Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

I've never claimed to be more than a low-class devotee, but I think I'm competent enough to present my understanding of Krishna conscous philosophy.

A devotee accepts everything - good and bad- that happens to him as "Krishna's mercy".

I'm not sectarian, though, and I recognize that God consciousness can be developed by sincere followers and leaders in all the major theistic traditions.

Here's an interesting book review about a rabbi's faith:

This month, Rabbi David J. Wolpe, named earlier this year by Newsweek at age 49 as the number one pulpit rabbi in America, published "Why Faith Matters." It is a book in a class by itself, because it combines both intellectual force and lawyer-like accumulation of historical, statistical and other evidence with something equally compelling -- the power of personal example.

Wolpe is the senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and teaches modern Jewish religious thought at UCLA, but he was -- at an important stage in his life -- an ardent atheist. He grew up in a rabbinical family, initially rebelled against a religious future and, influenced by the works of Bertrand Russell, fell into atheism during his college years. He eventually rejected Russell's views decided to try rabbinical school -- "on spec," as he told his friends. One of his brothers predicted it would be "a phase."

His new book is his seventh he has written during the phase. His first book, "The Healer of Shattered Hearts," was a lyrical summary of rabbinic Judaism that established him, in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's words, as "the poet of Jewish theology." His mother's stroke at age 52 led him to write "In Speech and Silence," a book-length meditation on words and song in religion. His most remarkable volume, "Making Loss Matter," described a way of capturing meaning from the most painful moments of life. It was written in the midst of the cancer that struck his wife at age 31, preventing her from bearing further children.

In a column in 2003, Rabbi Wolpe wrote about the Talmud's insistence that we "bless God for the bad as well as the good" -- and later that year lived out that teaching. He collapsed during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, with what was shortly diagnosed as a brain tumor requiring surgery. The tumor was benign, but three years later he learned he had a new malady: lymphoma. He underwent extensive chemotherapy, losing his hair and strength but continuing to give weekly sermons at Sinai Temple throughout. Some of the lessons he learned from those experiences are at the heart of his book.

The faith reflected in his book is thus hard won, arriving after a long journey from atheism, through adversity, to an understanding that gives his book the earned eloquence that comes from a book not simply written but lived. He covers an extraordinarily large array of issues in just 198 pages of text: whether faith is simply projected onto a meaningless world; whether science answers the questions religion once addressed; whether history demonstrates that religion is responsible for numerous wars; whether people would be happier without it; whether evolution can explain self-consciousness; whether evil can be understood; and numerous other issues.

Ultimately he believes that life is at its heart not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be appreciated. The legendary Jewish educator, Shlomo Bardin, was once asked whether he believed God in fact existed. Mr. Bardin's response was "I don't know; I only know that when I see a sunset, I want to say a Psalm." It was an acknowledgement of the limits of human intelligence, the evidence before our eyes, and the power of religious ritual.

Rabbi Wolpe's book continues that theme, effectively conveying that religion is the reasonable response to the wonder we see around us, and to the knowledge that many things -- starting with love -- are things we cannot see. He takes Shlomo Bardin's poetic observation one step further, concluding that "what represents God in this world is neither the sky nor the sanctuary, but the human face" - something Wolpe demonstrates with groups by simply asking them to look into each others' eyes. Perhaps the most eloquent page of his book is his five-word inscription to his wife and child: "All the proof I need."
www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/responding_to_neoatheism.html

[mindmetoo]

[Underwaterbob]

[mindmetoo]

You dodged:

[Rteacher]

Well, I have a large body - and it's evidence against chemical evolution!

More detailed evidence is presented here.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/838
http://www.asa3.org/asa/education/origins/cheme.htm

Here's a small portion of that article:

Quick Summary of Problems with Various Locations for the Origin of Life

1. Deep sea thermal vents

This would be under water and could not allow for polymerization through dehydration synthesis. Furthermore, organic compounds would quickly decompose if exposed to the high heat of deep sea thermal vents.

2. Tide pools (or somewhere in the intertidal zone)

Organic material would still exposed to water, inhibiting polymerization (dehydration-synthesis). Experiments which have mimicked optimal heating and drying conditions near tide pools have only created small to modest amounts of polymers.

3. Anywhere in the ocean

Water prevents polymerization because polymerization cannot take place in the presence of water. According to Le Chateliers principle, chemical reactions do not take place in the presence of large quantities of the product. Plus, the ocean would dilute the chemicals necessary for life.

4. Volcanic Ridges

This scenario encounters the same problems as the tide-pools�it must dry out the �soup� through volcanic heat to allow polymerization. But even if dry monomers could exist in high concentrations under perfect temperature conditions (as occurs only in experiments), experiments suggests the resulting polymers are still too small to allow for the next steps in the origin of life. One reason that the primordial soup was hypothesized is because in such an aqueous environment, there would be a high rate of random chemical interaction. In other words, molecules would always be bumping into new neighbors, increasing the odds that many chemical reactions could take place. Even if the necessary polymers could be produced, here they are outside of water and there will not be a high rate of random chemical interactions to further form complex molecules. However, since the polymerization step can't take place in water, the number of random chemical interactions would be almost infinitely reduced. Instead of trying to make life in a liquid environment, you're now trying to make it in a more solid goo, which is much less congenial to random chemical interactions. How could life originate if the proper molecules have such a small chance of even finding each other? Furthermore, volcanic ridges also face the same problems as deep sea thermal vents as they are very hot and would destroy organic molecules.

5. Clay surfaces

This theory was first proposed about 1400 B.C. by Moses in the book of Genesis. Moses proposed that God created man out of dust, or clay. The theory has also enjoyed a new twist in the 20th century as A. Graham Cairns-Smith, hypothesized that clay crystals could have acted as a template which could allow for the continued creation and replication of organic material. Hypothetically this scenario could create a wide variety of organic molecules, however it lacks any experimental evidence. As there are no experiments, there are no results to judge and no practical problems encountered.

6. Extra-terrestrial Origin See our Problems with Panspermia or Extraterrestrial Origin of Life Scenarios page page.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/849

Re "Underwaterbob's" concern about this world becoming full of people who regard it as a place of death and suffering, I think that any perceptive, thoughtful person can appreciate that's what it is, but one needs to make the best use of a bad bargain.

A spiritually realized person also identifies less with the material body and is less affected by the miseries (and pleasures) associated with it - including death - knowing that the individual soul and consciousness is eternal.

My status as a devotee is lower-middle class at best because I've repeatedly broken my vow not to gamble.

Also, a high-level devotee wouldn't waste time recording mundane songs like this:
http://www.singsnap.com/snap/r/af1132816

[Underwaterbob]

[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

Of course, one can always choose to interpret evidence to fit one's own philosophical or material bias.

Hence, there can simultaneously be a large body of evidence against (as well as for) chemical evolution.

I like their neat summary:

An Overview/Analysis of Views

Let's look at different views of origins, in terms of possibilities for the origin of the first carbon-based life on earth. Maybe this origin was natural and a plausible Non-Design theory is possible, in principle, and the correct theory: N1) is currently known (whether or not it currently seems plausible), or N2) will be known in the future, or N3) will never be known because the natural process was too complex or unfamiliar or cognitively difficult for us to propose. But perhaps it's impossible to construct a Non-Design theory that is plausible (that would have a reasonable probability of happening) because: N4) the natural origin was highly improbable even though it did occur, or N4*) the N4-origin seems improbable but actually is highly probable because we live in a universe that is one of an immense number of universes in a multiverse that was either designed or undesigned *. Or the first earth-life might have been produced by Design-directed action, with D1) natural design and construction, or D2) supernatural design and creation. Or maybe it happened some other way, X. {* All possibilities � N1 to N4 plus D1, D2, and X � could occur in a universe (which probably would have to be designed) or a multiverse (either designed or undesigned). }

In currently conventional science, scientists define their goal as N1 or N2; those with confidence claim N1 with current plausibility, those with less confidence claim N1 with current implausibility, or N2, N3, N4, or X; an appeal to "inevitability in a multiverse" (with low confidence in abiogenesis theories, but high confidence in multiverse theories) is N4*; undirected panspermia is N1 (for the "panspermia" claim) preceded in history by any of the possibilities for the earlier origin, while directed panspermia is D1 preceded by any possibility; the scientific proposals of Intelligent Design are for "either D1 or D2"; some creationists (either old-earth or young-earth) propose direct divine creation by D2, while evolutionary creationists propose indirect divine creation that is compatible with any possibility (if it followed the divine designing and creating of a universe or multiverse that would naturally produce life) not involving D2; and an atheist, or a rigid agnostic, can accept any possibility except direct divine creation (D2) or indirect divine creation.
http://www.asa3.org/asa/education/origins/cheme.htm

I think the Vedic view is intelligent design and creation - direct and indirect - of innumerable universes.

[toowise]

I think the great sphagetti monsters theory of creation is the most accurate.

the universe was created when a large plate of pasta fell, the meatballs became stars, peices of meatballs that shattered became planets and the noodles became distant ribbons of light and the sauce became dark matter, onion chunks became comets.....of the wisdom of the all powerful sphagetti monster!

All creationist mumbo-jumbo is identical, its so implausable to be laughable and they all base thier mantra on 'well and old book told me'

In rteachers incidence his books tell him that people can fly, visit mars, and how the universe began. Of course his failure to explain why no one can fly, no one has the ability to visit distant planets yet he still believes in their creation nonsense. Why do you continue to believe in a bunch of writings that have absolutely nothing backing them up?

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

As far as I know, none of the revealed knowledge in Vedic literatures has been disproved, and some of it has been proved.

Anyone who states otherwise without studying the Vedas from an authorized source is not really "toowise" and must be basing their assertion on materialistic supposition.

Just because scientists don't know something doesn't mean that it's not true.

[mindmetoo]

[Rteacher]

Yeah, but revealed truth purportedly coming from God may be absolutely true but only realizable at the perfectional stage of science (at which point it may merge with the perfectional stages of religion and yoga).

Too much faith in science that's not guided by progressive spiritual understanding of the real purpose of life may have disastrous consequences.