B.C. atheists deny taking umbrage with public menorah

[TyrianQuill]

 
 

Some bring up the fact that science can not yet explain certain things, this is true, science can not yet, but what science has been able to explain sofar is pretty amazing and this is against pressures of the “believers in the unknown” scoffing and fighting against investigation and learning.

So now let’s take for example: any happening, any physical ailment, any mental disorder, of what we know and understand about today. Down through the ages I strongly suspect that each and “every happening physical ailment mental disorder of what we know and understand about today” understanding has it uncovered? Has the “belief in an unknown” brought about a better understanding of how fire works or how to escape from a fire maybe, has “the belief in an unknown” helped develop fire retardant materials or anything new. I think not.

How about:

volcanoes
weather
earthquakes
deaths
births
illnesses
joys
physical happenings
mental happenings
floods
etc etc etc …

Has everything been explained by investigation and science yet? Not by a long shot! Will it, I don’t know, but only if the searching continues will human’s understanding advance. In times previous, all was contributed to be made by “a god” (“an unknown”) but thankfully there were persons that did not blindly accept a ‘unknown explanation as the ultimate answer, they thought and worked diligently to gain understand, and the disciple of science was developed.

“Blind belief in an unknown” has only perpetuated and continues to perpetuate ignorance, a “blind belief in an unknown” thwarts learning. Learning how to avoid suffering, learning how to avoid danger, learning how to avoid illness, learning how to help starvation of others, learning how to turn off the sensation of pain, and on and on and on … All the understanding that provide all these comforts that we now just take for granted, electricity, heating, a constant abundant supply of food, medicine, operations, and I could go on and on with the list, all were developed in the face of “blind faith in an unknown”. Questions kept being asked and explanations and understandings … keep being developed.

Not accepting “the will of the unknown” and through trial and error over years and years and years of applying the scientific approach, so many of these claims have “now” been dispelled and “now” that knowledge is considered to be common sense to most in the industrialized world. So, time and time again, year after year, discovery after discovery, the “scientific approach” debunks the “belief approach” of the supposed ‘will of the unknown” and uncovers the cause.

I am not saying "there is no god" because admittedly I don’t know, but what I am saying is I have never seen or known of anything that indicates that there even remotely might be.
Yes, there are many things that are mysterious to me and many things I don’t understand, but I adamantly refuse to be blindly led, I actively choose to use my brain; I actively choose to use my brain to learn and hopefully gain some "understanding" rather than ... use “a soother.”

Adamantly adhering one’s self to staying ignorant (whilst all the while using understandings that were derived from previous investigations) is so foolish it boggles my mind; the only reason I can figure why one would do this is out of fear.

The paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox which I think needs to be pondered by the curious is: why is it, that so many of the persons who claim to care so much about humanity’s well-being, actively continue to (by insisting in that believing in an unknow is the answer) discourage investigations into learning which would actually alleviate pain and suffering of humans?
 
 

[cliffy1]

As I see it, there is a misunderstanding of what is god. There is as many variances in understanding what a god is as there are those who believe. What I understand a god to be would probably not sit well with any other god believer. What I know my god to be is based on my experience of the spiritual. It is unique in that it was my experience. What others believe or don't is completely irrelevant to me, as is what they think of me. One's relationship to one's higher power is personal. It does not require others to validate. Belief, on the other hand, does seem to require others to validate. I do not believe anything but I know what I have experienced. Faith is based on knowing, belief is based on assumptions based on someone else's beliefs. Religion, to me, is a mockery of spirituality. It is not much more than political and social organization designed to keep the sheeple in line. Some people need that sort of structure, some don't. Some are born with a sense of right and wrong, some need to have it imposed on them. It is up to every individual to find their own place in the scheme of things.

[fluffy]

I'm on board with that. In something as deeply personal as spiritual beliefs it only follows to reason that there would be an endless variety. I tend to think that if you need to have others share your particular brand of belief in order to validate them then maybe something is a little out of whack.

[cliffy1]

I'm on board with that. In something as deeply personal as spiritual beliefs it only follows to reason that there would be an endless variety. I tend to think that if you need to have others share your particular brand of belief in order to validate them then maybe something is a little out of whack.

I call it basing one's beliefs on quicksand. It constantly needs shoring up.

[TyrianQuill]

 
Ah yes, well if you are speaking of something other than a sole deity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God meaning your own personal understanding, then that is based on what you understand, and then that is a personal stance that is yes unique to you. As one so eloquently phrased and conveyed his position on the subject:
 

"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."
(Albert Einstein, 1954)

"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
( Albert Einstein - The Merging of Spirit and Science)

"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."
(Albert Einstein, 1954)

[cliffy1]

“Among all my patients ... over thirty five (years old) ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he lost (it)...and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook. This of course has nothing whatever to do with a particular creed or membership of a church." Carl Jung

Jung and Einstein were far seeing and enlightened beings. For me, being spiritual has nothing to do with a personal god or gods, and more to do with the whole of life on this planet, seen and unseen.

[fluffy]

"It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

- Obiwan Kenobi

[Hmmm]

[fluffy]

"Get in there you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell!"

- Han Solo

[steven lloyd]

Jung and Einstein were far seeing and enlightened beings. For me, being spiritual has nothing to do with a personal god or gods, and more to do with the whole of life on this planet, seen and unseen.

Interesting that you brought up Jung, as he proposed the existence of archetypes that derive from the collective unconscious (collective unconsciousness being the significant point here).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

A while back I shared a bit of information on these threads that I had been privy to during my early university years. A professor at SFU told me about an experiment that was conducted at MIT where a super-computer was programmed to generate random binary numbers by the thousands very fast. Left to run undisturbed for a period of time this program would, as statistically expected, generate a 50% occurrence of 0 and 1. Interestingly, when human subjects were placed in a room next to the computer while the program was running and told to think about the value of either 0 or 1, the outcome was significantly affected.

While nothing is actually proven by this, the test does support the idea that consciousness is energy and can exist outside the body. Extrapolated, this conclusion also supports the idea that consciousness is energy and can exist without the body (life/consciousness after death?). There is so much we don’t know to presume we that know something is impossible.

[cliffy1]

"It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

- Obiwan Kenobi

Star Wars was based on the "Hero's Journey" by Joseph Campbell. The idea of the Force has been around since humans became self aware. The Death Star is the Siamese twins of religion and politics (inseparable since birth).

[cliffy1]

Interesting that you brought up Jung, as he proposed the existence of archetypes that derive from the collective unconscious (collective unconsciousness being the significant point here).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungian_archetypes

A while back I shared a bit of information on these threads that I had been privy to during my early university years. A professor at SFU told me about an experiment that was conducted at MIT where a super-computer was programmed to generate random binary numbers by the thousands very fast. Left to run undisturbed for a period of time this program would, as statistically expected, generate a 50% occurrence of 0 and 1. Interestingly, when human subjects were placed in a room next to the computer while the program was running and told to think about the value of either 0 or 1, the outcome was significantly affected.

While nothing is actually proven by this, the test does support the idea that consciousness is energy and can exist outside the body. Extrapolated, this conclusion also supports the idea that consciousness is energy and can exist without the body (life/consciousness after death?). There is so much we don’t know to presume we that know something is impossible.

After several near death experiences, I concur. Also, I spent considerable time in the company of a native medicine man during the 70s and 80s. I experienced all nature of out of body and paranormal events. I have seen instant healing, animal spirits manifest with one or more of my physical senses, I've been places impossible to go in the physical form, etc. Life is far more than what we have been told it is. One needs to get out of the box of our cultural conditioning to experience it.

[Hmmm]

Hmmm great stuff here.

[cliffy1]

That is very constructive. I sense you feel like you are above all this discussion unless you agree with it.