism, there are Gods as well as Godesses. Each god/godess does his/her own thing. Creator, Destroyer, and ..there was one more. Tell me about object orientedness, constructor and destructor???

[Michael Ernest]

Boy I tell ya, I've seen images of child abuse and witnessed a few, and they make me sick to my stomach. I think there's no quicker way to get people to lose their minds than subject them to witnessing such a thing. But it's that response which I think of as a conditioned response. What else can it be? I cannot infer absolutes from my own reactions, can I? If not that, can I infer an absolute from consensus?
But it leads me to another semi-related question: are all moral absolutes prescriptive, e.g., thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not abuse children...? It's these kinds of commands that seem to constrict free will as if without these rules we would all revert to some Hobbesian state of nature, living as borderline psychopaths but for the threat of divine consequences.
Perhaps my own 'moral relativism' stems from the idea that morality is based on positive action, not limits. We know some people will kill, steal, covet, etc., no matter what the law says -- and this is not necessarily "free will" at work, either. We can't do much about that, as a society. But we can suggest to people who operate on reason and judgment to offer to others what is good for one's self.
It is of course cute to interpret the Golden Rule ironically -- if I kill you, it must mean I consider being killed myself 'reasonable'. Har har, but it ain't that kind of rule.
[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]

[Cindy Glass]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:
If there isn't, He must be very lonely up there all alone in the whole universe :roll:

Tracy - you see, God got together with Mother Nature and look what happened .

[Tracy Woo]

Originally posted by Cindy Glass:

Tracy - you see, God got together with Mother Nature and look what happened .

You mean to say He is polygamist too (Every planet has one, probably)

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Tracy Woo:
This might sound funny but He and She evolved for mammals solely for reproduction. Does refering to God as He, means "it" is a mammal?

Don't you think reptiles are referred to as "he" and "she"?
In any case, the prayer that Jesus taught us is, "Our Father". God may not be male (in the classic Michelangelo's "David" sort of way) but He is a father figure.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Shura Balaganov:
Now, saying that "do not kill" is a moral absolute is just not right.

The moral absolute is, "thou shalt not murder". Would you agree that killing a person because you just felt like doing it is always morally wrong?
[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Thomas Paul ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by OMAR KHAN:

An example of moral absolute could be.
"Do not abuse of children."
In which circumstances -if any- do you think that it is admissible?

As Jason said, "abuse" is not well defined. Physical punishment was considered an important part of a child education in many "civilized" countries for long time.
If to speak about worse cases of abuse, then it isn't what a normal person is naturally inclined to do in the first place, so maybe this is the ground for "absoluteness" of this rule...

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Michael Ernest:
It is of course cute to interpret the Golden Rule ironically -- if I kill you, it must mean I consider being killed myself 'reasonable'. Har har, but it ain't that kind of rule.

Speaking about irony, it wasn't me who said: be careful with the Golden Rule, You and Another might have different tastes.
I wasn't trying to be cute, I was trying to find cases when the rule is not working = to test limits of its applicability = to better understand the nature of this rule. Tiger, please, bear with me, I think we are getting at something important here...
Thinking deeper about what the Golden Rule is and when it may work -- well, it is a "default" rule. It is based on a premise that what is good for you is (equally) good for another person. This will fail as soon as being applied to the situation, when differences between people are important. For example: I may cook some food for my husband I would never eat myself Another example, based on biological differences in sexual relationships: I doubt many men dream about somebody doing to them what they are doing to their women
And so on. Recently I was reading about Japanese language, and the book said the Japanese society is deeply hierarchical. When two people communicate, they are *never* equal, always somebody is *more important*, based on age, sex, social role etc. and this is reflected in the language, how they address each other. I guess Western society, and particularly countries speaking English, where there is no distinction between "polite" and "normal" form of addressing pronouns, are more inclined to stress "equality" and "similarity" between people. In Russian, like in many other languages, there is a "polite" pronoun kids would use when talking to a teacher, for example. Teachers have no problems using "thou" for kids, but if a kid did the same, the teacher would promptly kick him out of class.
If all this still look contrived and irrelevant, let's see what happens when models of social organization "good" for one society are applied to another. To stay national-centric, my own country advanced from "totalitarian" state of shape into "democratic", which you would think is superior. However, enforced on a country where democratic traditions aren't abundant, it led to a disaster.
Summarizing: the Golden Rule is good as default, when we do not have any further information what is *really* good for another person. It is probably a good idea to *start* with it, and then watch carefully when and how exactly it doesn't work to make corrections that not necessarily are compliant to this rule.

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Don't you think reptiles are referred to as "he" and "she"?

Similar concept exists even for vegetables. Some flowers have "he" and "she" forms and pollen from both is needed for a fruit to develop. If I am not mistaken, such gene transfer is said to increase mutability which provide wider base for natural selection etc. (interesting, that according to my knowledge, never 3 sources of genes are needed, the minimally sufficient number was chosen, must be for economy reasons). In any case, how all this relates to the God figure, who apparently doesn't plan to propagate "his" instances and to expose them to evolution and natural selection, I am at lost here. But then, it was said that God is above any understanding, so what we are talking about.
Seriously, God is "a father figure" for no other reason but patriarchal organization of ancient societies, on which God conducted "his" explanatory work, where men were figures of power and authority, not women. Shouldn't we now refer to God with standard PC "he/she" formula?

[Thomas Paul]

These are a couple of prayers from the book "Creatures of Light and Darkness" by Roger Zelazny. It was always one of my favorite science fiction stories.
-------------------------------------------------------
The Possibly Proper Death Litany
"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I
say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have
done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not
forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible
benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I
ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may
be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in
my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may
not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your
receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and
which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Then into the hands of Whatever May Be that is greater than life or death,
I resign myself -- if this act will be of any assistance in preserving my
life. If it will not, I do not. If my saying this thing at all be
presumptuous, and therefore not well received by Whatever may or may not
care to listen, then I withdraw the statement and ask forgiveness, if this
thing be desired. If not, I do not. On the other hand ..." (at this point,
Madrak is interrupted, as his companion feels the accomplishment of the
objective of Madrak's prayer -- and the preservation of his own life -- will
be better served by getting the hell out of there).

[Mapraputa Is]

This is an amazing piece of intellectual work! If I were God, I would be definitely pleased to see such an well-thought, accurate, rational approach to the problem. Much better than to be called "he", or, worse, "father"!

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
In any case, how all this relates to the God figure, who apparently doesn't plan to propagate "his" instances and to expose them to evolution and natural selection, I am at lost here.

But then, why not? What do we know about God - almost nothing, only that "he" possess unlimited power, knowledge and all this staff. It is quite possible that there is in fact a community of Gods, making collective decisions that it looks for us as if there was a single "God", and that members of such community propagate themselves and each new generation is better than previous one...
In this case, half of them can be pissed off that they are constantly referred to as "he". When time comes for you to beg for any benefit you are eligible after the destruction of your body, Christian (and Islamic too, by the way) people may be out of luck. Oh well.
[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Mapraputa Is]

Originally posted by Jason Menard:
Do you think they have any less faith in their methods than you do the scientific method? Can you explain why the scientific method is of any more or less value than these methods that religions use to provide verification of religious phenomena?

To start with, I have no idea what methods religions use to provide verification of religious phenomena, and I am interested to know. I think, that the scientific method is of more value; why? I observe that there is a huge change in our lives compared to, say, XIX century and most of this change is due to science. What part of this did religion contribute is hard to say. I see that while there are different schools in science, general concensus exists and the same formula are used all over the world. There is far less consensus amont adepts of different religious. The last thing, it seems that religion lose its influence on society over time. That's how I get an impression that the scientific methods are of more value than religious.
Well science would be the correct thing to use in this place as its realm is the physical and the observable. Religion generally (not always) deals with the realm of that which is not physical or readily observable.
I am reading this funny book, and there are a lot of quotes that made me laugh. Here is one: "It's easy to build a philosophy. It doesn't have to run". Charles Kettering.
Replace "philosophy" with "religion" and you can see why religion can perfectly deal with the realm where science "failed"
Let's look at a different example. The problem you are facing is that you are required to comfort a deeply distraught person. Would you most likely be more successful turning to science and explaining the physiological effects of grief and stress on the human body and their potential negative outcomes, or might you be more successful solving the problem by comforting the person spiritually?
I would agree this is not the task, science is good at. In my experience, people comfort other by virtue of sympathy, words of ancouragement and support etc. Not sure what "comforting the person spiritually" means. What is it?
[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[R K Singh]

Long back I went through this page
and came to a sort of conclusion that religions are philosphy also.

[Michael Ernest]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:

Thinking deeper about what the Golden Rule is and when it may work -- well, it is a "default" rule. It is based on a premise that what is good for you is (equally) good for another person.

I don't think of the Golden Rule as an exercise in reciprocation, but as a way to signal one's intentions and likes. I may not like what you do unto me; but it seems safe to assume that what you've done is something you consider ok, something you would like for yourself. So if I can get past some initial dislike, what remains is something I know you want, and perhaps it's something I can offer you.
So I think it's more about tolerance and understanding than it is about some kind of socially warm quid pro quo.

Another example, based on biological differences in sexual relationships: I doubt many men dream about somebody doing to them what they are doing to their women

I would not like anyone to insert a penis into me on the premise that I must want for myself what it is I have offered to another. I concede this point without reservation or reluctance.

If all this still look contrived and irrelevant, let's see what happens when models of social organization "good" for one society are applied to another. To stay national-centric, my own country advanced from "totalitarian" state of shape into "democratic", which you would think is superior. However, enforced on a country where democratic traditions aren't abundant, it led to a disaster.

Yeah well. You'll find plenty of proselytizers who think Christianity, democracy and Herbalife is good for everyone and they should have these things regardless of their own protestations.
But ideas don't get sold as often by people who take no for an answer. This kind of relentless nagging can't be expected to go away of its own accord.
Pushing a totalitarian state into a democratic framework and insisting that it "be made to work" is clearly the act of such people. That said, traditions need time to firm. They don't just start, so it's impossible to say how much time is enough time for democracy in such a country until it actually takes hold. You'll only know the time is right after the fact.
But you know, democracy does work for us. We push it because we believe it will work for anyone; we believe that the cost of change is ultimately worth it. People fight in this country every day to maintain their rights. They risk careers, friends, businesses, future opportunities, if not their actual lives, fighting for what they believe in. It's really quite impressive when you look at it. Most often such fights are over principle, but yes often times it's about opening markets in places that are happy to sell us their stuff but aren't as happy to buy from us.
Regardless of who might try to make all the money there ever was, democracy opens markets. Markets stimulate free trade, and free trade stops wars. That's it. Free trade stops wars. If you want to take a really crass look at the current Administration in this country, note who the Axis of Evil -- people we don't do business with, or make business harder for us elsewhere. No surprises.