Blondepudding
Who Sprinkled You With Grumpy Dust?
Upvote
0
I'm glad we are dust in the wind
- Thread starter cloudyday2
- Start date
Yes we must eat for energy to the body,
but,
Torah is food for the soul.
By studying Torah the soul ingests and digests the divine wisdom
and is supplied with the divine energy to persevere in its mission
and overcome its challenges.
Upvote
0
juvenissun
... and God saw that it was good.
- Apr 5, 2007
- 25,446
- 803
- 71
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Baptist
- Marital Status
- Married
Upvote
0
Upvote
0
Did Julius Caesar make more of his brief existence because his name will be remembered for a few thousand years instead of a few decades? Eventually the memories of Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire will be burned to a crisp with everything else on Earth.
Upvote
0
Arthra
Baha'i
- Feb 20, 2004
- 7,060
- 572
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Other Religion
- Marital Status
- Married
Cloudy,
Thanks for posting...
What we do or don't do in my view has repercussions.. whether we are aware of it or not. We are interrelated. All of us are interrelated to some degree. It is like a fabric with horizontal and vertical threads... We make up a tapestry of warp and woof. The decision and actions you make tomorrow can have profound affects. Are we aware of this..? Maybe not. I think over time I've retraced my footsteps... Our decisions and actions cumulate and some can weigh us down and some can uplift us... Let us hope that we will be more uplifted!
Last edited:
Upvote
0
Jane_the_Bane
Gaia's godchild
- Feb 11, 2004
- 19,359
- 3,426
- Faith
- Pagan
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
- Politics
- UK-Greens
Do you think there's any meaning in the letter "a" apart from what we put there? Nothing about its shape suggests the sound we associate with it, in fact other language communities imbue it with distinctly other tonal qualities.
And that's just a single letter. It becomes even more interesting in relation to more complex ideas.
Upvote
0
Certainly there are plenty of examples where we assign meaning to things and of course it's very useful. That doesn't mean there isn't some real meaning somewhere.
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
Eudaimonist
I believe in life before death!
- Jan 1, 2003
- 27,482
- 2,733
- 57
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Private
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
I was expecting that sort of reply, of course. I don't deny that human beings have a psychology, and that this psychology may have needs. Psychology is also a function of the body.
I do just fine without digesting "divine wisdom". I find other sources of psychological fuel to persevere and overcome the challenges of life.
eudaimonia,
Mark
Upvote
0
Eudaimonist
I believe in life before death!
- Jan 1, 2003
- 27,482
- 2,733
- 57
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Private
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
I hope that this is just a brief phase for you. Being an atheist is much better without nihilism.
eudaimonia,
Mark
Upvote
0
Jane_the_Bane
Gaia's godchild
- Feb 11, 2004
- 19,359
- 3,426
- Faith
- Pagan
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
- Politics
- UK-Greens
Define "real meaning", and how it could ever be distinct from something that is meaningful to us. The kind of meaning that gives us a sense of purpose is always personal.
Upvote
0
Jane_the_Bane
Gaia's godchild
- Feb 11, 2004
- 19,359
- 3,426
- Faith
- Pagan
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
- Politics
- UK-Greens
While I certainly find traditional religions and the meaning they create interesting, none of them strikes me as particularly compelling, let alone convincing.
Theistic religions seem to be all about retreating to a child-like state of dependency upon larger-than-life parental figures, who imbue existence with strict rules, happy rewards, and awful punishments.
But even apatheistic religions such as Confucianism or some forms of Buddhism are not that much better: Confucianism is just as authoritarian as the more overtly theistic equivalents, firmly believing in and promoting a hierarchical society mandated by "heavenly order", and Buddhism creates a certain disconnect by asserting that our existence is worthless and painful because it is fleeting, and that our first order of business is to escape from it to another state of being.
I prefer a life-affirming, philanthropic world view - not only because it is more compelling, but also because it is considerably more convincing. It makes no sense to me to perceive homo sapiens as a supernaturally broken race, a species in desperate need of a celestial dictator laying down the law, or a mindless horde trapped in illusion. Our shortcomings - and they clearly exist - can be far better explained in terms of psychology, behavioural biology, and anthropology. Analogies with other species alone give us a wealth of information on how instinctual behaviour causes us to act in a way that may not always promote our best (individual or collective) interest.
Removing authoritarianism from the picture also means a HUGE responsibility - and entails the ability to truly ponder ethical questions, instead of accepting random taboos and idiosyncratic rules as "they way things must be".
Theistic religions seem to be all about retreating to a child-like state of dependency upon larger-than-life parental figures, who imbue existence with strict rules, happy rewards, and awful punishments.
But even apatheistic religions such as Confucianism or some forms of Buddhism are not that much better: Confucianism is just as authoritarian as the more overtly theistic equivalents, firmly believing in and promoting a hierarchical society mandated by "heavenly order", and Buddhism creates a certain disconnect by asserting that our existence is worthless and painful because it is fleeting, and that our first order of business is to escape from it to another state of being.
I prefer a life-affirming, philanthropic world view - not only because it is more compelling, but also because it is considerably more convincing. It makes no sense to me to perceive homo sapiens as a supernaturally broken race, a species in desperate need of a celestial dictator laying down the law, or a mindless horde trapped in illusion. Our shortcomings - and they clearly exist - can be far better explained in terms of psychology, behavioural biology, and anthropology. Analogies with other species alone give us a wealth of information on how instinctual behaviour causes us to act in a way that may not always promote our best (individual or collective) interest.
Removing authoritarianism from the picture also means a HUGE responsibility - and entails the ability to truly ponder ethical questions, instead of accepting random taboos and idiosyncratic rules as "they way things must be".
Upvote
0
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
Things have meaning because we assaign meaning to things. One person's treasure is another's trash.
Upvote
0
Jane_the_Bane
Gaia's godchild
- Feb 11, 2004
- 19,359
- 3,426
- Faith
- Pagan
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
- Politics
- UK-Greens
Exactly. Meaning is not purely individual, however, or else language, religion, or other cultural artifacts would not exist. We create meta-structures that encompass and define whole communities or even our place within the universe - such as religions.
Upvote
0
- Jun 29, 2005
- 5,113
- 2,377
- 58
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Protestant
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Democrat
There has been so much disputation in these matters in the history of Christianity - disagreement among believers living in the same time, and differences in belief between one epoch and another. Tradition cannot save us from having to think, even though it tries with a club in its hand. And finally the tradition will have to change its own mind - look at what the Catholic Church is saying about torture now.
There was a movement in Reformed protestantism called Reconstructionism. It had the goal of establishing Old Testament law in America. These guys were pretty uniform in their beliefs - Orthodox Presbyterian, Post-Mil in eschatology, presuppositional. And the whole thing fell apart in the 1980s because of internal disputes. Human nature to the rescue.
Stability and homogeneity in matters of belief can only be accomplished, temporarily, by methods that no ethical human can defend, and the torment of trying to squelch inquiry in ourselves is unhealthy. There are dozens of posters on CF who abandoned religion because they couldn't bear this any longer. Religious people think that doubt and debate are their enemies, but if they don't accept them they are going to destroy the thing they are defending. This is a plea for realism from a believer.
Upvote
0
Real meaning would not be distinct from something meaningful to us, except that it would be real. It would accord with whatever is more real than our reality, and if that's a personal God it would accord with His will. And it would still feel personal to us.
Partly why I became Christian is that no other way was as compelling, as convincing, or as complete.
To me, that lends them credibility.
We can't decide that something is true because we prefer it. As I said, I prefer cloudyday's nihilism, it's just that I don't believe it's true. By the way, describing things with negative metaphors is not argument, it's glorified name-calling. I could make the Easter Bunny sound bad if I want.
The fact that sin may be naturally explicable only corroborates the idea of sin. Just as, the fact that we can anthropomorphize God corroborates the idea that we are created in His image. We shouldn't put the cart before the horse.
Removing authority means NO responsibility. There are no ethics to ponder. If there's no actual "way", there's no way to stray from the way. You can't break a rule which doesn't exist.
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
If E = mc2 then we can divide and conclude that...Mass (m) = Energy (E/c2)
Natural E/c2 - All mass is basically cooled plasma
Mental E/c2 - Our brains output is a result of E/c2
Spiritual E/c2 - E (motivation, warmth, love) / c2 (faith, hope, charity, joy)
Dust is mass and from that mass the body is made. There is a spiritual energy and light that comes alive with the dust. This is made manifest in most creatures as they exhibit playful qualities such as puppies and kittens. But the spiritual stuff tends to dissipate away with the contact with earthly things and therefore needs purification before it can shine out in its native clarity.
If the spiritual E/c2 has dissipated away leaving you the feeling that all you are is dust in the wind, you need to take proactive steps to rebuild the spirituality that has dissipated away.
Natural E/c2 - All mass is basically cooled plasma
Mental E/c2 - Our brains output is a result of E/c2
Spiritual E/c2 - E (motivation, warmth, love) / c2 (faith, hope, charity, joy)
Dust is mass and from that mass the body is made. There is a spiritual energy and light that comes alive with the dust. This is made manifest in most creatures as they exhibit playful qualities such as puppies and kittens. But the spiritual stuff tends to dissipate away with the contact with earthly things and therefore needs purification before it can shine out in its native clarity.
If the spiritual E/c2 has dissipated away leaving you the feeling that all you are is dust in the wind, you need to take proactive steps to rebuild the spirituality that has dissipated away.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
