God..YES Religion..NO.

SingflowerCat's point:

For those of you who know anything about programming.

A program consists of 2 "codes."

Source code,
and,
Object code.

Source code is the crap that programmers type into their computers.
Object code is a translation of that crap, so that the computer can understand it (object code = 00111011010, that sort of thing).

In this case,

Source code = God
Object code = Religion.

Even though they are ALWAYS found together (as you cannot find object code without it having a source code, and usually cannot find the vice-versa unless the program is incomplete), they are STILL separate entities, just as God and religion are separate.

Hikaru hopes this explaination satisfies. =)

 

SingflowerCat, I'm not, nor was I ever arguing against the posibility of the above being true (afterall it is completely possible that one manmade religion does actually corresponse to reality - in which case I would argue that the religion was discovered and not "made" ) and this actually isn't what the discussion is about. You originally commanded that we "Learn to seperate RELIGION from GOD" a command that is imposible, given your definition of "religion". This was actually what I was getting at in my last post. I guess I could have put it clearer though.

Of course. But this isn't what's in question is it? You see, if God exist, and religion is any attempted explaination of God, than one cannot hear, speak, or think anything 'God' without it being a form of religion. In other words SingflowerCat, once one managed to seperate religion from God, any ideas he held about God would still be an explaination of such, and thus, still a religion.

I agree, and if that's what you meant by learning to seperate God from religion, than it actually makes more sense.

Notice I agree that they are two seperate things, and the fact that they are two seperate things means that they are, by very implication, seperate. What I'm questioning, however, is the ability of one to seperate the two. In other words, I not questioning the metaphysical state of the two, "what is," rather how one could know anything about God without religion. That is, religion (by your definition) is the precondition for ALL knowledge about God, so in this regard, the two become inseparable

...and don't worry, the length and grammer of your post was just fine. I'm sure I make enough grammtical errors for the both of us

 

I'm not completely sure.

Karl H:

For me personally, I think the inner voice/conscience that we've been created with would help us know "rights" from "wrongs"... if we would really listen to it. It can get warped when people ignore it. I think the more we listen and meditate, the more clearly we can hear this "voice" (for lack of a better word, since I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into vocabulary). But then it raises the question of who's "voice" is right in complex issues like abortion, and assisted suicides, for example.

Any ideas from anyone on this one?

Hikaru Zero, I'd never heard the computer code analogy... but it works so well, thanks...

Jatom:

ooooooooops, looks like we agreed on this all along. And I definately see what you're saying about how any thoughts or talk about god would be classified by definition as religion.

Eeek! I guess an imperative sentence like I wrote was a command. I sure wish you could put tone of voice and facial expressions in these posts! Next time I'll say, "I'd like to encourage you to try and separate in your thoughts the organized religion of man which has done some crazy-ass stuff, from god who I don't think likes any of the aforementioned crazy-ass stuff.

Gotcha. Wow.

Ok, and that just made me laugh. Thanks!

 

And it harm none, do what thou wilt.

I believe that an atheist and a believer such as myself are both right, since I am not living your reality, and you cannot know mine, so who is to say we both cant be right?

 

Hikaru Zero

Wellmet my friend
Occam has returned from his hiatus.

Hopefully we can talk of things of interest and import

Occam

 

Hungus...

Easy..Murder is wrong because it wastes the incredible potential of a human being.
It wastes one of the rarest things in reality.
Self aware consciousness.

Nowhere in reality do we see any waste.
reality does not see such a concept...
Only self aware beings do.

Waste..murder. killing, right and wrong.
Are human interpretation of phenomena.

So occam dissagrees that there is absolute morality of any kind.
Nature itself kills 99% of many newborn crops of species so the other 1%Survive to propagate.
And nature must follow any absolute law...
No?

Occam calls himself a good man.. His morality is a consolidation of his heart and his reason.
He will NOT take anothers life because he has a code he lives by.
That code is justified by reason and compassion. [there are exceptions]
Not by any silly human religious arguement.
In the bible ..god kills for no good reason at all.
And good men such as occam. Who's code is their own.
WILL go to hell..because occam does not give credence to the
copyright laws on GOOD that god apparently enforces.

Good and evil existed way before any religion we know of.
They existed first.. in the minds of self awre beings.

They were our rational choice of how best to survive with other humans..

Religion [organisation] hijacked morality and called it the word of god..

What a laugh. And how many religions are there?
Which religious morality is truth?
Will i cut of my sons foreskin?
Will i cut off my daughters clitoris?
Will i go to heaven if i kill a nonbeliever?
Should occam, as the church suggests.. be the master of the family even though the female is 50points higher on the IQ scale?

Occam states no facts...
He asks you questions..
That is the process of.....
Gaining understanding. [and without undestanding, there is no wisdom]
[and without information..there is no understanding]

These are the three steps
Inforamtion, Understanding, Wisdom.
And the process from information to understanding is one of the most important processes in human reality.

Occam

 

Cuba, eh? Perhaps that is where your belligerence and conceited, egotistical, condescending attitude comes from ...

Aye, that might be enjoyable. =) Just send me a forum PM, or if you look at my profile, you should be able to find my AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! names. I am on often; and even if I have an away message up, I am almost positively there, so feel free to IM me regardless of any away messages. =)

and

I'm sorry, Karl, did Occam say anywhere that "Murder is wrong for EVERYONE?" I personally don't see it implied anywhere; this observation only pertains to Occam.

Perhaps instead of focusing on putting implied words into Occam's mouth, you should concentrate on the actual words being written, and the propositions behind them.

You make a jest of yourself in the most obvious way. =P

 

You say murder is obvioulsy wrong and then you say there is no absolute morality - you contradict yourself in the most obvious way .you've just made an absolute statement about murder by deeming it always wrong -

Occam said HE said the killing of other humans was wrong...
he did not say it was an absolute.
Nothing...occam says is an absolute.

This is because there are no human absolutes except that human reason can say that it exists because it can say just that.

occam razror head - you smoke your own pipe too much - wake up

Actually it's 'blow my own horn' but that would cop some serious comment.

i'm in cuba and from the phillipines

Occam is from earth

 

Hung-ass-mother-fucking-goddamn idiot-:

Well, you got me there. Touche.

Peace.

 

Hikaru

Give him some slack,, ever since the farce called communism rolled over and died...
Cuba stopped getting 10 million US$ a day to prop up its centralised disaster called an ecconomy. [from the USSR]

This pattern was repeated in vietnam, but they got smart. The nation suffered a 1,5 million ton shortfall of rice. [in '93 occam thinks]
So the government..those wonderfull pragmatic bastards..
Made food a free market unregulated from above.

2 years later thay had a 2 million ton surplus...

Vietnam is now functionally a capatalist dictatorship,, as is the behemoth called China.

So what was the vietnam war about???
Nothing.
And what of Cuba, and it;s asian cousin N Korea...
They will either suicide. [or start a war..same thing]

Or slide into impoverishment [and both under communism are already starving to death. In NKorea the ARMY comes to collect the crops each year...it leaves very little behind for the farmer to survive on..
Young men join the army to have food...and for no other reason.
this is peoples paradice..commumism///it was a good idea at the time.;
Human ego destroyed it]

Occam

 

I have lots of questions, and no facts too, well precious few facts. I feel that there is a line between good and evil, so to me, ethics are trans-cultural as opposed to morality which differs markedly one culture to the next.

If it harms someone, it is evil, if it helps it is good, in a nutshell.
I believe in Spirit, and feel pretty solid that jesus is not a fictional character, though most of his story is symbolic, I feel. Yet I will not get to go to Christian heaven either, cuz i dont accept the died on the cross for me thing.
Oh well, hell is probably like vegas, and heaven is like the library at Oxford, i bet.

 

I don't know. Tribes have been cannibalistic, cultures have used human sacrifice as a way to please their gods. That is harming people, but was accepted by these groups.

I think that the story of jesus, and the many similar stories throughout our history is an example of our society trying to get a grasp on how to behave in civilizations. Remember we went from smaller tribal societies to large civilizations, and we had to change a lot of our rules in order for everyone to be able to live like that.

 

I don't support human sacrifice, at all, but if I volunteered to be sacrificed it would not necessarily be evil to do me in. I want to kill the Green River serial killer. Given the chance, I would. Not out of vengeance, I would do it as humanely as able, I just want him gone. So, maybe I am evil, I just believe there is an absolute ethical code that applies to all peoples.

 

Help requires evil, does it not? If there is no evil to correct, the need to help (do good) does not exist. It's the whole 'overly dramatic' thing that screws up the whole good/evil issue. I mean, you could just be hungry and someone could plop you down a synthesized steak. But NooOOooOooOooO.... people need to have odrama bin laden to get fired up about. You know God is just sitting up there thinking about the best (most dramatic) way to be evil, the way that will benefit people the most (and get God the most attention). Hmm, maybe a plague....... ohh yeah, I forgot... we got that whole apocalypse thing cooking up right now. Uhhohhh......

 

BlackGuard

Occam also has lots of questions...And VERY few facts....
[But a whole lot of probabillity..a result of information]

****
Lets say we are in chad or sudan or whatever...
We visit a small village and the friendly locals offer to feed us in exchange for tales of our travels. We share our western treats and they share their local foods....
Suddenly a young girl of 8 or so runs screaming from a house and falls in your lap.
Several of the local woman come from the house to retrieve the child
who is frantic and in tears....
You ask what it about... and manage after some translation to discover they are just about to remove a large portion of that childs vulva with a knife [excision]
If a rage we all storm to the house and find the girl spread eagled on a bed
screaming for us to save her...

What do you do?

****************

Indeed ,,what do we do?
Occam holds that a child [under 16] should not be mutilated by anyone.
NO MATTER WHAT THE MOTIVATION.
To do so is to commit a crime against the inherent rights of a human being.
The child is to young to have responsibillity..For herself or others...
If she is not old enough to be responsible for herself...
It is the job of her parents/elders to protect her untill SHE can decide if she wants her Vulva mutilated and her clitoris hacked off...

Imposing circumcision and excision on children we are ethically and morally
bound to protect untill they can live as responsible humans is our job as rational thinking/feeing beings.

To cut of bits of children because of mindless laws promoted by ignorance and religion..Is AN EVIL.

He broke up with his last partner OVER THIS ISSUE.
She supported circumcision..Occam called her in not so harsh words ..
An ignorant butcher and follower of any social conformity...

There are no half measures in this....We mutilate children or we do not..
It is NOT like the appendix and such
The male foreskin results in NO health issues if the man keeps himself clean
And the female clitoris is cut off because ignorant men dont want their 'child' wives to experience ANY pleasure....

Such moral and ethical crimes happen all the time..we say we put up with it because that is their country, their culture....
WRONG.

Each life is ITS LIFE.Without country or culture...
WE ARE ALL HUMAN AND NOTHING ELSE....WE ARE ALL PEOPLE with inherent rights.

Country and Culture is CRAP.

They are words we use and no more..From space..There are no countries
our cultures...just earth..nature,,and us.

We are the half civilised irrational savages we ARE..Because things like this happen in the world.
Thats right..the next time someone says humanity is civillised...
Ask them if the little girl thinks so... pointing to the infected WOUND that was her private parts...

REASON would NEVER allow it.

To cut of the clitoris of that child is one thing.. and one thing only..EVIL
[the gratuitous harming of another to satisfy personal needs]

Occam


And yet this happens all the trime..why is occam still in his chair
doing nothing to stop it?

There can be no reason other than he is lazy , laking in resolve and embedded in the comfort of his present life..
That is the Horror he has to live with..
His own lack of resolve to action...Knowing some little girl IS be excised right now...
He asks however. How may 'adults would he have to kill' to stop it..
There seems only one path will stop it [without slaughter]...education.
Removal of ignorance.
This is a terrible conundrum for a reasoning being...
act, or wait for reason to be the norm.

 

so right.. cept im circumsised

 

Hey stoner...

I think that the type of 'circumcision' referred to is also known as FGM, and is alot different than the snip snip you and i had done to us as babes. And it is a pretty horrific subject if you care to research it, not really the appropriate type of subject to make flippant comebacks about, in my humble opinion.