Religious left? Now that's a meme I would like to spread as well.
Strikes me as an excellent "half way" point between the two extremes.
And in the end, I don't think there would be much difference between a
person on the "religious left" and a "journeyman" like myself. I
probably will never really beleive in God (like, the Christian God), but
that difference is not all that big. (as soon as Christians start
questioning the validity of some parts of what God has to say, the
difference grows quite small)
> >makes a lot more sense. A quick question here: when abouts was the Old
> >Testament written?
>
> Debateable. The first five books are the oldest, commissioned by King
> David, many years BCE. I don't have my book with me that has the projected
> dates, but I seem to remember it was in the four-digits BCE. The later
> books of the OT were written around 500-300 BCE, with much of the Apocrapha
> (included in the Catholic Bible) written in the intertestamental period.
> Much of the NT was written in about a fifty-year time span (again, a
> poor-memory guess, I'll have to dig out my biblical history book).
I'd just like to say that time spans like these really boggle my mind...
a thousand years is so long a period of time that I'll probably never
grasp it. All I can say is that it's obvious that the Bible is one damn
powerful meme-group.
> >Because I know that quite a bit of the
> >Bible actually contains "ends" (morals, ethics, whatever) that are quite
> >useful and which I do use to guide my life... it's just that there are
> >so many other parts I can't agree with that I cannot accept it whole.
>
> No-one can, honestly. It's completely impossible to. Too much change and
> contradiction. It only makes sense if read as a development of philosophy,
> not a philosophy in itself.
A good friend of mine claims it's all "the Truth." I keep trying to
point out that the Bible actually contradicts itself at several points,
but of course that has no effect. Because faith is /above/ reason. I
found a neat little thing to demonstrate:
Q: Can God create a stone He cannot lift?
A 1: yes. Therefore God cannot lift the stone and is thus not
omnipotent
A 2: no. Therefore God cannot do something and is thus not omnipotent
And so neither of the /rational/ answers are acceptable if God is to
remain omnipotent. That's why a Christian must answer thusly:
A 3: the question is invalid because it assumes God is bound by
rationality. And God is not rational. Or, within the framework of the
question: God can both create a stone He cannot lift, /and lift it
too/! No contradiction.
This actually fits into recient discussions here: it is one of those
questions you can ask that are /not directly confrontational/. The
question sort of squirms around the edges and reveals a basic "truth"
(hehe) about religion and it's assumptions. Anybody else got a good
question?
> >in with Scientific Pantheism. But actually equating the super-organism
> >with God? Where does that lead?
>
> Radical Progressivism? Socialism? Also to ancient Eastern religions (since
> that's where I stole the idea from, basically).
I just got the classic book on Zen out of the library... gimme a week or
so and I'll see.
> >> Perhaps this is an appropriate place to bring up the PromiseKeepers?
> >
> >"Ignorance is Bliss" -- but I abandoned bliss a long time ago. It's
> >just that ignorance is so huge, and my knowledge base is soooo small.
> >What, praytell, are PromiseKeepers?
>
> Best to look for yourselves: www.promisekeepers.org. Watch for falling
> swastikas.
>
> >Since I view the actual act of writting it as more important than the
> >final written material, I'd say that he /has/ written. The fact that
> >there is no audience involved does not mean that memes have not been
> >active inside the authors head. (and on the paper)
>
> This is something I'll have to think about. I generally see memes as acting
> between individuals. I'll do some consideration as to internal acts of
> memes...
The way I see it, the paper and his mind actually /are/ two
individuals. I know when I'm writting that if I leave it for a while
and come back it seems as if someone else has written it... and then
those written meme's act on me as if from an outside source. But
something that's even deeper than that is so called "level 3." Since
last night, I've been thinking about it some more, and have decided that
there are actually /two/ different things contained in my message of
last night. First, there is "level 3" which is "meme space flexing on
the fly" As I see it, this would be like having the ability to have two
conpletely differnet "level 2" personalities with different memes and
switching between them. I can do this. But what I can't do is acheive
the higher level where I am aware of /both/ of these views at once and
understand that they are different sides of the same truth. So if you
like, the writer in the forest is actually composed of different "level
2" people and the meme's act between these "people"
> BTW: Thanks for de-lurking.
My pleasure.
ERiC
"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being
said." -- Peter F. Drucker