tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post8858689109731083255..comments2024-03-28T12:10:26.197-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Does God Suffer With You? Or Will He Skip this Post?Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-20767221533757068932007-07-26T05:26:00.000-07:002007-07-26T05:26:00.000-07:00God is quite a character.God is quite a character.USS Ben USN (Ret)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07492369604790651538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-10206162273627555292007-07-25T21:10:00.000-07:002007-07-25T21:10:00.000-07:00Magnus - My friend is actually a member of "The Ch...Magnus - My friend is actually a member of "The Church of Last Thursday", and seems quite content there. As far as "the character of the God of the Bible", I think that might be a most enlightening subject for Mr. Petey and Senor Gagdad to expound upon.<BR/><BR/>wv: frnll (my friend...again)NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-69192934330260668542007-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:002007-07-25T21:02:00.000-07:00Van said "...we have a problem finding the common ...Van said "...we have a problem finding the common thread between subatomic particles and belly laughs..."<BR/><BR/>Speak for yourself , dude...you must have missed Boy Shakira performing on America's Got Talent (I certainly wish I had - subatomic particles have burned it into my brain).<BR/><BR/>wv: pptok (something like that)NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-71965089936128118292007-07-25T20:07:00.000-07:002007-07-25T20:07:00.000-07:00BTW - have really liked the last few days posts, l...BTW - have really liked the last few days posts, little time for commenting, but have been reading greedily. Especially the Sonny Bono post, always knew that the Wisdom psalms would be good OC Material.<BR/><BR/>Ah well, back to it.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-44169769170075218282007-07-25T20:02:00.000-07:002007-07-25T20:02:00.000-07:00I rather like JulieC's observation the other day t...I rather like JulieC's observation the other day that in order to get life, the universe and everything in it, it takes a Cosmos. <BR/><BR/>The Cosmos is what it is, because it must needs be. Just because it doesn't fit our preferred timelines, lack of patience and pet theories, I don't think is, was or ever will be cause for the planner to tamper with the plan. If God did throw himself into his work, I'm betting he'll continue to work it out according to his own plan, Omphalos's, Darwinians & egoities notwithstanding. And just because we have a problem finding the common thread between subatomic particles and belly laughes, doesn't mean the universe needs a rewrite - we just need to get a bit farther past chapter 3 before trying to judge the plot.<BR/><BR/>Sheesh, 40+ hr's work into this week already... eating into my OC time... now if I could just figure out a way to turn that more people alive in moder times than in all time, into giving me more time, I bet I'd be having a much better time.<BR/><BR/>Nah... I'd probably get myself right back into the same predicament... that's the trouble with getting answers separated from their questions... what the heck good is 42?Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-65246475347105840812007-07-25T16:21:00.000-07:002007-07-25T16:21:00.000-07:00Nomo,You or someone else here once mentioned that ...Nomo,<BR/>You or someone else here once mentioned that notion that there are more people alive today than ever existed in the past. I researched it and found it to not be true, though it is certainly true that more people have been alive since the modern world than ever lived before it, which is rather fascinating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-24078833382446211962007-07-25T15:51:00.000-07:002007-07-25T15:51:00.000-07:00Nomo,your friend's thinking is sadly susceptible t...Nomo,<BR/>your friend's thinking is sadly susceptible to the Church of Last Thursday syndrome.<BR/><BR/>The Bible, in contrast, projects a picture of God which is not consistent with that kind of behavior. I am not saying a god could not do it, just that it would be out of character for the God of the Bible.Magnus Itlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18445902788427523461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-42867616795635526262007-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:002007-07-25T15:27:00.000-07:00As for Darwinism, however, I am not sure it is qui...As for Darwinism, however, I am not sure it is quite as different from Newtonism as many Christians believe.<BR/><BR/>I mean, it may be a letdown to find out that the planets are not necessarily guided through the heavens each by their own named angel, making sure they correctly thread their complex path across the sky. Instead it seems that some simple, common law of nature causes the exact same effect with a minimum of fuss.<BR/><BR/>Why should it be different with evolution? As long as it causes the desired effect at the desired time, how is it really inferior to God sitting down with a heap of clay?<BR/><BR/>To me, the argument that "God does not exist unless he makes each species by hand" is equally outmoded as "God does not exist unless he guides each planet by hand". To think that the laws of nature can replace God is a pretty narrow view of who or what God is.<BR/><BR/>Simplicity is the elegance you would expect from an amazingly intelligent designer.<BR/><BR/>(Also, simple laws seems to be God's style. Certainly this is so in the spiritual realm.)<BR/><BR/>To sum up, I don't have a problem with biological evolution. I have a problem with saying that it replaces God. But that would be like saying that gravity replaces God.Magnus Itlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18445902788427523461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-23156065078079968652007-07-25T15:24:00.000-07:002007-07-25T15:24:00.000-07:00A good friend of mine by the same name, with whom ...A good friend of mine by the same name, with whom I seem to find myself constantly arguing, likes to pose the following:<BR/><BR/>Many people object to a creation that only has the “appearance” of age. They say that it would be deceptive on the part of the Creator, counter to scientific fact, a denial of cosmic evolution, etc. However, would these objections hold up if the Creator revealed to us what He had done and given a rough idea of when He did it? For example, if He created a full-grown tree, showed it to us, and then said, “Look what I just made”, would we believe Him or cut down the tree and count the rings to prove His delusion? Better yet, what if, right before our eyes, He brought someone back to life that we know to have died days ago. Undoubtedly, many first-hand witnesses, and perhaps even some who they tell, would conclude that He is The One, worthy of worship and faith. Others would likely write it off as some kind of trick, and still others might have even a different reaction (John 11:48).<BR/><BR/>My friend also likes to remind me that “there are more human beings alive today than have ever died”. He says this means something and I need to think about it.<BR/><BR/>I don’t know. Sometimes I think my friend is just plain nuts. But other times…NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-50764299146941712052007-07-25T14:26:00.000-07:002007-07-25T14:26:00.000-07:00Frank? That you? Stop pretending you're God. Yo...Frank? That you? <BR/><BR/>Stop pretending you're God. You're only fooling your disciples.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-57334071339670234982007-07-25T14:16:00.000-07:002007-07-25T14:16:00.000-07:00All god-ideas come from the ego, and god-ideas not...All god-ideas come from the ego, and god-ideas not only relect the ego itself, but, altogether,god-ideas, being mere ideas, reinforce and console the state of egoity, and, in fact, subordinate The Real Divine, to the ego and the ego's search and purpose. The purpose of god-ideas is to account for the presumed "objective world" and the presumed "separate self"---by presuming the "objective world" and the "separate self" as the FIRST, and even irreducibly existing,matters of philosophical importance. However in the process that is True Religion, the first matter of philosophical importance is the PRIOR transcending of the ILLUSIONS, or the non-ultimacy, of "objective world" and "separate self".<BR/><BR/>All of the usual talk of "evolutionary processes" is just an extension of this reinforcement and consolation of the presumed "separate self"--the inherently godless ego. It makes the ego seem to be very important, and indeed the very centre, in each ones case, of the attention/intention of "god's" presumed "purpose" in the universe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-81545222427663827782007-07-25T13:29:00.000-07:002007-07-25T13:29:00.000-07:00How bout if I try this:CanHow bout if I try this:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4B-r8KJhlE" REL="nofollow">Can</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-59204776261904825692007-07-25T13:21:00.000-07:002007-07-25T13:21:00.000-07:00If I wasn't so technologically challenged, I would...If I wasn't so technologically challenged, I would simply dump the link here for the Dick and Rick Hoyt video, "Can", which seems to deserve a visit or revisit, as your case may be, in light of today's post.<BR/><BR/>Here's the url below. I thought maybe someone might help me out and make it easy for others to see. It always took my breath away, and after reading Bob today, well . . .<BR/><BR/><BR/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4B-r8KJhlEAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-92007005778338157852007-07-25T13:18:00.000-07:002007-07-25T13:18:00.000-07:00My understanding has been that evolution and natur...My understanding has been that evolution and natural selection go "hand in hand" due to the fact that natural selection is the grand "mechanism" that drives all of biological evolution. Nonetheless, the Devil's in the details, as natural selection, once you examine how it is supposed to work, just simply fails to work in too many ways. I found the book "Darwin's Black Box" to be particularly illuminating in this regard as it brought to light certain things that evolutionary scientists simply choose to ignore, not unlike the Warren Commission, as they fly in the face of their preconceived assumptions. <BR/>If, therefore, natural selection fails to meet is grand claims, then the whole idea of "evolution" has to be dimantled, or ought to be, but...no...turns out evolutionary biologists prefer to hold to a theory that fails rather than finding one that unfails.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-14951460572774834492007-07-25T12:13:00.000-07:002007-07-25T12:13:00.000-07:00Bob, thanks for the honor of being the seed of a p...Bob, thanks for the honor of being the seed of a post. I'm not sure that we fundamentally disagree. As a Catholic, my understanding is that the Incarnation does in fact, change everything, and that Jesus, as the New Adam, or the "firstborn of all creation" is, in fact, creating a new heavens and a new earth "from the ground up". C.S. Lewis mentioned this idea (in "Miracles", I believe), that of Jesus incarnating and participating in reality (all the way from the level of molecular biology in a fertilized egg) in such a way that he is effectively, like Hercules, or some Epic Hero, placing the whole fallen world on His shoulders and lifting it up, thereby redeeming it, and doing so by suffering.<BR/><BR/>I also have no problem with cosmic evolution or common descent. How else is Man to be the high priest of all creation (the "job" of the first Adam, later taken on by the second Adam), if the whole creation did not intimately participate in his being (from the Big Bang, through the production of the elements in stars, through the development and elaboration and advancement of the tree of life on earth)? How else could he serve as the representative of all that was created, and how else could Jesus redeem the whole thing by becoming man if by doing so this did not give him such intimate "contact" with creation in all its details, from the Big Bang forward?<BR/><BR/>My main point was to caution against the temptation of taking a "process theology" point of view in which God is somehow, in some essential way, discovering himself, or becoming himself, in his eternal aspect. Such is not orthodox theology (as expounded by the Catholic Church, which claims god-given infallibility in these matters, which I'm willing to accept, because giving to selected representatives such miraculous teaching infallibility is the kind of guy I think God is; please understand, I'm not asserting "I'm right, you're wrong, because I've got God on my side," but simply pointing out that if some kind of "process theology" is true, then the Catholic Church is wrong, as well as a couple millenia of orthodox teaching). Only having "read" Teilhard at second hand (in Meditations on the Tarot and in "New Age" literature), I don't know whether he, himself implies a "process theology", but I do know that he has admirers who do, and use his thinking as support. This could be a misinterpretation on their part. For the record, I don't really get "process theology" from Meditations on the Tarot, but my intuition is that if the Unknown Friend were to have lived 100 years later, evolution might not play such a big role in his thinking, which was conditioned in some respects by the mid twentieth-century philosophical milieu in which he lived.<BR/><BR/>In any case, theological musings on the meaning of evolution were much more resonant with me when I thought Darwinism stood on solid scientific ground (and that's when I first read Meditations). The arguments of the Intelligent Design guys over the last ten years have impressed me greatly, and the ensuing "counter-arguments" of the Darwin guys, well, not so much. Since their grand materialist view of evolution is a pretty weak explanation of the goings on of the material world, I'm more skittish than I used to be about filtering my theological thinking through an "evolutionary lens".<BR/><BR/>All that aside, I greatly enjoy your writing each day, although I haven't been a commenter.Matteohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05393908406875742989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-27551429939460804862007-07-25T12:12:00.000-07:002007-07-25T12:12:00.000-07:00I doubt we disagree on this - it is really too cen...I doubt we disagree on this - it is really too central for that. There really is a current on the border between Christianity and New Age, which claims that God basically emptied the whole of His being into creation and was "unconscious" until the ascent of man, with the universe on autopilot. These people lay claim to Theilhard as well, but I know from your earlier writing that you are aware of distinction between God outside time and God inside time. I consider this essentially the same heresy as failing to distinguish between the Father and the Son.<BR/><BR/>Surely we can agree that it was the Father who raised Jesus from the dead, not the disciples. But that would essentially be the heresy of the cult of the Exploding God: God is dead and it is our task to put Him back together. I don't think so.<BR/><BR/>And, I like to believe, neither did Teilhard.Magnus Itlandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18445902788427523461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-37601998067809156662007-07-25T12:10:00.000-07:002007-07-25T12:10:00.000-07:00And would God really create a cosmos that is so fu...<I>And would God really create a cosmos that is so fundamentally deceptive that we cannot comprehend it with our reason? Why?</I><BR/><BR/>Yet that is EXACTLY the theology of the <I>Omphalos</I> subset of Young Earth Creationism. First proposed by Gosse(?) in mid-Victorian times and still batted around today among YECs, <I>Omphalos</I> was the idea that God created the cosmos <I>ex nihilo</I> 6000 years ago including deliberately-false, freshly-created evidence for a 13.7-gigayear evolutionary backstory.<BR/><BR/>Stephen Jay Gould pointed out that the <I>Omphalos</I> idea is by definition unprovable because it is un-disprovable; any evidence against a YEC is explained as deliberate disinformation from God.<BR/><BR/>It also begs the question (since YEC has become the Central Core of the Faith for a *lot* of Christians) as to God's nature. A God who deliberately creates the cosmos with a false trail of evidence against the creation, with the accompanying injunction that if you ever believe said physical evidence, you go to Hell.<BR/><BR/>St Paul said "Faith is the substance of things hoped for", NOT "Faith is the denial of physical evidence/reality".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40520990115340338212007-07-25T10:25:00.000-07:002007-07-25T10:25:00.000-07:00Spotlighta white robed choira child is born (the o...<A HREF="http://robinstarfish.blogspot.com/" REL="nofollow">Spotlight</A><BR/>a white robed choir<BR/>a child is born (the old one)<BR/>christmas in julyrobinstarfishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15665546554663005609noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1215864020960845962007-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:002007-07-25T09:53:00.000-07:00Meditations of the Tarot introduced the idea that ...<I>Meditations of the Tarot</I> introduced the idea that not only are there higher worlds, but also these worlds have things in them like signposts or spiritual land marks. These signposts show you are on the right track. Every time I stumble upon one I'm amazed. I've been lost and in a funk these last couple of weeks. These last two posts helped move me to a different place, and I (saw,felt,knew,sensed) grokked (Thank you Heinlein for the word) a signpost. I'm still lost, but I feel I'm moving in the right direction. Thank Bob.<BR/>BTW, if I had to point out one problem with religion today is we can't seem to get the metaphysics right. Nobody, except for Raccoons, seems to want to do the necessary work.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03149296283560293988noreply@blogger.com