General Music Chat

the atheists love these kinds of discussions, comparing apples and oranges.

evolution, realistically is not a theory, it is really just an educated guess.
and it dose maintain it self in contrast to the laws of physics.

it is stagnant and cannot move forward. because it dose not predict a phenomenon that will prove the theorem.

the garden fable in the bible is an introduction to the the relationship between God and man.

although the bible dose touch on the creation of creation.
evolution cannot make this claim, it is a rather clumsy poking about in the day to day operation of the machine.

I am not really sure why religions people fall for this comparison.

JC, consider the following:

1) The physical universe has tacit limits. For example There is Hot, and Cold. There is no other state of tempature that exceeds these limits... Gradients, yes. That just means Hotter or Colder.
2) The smallest particle (quark?) is a building block, succeeded by atoms and molecules, and so on.

3 Mass of the Earth has direct correlation to magnitude of gravity. Add more more mass... feel more gravity.

These are but a few points to illustrate that certain properties of physical universe ( and what we have thus far defined) are indisputable.

With these indisputable properties, the universe sets a reliable and consistent stage for the possibility of beginning life, developing life and ending life. These too are indisputable facts about life, ( as life is unequivocally suceptable to these laws).

SO far, we still cant explain the beginning of life (though we have ideas about it) or The developing of life. We all have no doubts about the ending of life.

Its futile to assign explanation of Creationism in terms of the 'properties' of the physical universe. We still don't really know of we have captured and understood ALL the properties /and contexts of the universe. In fact, I still contend that we are a limited filter, which only recognizes a very small slice of the bigger pie called reality. I personally don't think we are built to handle all reality. There is evedence of this by the mere fact we cant even handle local realities.

The question remains...whats on the other side of our filter?

All eternal things require cloaks to represent them in the physical world.
because you cannot show an eternal.
you can only point to it's effect on the natural world.

what sort of explanation were you looking for?


I suppose I should add (for the uninitiated) that these effects are only registered on the soul,
it's quite stupid looking for sunburned fish on the bottom of the ocean.

I was hoping you would say the talking snake was Quetzalcoatl

ok, for starters, I am NOT an atheist, and NOT an agnostic, but believe in some sort of Spirit that created the Universe(and perhaps multiple universes?) but please explain the talking snake in the Garden of Eden?

Scholars investigating the Nag Hammadi find discovered that some of the texts tell the origin of the human race in terms very different from the usual reading of Genesis: the Testimony of Truth, for example, tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of the serpent! Here the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve to partake of knowledge while "the Lord" threatens them with death, trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it. Another text, mysteriously entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, offers an extraordinary poem spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin....
I am the barren one, and many are her sons....
I am the silence that is incomprehensible....
I am the utterance of my name.

These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems, and quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to myths, magic, and instructions for mystical practice.

Why were these texts buried-and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them. Bishop Irenaeus, who supervised the church in Lyons, c. 180, wrote five volumes, entitled The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge, which begin with his promise to set forth the views of those who are now teaching heresy . . . to show how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements . . . I do this so that . . . you may urge all those with whom you are connected to avoid such an abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ.

He denounces as especially "full of blasphemy" a famous gospel called the Gospel of Truth. Is Irenaeus referring to the same Gospel of Truth discovered at Nag Hammadi' Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Truth, argued that he is; one of their critics maintains that the opening line (which begins "The gospel of truth") is not a title. But Irenaeus does use the same source as at least one of the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi--the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John--as ammunition for his own attack on such "heresy." Fifty years later Hippolytus, a teacher in Rome, wrote another massive Refutation of All Heresies to "expose and refute the wicked blasphemy of the heretics."

This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of the Emperor Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became an officially approved religion in the fourth century, Christian bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them. Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone; possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St. Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction--in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.

ok, for starters, I am NOT an atheist, and NOT an agnostic, but believe in some sort of Spirit that created the Universe(and perhaps multiple universes?) but please explain the talking snake in the Garden of Eden?

That would likely make you a deist, wouldn't it?

if deist means what I think it means, no.. since I believe it means a world based on evil & good, yes/no, or a world of a dualistic nature..

ok, for starters, I am NOT an atheist, and NOT an agnostic, but believe in some sort of Spirit that created the Universe(and perhaps multiple universes?) but please explain the talking snake in the Garden of Eden?

Scholars investigating the Nag Hammadi find discovered that some of the texts tell the origin of the human race in terms very different from the usual reading of Genesis: the Testimony of Truth, for example, tells the story of the Garden of Eden from the viewpoint of the serpent! Here the serpent, long known to appear in Gnostic literature as the principle of divine wisdom, convinces Adam and Eve to partake of knowledge while "the Lord" threatens them with death, trying jealously to prevent them from attaining knowledge, and expelling them from Paradise when they achieve it. Another text, mysteriously entitled The Thunder, Perfect Mind, offers an extraordinary poem spoken in the voice of a feminine divine power:

For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin....
I am the barren one, and many are her sons....
I am the silence that is incomprehensible....
I am the utterance of my name.

These diverse texts range, then, from secret gospels, poems, and quasi-philosophic descriptions of the origin of the universe, to myths, magic, and instructions for mystical practice.

Why were these texts buried-and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them. Bishop Irenaeus, who supervised the church in Lyons, c. 180, wrote five volumes, entitled The Destruction and Overthrow of Falsely So-called Knowledge, which begin with his promise to set forth the views of those who are now teaching heresy . . . to show how absurd and inconsistent with the truth are their statements . . . I do this so that . . . you may urge all those with whom you are connected to avoid such an abyss of madness and of blasphemy against Christ.

He denounces as especially "full of blasphemy" a famous gospel called the Gospel of Truth. Is Irenaeus referring to the same Gospel of Truth discovered at Nag Hammadi' Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Truth, argued that he is; one of their critics maintains that the opening line (which begins "The gospel of truth") is not a title. But Irenaeus does use the same source as at least one of the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi--the Apocryphon (Secret Book) of John--as ammunition for his own attack on such "heresy." Fifty years later Hippolytus, a teacher in Rome, wrote another massive Refutation of All Heresies to "expose and refute the wicked blasphemy of the heretics."

This campaign against heresy involved an involuntary admission of its persuasive power; yet the bishops prevailed. By the time of the Emperor Constantine's conversion, when Christianity became an officially approved religion in the fourth century, Christian bishops, previously victimized by the police, now commanded them. Possession of books denounced as heretical was made a criminal offense. Copies of such books were burned and destroyed. But in Upper Egypt, someone; possibly a monk from a nearby monastery of St. Pachomius, took the banned books and hid them from destruction--in the jar where they remained buried for almost 1,600 years.

None of this explains anything.

I am aware of all and I know nothing...

if deist means what I think it means, no.. since I believe it means a world based on evil & good, yes/no, or a world of a dualistic nature..

but good and evil are simply inventions of mankind (or their gods). For instance infidelity to some is considered a great evil, but to others is not evil, but simply a natural order. Murder out of anger, jealousy, or rage could be a natural order. Our understanding of good and evil are simply manifestations of our handed-down morals and laws.

We all have a sense of right and wrong, but assuming that there is definitive right and wrong, why don't we all agree on what is right and wrong? The answer is simply because there is no good and evil; only chaos and order.

Since time without beginning, the nature of Awakened Mind and Emptiness has consisted of the same, absolute non-duality of no birth or death, no existence or non-existence, no purity or impurity, no movement or stillness, no young or old, no inside or outside, no shape and form, no sound and color. Neither striving nor searching, one should not use intellect to understand nor words to express Awakened Mind. One should not think that it is a place or things, name or form. One should not think that it is a place or things, name or form. Only then is it realized that all Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and sentient beings possess the same natural state of great Nirvana.

Remember that the body of Buddha is only non-form and non-action, ever crystallizing or materializing into phenomena, just as in the great space of the void nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Do not discern self versus others, if to discriminate in such a way would become illusory knowledge ? i.e., consciousness. So sink into the ocean of complete Perfection Consciousness, flowing, returning and drifting about alone. Merely learn how to be quietly enlightened and liberated. Regarding the view that desires victory and does not desire defeat ? I can only ask, What use is such a view?' I have just advised you that no matter what the usual way of acting or perceiving is, don't let your mind run wild. If you just cease holding any view whatsoever, then it is not necessary to search for truth. In this sense, then, both Buddha and Deva Mara are evil. So Manjusri said: If anyone gives rise to the transient, dualistic view of transcendence and calls it reality, he should be banished to the two iron-enclosing mountains at the very edge of the world.' Manjusri represents the wisdom of reality, while Samantabhadra represents the knowledge of relative truth, for there is only One Mind. Even the Mind itself is neither the nature of Buddha nor of sentient beings. Even if you abruptly have a vision of the Buddha, it is also, simultaneously, a vision of sentient beings. The view that holds to the duality of existence and non-existence and of permanent and impermanent is like being limited by the two iron-enclosing mountains, because understanding and liberation are obstructed by any and all views.

the atheists love these kinds of discussions, comparing apples and oranges.

evolution, realistically is not a theory, it is really just an educated guess.
and it dose maintain it self in contrast to the laws of physics.

it is stagnant and cannot move forward. because it dose not predict a phenomenon that will prove the theorem.

the garden fable in the bible is an introduction to the the relationship between God and man.

although the bible dose touch on the creation of creation.
evolution cannot make this claim, it is a rather clumsy poking about in the day to day operation of the machine.

I am not really sure why religions people fall for this comparison.

JC, consider the following:

1) The physical universe has tacit limits. For example There is Hot, and Cold. There is no other state of tempature that exceeds these limits... Gradients, yes. That just means Hotter or Colder.
2) The smallest particle (quark?) is a building block, succeeded by atoms and molecules, and so on.

3 Mass of the Earth has direct correlation to magnitude of gravity. Add more more mass... feel more gravity.

These are but a few points to illustrate that certain properties of physical universe ( and what we have thus far defined) are indisputable.

With these indisputable properties, the universe sets a reliable and consistent stage for the possibility of beginning life, developing life and ending life. These too are indisputable facts about life, ( as life is unequivocally suceptable to these laws).

SO far, we still cant explain the beginning of life (though we have ideas about it) or The developing of life. We all have no doubts about the ending of life.

Its futile to assign explanation of Creationism in terms of the 'properties' of the physical universe. We still don't really know of we have captured and understood ALL the properties /and contexts of the universe. In fact, I still contend that we are a limited filter, which only recognizes a very small slice of the bigger pie called reality. I personally don't think we are built to handle all reality. There is evedence of this by the mere fact we cant even handle local realities.

The question remains...whats on the other side of our filter?

well I can't really argue with that,
except to say that I can handle anything with a little help,
and there is no such thing as cold, but that's a minor distinction.

All eternal things require cloaks to represent them in the physical world.
because you cannot show an eternal.
you can only point to it's effect on the natural world.

what sort of explanation were you looking for?


I suppose I should add (for the uninitiated) that these effects are only registered on the soul,
it's quite stupid looking for sunburned fish on the bottom of the ocean.

and by "uninitiated" do you mean God has some sort of Secret Society to keep undesirables like me out if that uninitiated comment was aimed at me?

no I mean those of you without a standard christian education
that number is growing, I believe.
it's not intended to be offensive
it is what it is.

All eternal things require cloaks to represent them in the physical world.
because you cannot show an eternal.
you can only point to it's effect on the natural world.

what sort of explanation were you looking for?


I suppose I should add (for the uninitiated) that these effects are only registered on the soul,
it's quite stupid looking for sunburned fish on the bottom of the ocean.

I was hoping you would say the talking snake was Quetzalcoatl

that's a very different idea altogether.

besides,
you do not appear to be Aztec, why would you hope that they were the same?

if deist means what I think it means, no.. since I believe it means a world based on evil & good, yes/no, or a world of a dualistic nature..

but good and evil are simply inventions of mankind (or their gods). For instance infidelity to some is considered a great evil, but to others is not evil, but simply a natural order. Murder out of anger, jealousy, or rage could be a natural order. Our understanding of good and evil are simply manifestations of our handed-down morals and laws.

We all have a sense of right and wrong, but assuming that there is definitive right and wrong, why don't we all agree on what is right and wrong? The answer is simply because there is no good and evil; only chaos and order.

Most cultures arrive at The Golden Rule on their own.
That's about as universal a concept of good / evil as you're ever gonna get.

if deist means what I think it means, no.. since I believe it means a world based on evil & good, yes/no, or a world of a dualistic nature..

but good and evil are simply inventions of mankind (or their gods). For instance infidelity to some is considered a great evil, but to others is not evil, but simply a natural order. Murder out of anger, jealousy, or rage could be a natural order. Our understanding of good and evil are simply manifestations of our handed-down morals and laws.

We all have a sense of right and wrong, but assuming that there is definitive right and wrong, why don't we all agree on what is right and wrong? The answer is simply because there is no good and evil; only chaos and order.

well,
that's easy to say at a distance,
but good and evil are very real indeed, of course we all know this.
when the wolves are ripping your guts out,
or the local magistrate is raping your wife, try calling it good.
see if that makes it right with your soul.

what your referring to is tolerance and control, not morals.

All eternal things require cloaks to represent them in the physical world.
because you cannot show an eternal.
you can only point to it's effect on the natural world.

what sort of explanation were you looking for?


I suppose I should add (for the uninitiated) that these effects are only registered on the soul,
it's quite stupid looking for sunburned fish on the bottom of the ocean.

I was hoping you would say the talking snake was Quetzalcoatl

that's a very different idea altogether.

besides,
you do not appear to be Aztec, why would you hope that they were the same?

I do not see that it's a different idea if the symbolisim about the talking snake (SERPENT) in The Garden of Eden is the same FEATHERED SERPENT known as Quetzalcoatl..surely you see the correlations between Aztec/Mayan Culture and Sumerian/Egyptian culture? examples being elaborate headdresses, 365 day annual calendars, pyramids, mathematical knowledge on par with each other?...coincidence? Not likely..they are oceans apart and thousands of miles separation.. but since The Serpent myth in the Old Testament is passed down from Sumerian knowledge I can see why.. read the Codex of Borgia

if deist means what I think it means, no.. since I believe it means a world based on evil & good, yes/no, or a world of a dualistic nature..

but good and evil are simply inventions of mankind (or their gods). For instance infidelity to some is considered a great evil, but to others is not evil, but simply a natural order. Murder out of anger, jealousy, or rage could be a natural order. Our understanding of good and evil are simply manifestations of our handed-down morals and laws.

We all have a sense of right and wrong, but assuming that there is definitive right and wrong, why don't we all agree on what is right and wrong? The answer is simply because there is no good and evil; only chaos and order.

well,
that's easy to say at a distance,
but good and evil are very real indeed, of course we all know this.
when the wolves are ripping your guts out,
or the local magistrate is raping your wife, try calling it good.
see if that makes it right with your soul.

what your referring to is tolerance and control, not morals.

everything happens for a reason, if my guts are getting ripped out by wolves would not necessitate it being evil but only as "payback time"

well, make the comparison,
you are intimating that you know.


I see them as very different myths altogether, true they both have a snakes in the story
but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that the intended lesson is the same.