Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 14, 2010 14:04
A interesting conversation that Albert Einstein had on the end of his life which i view as fitting to place in this thread.
A text that describes a conversation between Einstein and a nurse in the last end of his life:
"As the nurse is bending down to straighten his sheets, and allows a small golden cross, suspended around her neck by a chain, to fall loose, swinging away from her body toward the professor’s face. He looks at it thoughtfully and, as the nurse leans forward and asks her: “You believe. . . in God?
Hesitating for just a moment, as though parsing the old scientist’s motives before forming an answer, the nurse finally replies with a smile: “Yes. Yes I do.” She hesitates again, and then adds: “Do you . . . believe?
The camera pans back to a station behind the nurse, showing the pair engaged in their intimate exchange, the professor’s wrinkled face, the eyes gazing off into the distance. “Do I believe that someone plans the daily life of Albert Einstein?” he says, and then shakes his head slightly to emphasize anegative reply, “No,” he says, and then in a more animated pose, his brow slightly furrowed and a smile lurking beneath his broad mustache, he continues; “Although, sometimes I think he may have been leading me up the garden path.
But, didn’t he make the garden?” The nurse’s reply is thoughtful as the camera moves to a close up of just her face, and then back to the two in intimate conversation, and the old man’s tentative reply crosses his lips: “I think he IS the garden"
Almost without hesitation the nurse picks up the thread of the professor’s thought and says: “But, isn’t he the gardener too?” To which the old man looks straight at the camera and replies thoughtfully: “Yes, and all my life I’ve been trying to catch him at his work.”
Another couple of words by him which i also feel fits.
"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."
I dont see that science and spirituality cant be combined,why not use them as different shovels to dig as much dirt as possible so that one can reach the treasure one seeks after? The more angles one look through the bigger and wider the picture gets.
We all have a freedom to believe in something that is behind the thing called life ,which we often call god,and we also have the freedom to not believe in it.Then what we call it is just a word game,however, what it is about is the origin of all of this,then if it is called a formula,a number,god or something else dont really matter, the thing is that there is something and not a total nothing and therefore something is behind it.If there is a book there is also one using a pen.
We are like a step in a ladder,the ladder was there before the humans existed,we are like a part of a chain and the chain was there before us,that means that we are part of something "else",older,and bigger.Therefore it is quite hard when one really thinks about it to not think about the source,the origin,of this.Then the word that we call it does not matter,we can call it god ,we can call it fish,awareness,consciousness,blueberry,it is just words.However the words is pointing towards something,it points towards the underlying "thing" that gave birth to this,we come from something,"something" was there before us,then we ask what is it? and how does it work?
This is all just a search for truth.I want to know who i am and were i come from,i come from this "thing",so do you and everything else.I believe that we are the "thing" since we are an extension of it.Although we cannot truly understand it since we have limitations just as all other lifeforms.How can i understand who i am and what everything else is if i dont try to trace back my origin.I am not talking about relatives a couple of hundred years ago but what created life,what is life.What is the ladder which humans are a step in,back in time "this step,the human version" did not exist.But the ladder did.
So to understand what we are and were we are and what life is it is quite hard to not look at the origin.If there is a flower then there is also a seed.
Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 14, 2010 16:32
If we look at history we see the "god concept" almost everywhere,from a isolated tribe in Tanzania , to the roman empire , to the countries of Europe and to India etc ,it`s everywere.In all places and in all time lines.
What does this mean? It means that humans want to understand what the underlying layers is.What is behind this,what created this.Where do i come from etc. It means that humans have a yearning when they look at the stars at the night to understand what it is.I imagine a cavemen sitting at a campfire looking up and asking "who made the stars? ".This wanting,desire,search ,yearning has always been there.It has been so strong that every culture had a very powerful and detailed explanation of what god or the gods was/is.They could not accept that there was no answer,they had to live by one.
Most people want to think that at least someone knows it,it does not matter if it is a scientist who talks about big bang or a formula or a shaman talking about the forest spirit or a priest talking about god at a altar etc.
It gives them a feeling of safety,instead of feeling that life is a complete mystery,we have no clue that we can prove why we are here,were we are,what we are and what everything else are and what is going on and were we come from.Instead of facing that mystery inside they seek for people that "knows" that can tell them.It gives them calm,then they dont have to think about it since someone else already know and it is written in a book etc.
I remember a couple of years ago when i was reading a book with C.G Jung,he wrote about when he was visiting a native tribe somewhere,dont remember exactly were,i have some vague memory of somewhere in Africa,but it could be somewhere else to, but that does not really matter, anyway.He wrote about a conversation with a member of the tribe.He asked him about their beliefes about god and the origin of the stars etc,then the tribe member told him that the sun was god and had created everything.They had rituals and ceremonies for celebrating the sun .The elders had many tales about the sun and how it had created the world etc.Then C.G Jung told the member what the sun was according to the western model,that it is a star ,all the shining dots showing themselfes at the night sky also are suns since they are stars, he told him that the suns consist of different elements such as carbon,helium,hydrogen etc.
Then the tribe member was totally devastated,he begun crying and was completely broken.The lesson C.G Jung learned about this and wrote about is how fragile our view of god or our view of reality is.How much safety it gives us,it is the ground on which we think that we stand on.So , as written above, it is very easy for many to blindly follow a belief system instead of thinking for themselfes,they feel comfort and some sort of stability in that someone else knows and if they know what they know then they also know themselfes.
The same thing we see here in our time,in our life and in all times,we desperately want to stick to our "way of viewing it" our way of thinking about reality and the deeper layers of life and what life is and what controls it and what created it.Often we dont realize how fragile it is,we want to protect it from being broken.We try to defend our way of thinking so we dont need to build a new "reality model".
The search for truth is not about that.It is simply a search for truth even if it is not convenient.It is about what life is and what i really am,why i am and what gave birth to all of this,it is not about what i would like it to be like or what i wish it to be like,it is just what it is,naked,without a lense,just what it is.
There is nothing wrong in seeking answers and information about this questions through books ,people etc.But one should understand what they are communicating,which is a subjective view.Therefore it can never be totally true since it is coloured by the person(s) in question.
That is also one thing one have to face when thinking about this questions.That whatever one finds or think or understand or what someone else tells you that they understand is a subjective view.It is the human way.It does not matter if it is science or spirituality,whatever answers come out it is still coloured by the "human lense".Therefore whatever conclusions we ever will come to understand will be subjective.Truth is not subjective,truth is what it is ,truth is objective.And therefore,when one searches for the truth one has to face this" obstacle" on the way,that whatever one finds and believes , it is coloured and shaped by the lense that we are looking through.
When we look at history and todays religions we see a common theme,the god or gods have forms,often a human form to,i think that is a bit strange,i mean ,come one,why should a "higher power" or "higher powers" look like a human? And also,why would there be a form at all? And how would that form really look like,since how we would imagine it to be formed would just be conditioned by the lense that we look through so there we have the thing about the subjective view again.
Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 14, 2010 16:33
We have to drop the "stoneage" concepts about some guy with beard throwing thunderbolts at people when they dont give him food in rituals and ceremonies etc.This is just other peoples fantasy,imagination.This is not what god is,this is what some people think that god is.And since there are sooooooooo many different religions and ways of viewing the good concept we understand that they cant all be real since they all describe it in different ways.Therefore the forms,the names,the concepts,etc is just fantasy.Although,all religions share a common theme,which is that there is something beyond what we can grasp that has some sort of control and that has created us and everything else.I also believes that but that does not mean that i want to follow what some "priest" or "shaman" says or what a book says.Because that are just other peoples beliefs.Although, i find religions interesting and i enjoy reading and hearing about other peoples belief systems,but i accept them for what they are,which is subjective interpretations.Yet they are pointing towards something,something which i am very interested about and believes in,which is "something" behind all of this,a single "thing" from which all things come.This does not mean that i share the thoughts and interpreations on what the thing is and how it works etc but i share the idea about that there is something.I view everything as convergation of this thing,like a net which we all are a part of.Then where could the core be found when the core is everywhere? So in a way it is like a nothing,yet it is something because it is everything.But it is nothing since it got no special form,yet it is all forms.That is what i believe.
Back again to the "form" issue , which cant be ignored if one is serious about this questions.When we think of something we always think of something as a form,something that is located somewhere,it is something,it is somwhere and it looks in a special way.We have to understand that our ways of thinking has limits,it has borders,just as all other species has limits,as everything has limits,a car,a bike,a computer,whatever.Everything we know about has limitions,a form and a location.We cant understand how something can exist beyond that.We are tied to our mental system and it`s limits.
If we look at our body we can see that we have many parts that become one part,which we think of as ourselfes,a billion things,cells,systems,experiences,dna, etc all is getting a = our person.We are the sum of all that,yet the one thing(our person)is created by many things.Why could not this thing be applied to the universe? Why would not we be like cells of a bigger body, a bigger system when all parts that we see are like that.Everything makes a cog in the wheel,Why should we be the top.Because we have limits and dont understand what is beyond is not a answer ,just as because a cell dont understand that it is a part of a bigger system does not mean that our body dont exist.
Why can not a thing exist at many places at the same time,why should it be limited to one couple of eyes and one place and one form?Why can it not use all eyes just as all our compounds in our body becomes a singularity.What says that what we look after,what god is,should be limited to a form,a place etc.Nothing,more then that we usually think about things in that way.Form ,place etc.
I think that it is a problem when searching for god,that one search for a specific thing,one emotion,one vibe,one entity ,some kind of form,a location etc.That it is somewere to be found and only there it can be found.The only place i think it can be found at is at the inside.But outside things can trigger what is happening at the inside.It can be like keys to the inside.What we call our "heart" or our "soul" i believe is when we refer to the "thread" which goes through all forms,through all life and what often is called god.Although we cannot prove anything,and how we experience it is created by our lense.
I think this thing is everywhere and always has and always will exist,it has never been born because it has always been.And that makes it hard to understand it.Because we are taught that everything has a form and is located at some place in a special time etc .We have to be open for the thought that one thing can exist in many forms at the same time.And that one thing can continue to be present all the "time",eternity,a water does not stop flowing just because the drops change shape.
I would like to pass on a couple of words by a indian cheif of a tribe called "Suquamis" which i think can be good to reflect on.
-----------------------
"This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover; our God is the same God.
You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.
That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.
Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
The end of living and the beginning of survival.
All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. "
Pauldo
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Posted : Nov 15, 2010 01:15
Quote:
On 2010-11-13 02:36, Maine Coon wrote:
^
Ah who is avoiding answering the questions now? How did you go from being an atheist to being a theist? How does being a theist make one a better scientist?
I don't see religion as some kind of anti-science dark force. I see Atheism as an evolutionary step above theism. It's time that the world's populations update their belief systems accordingly. Time for this generations dinosaurs to die off.
I know I can come across as a militant angry Atheist. I am angry to a point but it's not what solely drives me. I think there's a need for a radical form of Atheism much like what RadicalFaries did for gay rights and Act Up did for hiv/aids rights. What's wrong with Atheism using the same social tactics that other social movements have used?
Ya gotta admit though it's great fun messing with the religious!
Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 15, 2010 01:21
Quote:
On 2010-11-15 01:15, Pauldo wrote:
Quote:
On 2010-11-13 02:36, Maine Coon wrote:
^
It's time that the world's populations update their belief systems accordingly. Time for this generations dinosaurs to die off.
Maine Coon
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Posted : Nov 15, 2010 17:25
Quote:
On 2010-11-15 01:15, Pauldo wrote:
Ah who is avoiding answering the questions now? How did you go from being an atheist to being a theist? How does being a theist make one a better scientist?
I was not avoiding anything, just didn’t think this was a “let’s interview Maine Coon” thread. Besides, not everybody feels compelled to wear his beliefs on a tee-shirt.
Quote:
I see Atheism as an evolutionary step above theism. It's time that the world's populations update their belief systems accordingly.
This is another reason why I won’t go into any more detail here. You already decided what the whole world is supposed to believe. What do my beliefs matter then?
Quote:
What's wrong with Atheism using the same social tactics that other social movements have used?
Calling atheism a social movement, that’s what’s wrong. Unless you are in North Korea, of course.
You want to treat it as a social movement because you want to justify pushing your views on others. Ultimately, you’re projecting your own personal issues onto the whole society and trying to make your little frustrations into a big noble cause. I suggest you team up with Tina – she’s a master of making big social issues out of her personal idiosyncrasies too.
Quote:
Ya gotta admit though it's great fun messing with the religious!
Nope.
Pauldo
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 03:01
You're a wuss Coon. You seem to know all about what drives me but you're not willing to back up your own beliefs with how you logically came to believe as such. Weak sauce.
I bet you'll find your cognitive missteps when you answer: "How did you go from being an atheist to being a theist? How does being a theist make one a better scientist?" That's why you don't want to answer.
Maine Coon
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 06:20
Well, you can find partial answers right in this thread. As for something more detailed, you're mistaken here: I have answered those questions long time ago. I just don't feel like sharing any more thoughts on this subject with you. Calling me names is not going to change it (well, at least not in the direction you're trying to change it).
When you outgrow the need to push your beliefs on everybody else and mock anybody who disagrees with you, maybe we'll continue this conversation.
Pauldo
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 06:38
who are you? I don't recall prior convo's with you.
Maine Coon
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 07:11
I am a large domesticated forest cat common in New England. Rumor has it, I am a cousin of Norwegian Forest Cat. That's probably true. Another rumor has it that I am part raccoon. That's a bunch of bollocks.
Ah, almost forgot - no, we never had a conversation outside this thread, afaik. What happened here, though, looks like a conversation, doesn't it? Or it looked like it until now, at least.
Good night, Pauldo. I am reciting a short prayer from one of Marx & Engels' church hymnals for you. Sweet dreams.
Pauldo
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 09:16
I'm gonna masturbate!
Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 23:41
Quote:
On 2010-11-16 09:16, Pauldo wrote:
I'm gonna masturbate!
Okey,nice that you let us know,very on topic,what`s the next thing you gonna tell us ? Which movie you are gonna do it to?
Pauldo
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Posted : Nov 16, 2010 23:57
Load Warriors...it was a good one.
To keep this on topic a majority of the worlds religious peoples would stone me to death for watching such a movie or at the very least deny me full citizenship. My catholic upbringing isn't the only thing that causes me to be at odds with the religious.
Fometrius
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Posted : Nov 17, 2010 00:16
Quote:
On 2010-11-16 23:57, Pauldo wrote:
Load Warriors...it was a good one.
To keep this on topic a majority of the worlds religious peoples would stone me to death for watching such a movie or at the very least deny me full citizenship. My catholic upbringing isn't the only thing that causes me to be at odds with the religious.
Load warriors you say ,hehe,then i assume you like young girls with black hair.Think she looked abit indian.
I also enjoy watching some clips here and there and to have "body contact" with nice ladies,that does not mean that i cant believe in a source from which we all come or something behind this and something that connects everything.
The thing with religion as already has been said before and which is very important when talking about this is that some peoples ideas and interpretations about the "god concept" is just those peoples interpretations.The belief and ideas some people have about god and religion are their own subjective ideas and nothing more.
If one branch of a tree is rotten does that mean that the whole tree is bad?
If potatoes are bad does that mean that all food is bad?
And if one music track is bad does that mean that music itself always is bad?
Then apply that to religion.
Some peoples ideas and thoughts about religion can be bad,but what about all the other people who believes in something "higher" and somekind of source from we all come without creating any sort of bad things.
It is not the belief or thoughts itself that there is something behind all of this it is some peoples subjective ideas about what it is and how it works and what it wants etc that can be bad.
As said before.
If one music track is bad does that mean that music itself always is bad?
moki
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Posted : Jun 9, 2011 01:06
Quote:
On 2010-11-15 17:25, Maine Coon wrote:
Calling atheism a social movement, that’s what’s wrong. Unless you are in North Korea, of course.
You want to treat it as a social movement because you want to justify pushing your views on others. Ultimately, you’re projecting your own personal issues onto the whole society and trying to make your little frustrations into a big noble cause. I suggest you team up with Tina – she’s a master of making big social issues out of her personal idiosyncrasies too.
strange. i have not read all the topics in this section but there was a kind of invisible hand that lead me to this one and i was not surprised to read my name inside. i guess i am tina mentioned above no`?
you remind me so much of the last guy i had in the last weeks, who was desperately trying to turn me to a krishna devotee. he was a brilliant scientific mind, and is still brilliantly intelligent on the field of physics and programming.
but he just could not grasp the idea that the god in my world does neither have a name, nor a form, nor moral rules that are strictly given to me in a scripture. especially no name to be called . i dont believe in an ebay spirituality order service where god comes and gives anything i might need, as far as i am good and gentle and devoted to his great power ( this was a more gentle way to say i have an allergy with esoteric first world tactics). i dont even call god a god. i call god an accident. and i am kneeling in humility and humbleness in front of the great mysticism of the creation, and especially most strongly in front of the accident and the order of accident chaos in our universe. you know, my god is the deterministic chaos. nothing more and nothing less than that.
and i prefer not to call it god. as a matter of fact i hate the word god. a few people might tell me i am restricting their freedom by telling them not to believe in god. as a matter of fact i honestly dont care what others believe in, as far as i am not obliged to do the same
this is called a social movement and came as a social obligation after the paganism tribal era - people had suddenly to believe in god. i am a paganist, this is what i told the guy too - krishna would never ever appriciate a pagan like that. but lets live in peace, i said. the guy told me, i am not evolved enough to understand god but i would in the future. i told him it is now a good moment to go home and didnt see him again.
i am born in a place with a very old pre christian culture and history . there are not much like them in europe. the godly christian era is simply not my thing, and india is not my thing either. it is not JUST because i put my personal dissapointments in ashrams in india on the social agenda. no, it is just not what i believe in.
. i dont have anything against chanting krishna all day long, if this makes anyone happy, or whatever he is doing with his god creator. but in the moment anyone starts to tell me, i am not that noble to be an atheist, then i might start shouting that god is dead louder than ever.
