Suffer the little children...

[BlueSky_TheMan]

I hope so..

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

I wonder if marichicko is taking all our great advice to heart.

Heh! I haven't checked in on the board for a few days, and I'm impressed at the discussion my question has inspired.

My father and his family were devout Christians and I was raised in a denomination called the Disciples of Christ or "The First Christians." If I ever was to go back to the Christian Church, it would be as a Disciple of Christ. They're actually pretty cool. There's no special catechism or set of beliefs that you are expected to learn. The Disciples believe that God speaks to each one of us directly just as Jesus did to the first Christians - his disciples. All you do is read the Bible and pray and come to your own understanding of God. They believe that NO ONE can stand between you and God. The minister of the congregation IS the congregation.

I don't get all this stuff about hellfire and damnation and never will. I think there most likely is an "Intelligence of the Universe" for lack of better words. I think this Intelligence is difficult to describe or define, and we each have our own personal understanding of it or lack of understanding.

Its all good, as far as I'm concerned. But I have difficulty with someone who believes that infants go to hell or that sex outside of marriage is fornication which will be punished by an eternity of flame. I feel sorry for people who have been brain washed into believing such things. Its one reason I feel that my current fling is not going to go anywhere. I am very uncomfortable with a person who espouses such beliefs, even though he seems like a decent and kind man in other ways.

We've already clashed a few times on the subject and have both agreed not to bring up the topic anymore. I've tried to reason with him on the matter out of compassion as much as anything. Like Dana's grandfather, he is convinced he's going to hell when he dies. Too bad.

[firebasegullo]

It is better to be thought a fool than to speak and leave no doubt.

[Pangloss62]

Eu amo hovos!!!

[Pangloss62]

the good and the kindly have this habit of believing there's more.

I just don't think there is "more," and why does there need to be? Can't goodness and kindness be manifestations of our brains' ability to remember, think, and imagine? Materialism does not preclude any acts of kindness or prevent emotions.

What is this "more" of which you speak?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by firebasegullo

It is better to be thought a fool than to speak and leave no doubt.

Chicken. :p
Welcome to the Cellar.

[wolf]

Hi firebase. Welcome aboard.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Like Dana's grandfather, he is convinced he's going to hell when he dies. Too bad.

And if he's indeed a good and decent man, his soul's in for a heck of a shock, no? Wonder how many days of those "...been there ten thousand years..." it'd take him to get over it?

Firebase -- welcome aboard -- I've seen a fairish few of people around here who voluntarily "remove all doubt." Speaking of hell, they catch a lot of it from me -- inasmuch as my doubts are removed. I also try and be encouraging when I see them doing better.

What is this "more" of which you speak?

Well, Pangloss, I guess you're a very devout materialist if you have to ask that one. It's also a very hard question for those with any touch of mysticism in their mental makeup to make any answer to that would persuade the skeptic. I would make a very poor mystic, myself -- just not enough of that in me.

The religious end up talking about faith a lot in response to this kind of question -- which may satisfy the religious but leaves the skeptic either cold or just unmoved. And this is just about the sort of thing I'm going to close this post with, so ain't I unsatisfactory. Thing is, even the most irreligious persons are no strangers to faith -- as a general rule, faith in other persons' integrity.

Science-fiction author Robert A. Heinlein was, and proudly, a determinedly rational atheist. He had no reason that convinced him to expect an afterlife, and finding no proof, he wasn't going to. Now as for me, I hope and expect to meet Robert Heinlein in Heaven.

And I like eggs too. A lot. Passionately.

[Pangloss62]

I presented a paper at the recent American Culture/Popular Culture Association Conference here in Atlanta. My session was in architecture, but I noticed they had a whole session on Heinlein; evidently, that guy has struck a chord with many. I'll have to check him out.

Belief, faith, hope...those words just don't apply much to the way I approach reality. That's doesn't mean I don't laugh, or feel content from time to time, I just see no reason to wish for things I have no control over, especially someone else's integrity (been let down too many times). Whatever happens happens. That's why, like Dr. Pangloss said (and hence my cellar name), "It's the best of all possible worlds."

[BlueSky_TheMan]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

I...

Belief, faith, hope...those words just don't apply much to the way I approach reality. ...."

I wouldn't be too upset at finding Belief, faith, and hope missing from your daily list of experiences. If you've got the Modern, distorted version of those words within your life your probably a walking sack of misery. Feel lucky that your at least finding your own definitions.

Belief.... in ALMOST all cases belief is nothing more than what you've been conditioned to accept as a truth. The conditioning comes from the beliefs of your parents, the beliefs of the religion that you may or may not of had the choice to attend, it comes from the nation you belong to, etc. In short, ANY group that you belong too is pushing some "truth" on you in hopes that you'll accept it and increase their ranks. Belief should be the warmth of understanding that arises when you search inward past your conditioning and all the noise seeking answers.

faith....Many people recognize faith as something your "suppose" to have regardless of any truth of reality that may be proving it wrong. I've received faith in those things that I've found to be completely true within my heart. My insights are proof that gives me faith, I don't try and cultivate faith by crossing my fingers, clicking my heels together, and saying "There's no place like home."

hope...implies something that does not exist, but someday it might. If you have the two items above in the TRUE sense then Hope is never required because you will already have all you need.

[Pangloss62]

If you've got the Modern, distorted version of those words within your life your probably a walking sack of misery.

Well, I'm certainly not that, but I'm incredibly cynical and often stoic.

completely true within my heart.

I see you're a dualist. I'm not a dualist. The only heart I "believe" in is the one that pumps my blood and keeps me alive (for now). "Soul," "heart," "spirit," I don't do those things. And yes, this does lead to my assertion that "free will" does not exist either.

Nonetheless, I'm not a walking sack of misery, much to the chagrin of those who think I should or wish I was because of the way I think. So many assume that I should be miserable when they hear what I say. But I'm not.

I'm a huge fan... just be warned, if incest is something that really puts you off, he may not be your man.

[Pangloss62]

Well, maybe all those people I saw going to that Heinlein session had "something in common." Whether they were victims or perpetrators of incest, I could not tell; maybe neither.

What is special about Heinlein; in a sentence.

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

Well, maybe all those people I saw going to that Heinlein session had "something in common." Whether they were victims or perpetrators of incest, I could not tell; maybe neither.

What is special about Heinlein; in a sentence.

You can't really do that with an artist... he was years ahead of his time, great artists today still pay tribute (copy) to him.
The Heinlein thing with "incest" is that he deals with issues that are common to many in his books. Many siblings close in age go through a "curiosity" period with each other and the Oedipus complex is a real thing for many, even if for a very short time... in some of his books he touches on these things.
Problem is that the sickness of the Victorians is still, very much, with us.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Pangloss62

What is special about Heinlein, in a sentence[?]

A sentence? I think a better, far more complete answer would be to use a whole novel.

I found Starship Troopers a seminal experience in my early teens, but I think I would recommend the even thicker Time Enough For Love, his masterwork, as the what's-special. Like most Heinlein prose, it's transparent and reads easily -- we're not dealing in Frank Herbert epigrams here, but a prose style that doesn't look like a style. It's a speedy read.

It's also probably the work that led rkzenrage to put out that incest teaser -- though a subtheme running through this book is how hard a normally-fertile man who lives eight hundred years has to work to avoid incestuous contacts, by his stern standards, with his remote descendants. It's the avoidance of incest that's the theme, not incest.

The story's almost like something Roger Zelazny might have done -- many of his heroes and villains seem very ordinary people on the surface, but underneath they have something so remarkable as to render them well-nigh freakish. Heinlein's transparent prose, though, isn't the Zelazny near-poetry.