This NG is a hoot!

[Todd]

Why now! Why! Well, oh crap, I forgot.

[nestork]

Zaky Waky:

I'll agree with Mayayana on that. Don't tell him I said this, but one of the exceptions that Mayayana may be referring to is a fella that posts under different aliases, but mostly goes by the name "HomeGuy". You may find him hard to get along with because he seems to enjoy denegrating America and all things American. From what I've been able to gather, he feels his justification for doing so is that in 2008 the US Housing Mortgage crisis almost destabilized the world's banking system and sent a lot of national economies into a defensive mode whereby they stopped trading in US mortgage-backed securities with other national economies for fear their economy would be damaged too.

Personally, I think this is very unreasonable of him because no one in this forum had anything to do with that mortgage fiasco, and if anything, the Americans in here suffered as much if not more than he did because of their property values plummeting as a result of the glut of empty houses that flooded the real estate market at the time as a result of people not being able to meet their mortgage payments. It would be like the Americans in here blaming me (another Canadian) for the fact that Justin Bieber was speeding through the streets and avenues of Hollywood in a rented Lamborghini. If it was up to me, I'd take that toy away from him, but it isn't up to me. Similarily, it wasn't up to any of the Americans in here to sell teaser mortgages to people that couldn't remember if they had a job, and if so, where they worked. And, that was pretty well what caused that mortgage fiasco; the US selling US mortgage backed securities world wide when they knew that the mortgages weren't worth the paper they were printed on. Still, the Americans in here were as much victims as anyone else in that regard.

You can usually tell HomeGuy's posts because they start off citing something some American did somewhere which is deplorable in one respect or another, and he then claims that such behaviour is typical of what to expect from Americans in general. For example, if some Yank chops the head off a rooster and leaves it's carcass in the street to rot, then it's the Americans IN HERE that he holds accountable.

But, don't tell HomeGuy I said that. We'll just keep it between ourselves, OK?

[SteveB]

You want answers? That's who to ask. Not the little twenty-something geeks who live in Mom's basement, have their nose plastered to a game box, and whose hearing is gone from wearing ear buds at max volume.

They can fix nothing. They just buy another, or better yet, let Mommy buy it for them. They are sitting home after a six year bender called college, where they came away with a degree in ancient Greek pottery, and are waiting for an answer to the two resumes they sent out asking for $80,000 starting pay with benefits and retirement.

They can't weld, they can't tell you the wrench size between 1/2 and 5/8 inches, and don't know a #2 from a #3 Phillips screwdriver. Lucky for AAA or we'd have many thousands of deaths each winter from their ilk freezing to death after sitting in an idling car until the gas ran out wondering what to do about a flat tire.

Talk about pitiful? And you are definitely are entertaining, too. Getting several twenties out of your pocket for a repair job that took me less than fifteen minutes actual work time. Or thousands for a simple sheetrock or tile job.

Now, go check, and make sure you closed the basement door, and be sure to remember where Mom hid the secret key for you in case you get locked out.

Steve

[Tekkie®]

SteveB posted for all of us...

And I know how to SNIP

Good one! I wonder if the key is chipped? Ya think the GPS is on in the phone so mommy can bail them out?

[Stormin Mormon]

And they will have to pay 25 cents for the Paradise Earth pamphlet.

[Stormin Mormon]

If the investigator prays to know if the message is true, and the investigator gets the yes answer, then it's possible. I like to think that all churches have some portion of truth. When Jews accept Christ as saviour, that's adopting more truth. When Bible readers accept the Book of Mormon and join LDS, that's even more truth. A lot of people leave other churches and join LDS.

[Stormin Mormon]

One of these days, I've got to write about how all churches have part of the truth, and how a lot of people leave other churches and join LDS church. Right after I find what I did with my breakfast. It was right here, under these empty dishes.

[Stormin Mormon]

Looks like you got your wish, or nightmare.

[dadiOH]

Substitute "faith" for "truth" and I could agree, more or less.

[Bob_Villa]

"$356,457" does the number have significance?

[Mayayana]

| > > Seems silly to me, a fruitless endeavour that has | > > virtually zero chance of success (success being | > > changing someone's mind) because those of opposite view | > > are operating on faith. | > | > If the investigator prays to know if the | > message is true, and the investigator gets | > the yes answer, then it's possible. I like | > to think that all churches have some | > portion of truth. When Jews accept Christ | > as saviour, that's adopting more truth. | > When Bible readers accept the Book of Mormon | > and join LDS, that's even more truth. A lot | > of people leave other churches and join LDS. | | Substitute "faith" for "truth" and I could agree, more or less. |

Those seem like pretty rubbery terms to me. Stormin Mormon has not defined truth. You've not defined faith. I know the Mormons are very big on evangelism and on absolute belief in relative "facts", which have always seemed to me like the most dependable indicators of a lack of faith. :) In other words, if one needs to have cornered the market on some kind of absolute truth, or needs to sell their system to others, that's indicative of lack of confidence. It also indicates people who *need* for their religion to be a solution to their hopes and/or fears, rather than a practice.

Stormin Mormon seems to be implying that there's an absolute truth, and an absolute, single creator entity, and that the Mormon's hold some sort of exclusive license to those. (Though he's generously granting a partial sub- license to Jews and Christians. :)

You seem to be defining faith as simple blind belief. I think that's the way most non-religious people view faith. Maybe it's also Stormin Mormon's definition. But that's a definition tainted by scientific thinking. The scientist wants to reduce the discussion to something objectively measurable: God must be a distinct, living entity like ourselves, because that's the only version science can cope with. That entity, then, must either exist concretely or not, because that's the only way that science can understand it and test for it. If we can't find any scientific evidence of the existence (like seeing a 3 mile long beard through our telescopes) then the God entity must be an expression of blind belief. What can't be contained within the narrow purview of science is by definition irrelevant nonsense.

Science can't know what it can't know. It makes a host of assumptions about the nature of reality that it can't see by definition. Science can never find God because it's looking for science's version of God. Science can never know faith aside from simple belief because it can't come up with "objective" tests for it. The same problem holds with the field of psychology, which tries to shoehorn mind into scientific method. But how do we objectively observe mind? How do we know it's merely a physical process? Psychologists catalog symptoms and brain scans, and they hand out happy pills. What else can they do within the confines of science? Should people be happy? What is mind? What's the meaning of life? Ask those questions to a psychologist or scientist and you get the kind of absurd nonsense that the sociobiologists use as a fig leaf over their ignorance and limited tools: They say life is DNA's way to reproduce itself. :)

In my experience, whether people follow a theistic religion or not, faith (as opposed to blind faith) is about the confidence of experience, not belief. It's not about blind belief in God as a giant man in the sky. It's about experience of God. A simple example: I used to live next door to an elderly Catholic couple. They had little shrines in every corner of their house. Objectively I'd have to say they were pantheists and followers of the fading embers of the Roman Empire. But they also seemed to have true faith that they had got from the Catholic teachings. They had an intuitive, experiential confidence that the tenets of their religion represent basic truths. That confidence inspired them to try to act according to Christian ideals, with kindness toward others and moral discipline toward themselves. Whether or not they believed in Heaven as some sort of eternal Club Med, they had confidence that their efforts were worthwhile. And I think they'd probably say that was a self-evident truth. A scientist can only hand those people a survey: Do you believe in God? Do you consider yourself to be a Catholic? None of what the scientist can discover even touches on what their faith means to that elderly couple.

I remember as a nominally Christian child I was told that God was in the sugar bowl, and everywhere else. I wrestled with that. How can he be everywhere? I think of that now as a kind of koan. It's not a definition of God. It's a reflection practice; a contemplation meant to get beyond limiting ways of looking at reality. Someone who says God is in the sugarbowl surely sees God as something a bit more interesting than a giant man living in the sky who has the power to help you win the lottery.

[The Daring Dufas]

All that discrimination by Muslims against other religions is OK according to P.L.L.C.F. because they believe everyone must kiss Islamic ass. I think they're worried they'll get beheaded if they insult Islam. Of course they can disparage Christians all day long because they know that Christians won't kill them for insulting Christianity. o_O

TDD

[Todd]

Hi Mayayana,

My father was Mormon and his side of the family is very devote. I do have a lot of respect for them. Their family values are to be envied, among other things.

Maybe we are seeing a crack in Stormin' belief system, as this is not Mormon teaching. We "Gentiles", as they call us, is all going to hell. And especially those like myself that loudly proclaim the Jesus of the Christians. I do believe his revealing angle referred to us and me specifically as "abominations".

One of the not so admirable things I remember as a child was my grandfather bouncing my sister up and down on his knee (they liked that kind of stuff) and telling her she was going to hell because she was not a Mormon. Grandmother has the grace to be embarrassed. My sister was traumatized for years, not to mention pretty pissed.

I love it!

Science and religion don't mix. As an Orthodox Christian, I am required to believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth and all things seen and unseen. And I so very much do.

Now, "how" God created the universe, is up to him. And "how" is not a tenant of faith. I can study, speculate as to "how" as much as I want, but still not a tenant of faith.

And the "truth" in science is a moving target. As an Orthodox saint once said: seek not the truth in science, as today's truths are always tomorrows falsehoods. (Don't believe me, look up "Caloric".)

And science has its place. As stated in the Bible:

And he hath given men skill, that he might be honoured in his marvellous works. --Wisdom of Sirach (Apocrypha), chapter 38, v6:

Wonderful explanation. Thank you!

In the end, I do believe that religions completing with each other in this way will be the ultimate salvation of humanity. As the Jesus of the Christians teaches, What so ever you do unto the least of you, you do unto me. By being decent to others (ALL OTHERS, not just your own kind!), you are touching the face of God. And, no cutting other's heads off! (That is a good way to really, really good was to piss off the Lord.)

I think one of the things you missed in your wonderful exposition (are you a professional writer?) was that to me, and I presume other Christians, our faith is not a blind theoretical abstract. It is a living and defining part of me/us. I have a personal relationship with Jesus. A Saint actually sought me out (made me really work at it to figure out was was going on too).

As far as Stormin' goes. He is obviously a nice guy and routinely touches the face of the single and only God, even if the God he is touching is not the one Stormin' thinks it is. (Mormon's believe in multiple Gods and that you can become one yourself. Christians are strict monotheists.)

This is why when I tease him about smacking him over the head with a newspaper in heaven, I am careful to include him in heaven with me. (I think he is a little to big to bounce up and down on me knee and tell him he is going to heaven.) He is not an "Abomination" the the eyes of the Christian God.

And yes, I have voices in my head (usually to scold me), which is why Left Wing Atheists think I should not be allow to vote. (Mainly because I don't vote for their guys.)

-T

[dadiOH]

Yes. I hate things like $9.95 or $359,500. It also makes people wonder... :)

I had a friend who also set odd appointment times - 9:13, 2:52 etc. - because people remembered them and showed up on time. Generally.

[Bob_Villa]

Okay...why not $350,000 then? (that's not an offer BTW!)

[Stormin Mormon]

SM: I'd like you to find that on

or other authorized LDS teachings. I've never heard that.

And especially those like

Sm: I vaguely remember Moroni said that the non-LDS churches of that day were abomination. I'd have to go back and look.

SM: I'd like some evidence of this teaching.

SM: Well, at least I get called a nice guy once in a while.

SM: Who can tell? I might lose a few pounds in the resurrection.

[dadiOH]

For me, "faith" is a belief in something one has not observed or experienced. Now, all of us - most of us - have faith in something. Not surprising since no one is likely to have observed or experienced EVERYthing; for example, I have faith in the existence of sub-atomic particles in their various persuasions even though I have no first hand experience with most of them. However, when faith deals with religion, my faith leaves...my experiences and observations do not support second or greater hand stories - many/most of them years/decades/centuries after the fact - nor the highly likely misinterpretations or mistranslations.

It was not always so. I grew up going to Sunday school, even church on occasion. I swallowed the little wafer and drank the grape juice (I liked the grape juice, the wafers need some salt!). At the time (early 40s) there was also an option available to parents for their offspring to attend church school once a week for a half day - or maybe a couple of hours, don't recall - instead of public school. My parents exercised that option so I was well indoctrinated. I believed.

More properly, I accepted...I accepted what I was taught. I did so because those doing the teaching were older, wiser and more experienced than I was; I respected them. Of course, they were the same folks that were swearing that Santa Claus was real.

During this period we lived next to a parsonage, I forget the denomination, and like most little kids chatted with neighbors from time to time. The parson created the first chink in my belief armor when he advised me that animals could not go to heaven because they lacked a soul. I thought that was unfair then and were I a believer now I still would.

In my mid-teens I developed an interest in religion and read everything I could find about the various and their origins. Each professed to be the true religion, each was very much like the others. I also thought about what I had been taught compared to what I had read and (minimally, at that time) observed. Common sense kicked in and I embraced atheism. Actually, I embraced agnosticism for a couple of years, mainly to avoid death by stoning :)

I have no quarrel with believers. Life is not always easy and anything that helps people over the rough spots is fine with me; however, I do think that the vast majority have never THOUGHT about what they have been taught...they have never asked themselves whether this or that aspect actually makes sense to them. __________________________

Agreed. For many, it is a bail out clause...betting on the come :)

My elder brother - he'll be 89 in a couple of weeks - converted to catholicism a couple of years ago. I never knew him to be religious and that's what I think he is doing...betting on the come...hedging his bets for when he is no more. Fine with me. ___________________________

Need the license be renewed frm time to time? :) ________________________

Indeed.

I used to enjoy reading/thinking about cosmology. I no longer do, it fries my brain...I cannot conceive of an infinite universe nor can I conceive of a finite one; I have trouble getting my head around a big bang too...my head won't handle everything condensed into something itsy-bitsy of infinite mass then going BOOM and expanding to god - you should excuse the phrase - knows where. I'm assuming that space was also condensed so into what was everything expanding? ______________________________

I'm glad you asked that because I have the answer: there is none. __________________________

I once lived somewhere, don't recall where, where the personals in the daily newspaper frequently contained ads thanking Saint So-and-so for "favors granted". Really? Something the person wanted and prayed for actually came true? Because of the blessed saint's intervention? And the saint is a newpaper subscriber and sees the ad thanking him/her? OK...

PS - I enjoyed your thesis, you obviously use your head for more than growing hair.

[Mayayana]

| As an Orthodox Christian

Interesting. I don't know anything about that. I once read a history of Christianity, thinking that as a Westerner I should know something about the background culture, but it turned out to be sort of a genealogy backward from American Protestantism. Eastern Orthodox was never mentioned. Nor was any other branch. Not the mysterious Cathars or even the seemingly unlikely mystical flowering from people like Teresa of Avila, Hildegard of Bingen, John of the Cross, etc. So I really didn't learn much other than the political history.

| I think one of the things you missed in your wonderful | exposition (are you a professional writer?) was that | to me, and I presume other Christians, our faith is | not a blind theoretical abstract. It is a living and | defining part of me/us.

That's what I was trying to convey with the story of the Catholics. For people who see themselves on a spiritual path of some kind, faith is often more like realization than belief, I think. But people who are not religious at all usually can't see how it can work that way.

[Mayayana]

| It was not always so. I grew up going to Sunday school, even church on | occasion. I swallowed the little wafer and drank the grape juice (I liked | the grape juice, the wafers need some salt!). At the time (early 40s) there | was also an option available to parents for their offspring to attend church | school once a week for a half day - or maybe a couple of hours, don't | recall - instead of public school. My parents exercised that option so I | was well indoctrinated. I believed.

It was similar for me. We went to an Episcopal church, because my mother's best friend went there. As far as I could tell it was a womens' hat contest and I didn't see why I should have to suffer through such an astonishingly boring program. I was finally released from the sentence in 6th grade. Then I found Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces some years later. His premise was that many different faiths and traditions -- from Jesus to Odysseus to Pacific Islander myths -- were basically allegorical training manuals for attaining wisdom beyond the normal realm of human endeavor. (There's actually a very straightforward Western version of that in Plato's allegory of the Cave.) After that the how, what and why of religions didn't seem so arbitrary to me. If one accepts that some knowledge cannot be known or transmitted conceptually then it follows that the transmission would have to follow some route other than just ideas recorded in books. ....But I sense this discussion could widen into a vast array of topics if we're not careful. :)

[Mayayana]

| > was my grandfather bouncing my sister up and down on his | > knee (they liked that kind of stuff) and telling her she | > was going to hell because she was not a Mormon. Grandmother | > has the grace to be embarrassed. My sister was traumatized | > for years, not to mention pretty pissed. | | SM: I'd like some evidence of this teaching. |

It's my understanding that Mormons volunteer to be baptized repeatedly on behalf of non-Mormons, so that the latter can be saved from Hell. Is that not true? If it is true then it implies a belief that non-Mormon's go to Hell, which implies that by merely being baptized a Mormon one dwells with God after death. Doesn't it seem a bit fishy that the promise of eternal bliss should cost less time and trouble than getting a drivers license?