I have much enjoyed the various discussions arguments and knowledge sharing on this forum. But, at least for me, it's usefulness and entertainment value is coming to an end, as we seem to be going over the same ground.

We have heard from the christians. Rather loudly in some cases

But more respectfully and persuasively in other cases.

The occasional Wytch has dropped by with a few words of wisdom.

The believers in the quest for oneness with the energy of higher truth have spoken.

The creationists have had their say.

The anti-evolutionists have had an even louder say.

The "I have my own theory of evolution and it doesn't fit with yours," ists  had a go at persuading everyone their version is correct.

A few gentle reminders from the Budhhists were dropped.

A few unusual approaches to explaining the idea of universal connectedness were made.

The occasional "reverend" dropped by to leave us with a few inappropriate quotes from the good bok and then disappeared from whence they had come - once they realized we weren't all going to cave in and start believing in their particular brand of religion.

The atheists and anti-theists asked some tough questions that didn't and couldn't be answered.

I myself have made it clear I think we are all wrong. (Including myself probably lol)

But - through it all, one person sat on the sidelines. Asking questions. Refusing to disagree with anything or anyone.

                                       Misha

So. What's the deal? What do you think or believe ?

Time to 'fess up

Lol. Awesome post Mark. Awaiting Misha's reply.........

Hey, it'll take a while - I seem to be pretty busy today - and this one requires some thinking

I can't wait...

Misha wrote:

Hey, it'll take a while - I seem to be pretty busy today - and this one requires some thinking

In your own time........

Because it's Misha.  da best.  love ya Misha. 

Love ya, too :-*

I have to say loving you or Mark is much easier for me than loving, say, SirDent or ColdWarBaby - but I am trying hard

Actually, I think this pretty much answers the original question. I think my current assignment here in this world is to learn to love. Everybody and everything that comes my way.

I do think we come here to learn. I do think we are not limited to this world, and in a sense we do not disappear after we leave it. I don't know which exactly part of us and to which degree, though. And no Mark, I don't think it is about our bodies' decomposition and elements becoming parts of ground, grass, etc. I think there is something else to it

I do think we where created, and the whole world was created, too. And I think we are the method our creator uses to explore the creation - like we collectively are his senses - in a sense

That's pretty much the basis I operate off

'like we collectively are his senses - in a sense', yea like that idea.
So does love have to be all or nothing? I see this guy around every so often.
He is really sharp, a comedian. I love the guy except he hates Arabs. I say to him to his face, "you old fascist Jew biggot. So on the one hand I love the guy in person and his peresonality. On the other hand I hate his racism, or some of his mind. We get along fine. But I think I can both love and hate him at the same time. I don't feel conflicted.

All people cann't be on the right track BUT we all believe we are.

Interesting view Misha, here is my own comprehensively stated:

I pretty much think that humanity ridding itself of magical thinking is the basis for dis-covering what is really going on behind the veil of nature.

But as with all agnostics I can say that and I can tell people my opinion but I won't burn you if you don't.  It's just hard for me to watch humanity side track itself over things that might even possibly be proven to have some sort of basis in reality if we could just set aside magical thinking for a thousand years or so and seriously empirically uncover that which is the heart of things, then all could see and there would be very little doubt.  Also, as a result of there being little doubt, there would be very little fear, but the lack of doubt would be founded on evidence that would have been reached in a manner that was grounded in reality and the methods we use to demonstrably achieve understanding.

I can believe it is god's will for my faith to move a mountain.  I can then get together with a bunch of like minded people and pick up a pickax and together, through slave labor we can move the mountain with faith.

Alternatively, I can believe that I would like to see that railroad constructed that requires the mountain to be moved, I can goto engineering school and learn how to make and use dynamite.  I can then make the dynamite, plant it, let it go off, wash rinse, repeat and then the mountain will have been moved after me and my crew are done.

The difference in these two approaches is that in one approach -god's will- people must believe in that god in order for the prophecy to fulfill itself, whereas in the second approach one must gather knowledge and through hard study come to an understanding of things that are built on empirical evidence.  Then said person must put this into practice to accomplish the goal in question.

While it is true that you must have a certain modicum of emotional trust or "faith" in said community (the scientific one), it is my contention here that such a "belief" is much more respectful of people's rights and personal quests for happiness than the latter even given the factor of the powder having to be manufactured for the sticks and the people who would be paid to do it.


In my opinion the scientific method is artificial selection at it's best and dogmatic religion represents (for me) an earlier more primal nature that is in tune with social darwinism more than it is anything else.  In order for humans to grow up collectively I sincerely think we should not impose our spiritual understandings through fiat ever and instead we should wait for nature to give it's comprehensive response as we continue to measure and test and probe and dis-cover it's hidden domains, but without making assumptions which cause others to suffer due to various dogmas and their lack of compliance with them.

Of course, (and this is something I have pondered lately), us humans in our various ways of saying things could just have innate biases that we cannot see past because of various factors and that we all might be saying the same thing unknowingly in different ways, thus making all our collective spiritual knowledge almost like a landscape viewed from different angles.  You might not like my angle if you stood in my spot, and I might not care for your angle if I stood where you were because it wasn't as attractive to me as the spot I picked out for myself, but in the end as long as we are not making war and killing each other or tearing each others to pieces over difference of opinion or possessiveness (like children in a sandbox), then we can continue to have dialogue.

Dogmas (plural) collectively kill this option and violate people's boundaries and as a result dialogue ends due to undue control and influence exerted over people and their lives.

In my view there is only one "dogma" and I think it is a necessary evil for the time being, and that is that we all respect each other enough to get along.  If we respected each other we wouldn't have a need for police or military at a minimum (in response to violent crimes).

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

My point is why fight and kill each other over the exact how and why of each of those three things in the sentence I just typed above?  Give science a couple thousand years to provide more comprehensive answers and as a species through hard work we can all come to a much more comprehensive picture of what is really going on, and not make premises that are founded on what we wish rather than what is, whose inevitable extrapolation leads to the misery of a vast majority of mankind.

Love, and let Live.  Easy saying, hard to master.

The loving part I suppose I have in common with you Misha even though I have my own take on it.  Love is crucial, because without love we are all just so meaningless and machine like.

Those are my two cents on what is really going on in the world (not that I was asked).

sometimes to know too much about our physical world is scarier than to know what has been going on since the begining of man kind. 

New thoeries and discoveries brings more to the plate about why we even exist, and why we can even know what we do know.  How do we know so much about space here on Earth and out there in space? 

I only imagine that the struggle among people has always been with freedom.  There is a problem with knowing that I am very much free, but always having a consequence.  A human consequence.

If we are the only living species like us that can examine, make sense and come up with equations that work, then what is the point?  Why do we push to find out space to save man kind when we know we are not likely to exist forever? 

If there are other worlds with people just like us, then I would want to know, are they God?  If not, are we?

God should be put on the table of elements because it is an element that changes behavior, a force that beggs the question. 

I hardly believe that we are nothing.  This wouldn't make sense.  We are somewhat devine, everyone is, the problem is getting people to understand what it is. 

Religion pushes out the Spirit.  No one ever had to follow a religion, all anyone ever needed was to know they were free.  Now we know we are not free, we will never be free.  We are condemed to the material world.  On full of knowledge without a purpose, full of wonder for no reason. 

I beg for something to happen, I know the events are not usually fun these days, but I find myself, wondering always, is it really now.  Is mankind finally going to meet it's maker?

Would we be herold by an alien God who comes out of a space ship and tells us we were a project. 

Project X, Generation X, Planet X, the Xfactor.  It doesn't seem so natural to me that we do the things we do.  I do question evolution, not that I don't believe we evolve, but the God element...

One ball of water sitting in the Seas of Heaven, just us???  Being a freak accident of nature doesn't make sense, humans have the entire Universe, why?  Fish out of water wonder about the sea. 

welldone misha

one common problem s we all blame god for our bad luck but actually as the bible says all problems of the earth s because of mans own doings.i think at first earth was so beautiful and it looked pretty well n everything got developed by men made it worse .isnt it?
Even nowadays billions we member of each countries spend for destructive purposes even worlds smallest countries do so for their survival can we change or turn it for humans wellbeing?
there may be many job opportunities and giving jobs to laks in the defense sector but iam saying we r spending much much more than that some countries spend billions on each missiles and warships -i tried to say that almost or all problems r by men itself
n we hv enough sources to live all .n we just do our debates at its best.u know Javaharlal Nehru one of the greatest leaders of Indian republic .he once said abt joining india ,pakn n other small countries around to form one union as a single nation  he mentioned about the savings by leaving other spendings on war -really these nations spend a lot though they hv not the capability iam saying each problem is like this .
nearly 900 crore years ago(according to the latest information) that big xplosion that all we kow happened thats almost sure  now.REMEMBER JOHN C MATHER N& GEORGE F SMUT WHO SHARED THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR PHYSICS IN 2006 DISCOVERED AN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT  THAT BIG-BANG THEORY. iam not shouting online as anyone f u mentioned earlier but i want u to notice it.
ITS CALCULATED THAT THE UNIVERSE THAT WE KNOW TODAY CONTAINS NEARLY 1LAKH*100LAKHS*1000LAKHS STARS *denotes multiplication mark here.OUR SUN IS ONE AMONG THAT .EARTH IS ONLY ONE AMONG THE NINE(INCLUDING PLUTO)PLANETS THAT REVOLVING THE SUN.THUS OUR EARTH IS NOT EQUAL EVEN TO A PARTICLE AS COMPARED TO UNIVERSE .EVENTHOUGH THE HEARTBEAT OF LIFE FOUND ONLY IN THIS EARTH.THIS 'CONTRADICTION' GIVES PROOF TO THE SAYING THAT THIS EARTH S FORMED ONLY FOR THE HUMAN BEINGS.WE KNOW THE FIRST BEAT OF LIFE  FORMED HERE BY THE COMBINATION OF MANY CONSTANTS.FOR THAT AT FIRST THE STAR GROUP NAMED 'MILKYWAY'FORMED.AFTER THAT ,IN BETWEEN THE COUNTINOUS BURNING OF SUN,AFTER A SPECIAL PERIOD OUR EARTH FORMED BY COMBINATION OF 'STARPARTS' .THEN FROM ITS SURFACE THE ENVIRONMENT THAT HELPED THE STARTING OF LIFE AND ELEMENT STRUCTURE FORMED.U KNOW CARBON IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT IN THE FORMATION OF LIFE


as for the formation of this carbon the stars of first generation reached their 'dead bed'(according to Chandra Shekhar Boundryd Theory)and explodes as supernovas and formed as star parts n this star parts rich of carbon   got into earths atmosphere.JOHN BARO says in a detailed manner about these type of nearly 18 free parameters that helped the starting of life.(Anthropic Cosmological Principles,Oxford University Press,London).He says that it s a rare chance that all these surcamstances happened accidentially.

this new science of universe very strictly says  that an unknown power worked for all of these.John Weeler says -he s a Nobel prize winner for Physics-if humanbody s a hardware the 'soul' in it s a software .Weeler finds the presence and determination of a 'universal soul' in the creation of universe.Weeler says the creation  of univere itslf is for the creation of humans .here now this time (ie. after 900 crore years) only the presence of human n his observations remains the 'knowledge'of this big mystery-universe.Thats the presence of human is the identity of the universe.

its very interesting to read new n new  concepts -the 2nd author of John Baros book -Frank Tipler put forward with one step more.he says life wil remain here forever.Tipler compares human to the comuer instead of Baros comparison of universe.Tipler compares universe  as a total to a computer .(Now this theory s in the book -'THE COMPUTING UNIVERSE' BY Seth Loyd, 2006,Programing the universe,rRandom Houseline,New York).He compares universe as a closed system then the expansion that started after Big-Bang wil turn once into  a  opposite direction n if it came to an end the 'software'wil again give birth to a new life after many many years!

white altantic -

This is just about unreadable. And it is rude to use ALL CAPS in this way. Please edit it to make it more reader-friendly.

Thanks.

Misha wrote:

Love ya, too :-*

I have to say loving you or Mark is much easier for me than loving, say, SirDent or ColdWarBaby - but I am trying hard

Actually, I think this pretty much answers the original question. I think my current assignment here in this world is to learn to love. Everybody and everything that comes my way.

I do think we come here to learn. I do think we are not limited to this world, and in a sense we do not disappear after we leave it. I don't know which exactly part of us and to which degree, though. And no Mark, I don't think it is about our bodies' decomposition and elements becoming parts of ground, grass, etc. I think there is something else to it

I do think we where created, and the whole world was created, too. And I think we are the method our creator uses to explore the creation - like we collectively are his senses - in a sense

That's pretty much the basis I operate off

LOL At last!

I think learning to love people we find offensive is a challenge we have all faced.

I must have been unclear with the whole sand thing.

I think we are no more important than a grain of sand. Not that we become a grain of sand.   Although we may do. We may also become a fossil or an oil deposit.

One more question though.

What makes you believe this?

Mark Knowles wrote:

Misha wrote:

Love ya, too :-*

I have to say loving you or Mark is much easier for me than loving, say, SirDent or ColdWarBaby - but I am trying hard

Actually, I think this pretty much answers the original question. I think my current assignment here in this world is to learn to love. Everybody and everything that comes my way.

I do think we come here to learn. I do think we are not limited to this world, and in a sense we do not disappear after we leave it. I don't know which exactly part of us and to which degree, though. And no Mark, I don't think it is about our bodies' decomposition and elements becoming parts of ground, grass, etc. I think there is something else to it

I do think we where created, and the whole world was created, too. And I think we are the method our creator uses to explore the creation - like we collectively are his senses - in a sense

That's pretty much the basis I operate off

LOL At last!

I think learning to love people we find offensive is a challenge we have all faced.

I must have been unclear with the whole sand thing.

I think we are no more important than a grain of sand. Not that we become a grain of sand.   Although we may do. We may also become a fossil or an oil deposit.

One more question though.

What makes you believe this?

I disagree, I think humans as sentient beings, have infinite value and that the death of a human lifeform under any circumstances whatsoever is a grave occurence which people have a moral obligation to prevent if possible without risk to their own selves, or <<if they feel up to it>>, with risk to their own lives or livelihoods.

I liken human beings to precious china, not grains of sand, but, that is my opinion.

30,000+ broken pieces of precious china in Burma this week.

600,000+ broken pieces of china in Iraq since the invasion.

Easily broken in large numbers this precious china

40+ broken pieces of precious china which were broken by the hands of jack the ripper.

Your point?

I am my brothers keeper.

Stalin once said that one death was a tragedy and that a million deaths was just a statistic.

I argue here that 1 death is a tragedy and that a million deaths is 999,999 more tragedies.

It's a grave occurence, this death thing ya know

Like end of existence grave thing, like emotional hurt for those close to the person still in existence grave thing and emotional as well as possible physical hurt of the person experiencing circumstances up to and including death especially if the circumstances involve external violence of any sort towards the person in question.

My point is that you use the word "precious," which means (amongst other things):

Of high cost or worth; valuable.
Highly esteemed; cherished.
Dear; beloved

Which implies that some one values these people.

Who exactly? You? What are you doing to keep these precious, valuable people alive? Praying?

Mark Knowles wrote:

My point is that you use the word "precious," which means (amongst other things):

Of high cost or worth; valuable.
Highly esteemed; cherished.
Dear; beloved

Which implies that some one values these people.

Who exactly? You? What are you doing to keep these precious, valuable people alive? Praying?

I am using it in the valuable sense, as far as what I am doing to keep these precious valuable people alive, for starters I am assigning them the worth they are due which is high.

Also, I treat them with respect and consider it my honor to to help one who I hold dear as well as help others in proportion to that which I consider beneficial and appropriate.

While I am not a doctor, doctors do this all the time they do "things" to keep these precious valuable people alive because they swore the Hippocratic Oath.

It is possible to have a general attitude and general actions which reflect just that.

Perhaps you do in your own way.  If you do not, then you do not, but I do.

Concretely I work to make the world a better place by my own actions and support things that preserve life in whatever sphere of influence I find myself in.

So, you used two examples there.

In the case of the Iraq war I am vocally against it because 600,000 "precious china" lost needlessly is just that, lost needlessly.

In the case of Burma I would (if I was not poor) donate money to recovery efforts of those who survived and if there was a project that could make the lives of burmese people safer in regards future disasters of that type and it were reasonable then I might reasonably support such an effort.

That is what I would and do "concretely" do.


Prayer is an illusion of help not actual help, just so you understand I will make it very clear to you I do not believe in the existence of any god or higher power other than the laws which govern the closed system we are currently in (the known universe), and those laws I do not believe in or worhsip as if they had any magical or supernatural power I simply know they exist, seek to understand them and then proceed to fulfill that thirst for knowledge through learning and the subsequent understanding and eventual wisdom that usually proceeds from such endeavors.

If I want to be amused with illusions I watch david copperfield or darren brown or criss angel perform or I pop in The Illusionist, or The Prestige DVD, I do not pray as it is a severely flawed endeavor at best.

To whom would I pray?  I answer to no one.  Am I proud of that?  No.

It is the way things are, always have been, and always will be for every human being that ever has, currently does, or will exist, in any way, shape, or form.

At least that is what the current evidence indicates within the obvious context I have just mentioned.

LOL

Well, I don't see how "assigning them the worth they are due which is high," is any different than praying.

Or any more effective. Nor treating them with respect. How can you treat some one you have never met with respect? Especially since they are now dead. And I think we both agree that dead means dead. No second chance, no burning in hell for all eternity.

Can you honestly say the things you are "doing," are making a difference to these precious pieces of china in Iraq or Burma? Do you genuinely believe that donating money to a charity would make a difference? Or even get to whom it was supposed to? Or that you government listens to your opinion on Iraq? and will do what you think should be done?

If, and this is a big if. If the governments and corporations, and churches and oil companies and everyone wanted to do something and really treat people like precious pieces of china. Maybe, just maybe that would make a difference.

Even then, a cyclone or hurricane or plane crash or plague or whatever would bring you straight back to reality.