GeneralThis forum is for non-technical general discussion which can include both Linux and non-Linux topics. Have fun!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Again this argument? Watch video for it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0A_iF1B3k0
However this still does not explain why holy books exist nor that there was|were no force(s) from which humans and other life originated. If it was Aliens then it makes perfect sense why we don't understand ancient scripture...yet.
Arcane you are truly an enigma. I was impressed with your choice of video as it is simple, concise, and quite accurate.... and best of all funny (if in an ultimately sad way).
Since you seem capable of critical thought let me toss this concept your way. None of the atoms making up the molecules that all together make a system known to yourself as you are "alive", in the manner in which modern humans define that word.... yet, the whole you is obviously alive, even by that limited definition. This definition of the word "alive" is nearly as subjective as the God discussed as portrayed in the video you linked.
Since we have recently discovered entities that fit that definition in environments previously thought untenable, these are referred to as "extremophiles". Do you see that these are extreme only from the point of view of humans and we are apparently still struggling to maintain some level of a human ego-centric view of the Universe, when more and more we see that we are not at the center and very likely, not particularly special, except to ourselves and possibly thousands of species we have caused or helped cause to go extinct? How would we possibly imagine or comprehend a consciousness created, say within stars if they existed? Is it correct to dismiss that possibility just because it is so far beyond our understanding? especially when scientists have yet to fully understand our own consciousness and why it has proven to be an evolutionary advantage to awaken every morning with "you" once again, fully assembled and functioning more or less as always.
There is no shame in not knowing it all. There is no need to subscribe what we don't know very well to "Aliens" partly since interstellar distances are unimaginably vast but the bottom line is that it is just one more "Deus ex Machina". Furthermore, it is not at all likely that "Ancients" knew more about the Universe than modern humans (the opposite is far more in evidence) so there is little value in trying to understand so-called Holy Books which in all likelihood is just gibberish.... musings at best. You even posted a link previously to one famous one. Please remember that all cults rely on even the Inner Circle not knowing the whole story, let alone the mere masses. They depend on Occult, which means literally "hidden". If you can get people to endlessly focusing on working an unsolvable problem, while they are so engaged you can steal them blind and control them and that's what all power organizations are about - creating a lockstep that benefits the top few in power.
Here's a little graphic on just how vast our Milky Way Galaxy is, and it is exponentially an even more vast leap into the inter galactic.... the mind boggles. Radio waves travel at roughly the speed of light or approximately 299,792,458 meters / second, or roughly circumnavigating Planet Earth almost 8 times in one second. Just that alone is mind boggling. Now consider that radio waves have been traveling out from planet earth since the 1930's, so over 80 years now (roughly 3,000,000,000 seconds or 24,000,000,000 times around the Earth), never slowing, always traveling at this incredible speed. This is how far they have reached so far.... and no, you cannot see it in the thumbnail, not even with a very powerful magnifying glass. To see it's true scale you will need to click the link. I sincerely hope you enjoy it as we are, at the very least, a part of something unbelievably vast.
Arcane you are truly an enigma. I was impressed with your choice of video as it is simple, concise, and quite accurate.... and best of all funny (if in an ultimately sad way).{...}
Once again you missed my point(s). We should be pursuing real truth not dogma and BIASed stuff even if it means getting hands and legs dirty.
As for your galaxy response here is nice quote from some article:
Quote:
The most important thing in life to keep in mind is anything is possible. Out of the billions of people that have lived on the earth since the beginning of man , only a few have ever even left the planet. We do not know what goes on trillions of lightyears away from us . We are young and have a lot to learn as a species. Just 500 years ago, people thought earth was a cube and that you'd fall off. This shows how primitive we still are .
A cube? Who believed that? The ancient Greeks thought Earth was a globe. Some people may have believed it was a flat disk. It's an oblate spheroid. Religions are dogmatic, science is not. Nobody knows "The Truth".
Once again you missed my point(s). We should be pursuing real truth not dogma and BIASed stuff even if it means getting hands and legs dirty.
As for your galaxy response here is nice quote from some article:
Secrets of the Illuminati? Why do you waste your time and your mind on such trivial, fringey and often hysterical material? Also, just how are "ancient holy books" any more likely to be enlightening than real exploration, that gathers evidence and grows a body of knowledge?
Most importantly it is absolutely untrue that "anything is possible" in any practical sense. While it may be mathematically impossible to rule out anything, especially since the advent of Quantum Theory, logic still does prevail. For example, mathematically it can never reach zero possibility that one moment if you jump you will suddenly find yourself on the moon, but the odds are so infinitesimally small you could jump every second for 100,000,000,000 years and never have this event occur. OTOH, evidence shows that, without assistance, 1-2 meters is as much as you can expect, assuming you're in good physical shape and maybe had some training.
A simpler example - There are computers, classrooms, websites etc. that have computed pi to many times more that 100,000 digits and still it does not repeat. However, if you wish to create a really precise circle even 3.1415 is a little more than you need. 3.14 will do nicely even for very precise work.
There's nothing wrong about getting one's hands dirty, provided you wash them before you rub your eyes.
Yep.
There's a 14th Century map of Oldham, shows an irregular piece of land surrounded by seven stone crosses. That land belonged to the Hospitallers. When the Templars were disbanded and many executed, a few joined the Hospitallers and one brought the Grail to Oldham.
If you draw two lines on that map from two pairs of opposing crosses, where they intersect, that's where it's buried. But which crosses of the seven do you choose?
Huh? I presumed you did know Him from what you said. If that isn't correct, sorry for the mistake. Regardless of that, the warnings from Paul are not, in my opinion, instructions to turn your brain off. How could they be: worship The Lord with your heart soul strength and mind. It's all of the above, not multiple choice [...] Paul was presumably referring to the Torah, though I believe what he writes applies to any scripture. Whether or not you accept his writings as such is your choice.
"Heck, yeah, it is 'my choice,'" when such things come to that. And, may it always be so.
"Paul of Tarsus" is probably the most-obvious figurehead for the then-prevailing Roman State that any 'holy book' could have presumed to have included. He, on the one hand, claims to be "a Pharisee," (even though Jesus of Nazareth was never too-keen on the ways of 'Pharisees,' and even though Paul never particularly acted like a real one ...) but then, when the going got tough, he dropped this pretense and demanded to speak to "Caesar, himself." As was [always ...] his birthright!! Huh. Not exactly the sort of person that, I would wager, would know a terrific amount about "the Torah" that was held so dear by people who ... to the ruling Romans, were at-beast a backward people on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, comfortably far-away from Italy and, quite frankly, "just the sort of political assignment that you'd strive to out-grow as soon as possible."
Although we can't say that we ever "knew" Paul of Tarsus, well, "actions speak louder than words."
And now, let us consider the "craven, political, mass-crowd-control" aspects of all this. I am, first of all, quite sure that, at the time he wrote these words, he never considered that he was referring to ... his own words. However, another compiler, working (for what was left of The State) perhaps hundreds-of-years after the death of Sir Paul, would have no such scruples. Working, perhaps, under charter of the Roman State, his (or, her ...) task might have been to craft throw-backs to this ancient Judaic religion into a "self-irrefutable" instrument of Imperial Control that, as history would have it, out-lived the Roman Empire by several centuries ("so far").
(Surprised? Don't be. Please don't pretend.)
And this is why I simply suggest: "take any 'holy book' simply for what it is." Warts and All.™ Disregard the self-serving "dire warnings" that it may or may not contain, and ... look, look carefully, for the words and the intentions of: Deity. After all, human beings for many thousands of years have treasured This Book (among others, but yes, particularly this one), and have pored over it "every day and every night." Is it proper to think "they did not see these questionable-bits?" Is it proper to think that "they were just Ignorant?" "No," I think, "and No."
The Holy Bible™ does speak to the innermost heart of ... millions of ... people, every day. Just as it has done for millenia. Yes, in spite of(!) the things that I have suggested. In other words, "Warts And All™," and regardless of those 'intrusions into the epidermis' ... there is ... something here ... which transcends all of these things.
Many other 'holy books' have a similar property. For civilizations around this planet which had nothing to do with: "The Mediterranean Sea circa 500-100 AD."
"They must have been on to something ... something profound ... perchance some 'Foolishness of God' that effortlessly lays waste to?"
Hey ... it's something to think about.
Perhaps, "Have Faith" and "Lean Not To Your Own Understanding" go hand-in-hand, even to the point that ... you have no alternative.
"Selah ... just sayin'."
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 08-05-2014 at 10:57 PM.
Similarly, many members of the LDS church are not considered Christians by mainline and evangelicals because of the Nicene Creed, among other things, for example, their rejection of the New Testament other than the Gospels.
Sorry to nitpick but last time I checked, both the LDS and most Nicaea-derived denominations accepted all 27 books of the New Testament as scriptural.
I do agree with the wider point that there are multiple definitions of Christianity, as there are for some other things people get passionate about, such as "open source" or "science."
On a sort-of-related note,
Quote:
Originally Posted by brianL
Religions are dogmatic, science is not.
As a teenager I had some generally good science teachers whose main vice was a tendancy to answer questions with the phrase "You don't need to know that." Meanwhile, I was attending a church that taught the importance of study and "finding out for yourself" rather than relying on others' opinions, even if the "others" were prophets or apostles.
If I hadn't been so interested in science I would probably have concluded that science was dogmatic but religion was not - an opinion which would be reinforced by at least some of the "scientists" who appear on TV.
Sorry to nitpick but last time I checked, both the LDS and most Nicaea-derived denominations accepted all 27 books of the New Testament as scriptural.
Really? I didn't know that. Well, I'm not an expert by any means, so I'll take your word for it. [EDIT] or better yet, I'll check the lds.org site, and there it is. My apologies to any LDS folks out there.
However, the last time I asked a LDS member (and one who goes to Church every Sunday) about something in the book of Acts or about Paul's letters (we were talking about something else, I forget what) he said "Who's Paul?", a response that would be inconceivable in just about any Christian who goes to church every Sunday. But perhaps Paul is rarely taught, and it would be like asking a typical Christian about Malachi or Melchizedek. I'll have to ask him again, maybe he was pulling my leg.
Quote:
(Surprised? Don't be. Please don't pretend.)
By what do you suppose I would be surprised?
@suicidaleggroll: interesting, I particularly liked the Darwin & Newton quotes, not sure I agreed with the main point.
Last edited by mostlyharmless; 08-06-2014 at 03:08 PM.
Reason: lds.org reference
A cube? Who believed that?
{...}Religions are dogmatic, science is not.{...}
I dunno but i saw many example pages on web of title "What if earth was cube".
Oh is that so? Then tell me how can science explain chakra system with evolution? This is easy accessible to try and test for ourselves and it actually involves some creation into it. Still no answer on this. Chakras support creation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by enorbet
{...}Why do you waste your time and your mind on such trivial, fringey and often hysterical material?
{...}There's nothing wrong about getting one's hands dirty, provided you wash them before you rub your eyes.
Waste time how? I was browsing for something similar and search results gave me that website aswell and since it contained quotes i needed i quoted it instead.
And there is nothing wrong with built-in human potential aswell so no need to involve technology everywhere as example.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pastychomper
{...}As a teenager I had some generally good science teachers whose main vice was a tendancy to answer questions with the phrase "You don't need to know that." Meanwhile, I was attending a church that taught the importance of study and "finding out for yourself" rather than relying on others' opinions, even if the "others" were prophets or apostles.{...}
Similar story. You should understand then why i try to make people question stuff not believe in it or accept it but simply use human curiosity.
Last edited by Arcane; 08-06-2014 at 01:06 PM.
Reason: more
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.