ER religious preference
- Thread starter azanon
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Hyperborea
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
This is a bastardization of "Godwin's Law" - an old (at least in internet terms) Usenet "law". It comes from the early 90's in a time before it became "September all the time" (another Usenet reference - anybody besides me and perhaps Th know what it means?).
Godwin's Law stated nothing about thread ending. What it said was that the longer a thread or discussion goes the closer the probability approaches one that someone or something is compared to Hitler or the Nazis. Again nothing about thread ending.
Again nothing about thread ending.
So it's OK to continue then?
There was this song I head once about kayaking and it has stuck in my brain ever since. Actually, I don't know for sure that it was really about kayaking. I never picked up the title, and it was an instrumental, so it's hard for me to tell you too much more about it. It very much had a feel to it that was suggestive of the kayaking experience, though. That much I remember clearly.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what song that might have been or what group it might have been that performed it?
It was probably a group that sometimes did instrumentals. Does that help narrow it down a bit?
I think it was a new song at the time I heard it, but I don't recall too well when it was that I heard it.
It wasn't that great a song, but it's the only kayaking song that comes to mind at the moment.
So it's OK to continue then?
There was this song I head once about kayaking and it has stuck in my brain ever since. Actually, I don't know for sure that it was really about kayaking. I never picked up the title, and it was an instrumental, so it's hard for me to tell you too much more about it. It very much had a feel to it that was suggestive of the kayaking experience, though. That much I remember clearly.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what song that might have been or what group it might have been that performed it?
It was probably a group that sometimes did instrumentals. Does that help narrow it down a bit?
I think it was a new song at the time I heard it, but I don't recall too well when it was that I heard it.
It wasn't that great a song, but it's the only kayaking song that comes to mind at the moment.
wabmester
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Amen, brother Hyper!
I've been thinking for a long time about organizing a religion around science. It's just another belief system, although one that happens to be based on experimentation rather than dogma.
We're missing a church, though. And cool rituals. And songs. And a pope. I elect Penn and Teller as pope. We can use my house as church (it even has cathedral ceilings). I'm still working on the songs, though. Check back with me.
J
JOhn Galt
Guest
I think I should be Pope. I have the most experience
pontificating
JG
pontificating
JG
P
parnass
Guest
Church of the Done Working.
yakers
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Sorry, but but as a river type, obviously the wrong denomination
yakers the ocean kayaker
V
vicky
Guest
Born Catholic. DH born Hindu. Both not practicing. Could not tell you where the closest church/temple is.
Just something that gets passed on from generation to generation I guess.
Vicky
Just something that gets passed on from generation to generation I guess.
Vicky
Religion is just another form of the duality or diversity that we experience while we inhabit our physical bodies. We experience "duality" so that we can identify the "self". Everything in this physical universe exists in duality, hot/cold, good/bad, tall/short, black/white, smart/dumb, etc.
Most religions, once they start soon split into "dual" (or diverse) denominations. Christianity started with the gnostics and non-gnostics, then Catholics and protestants, and now exists in hundreds of different denominations. Islam is split into Sunni and Shiite camps, and even Buddhism exists in Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, plus probably slightly different interpretations in Japan and other countries.
Every single thing that exists in the physical universe, including wealth, race, weight, religion, height, skin color, socio-economic status, etc., exists for the sole purpose of instilling in us a sense of identity, to teach us what it feels like to be "seperate", to teach us what it feels like to an individual. There is nothing in this physical universe that doesn't have it's opposite. Hot/cold, good/bad, rich/poor, short/tall, fat/thin, male/female, etc. Even religions, something that exists to bring us together, soon fragment into groups, and teach us what it means to be an individual and instill in us an identity. That's why we we're here.
On the other side everything is so connected and "one", and the sense of being connected is so strong, that becoming an individual is the only thing that can't be learned when we are on the other side. We live in this physical universe just long enough to become seperate individuals than we are allowed to cross back over to Paradise.
Excerpt from Randy Gehlings NDE:
"She (an angel) said that we would enter the light and become one with it. Before I could ask what that meant, she just gave my hand a little tug, and then we were inside the light.
"That was really cool! I kind of felt as though my body exploded - in a nice way - and became a million different atoms - and each single atom could think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. All at once I seemed to feel like I was a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, a fish. Then I felt like I was an old man, an old woman - and then a little tiny baby." http://www.near-death.com/experiences/animals04.html
"This was very pleasant and comforting and went on for microseconds or billions of years, I have no idea since time just wasn't an operative construct and had no meaning or relevance to existence. I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously."
Excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE
http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html
"Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. . . . .
At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously."
Excerpt from the Holographic Universe
http://earthportals.com/hologram.html
http://www.near-death.com/
_________________
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
"the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
- Albert Einstein
Most religions, once they start soon split into "dual" (or diverse) denominations. Christianity started with the gnostics and non-gnostics, then Catholics and protestants, and now exists in hundreds of different denominations. Islam is split into Sunni and Shiite camps, and even Buddhism exists in Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, plus probably slightly different interpretations in Japan and other countries.
Every single thing that exists in the physical universe, including wealth, race, weight, religion, height, skin color, socio-economic status, etc., exists for the sole purpose of instilling in us a sense of identity, to teach us what it feels like to be "seperate", to teach us what it feels like to an individual. There is nothing in this physical universe that doesn't have it's opposite. Hot/cold, good/bad, rich/poor, short/tall, fat/thin, male/female, etc. Even religions, something that exists to bring us together, soon fragment into groups, and teach us what it means to be an individual and instill in us an identity. That's why we we're here.
On the other side everything is so connected and "one", and the sense of being connected is so strong, that becoming an individual is the only thing that can't be learned when we are on the other side. We live in this physical universe just long enough to become seperate individuals than we are allowed to cross back over to Paradise.
Excerpt from Randy Gehlings NDE:
"She (an angel) said that we would enter the light and become one with it. Before I could ask what that meant, she just gave my hand a little tug, and then we were inside the light.
"That was really cool! I kind of felt as though my body exploded - in a nice way - and became a million different atoms - and each single atom could think its own thoughts and have its own feelings. All at once I seemed to feel like I was a boy, a girl, a dog, a cat, a fish. Then I felt like I was an old man, an old woman - and then a little tiny baby." http://www.near-death.com/experiences/animals04.html
"This was very pleasant and comforting and went on for microseconds or billions of years, I have no idea since time just wasn't an operative construct and had no meaning or relevance to existence. I literally had the feeling that I was everywhere in the universe simultaneously."
Excerpt from Mark Horton's NDE
http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html
"Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. . . . .
At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously."
Excerpt from the Holographic Universe
http://earthportals.com/hologram.html
http://www.near-death.com/
_________________
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
"the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
- Albert Einstein
wabmester
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Ehrm, those aren't dualities. Those are just old fashioned opposites. A duality is something like the wave/particle nature of light.
And religion isn't a duality. It's a bogosity
Spanky
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Re: ER religious preferenceBuddhism reject the ide
That's the physics definition. From a philosophical view, duality is the distinction between self and the divine reality or as an example the dichotomy between eastern and western culture.
Buddhism believes in non-duality - the absence of an ultimate distinction between self and the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world.
Religion is not bogus but rather a set of beliefs or philosophy.
That's the physics definition. From a philosophical view, duality is the distinction between self and the divine reality or as an example the dichotomy between eastern and western culture.
Buddhism believes in non-duality - the absence of an ultimate distinction between self and the divine reality, the underlying ground of the world.
Religion is not bogus but rather a set of beliefs or philosophy.
wabmester
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Re: ER religious preferenceBuddhism reject the ide
Siddhartha Gotama was a cool dude. Probably my favorite religious inventor. I really like some of his ideas, but others, like karma and reincarnation, are cute but obsolete.
I don't think religions have to be bogus per se. It would have been great if some of them allowed updates based on new findings about the workings of the universe, but I'm not aware of one that does.
Yes, but a set of beliefs invented by some guy (or set of guys) 2500 years ago is very likely to be bogus to a large degree.
Siddhartha Gotama was a cool dude. Probably my favorite religious inventor. I really like some of his ideas, but others, like karma and reincarnation, are cute but obsolete.
I don't think religions have to be bogus per se. It would have been great if some of them allowed updates based on new findings about the workings of the universe, but I'm not aware of one that does.
unclemick
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
It's called science.
BTY - if you don't think science is a religion - observe some of the raging debates in various fields.
There is a feedback mechanism - over time new data spawns new theories and adjusts old ones.
BTY - if you don't think science is a religion - observe some of the raging debates in various fields.
There is a feedback mechanism - over time new data spawns new theories and adjusts old ones.
wabmester
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Amen, brother unclemick2! That's my religion. I just think our hymns suck, and we have some big gaps in terms of fun social events and rituals.
MooreBonds
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Devout Catholic.
Even though I am intensely scientific and logical/reasoning in nature, my logical side has come to the conclusion that it is only logical to accept the existance of a higher power...unless you want to use the argument that there's nothing special about humans, and that we have as much inherent self-worth as the raccoon routing through your trash can at night, or that oppossum on the side of the road that was turned into road kill 3 days ago.
Even though I am intensely scientific and logical/reasoning in nature, my logical side has come to the conclusion that it is only logical to accept the existance of a higher power...unless you want to use the argument that there's nothing special about humans, and that we have as much inherent self-worth as the raccoon routing through your trash can at night, or that oppossum on the side of the road that was turned into road kill 3 days ago.
wabmester
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Humans are special. But so are other species. It was useful for a religion to codify that man is better than other animals, especially in the days when we slaughtered our own livestock. Of course, some religions think cows are pretty cool. And some don't think too highly of pigs.
If you're truly intensely scientific, or even a little bit scientific, then you understand that as far as we can tell, life is a singularity on this planet. I am in awe of life, and the rich and complex behaviors that have emerged over perhaps a billion years of evolution. Yeah, I'm happy that our species evolved a big honking forebrain that distinguishes us from other species, but that doesn't reduce my respect for all kinds of life.
Somehow I am able to celebrate the awesome complexity and beauty of the universe without having to resort to unsubstantiated myths. If you find myths useful, that's certainly your right, but personally I would find it very hard to reconcile being instensely scientific and logical with those sorts of beliefs.
BTW, I showed our raccoon your post, and he laughed and asked me which animal was smarter: the one who scavanges through discarded food, or the one who throws away perfectly edible food.
J
John Galt
Guest
That's one of the things I like about raccoons, i.e.
they will eat almost anything, just like my
brother-in-law And, they are kind of cute.
A few years ago my wife had a young one hanging around
her neighborhood begging for scraps. In an attempt
to "teach" him (her?) to forage, she picked what she thought was a mushroom. The critter gobbled it down,
became glassy-eyed and dropped like a rock. Had to be
"put down" (the raccoon, not my wife). Bad luck all the way around.
"No good deed goes unpunished."
JG
they will eat almost anything, just like my
brother-in-law
And, they are kind of cute.A few years ago my wife had a young one hanging around
her neighborhood begging for scraps. In an attempt
to "teach" him (her?) to forage, she picked what she thought was a mushroom. The critter gobbled it down,
became glassy-eyed and dropped like a rock. Had to be
"put down" (the raccoon, not my wife). Bad luck all the way around.
"No good deed goes unpunished."
JG
as best i can interpret from the bible, not working at all would not please God.
I'll offer a comment re these words from the thread-starter.
If all aspiring early retirees were looking toward a goal of "not working at all," I think you would be right. I think that in that event there would be some who would be turned off the Retire Early idea because of a conflict with their religious convictions. I don't see that in reality there is necessarily a conflict, however.
Joe Dominguez has done more to spread the word re the Retire Early option that anyone else. His book has sold millions in many different languages. He urges that one retire early not to be inactive for the remaining years of one's life, but to get involved in protecting the environment or other causes. If people can make use of financial freedom to get involved in pro-environment causes, I see no reason why they can't make use of it to become teachers or to help the sick or to help the poor or whatever. Those are all activities that have been performed in the past by those with strong religious convictions (monks and nuns and so forth).
I think that the question here is, To what purpose are you going to put your financial freedom? Different people with different sorts of core beliefs are going to put their financial freedom to different sorts of purposes. Financial freedom itself is a good, in my view. An argument can be made that those with religious convictions should very much want people to become financially free because that permits them to escape the temptations that come with the dependence on earning money to support life. The Bible says something about the difficulty of serving two masters.
Couldn't one use one's early retirement to enhance one's prayer life and to develop a stronger relationship with God? I've done that to a small extent. For example, I stopped watching television during the time I was putting my plan together. I didn't do it entirely for spiritual reasons. In part I wanted to avoid the expense of paying for cable. But I think that an argument can be made that the things that I do with the time opened up (play with my kids, read books, take walks) are more spiritual in nature than watching reruns of "Law and Order."
I'll offer a comment re these words from the thread-starter.
If all aspiring early retirees were looking toward a goal of "not working at all," I think you would be right. I think that in that event there would be some who would be turned off the Retire Early idea because of a conflict with their religious convictions. I don't see that in reality there is necessarily a conflict, however.
Joe Dominguez has done more to spread the word re the Retire Early option that anyone else. His book has sold millions in many different languages. He urges that one retire early not to be inactive for the remaining years of one's life, but to get involved in protecting the environment or other causes. If people can make use of financial freedom to get involved in pro-environment causes, I see no reason why they can't make use of it to become teachers or to help the sick or to help the poor or whatever. Those are all activities that have been performed in the past by those with strong religious convictions (monks and nuns and so forth).
I think that the question here is, To what purpose are you going to put your financial freedom? Different people with different sorts of core beliefs are going to put their financial freedom to different sorts of purposes. Financial freedom itself is a good, in my view. An argument can be made that those with religious convictions should very much want people to become financially free because that permits them to escape the temptations that come with the dependence on earning money to support life. The Bible says something about the difficulty of serving two masters.
Couldn't one use one's early retirement to enhance one's prayer life and to develop a stronger relationship with God? I've done that to a small extent. For example, I stopped watching television during the time I was putting my plan together. I didn't do it entirely for spiritual reasons. In part I wanted to avoid the expense of paying for cable. But I think that an argument can be made that the things that I do with the time opened up (play with my kids, read books, take walks) are more spiritual in nature than watching reruns of "Law and Order."
unclemick
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Hmmm
If most of the cats who wrote the Bible had kept their day jobs - there wouldn't be a Bible to read.
If most of the cats who wrote the Bible had kept their day jobs - there wouldn't be a Bible to read.
Hyperborea
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
So, what is the logical reasoning for Catholicism over say Mormonism or Shintoism or Southern Baptists or Hara Krishna or Wiccanism or any of a thousand or more other religions? Or is it just the default choice with no logic because that's what your parents and their parents and so on did?
Hyper,
As a practicing Catholic, I freely admit I wouldn't be if my wife wasn't (I was a Deist before we met). I just can't believe that God would stop you at the pearly gates and say, "oh, wait, you're Southern Baptist? Oh no, sorry, hell for you!". God reaches us in the way we are most likely to hear. That is, unless you don't believe in God, in that case these comments were simply the crazy opinion of one guy and are not in any way endorsed by the owner of this board and/or web site.
As a practicing Catholic, I freely admit I wouldn't be if my wife wasn't (I was a Deist before we met). I just can't believe that God would stop you at the pearly gates and say, "oh, wait, you're Southern Baptist? Oh no, sorry, hell for you!". God reaches us in the way we are most likely to hear. That is, unless you don't believe in God, in that case these comments were simply the crazy opinion of one guy and are not in any way endorsed by the owner of this board and/or web site.
