On Microclimates

[Billy]

I'm a big fan of siestas :O)

[Billy]

Hey, let's not push. It will be 5 billion years before the Sun goes "red giant" on us. You made me think that I was running out of time;O)

Thanks for the Jared Diamond cite.

If you like weekends, thank a labor union.

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[Billy]

Even "good guys" can have bad days. I've too much history with Doug to write him off easily. He can be a very thoughtful person.

[Nad R]

I have some reading on geological history. My major was Mathematics, Computer Science with a little bit of Electrical Engineering. So I am not by any means an expert on geology or Biology. I sometimes I take a first thought route to problem solving and can make mistakes. If my reasoning is flawed I will change it. By reading Doug's postings, He seems to be on the Authoritative side where I am on the Anti-Authoritative side. I do not trust those that speak in terms of absolutes. It is in my nature to be the skeptic. Doug's last ranting is far from a thoughtful person. Still this is usenet where all opinions can be expressed, even from my rantings :)

[Doug Freyburger]

Genetic engineering and DNA sequencing are facts. The current model for human evolution is a best guess based on current evidence and that will certainly change as new evidence is uncovered. What will not change is the chemical basis for evolution - inheritance and breeding both of which are statistical in nature. There will be change in a lot of the details in our understanding of genetics (RNA activity, protein folding, all sorts of stuff) but not how basic DNA->RNA->protein works and not how DNA encodes the next generation and not statistical population models.

Based on your experience with one religion and your having been poisoned by it. Check. You are going to believe that all religions are alike and that's that. Doesn't really matter as religion is optional in civilized society.

There have been a lot of cycles of ice ages and warm ages in geologically recent past. Those are too evenly repeated to have volcanic causes. The "little ice age" could easily have had a volcanic cause.

Today they had a type of bromeliad I had not seen before. Flattened red leaves that looked like a hand sticking up out of the main green leaves.

[Billy]

How do you differentiate being poisoned from awareness of hypocrisy?

Comparison with the known leads to an understanding (correct or not).

Then why do my tax dollars (not optional) go to printing, "In God We Trust" on our currency? Or do you contend that we aren't a civilized society?

Bush's 3rd term: OBAMA

If you like weekends, thank a labor union.

===

[Billy]

The refutation[1] of the notion of a supreme God or a prime mover is seen as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. Hence, Buddhism is often aptly described as a

"spiritual philosophy" [Which would be my view, not a religion.-Billy]

whose sole aim is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara,[2][3] called nirvana. The Buddha explicitly rejects a creator,[4] denies endorsing any views on creation[5] and states that questions on the origin of the world are worthless.[6][7] Some theists beginning Buddhist meditation believe that the notion of divinity is not incompatible with Buddhism,[8] but belief in a Supreme God is eminently considered to pose a hindrance to the attainment of nirvana,[9] the highest goal of Buddhist practice.[10]

If you like weekends (40 hr/5 day weeks), thank a union.

Bush's 3rd term: OBAMA

==

[Nad R]

There are dozens and dozens if not hundreds of religions in this world. Only evolution stands out over others as an explanation of our existence without some other supernatural being creating humans. Theory of evolution is what I believe in that seems the reasonable for our existence on this planet. Not because of one religion being poisonous.

I see humans as the cause for the destruction of our environment and atmosphere of this planet and no god to save us. Therefore only humans must make decisions that can save this planet for future human survival.

[Doug Freyburger]

Awareness of hypocricy is acknowledging the errors of a specific religion. Look carefully and any faith will have some problems. To assume that all suffer from the same problems is to be poisoned. They do not.

There's a further issue not just with Buddhism not addressing deity. All or almost all religions tell stories. Do not confuse the fact that a couple of very popular religions make the mistake of claiming their stories are literally true with the fact that stories get told. Those are two separate topics. To most faiths the stories are fiction that teaches. To a couple of faiths the stories are supposed to be literally true that also teach.

Is there actually a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? No. It's a tale about chasing get rich quick schemes, complete with the gold disappearing after a day. The real gold in the rainbow is the warm glow in our hearts when we watch a rainbow. Two levels of mythical meaning in the same tale, both of which are true and neither of which appear in the tale itself. That's how the tales of other faiths work. It is in fact a tale from one of the other faiths.

Did Odin really turn into a one eyed snake, drill into a mountain, secude a maiden, retrieve the mead of inspiration, return it home, and dribble some onto humanity as he returned? No. It's an adventure tale for the children, a barrage of sexual innuendo for young couples, a view of the cycles of life for the elderly.

Did Sampson really lose his strength because his hair was cut? If there even was a human named Sampson. No. Becoming a kept man might have had a bit more to do with it. The hair is a symbol for changed social status not a literal source of strength.

Civilization is a floating point not a binary number. Putting "In God We Trust" on the coinage about the time of the US Civil War and on the paper currency about the time of WWI was a departure from the principles of freedom of religion. Adding "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance about the time of the Korean War was also a departure from the principles of freedom of religion. Freedom of religion must include freedom from religion.

Both in both cases they can be viewed as a description of the majority of the population not as harassing atheists. And in both cases it's more generic than the majority might have liked. The US Constitution forbids establishing a state religion but it does not forbid noticing that the majority of the population is religious. I don't like either situation but I understand how and where the line gets drawn. That I would draw the line in a different place is less important than that the line does get drawn - The government can't fund any specific religion and can't drive out any specific religion, but the government can acknowledge that religion is popular with the majority.

No civilization is perfect in any of its stances. These two examples of how freedom of religion and separation of church and state can be bent without being broken. The bending is the bad part, the departure from the 1.00 value. The not breaking part is the good part, adding another dimension. The US in specific and the west in general lead the world in separation of church and state and religious freeodm. The US screws it up on certain points. The logo on the money and the words in the Pledge are among the screw ups.

Rosemary at the store yesterday. It didn't have as much aroma as I expected.

Long pepper in my eggs this morning. It's not as hot as round peppercorns. Not sure how to describe the flavor. Somewhere like Worchestershire Sauce or cloves. As if those two have enough in common for such a description to make the slightest sense. So now to try long pepper flavored spice cookies! Gluten free as usual. I figure the tee shirt will say "Uncle Dag went on a caravan with the Varangian Guard and all we got was this recipe for spiced cookies flavored with an exotic southern spice".

[Billy]

Hypocrisy is saying one thing, and doing another.

I guess what bothers me is your out and out dismissal of Nad's revelations, not that they are superior or inferior to your's. I'm inclined to see religions as power structures (and we all know what power does) that place themselves between the believer and their god. That the god of love and mercy can be morphed into Jerry Falwell's god of jealousy and revenge, is beyond my ability to reconcile. That we are called on to worship this god is offensive to my democratic principals. Call it hubris, if you will, but I have a much easier time believing that a perfectly good religion can be based on a pack of lies, especially if it exhorts its followers to reason.

Many good things have been done in the name of god, the Quakers come to mind, as well as religiously funded clinics, schools, and water projects. I can relate to an extent to Nad's situation, in that when I was a teenager I started to question the church I belonged to, when they shunned a church member who became pregnant out of wedlock. I briefly considered converting to Judiasm, but the examination of hypocrisy that I had started on with Christianity soon overwhelmed any possibility that I could believe in Judaism. Buddhism (not a religion, but still a belief) seems the only hypocrisy free belief, until you come to the philosophical schism between Hinayana, and Mahayana Buddists.

I won't post again on this thread, bbut I will read any response that you may have.

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I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls.

- Albert Einstein

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. 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

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If you like weekends (8 hr./day & 40 hr./week), thank a labor union.

===

[Doug Freyburger]

He asserts that all religions are in conflict with science. I'm a member of one that is not. I know of plenty of others that are not.

He asserts that science answers the why. It does not. Science measures but does not assign moral value. Science describes the mechanisms without addressing the meaning of life. Science can direct goals but it can not supply goals except regarding the growth of science.

That's the religious organizations. Some have a lot more than others but all have some. Religions tell about spirits, about what happens after death, offer answers to the questions about what life means and what are the goals of life. The religions also have certain features included because the market demands they must. They must teach some form of ethics, though the ethics come from the universe not from the religion. Religions use allegory to teach ideas indirectly.

Philosophy can assign moral value, address the meaning of life, supply goals. Religion can be viewed as a branch of philosophy or as a competitor to philosophy. Philosophy can be viewed as a branch of religion. I tend to see them with a Venn diagram showing their overlap, neither being a subset of the other. Various religions have various overlaps with various philosophies. To the extent your values are important to you it is usual to inspect how the various religions overlap, consider the ones with good overlaps, reject the ones with bad overlaps.

Religions teach a spiritual approach to life. How does this tie in to gardening? Gardening is one aspect of a spiritual approach to life. Sometimes the spiritual experience is in the background, sometimes in the foreground. One time I was digging up a part of the lawn to install stones to add a walkway next to the driveway. Landscaping that's not quite gardening.

As I dug and cut through roots and exposed bugs and worms I saw in my heart how the world is alive. The story of how Odin and his brothers slew Ymir and crafted the world from his body went from a story to tell children to something I was experiencing transmitted through the blade of the shovel into my hands. The ground is alive. That's science. That's also religion of the sort that I want to be a member of. If a religion does not teach that that's not a religion that will hold my interest. If a religion does teach that I'll look further into how it transmits meaning and value.

It can fill volumes how it came about that democratic principles can to be in the various regions of pre-Christian Europe in various forms and how they interacted with the evolution of Christianity as it overwhelmed the older religions then proceeded to absorb parts of them.

Telling a bunch of stories is only lies if you claim the stories are not fiction. Only the JCI family does this.

[Nad R]

Correct. Name your religion.

The basis of all science is that the theory must be "Testable". God based creation beliefs are not testable. It is a belief that cannot be testable.

You are mixing up Philosophy with Religion. I see philosophy as a way life. One can have Philosophical views with out religion. Religion in my book is a belief in one or more gods

So do I. Power structures that are harmful to a modern society.

Spirits, ghost... Oh brother, belief in more none existent creatures. After life... Again a Non testable item that belongs in the world of religion. After life's explain nothing. If it is not testable it is not science!

I see the "soul" is biological chemical reaction of the human brain that evolved over eons of time. When humans die they become compost (testable).

Where does the WHY come in when it comes to ghost, spirits and the non existent after life. This is the realm of religion, not science or philosophy.

Philosophy is not a branch of Religion. Religion is a branch of Philosophy. It is not a two way street. Religion may need philosophy, but philosophy does not need religion.

I will agree philosophy can assign moral values to legal maters and a way of life.

Again wrong, one can enjoy the aspects of gardening without a religion. Landscaping is a subset of gardening. Gardening has nothing to with religion. Atheist and the religious alike can enjoy gardening as way of life.

Again one does not need a religion to find moral values. As an atheist I create my own rules in which I live by. Not from some ancient mythological book.

Example my personal definition of a good person: a person that benefits the tribe in which they live within. An evil person is one that harms the tribe in which they life within.

When one removes the presuppositions that a god exist. Then many philosophical views will change. Religions are institutions that hold back advancement in societies. Galileo Persecuted by the religious. Slavery was good because the Holy Bible did not speak out against it. Black and Women's rights, Gay rights all persecuted by a moral "religious" institutions. I see religious instructions as being harmful to those that want different life and even passing laws that protect the environment.

My view on life goes like this: I believe in maximum personal freedom as long as one does not directly or indirectly physically harm another.

Therefore, slavery is wrong in my book, women and gay rights are fine with me. If you want to snort cocaine, fine by me. If your drive drunk and harm another pay the price in jail.

And also part of that freedom is believing in a god if you wish. However when a religious belief is against the freedom of others, I will be against that church.

[Doug Freyburger]

Mine is a tiny one named Asatru. It would be amazing if you'd ever seen the word. The nearest historically linked faith of any size is Hindu. There are plenty of signs of ancient Asatru in modern Anglo-Germanic civilization - Regional Thing evolved into jury and country fair. National Thing evolved into parliment. The days of the week got the names of the major deities. Number of members is a very different story. There are tens of thousands of us in the world. Extremely tiny.

None of the heathen/pagan polytheist religions of the world have a conflict with science. They all lack the error of biblical inerrancy or literal truth in their stories. The largest is Hindu, then Shinto and so on down into smaller and smaller population faiths. National Geographic has tended to call them "animist" rather than polythiest. Generally polytheist faiths don't care whether you believe if the deities of their pantheon exist. It's not about that.

There's also Buddhism and probably other deity-irrelevant faiths. I don't know if Taoism or Confucicism fall in this category. It's been too long since I've read the Analects or the Tao Te Ching.

And the basis of most religions is that which is not testable. Which puts them not in conflict.

Exactly. Whence not in conflict.

No. You are trying to define religion as only those two that you disapprove of. Not a game I'll play. Playing that game doesn't make your restricted definition either correct or useful. The JCI folks want to claim to define the space, but they do not define the space.

One can. It's called the agnostic approach.

It is irrelevant that you allow the JCI folks to define the space and then that you reject them. That's a optional element in the list of features.

They are overlapping sets. Neither is a subset of the other,

And that's only a part of why they are overlapping sets with neither a subset of the other.

For millennia relgions have taught gardening as a path of life. Gardening does in fact have much to do with religion. Gardening is possible without religion. Not the same thing. For that matter religion is possible without gardening. Who would want such a religion.

[Nad R]

Ok?

I see your point of view. However, I do know that many people live with contradictions and dilemmas in life. I am not one of them. My mind is more of a hierarchal index. I refuse to live with contradictions. All religions have a creation theory that is not testable belief that contradicts that of science such as Evolution and the big bang theories.

I looked up yours,

****Creation Story: A poem Voluspa (Prophecy of the Seeress) contains an Ásatrú story of the creation of the universe. Between Muspelheim (The Land of Fire) and Niflheim the Land of Ice was an empty space called Ginnungigap. The fire and ice moved towards each other; when they collided, the universe came into being. Odin, Vili and Ve later created the world from the body of a giant that they had slain.

****

To believe that science and religion can coexist is at best a contradiction in it's self. Again, All religions have a creation theory not a testable belief that contradicts that of science: Evolution and the big bang theories

Not correct. All religions have views that contract that of science from the origins of the human race to the beginnings of the universe. Many religious may believe that science and religion can coexist, but as an atheist I reject this view.

Wrong they are in conflict. I provided example already.

I am defining religion, and it has nothing with the TWO I disapprove of. I disapprove of ALL religions and they are many many more than two religions. Your are trying to merge two different worlds like oil and water.

Two way street here, I can also claim your views are irrelevant.

Not overlapping, everything can be ordered in a top down hierarchal order. Including set theory. Your world of just using venn diagrams is a non ordered world. If it cannot be ordered then their is a paradox in the structure.

For millennia religions have taught nonsense because they could not make sense of their world, therefore a GOD must be the reason.

Enjoy your delusional religious world. It may be better to live in a world of delusions and be have happy life than know the truth and live in a world of harsh realities.

I see your point of point of view. It must come from the Noris God... Loki.

[Doug Freyburger]

Without biblical inerrancy there is no contradiction. There's a story told by science, subject to revision as the art evolves. There's a story told by mystics, subject to revision as the poetry and symbolism evolves. One attempts literal truth but never gets there. One makes no attempt at all of literal truth but rather poetic meaning.

It says - The universe came into existance as a part of natural processes. Life is within the universe as a part of those natural processes. The world was formed from existing material not something from nothing creation.

Not that it matters because the story is poetic and symbolic not literal.

I started my career working on the space program with real space scientists. Most of them understood that science and religion can coexist just fine. Some managed to do so with Christianity. I never did get that part. So you can reject that science and religion can coexist, but plenty of full time professional scientists do not.

It's been nice. Thanks for the discussion!

[Nad R]

I guess, we will just have to agree that we do not agree.

Enjoy life Doug :)

[Doug Freyburger]

Freedom of religion must mean any religion. Freedom of religion must include freedom from religion.

Peter Sellers as Chance the Gardener in the move "Being There". Enjoy the gardening to enjoy the garden.