Reasonable religion in brief

[Skybird]

[Split from the "Last nights speech by President Bush" thread]. (Gizzmoe)

And ripped out of context that started it all. I did not start it - I answered to a previous post. Therefore edited and deleted. Sky

[geetrue]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Reasonable religion in brief: "Do not put faith in traditions, even though they have been accepted for long generations and in many countries. Do not believe a thing because many repeat it. Do not accept a thing on the authority of one or another of the sages of old, nor on the ground of statements as found in the books. Never believe anything because probability is in its favour. Do not believe in that which you yourselves have imagined, thinking that a god has inspired it. Believe nothing merely on the authority of the teachers or the priests. After examination, believe that which you have tested for yourself and found reasonable, which is in conformity with your well being and that of others." - Buddha, Kalamas Sutra. Often quoted, each time more precious.

Hebrews 11:1-3
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Saint Paul. Often quoted, each time believed

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by geetrue

Hebrews 11:1-3
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Saint Paul. Often quoted, each time believed

When I was reading Skybird's sceptic quote of Buddah I immediately thought about Hebrews and started searching for this quote. I don't mind at all that you were first, Geetrue!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by geetrue

Hebrews 11:1-3
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Saint Paul. Often quoted, each time believed

Is it the same Paul my opinion of whom has been so wonderfully expressed by Nietzsche?

"Hard upon the heels of the "glad tidings" came the worst imaginable: those of Paul. In Paul is incarnated the very opposite of the "bearer of glad tidings"; he represents the genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred. What, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above all, the Saviour: he nailed him to his own cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of the whole gospels - nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter in hatred had reduced it to his uses. Surely not reality; surely not historical truth! … Once more the priestly instinct of the Jew perpetrated the same old master crime against history - he simply struck out the yesterday and the day before yesterday of Christianity, and invented his own history of Christian beginnings. Going further, he treated the history of Israel to another falsification, so that it became a mere prologue to his achievement: all the prophets, it now appeared, had referred to his "Saviour."… Later on the church even falsified the history of man in order to make it a prologue to Christianity... The figure of the Saviour, his teaching, his way of life, his death, the meaning of his death, even the consequences of his death - nothing remained untouched, nothing remained in even remote contact with reality. Paul simply shifted the centre of gravity of that whole life to a place behind this existence - in the lie of the "risen" Jesus. At bottom, he had no use for the life of the Saviour - what he needed was the death on the cross, and something more. To see anything honest in such a man as Paul, whose home was at the centre of the Stoical enlightenment, when he converts an hallucination into a proof of the resurrection of the Saviour, or even to believe his tale that he suffered from this hallucination himself - this would be a genuine niaiserie in a psychologist. Paul willed the end; therefore he also willed the means. - What he himself didn't believe was swallowed readily enough by the idiots among whom he spread his teaching. - What he wanted was power; in Paul the priest once more reached out for power - he had use only for such concepts, teachings and symbols as served the purpose of tyrannizing over the masses and organizing mobs. What was the only part of Christianity that Mohammed borrowed later on? Paul's invention, his device for establishing priestly tyranny and organizing the mob: the belief in the immortality of the soul - that is to say, the doctrine of "judgment"."

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Buddha, Kalamas Sutra. Often quoted, each time more precious.

"Why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing?" - The Dalai Lama

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

"Why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing?" - The Dalai Lama

"All religions are an imitation of Judaism," he stated. "I am sure that when you lived in Israel, your eyes were closed. Please take the first plane back to Israel and open your eyes. Why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing?"

I doubt that he ever said that.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

I doubt that he ever said that.

I doubt that he didn't. This story was conveyed first hand by the anonymous author to Rabbi Chaim Walder, who compiled the book "People Speak About Themselves", published by Feldheim Publishers.

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

I doubt that he didn't. This story was conveyed first hand by the anonymous author to Rabbi Chaim Walder, who compiled the book "People Speak About Themselves", published by Feldheim Publishers.

Usually you are the first to question information when someone mentions an anonymous source, but in this case you don´t? :hmm: Have you asked the Rabbi or the publisher if they have checked the story with the Dalai Lama? You could also email the Dalai Lama´s office to find out if that story is true or not (ohhdl@dalailama.com).

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Gizzmoe

Usually you are the first to question information when someone mentions an anonymous source

Correct, usually, but....

but in this case you don´t? :hmm: Have you asked the Rabbi or the publisher if they have checked the story with the Dalai Lama?

I have no doubt that the book's author did NOT verify this via the Dalai Lama. He believed the person who told him directly of his own personal experience and wished to remain anonymous for reasons I can clearly understand.

You could also email the Dalai Lama´s office to find out if that story is true or not (ohhdl@dalailama.com).

Done.

[SUBMAN1]

I'm shocked that VON_CAPO hasn't found this thread yet!

-S

The burden of proof is on the atheist.

Please prove that you are correct and that God does not exist.

[CCIP]

[originally intended as response to the question of "Reasonable atheism - disprove that god exists"]

Wonderful trick.

I may not be an atheist per se (well, I am from the perspective of the Real Christians on the forum), but I don't see how it works. To me it's like asking about the existence of vacuum. It only can be proven or disproven in relation to other things.

I would say God certainly doesn't exist in the sense that he is proposed in Judaeo-Christian dogma. If he does, then he clearly suffers from a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia, as he can't even stop contradicting himself in his own (many versions of) scriptures, nor decide who his real voice was and who was a hoax. Not only that, but he evidently has a very poor working ethic in enforcing his own laws, and a very poor sense of judgment in whom he chooses as his Chosen Ones.

Reasonably, I'd rather there be no God than a clinically insane one. Fortunately, for me, asking the question of "does God exist?" is asking "does water exist?" Sure water exists. And it's not prone to effects of mental illness, having no mentality or sentience as such. That's all for me, really.

[CCIP]

As far as Jesus,

Okay. I accept that Jesus, whoever he actually was, was most certainly a great person who preached love - love in the sense of altruism and goodwill as I understand it. I accept that his primary concept of love as such is essentially right. I also trust the forces that have sent him down here. It wouldn't be a turn in my life at all to say that I go through life with the essential Christian ethic in mind (I mean that in the phiosophical rather than dogmatic sense) .

Well? Can I throw out all those rotten books that distort and overbloat his essential truths and live my life with a clean conscience now?

Originally Posted by CCIP

[originally intended as response to the question of "Reasonable atheism - disprove that god exists"]

Wonderful trick.

I may not be an atheist per se (well, I am from the perspective of the Real Christians on the forum), but I don't see how it works. To me it's like asking about the existence of vacuum. It only can be proven or disproven in relation to other things.

I would say God certainly doesn't exist in the sense that he is proposed in Judaeo-Christian dogma. If he does, then he clearly suffers from a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia, as he can't even stop contradicting himself in his own (many versions of) scriptures, nor decide who his real voice was and who was a hoax. Not only that, but he evidently has a very poor working ethic in enforcing his own laws, and a very poor sense of judgment in whom he chooses as his Chosen Ones.

Reasonably, I'd rather there be no God than a clinically insane one. Fortunately, for me, asking the question of "does God exist?" is asking "does water exist?" Sure water exists. And it's not prone to effects of mental illness, having no mentality or sentience as such. That's all for me, really.

So where is your proof that God does not exist.

Seems to me the only thing(s) proven is that atheism is a religion on this board(my original post was moved to a discussion about religion). Secondly, that there is a prejudice against those who believe in God on this board. Its OK to question those who believe in the existance of God but not to question those who deny God's existance.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by waste gate

So where is your proof that God does not exist.

1) I did not say God does not exist. My belief in God is simply different from the sense in which it seems to be implied here (primarily Judaeo-Christian).

2) How does one prove the absence of something? In relation to something else.

My only point-of-reference is my experience, reason and knowledge. My reason has a funny way of not believing anything I have no proof for. Unless I am presented with a compelling proof for the presence of something, my default view is that of something being absent. This is a normal and logical way of thinking. I have no "burden of proof". I don't need to prove something for which I have not been presented one shred of convincing (in my view) proof.

Before you place the "burden on proof" on anyone, please establish the reason why we should presume that presence, rather than absence of God, should be viewed as the default/unmarked position to a logical mind.

The way in which you are evading the discussion and refusing to answer counter-questions is not productive.