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JDaniel
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Rossum:
If you didn’t do it purposefully, you would tend to do it involuntarily.
God bless,
jd
If you didn’t do it purposefully, you would tend to do it involuntarily.
God bless,
jd
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rossum
Guest
I know that Christians believe it is so, but I am not Christian. I am Buddhist and the gods are just another type of living being. I have lived as a god in the past and I will live as a god in the future during some of my many lifetimes. There is no difference between the life of gods and the life of animals and humans. All may be reincarnated as one of the others.
ID very carefully stays away from making explicitly religious statements and keeps their designer(s) well separated from any religious ideas. From an official ID point of view it is perfectly legitimate to apply the ID methods to God.
Here is a god describing himself from the Brahmajala sutta:“I am the Brahma, the great Brahma, the conqueror, the unconquered, the all-seeing, the subjector of all to his wishes, the omnipotent, the maker, the creator, the supreme, the controller, the one confirmed in the practice of jhana, and father to all that have been and shall be.”
– Brahmajala sutta, Digha Nikaya 1
Does that god sound familiar? Omnipotent, creator, all-seeing, supreme, father to all?
Buddhism acknowledges tens of thousands of gods, but none of them are of any real importance. That includes the Brahma who was speaking above.
rossum
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Charlemagne_II
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rossum
Buddhism acknowledges tens of thousands of gods, but none of them are of any real importance. That includes the Brahma who was speaking above.
So if none of them are of any importance, why call them gods?
Buddhism acknowledges tens of thousands of gods, but none of them are of any real importance. That includes the Brahma who was speaking above.
So if none of them are of any importance, why call them gods?
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buffalo
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Oh Boy, I forgot about this thread.
Where are we now?
Where are we now?
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rossum
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rossum
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They aren’t, they are called ‘deva’. It is the translation that calls them gods (small-g). The Sanskrit/Pali deva is cognate with the Latin deus hence the chosen translation.So if none of them are of any importance, why call them gods?
Christian assumptions are not always valid in Buddhism.
rossum
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buffalo
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Aaahhhhh- incoherent (&))(**()(.We’re in the Dog and Duck and you’ve just had your 47th pint. Your round.
rossum
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JDaniel
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As a Buddhist, your concept of g_d is quite different from ours. Ours stems from 10 - 12 thousand years of history, culminating in the canon of the books of the Bible. By the way, the word, Bible, is a plural word. It means “books.”
We start with Adam and Eve, Seth and Cain, Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, through Israel in Egypt, through the conquest of Canaan, through Boaz and Samuel, Saul, King David and Solomon, through Daniel and Ezekiel, through the return of the Jews and the building of the new temple, on through the New Testament times. All throughout these times, hundreds (perhaps thousands) of people we were given Divine Revelation. This Revelation indicates a coherence of the Old Covenant as it transforms into the New Covenant and follows throughout said 10 - 12 thousand years. This Revelation (and its Covenants) points to One Infinite God, with a capital “G”, and not multitudinous g_ds.
And, we’re supposed to throw all of that out, and hang onto a concept that admits to millions of g_ds, none of whom are very important, who puff themselves up to more importance than all of them could possibly have - especially together - and none of which can account for the singular act of Creation and a totally different relationship between God and all living things?
To some extent, yes, but, underpinning it is the fact that it has as its purpose, to prove the existence of God.
As I said above.
Just a plethora of fiction?
God bless,
jd
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rossum
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You are correct, as a Buddhist my concepts are very different from yours. You really need to check up on the Buddhist concept of history before you try to impress with a mere 12 thousand years. Gautama Buddha was just the latest in a series of Buddhas. The previous Buddha, Kashyapa Buddha, lived at least 10,000 years before Gautama Buddha. We have a list of 29 Buddhas going back to Dipankara Buddha who was a very long time before Kashyapa Buddha. Gautama Buddha is number 28 with Maitreya Buddha, who has not arrived yet, as number 29; he is due in about 5,000 years or so. Timescales in Indian scriptures: Hindu, Jain and Buddhist, far exceed the timescales in Hebrew scriptures. I might also point out that the size of the universe described in Indian scriptures far exceeds the size of the universe described in Hebrew scriptures. In both cases the Indian version is closer to the universe revealed by modern science.
No. I am merely pointing out that I have a very different set of concepts and that you cannot assume either that I agree with your concepts or that your concepts are automatically correct.
I disagree. The purpose of ID is to get a disguised form of creationism into science classes in American public schools. See the Wedge Document.
No, just a plethora of immaterial living beings. Do you deny that immaterial living beings exist? You appear to be doing so.
rossum
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buffalo
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Aren’t we interested in the truth? Shouldn’t the truth be taught to children everywhere?
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rossum
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I have no objection to teaching ID in Comparative Religion lessons or in Philosophy lessons. I do object to it being taught in Science lessons because it is not science. I am not saying that it should not be taught. I am saying that it should not be taught as science because it is currently not science.
We don’t teach French irregular verbs in History lessons. Keep the correct subjects in the correct lessons.
rossum
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JDaniel
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Rossum:
What has been very interesting to me, for many years now, is how many variations of “truth” arise from Buddhist thought. Besides perhaps a trillion different g_ds, and a number of different forms, there are derivatives, such as Eckankar and Scientology, claiming our attention for the truth of things. It’s so hard to separate fact from fiction, in Buddhism. I’m not surprised that Buddhism speaks to many different and varying time periods, and universe sizes. It’s very hard to take any of it seriously. I’m not disparaging it, just stating a few of our obvious disagreements with it.
I don’t.
Well, that may be the outward purpose, but, the real undergirding is to try to maintain a semblance of America’s God in science, since it was removed against the will of the majority some years ago.
Not at all. But, I do not confuse what living means when speaking of the two exigencies. An immaterial thing cannot be living in the biological sense.
God bless,
jd
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rossum
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Then America will cease to do science. Science is areligious; it does not conform to the doctrines of any religion. Besides I don’t think that an American god like Coyote/Trickster or Kokopelli is likely to be very interested in modern science.
Immaterial things can be alive, and ID claims to be able to detect design in life. Their methods are perfectly applicable to at least some forms of immaterial life. I have done some such calculations of CSI myself so I know that they are possible.
rossum
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Charlemagne_II
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I do object to it being taught in Science lessons because it is not science. I am not saying that it should not be taught. I am saying that it should not be taught as science because it is currently not science.
Then abiogenesis should not be taught either in science, because there is no science that can prove abiogenesis occurred without being designed. The prospects of accidental abiogenesis are so unlikely as to be nigh onto impossible. No experiment has ever proven that abiogenesis can happen on its own. While evolution at least shows a trail of events that strongly suggest the theory is true, there is absolutely no evidence that shows how life began.
So science books will have to hide the business of abiogenesis as a fact of nature. That should please the atheists very much!
Then abiogenesis should not be taught either in science, because there is no science that can prove abiogenesis occurred without being designed. The prospects of accidental abiogenesis are so unlikely as to be nigh onto impossible. No experiment has ever proven that abiogenesis can happen on its own. While evolution at least shows a trail of events that strongly suggest the theory is true, there is absolutely no evidence that shows how life began.
So science books will have to hide the business of abiogenesis as a fact of nature. That should please the atheists very much!
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grannymh
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I’m curious. "What forms of immaterial life are you referring to? Thank you.
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rossum
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In general to the various gods, devas, kinnaras, mahoragas, spirits, angels, devils, pretas, ghoulies, ghosites and things that go bump in the night.
The calculation specifically referred to the Abrahamic God, see God and the Explanatory Filter.
rossum
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JDaniel
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Essentially, what you are trying to show is that an EF for God is absurd, therefore, an EF for physical life on earth is absurd. Your EF tome is like a comic book, naming concepts familiar to most Christians, but, almost completely unfamiliar to Buddhists, and you. The definitions and meanings you assign to our Christian God are designed to approximate your understanding of Buddhist g_ds. There is no common footing upon which to base any argument. Therefore, it is close to useless to try to convince you, and it is useless to try to convince us. We’re talking past each other. All that does is perpetuate debate.
You should go, instead, to a Buddhist website and debate which of the Buddhist g_ds is the better, or best, one.
God bless,
jd
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grannymh
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I can’t decide if the humor of the link is meant to be that or if it is my own crazy sense of humor which kicks in without rhyme or reason.
It is the link’s conclusion which interested me – in addition to the false assumption that the Abrahamic God resides in the general biological category of living organisms normally associated with space and time.
This is the conclusion:
“Given the wider aims of the ID movement it is amusing to see that Dembski’s Explanatory Filter appears to give support to the atheist argument that God was designed by humans. I am more inclined to think that either the EF is flawed or that this is an example of a false positive for the EF.”
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rossum
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I certainly intended to put the humour in there. I am glad you noticed it. The website filed it under “Serious Notions with a Smile” which is what I intended. My “Proposal for Theistic Design Detector” falls into the same category.
I merely applied Dembski’s Explanatory Filter to God. Dembski claims that his EF applies to far more than just biological organisms. If you have a problem with such an application of the EF then talk to Dr Dembski. He himself applies the filter to a non-biological object, a series of supposedly random draws, see The Explanatory Filter.
ID is hoist with its own petard. They have carefully gone through their creationist literature taking out all the Bible verses and replacing God with the designer. Hence they cannot complain if people separate God from the designer (who could be space aliens of course). Given that God and the designer are separate for the purposes of rhetoric then it is not surprising if some people use that difference to show up the weaknesses in the ID position.
It is worth noting that Dembski himself does not seem to have done much work on his EF recently, despite the many criticisms it has received. I suspect that it is going the way of CSI and IC and is going to be quietly dropped in favour of the current “teach the controversy” and “strengths and weaknesses of evolution”.
rossum
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buffalo
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America will not stop doing science, but maybe the NCSE would be de-funded.
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