Godless Apostate

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by troutman

I often refer to this - myth is relevant.

http://mythsdreamssymbols.com/functionsofmyth.html

Bill Moyers: Myths are clues?

Joseph Campbell: Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.

Bill Moyers: What we are capable of knowing and experiencing within?

Joseph Campbell: Yes.

Bill Moyers: You changed the definition of a myth from the search for meaning to the experience of meaning.

Joseph Campbell: Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What's the meaning of a flower. There's the Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called "the one thus come". There's no meaning. What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about.

Bill Moyers: How do you get that experience?

Joseph Campbell: Read the myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts - but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message. Myth helps you to put your mind in touch with this experience of being alive. It tells you what it is. It's the reunion of the separated duad {A unit of two objects; a pair}. Orginally you were one. You are now two in the world {duality}, but the recognition of the spiritual identity is what marriage is. It's different from a love affair. It has nothing to do with that. It is another mythological plane of experience. When people get married because they think it's a long-time love affair, they'll be divorced very soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment. But marriage is a recognition of a spiritual identity. If we live a proper life, if our minds are on the right qualities in regarding the person of the opposite sex, we will find our proper male or female counterpart. But if we are distracted by certain sensuous interests we marry the wrong person. By marrying the right person, we reconstruct the image of the incarnate God, and that's what marriage is {physically and spiritually} .

My post wasn't meant to suggest that myths are unimportant or that nothing can be learned from them. The problem is when people take myths as absolute truth, instead of looking for the truths inside them, as you put it.

Funny enough, this happens a lot when it comes to religion. Be it poor spiritual teachers and leaders, or just an unyielding stubborness of needing to be right and know what's going on, people often take the myths in their faith at face value instead of reading between the lines for the real truths buried within.

That's why I've gravitated towards the spiritual philosophies instead of the organized religions. The myths are represented very differently. Instead of 'god breathed and god inspired,' rule of law right from the creators mouth dogma, you get a more thought provoking and open-ended experience. One that allows you to learn and grow, instead of just follow.

[GirlySports]

Here's a stupid Buddhist/Daoist one. Death is way too overrated and the period of mourning is too long.

If you're a boy and your father dies, you have to 'mourn for 2 years'. You can't attend any happy functions, can't attend weddings, can't get married yourself. I've seen situations where a couple got married much earlier than they should have because one of the parents was dying soon.

I understand that the original theory was that something bad happened to you so you shouldn't spread that 'unfortunateness" to others. But like all well-intentioned things, it's now turned into superstitious protocal and blown way out of proportion.

I was supposed to be a bridesmaid once but when my grandfather died, I was kicked out of the wedding. It was my maternal grandfather! And I'm a girl! But still, they believed it so I was kicked out.

[Daradon]

Good example! Never heard of that before.

[Cheese]

If this article doesnt make you spit in anger nothing will...Sharia law at its best!
The people that sentenced this poor girl should have to undergo 10x the punishment this child took. It makes me sick to my stomach that these ancient systems still exist. The poor CHILD was murdered by those who she looked up to...horrible.
14 year old, raped then whipped to death for 'adultery'

Hena Akhter's last words to her mother proclaimed her innocence. But it was too late to save the 14-year-old girl. Her fellow villagers in Bangladesh's Shariatpur district had already passed harsh judgment on her. Guilty, they said, of having an affair with a married man. The imam from the local mosque ordered the fatwa, or religious ruling, and the punishment: 101 lashes delivered swiftly, deliberately in public.
Hena dropped after 70.
Bloodied and bruised, she was taken to hospital, where she died a week later.
Amazingly, an initial autopsy report cited no injuries and deemed her death a suicide. Hena's family insisted her body be exhumed. They wanted the world to know what really happened to their daughter.

Police were guarding Hena's family earlier this month. Darbesh and Aklima feared reprisal for having spoken out against the imam and the village elders.

[SeeBass]

^ I know it is a tired old expression but I read this and all I can think is, there is no god

[T@T]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

^ I know it is a tired old expression but I read this and all I can think is, there is no god

Of course there isn't, God(s) is a human invention made up for power,control and greed.

It truly amazes me people this day in age would allow sic atrocities like this happen in the name of their imaginary figure...dolphins have higher IQ's then these people.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by T@T

Of course there isn't, God(s) is a human invention made up for power,control and greed.

It truly amazes me people this day in age would allow sic atrocities like this happen in the name of their imaginary figure...dolphins have higher IQ's then these people.

Oh is that why, thanks

[Knalus]

People are sinful, I agree.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Knalus

People are sinful, I agree.

Sin = An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.

Since there is no reason to believe in or respect divine law, claiming people are sinful doesn't mean anything.

[calgaryrocks]

So if people think they are following God, but really aren't...is it because God doesn't exist or because they are misled about God or biased by greed/power(sin)? I would argue the latter. people being bad doesn't mean God doesn't exist

[DuffMan]

Originally Posted by calgaryrocks

So if people think they are following God, but really aren't...is it because God doesn't exist or because they are misled about God or biased by greed/power(sin)? I would argue the latter. people being bad doesn't mean God doesn't exist

that's deep, but a double negative isn't going to make God a reality.

[calgaryrocks]

^I didn't say a double negative makes God a reality, I was refering to the comment that because some people used religion to commit an attrocity that it means God doesn't exist.

[CarlW]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Here's a stupid Buddhist/Daoist one. Death is way too overrated and the period of mourning is too long.

If you're a boy and your father dies, you have to 'mourn for 2 years'. You can't attend any happy functions, can't attend weddings, can't get married yourself. I've seen situations where a couple got married much earlier than they should have because one of the parents was dying soon.

I understand that the original theory was that something bad happened to you so you shouldn't spread that 'unfortunateness" to others. But like all well-intentioned things, it's now turned into superstitious protocal and blown way out of proportion.

I was supposed to be a bridesmaid once but when my grandfather died, I was kicked out of the wedding. It was my maternal grandfather! And I'm a girl! But still, they believed it so I was kicked out.

Oh regarding the overrated death thing, it wouldn't be Buddhist because overrating death would be very un-buddhist as it's just part of the cycle of life/death/samsara/suffering/etc.

I thought you aren't supposed to marry after the death of a parent to show your filial piety, rather than a religious reason.

Also did they get married because someone was dying because they wanted them to see them get married? Also heard that a happy event helps the health of the sick so people get married for that reason also.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Why is nobody attacking Alberta then?

Huh? And that disproves that people fight over resources .... how?

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by calgaryrocks

^I didn't say a double negative makes God a reality, I was refering to the comment that because some people used religion to commit an attrocity that it means God doesn't exist.

I don't think that was what was being argued.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Sin = An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.

Since there is no reason to believe in or respect divine law, claiming people are sinful doesn't mean anything.

This is a terribly over-simplistic view of things. Given that the idea of "sin" was coined in an era in which there was no distinction between "divine law" or "civic law", then the proper understanding of the term is to recognise that it is most broadly a regrettable act with undesired consequences, or transgression against any authority more generally (you will notice that even modern dictionary definitions include other such options beyond the one you quoted verbatim from an uncited internet source).

So, claiming people are "sinful" in actual fact points to the reality that people are quite naturally selfish, and frequently this persistent selfishness leads all people to make poor choices that inversely affect others, occasionally to tragic ends. If people were not "sinful", then there would be no need for laws or police to enforce them.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by SeeBass

Oh is that why, thanks

Here to help.

[SeeBass]

Originally Posted by calgaryrocks

So if people think they are following God, but really aren't...is it because God doesn't exist or because they are misled about God or biased by greed/power(sin)? I would argue the latter. people being bad doesn't mean God doesn't exist

But why do people who believe in him praise him when he lets evil happen?

Why is "free will" considered acceptable to not act?

If I saw an innocent child in trouble and did nothing I am quilty and every person on this thread would think little of me. But somehow the most powerful being in the universe (that created it in 6 days) gets a free pass?

This is a circle I can't square up

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is a terribly over-simplistic view of things. Given that the idea of "sin" was coined in an era in which there was no distinction between "divine law" or "civic law", then the proper understanding of the term is to recognise that it is most broadly a regrettable act with undesired consequences, or transgression against any authority more generally (you will notice that even modern dictionary definitions include other such options beyond the one you quoted verbatim from an uncited internet source).

So, claiming people are "sinful" in actual fact points to the reality that people are quite naturally selfish, and frequently this persistent selfishness leads all people to make poor choices that inversely affect others, occasionally to tragic ends. If people were not "sinful", then there would be no need for laws or police to enforce them.

Why do we need the word "sin" though? We already have dozens of words to describe the shortcomings and bad behavior of humans. Sin, at least in its modern use, seems to contemplate something more (something closer to the definition posted by torquedog.)

[Thor]

Zack is an admirable young man fighting to keep creationism out of high schools in the US, he was just on Bill Moyers and I highly recommend this interview.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/zack-k...ic-classrooms/

Zack Kopplin on Keeping Creationism Out of Public Classrooms
March 1, 2013
From the time he was a high school senior in his home state of Louisiana, Kopplin has been speaking, debating, cornering politicians and winning the active support of 78 Nobel Laureates, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New Orleans City Council, and tens of thousands of students, teachers and others around the country. The Rice University history major joins Bill to talk about fighting the creep of creationist curricula into public school science classes and publicly funded vouchers that end up supporting creationist instruction.

“Evolution and climate change aren’t scientifically controversial, but they are controversial to Louisiana legislators,” Kopplin tells Bill. “Basically, everyone who looked at this law knew it was just a back door to sneak creationism into public school science classes.”