Science vs. Religion - Must We Choose Between Them?

by bavman 74 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  bernadette

  KidA judging from what you wrote below on a different thread, imho, you have quite a lot in common with JT.

  My moment of final epiphany was when I was about 15, sitting out on a deck by a river in Northern Ontario on a gorgeous sunny July day.

  I had spent the summer reading Nietzsche, Freud and a book of Zen Ko'ans, so I was ripe for self-revelation.....I just felt this intrinsic oneness with

  my environment, the crisp air, the sun, the water, nature and everything within it and I realized....this is it....this is real and this is ALL there is.

  At that point I realized I needed no foolish beliefs and fears of ancient sky-gods or mortal prophets claiming to speak on "divine" authority.

  Nature, biology, evolution and its endless mysteries.....this was and is the only 'divinity' I would ever need again.

  It was the deepest most profound sense of peace and relief I have ever known in a singular moment.....

  I wasborn the day that the gods died.

  just my opinion.

  bernadette
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  Narkissos

  One big dispute between the two is- how did we get here? Science and religion come up with completely opposing views, you can't support both ideas at the same time without being a hypocrite.

  Does considering that this is not a religious question make one a hypocrite?

  At some point, "will it rain this week?" was probably considered a "religious" question. I don't think "religion" lost anything by giving up that one to meteorology. On the contrary it became more "religious" -- or "spiritual," if you prefer.
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  JamesThomas

  MQ, I meant no insult. Every thought and word ever uttered is simply an interpretation of the limited little mind. Not just yours. Mine as well.

  As you suggest Kid-A, there can be nothing known as it actually is, via the mind, as all the mind can offer is interpretation. Your interpretation is: "there IS no reality beyond the universe created within our cortex and therefore, no possibility of perceiving an object in its true, unfiltered essence. We are nothing more than the sum total of our neuronal networks which can distort or accurately encode incoming sensory information depending upon the emotional and/or motivational context of said event. I would challenge JT to provide one example of this unfiltered, pure reality he purports to have access to."

  It's clear you know the mind can not perceive actual truth; yet you allow it to make bold all-knowing statements as if it can.

  Can consciousness, which silently witnesses all the minds interpretation, actually see beyond the minds limitations and meet with and realize the actual TRUTH? Not as an unknowable object, but rather as Its own true Self? Those who have seen, say indeed it can be realized because the ultimate truth is what we naturally and really are. It's no big deal. But, you must see it first hand for yourself. I can not give you what you truly are; and I can not via the mind's words and thoughts express it. All attempts making me simply look the fool.

  I am only saying you are far more than you THINK you are. At best I can only entice people to investigate acutely into their most immediate and intimate sense of being and existing to see if there is more that can be seen. I'm not asking anyone to believe anything I say. Beliefs are only the minds interpretation. Nothing I have ever said is the Truth.

  j
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  Madame Quixote

  Kid A said:

  "I would challenge JT to provide one example of this unfiltered, pure reality he purports to have access to.

  However, if JT can demonstrate to me that he has mastered some perceptual technique to perceive and think in the absence of neurochemical transmission, I would be delighted to arrange some fMRI scans, and have the findings published in Nature...."

  I would simply be delighted to experience it (without the MRI scans)!Unless it meant that I had to die to do that.

  Remember the song: "Marijuanna, marijuanna, LSD, LSD! Parents smoke it. Teachers toke it! Why can't we. . .why can't we?!

  Thanks for the response, JT. I wasn't sure if you meant what you said or said what you meant, and I'm still not so sure. Anyway, keep on smokin.'
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  RAF

  James Thomas:

  For a long time I was wondering why you were talking the way you do, it is such an open way to express the matter that I've always fell the need to be more explicite, since I realised that somehow it was the only way to express it as openely as it can be without getting people confused (even by spiritual words and entrepretation from trauma about religious peremptory beliefs).

  This kind of way to speak is very spiritual indeed but is more approchable by some asian and native american cultures. but we are getting there.
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  Madame Quixote

  Yeah, RAF. I have definitely gotten the impression over time that JT is Buddhist or something like that. Are you, JT?

  I think the eastern and native american religious philosophies are more encompassing than other western "spiritual" or philosophical paths; but I would not choose any such path to the exclusion of logic and scientific understanding of things.
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  JamesThomas

  No MQ, I have no religion or belief system.

  Yes, RAF, there are other cultures more open to this. The western mind is often more narrowly scientific and rational than others. However, I don't really see this as a problem if one takes it to its limits and becomes a radical realist and performs the deepest of scientific investigations.

  If we place the dynamics of our mind under the sober scrutinizing light of silent awareness, the mind can be observed as it frantically weaves its concepts and ideas into a facsimile of "reality" and "self". It can be clearly seen that nothing the mind presents as "self" (and that "self's" relationship to the rest of the universe) is the actual, real truth of what IS. It's all just a story. It can also be clearly seen that the pristine clarity of the observing consciousness which is undertaking the acute examination is closer than the story and undeniably most immediate and real. Here, what is real begins to shift position into the forefront, and what is not moves to the rear.

  What's left is to delve deeper into awareness, with acute conscious-awareness, our guiding light simply being to believe nothing and the desire to find what is unquestionably real and true. What am I, really??? Why the western mind sees this as illogical mysticism, makes no sense to me. It's just the opposite. It's questioning everything, believing nothing, and accepting only a meeting with raw reality -- first hand.

  When we allow awareness to move outside the cave of the mind, and meet and realize actuality, it's utterly impossible to go back in and explain it to people still chained there. They will perceive you as a fool. I'm happy to be the fool.

  j
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  RAF

  Hi MQuitox : I'm following this guy since a long time and yes he does more looks like this kind of philosopher ...

  James Thomas :

  I never saw you as a fool James Thomas ... Never (because there is no contradication possible in what you are saying) !!!
  nothing to prove just to be aware of what we can check in reality and feel spiritually.
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  poppers

  Beautiful post, JT.

  I'm happy to be the fool.

  As am I.
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  Wafe

  Thank you for the welcome.

  As regards to scientists accepting evolution or not is not important as that was not exactly my point. The point is that they are still arguing over HOW it even occured. I find that strange considering that they have discovered this 'fact' over two centuries ago, there is still no proof as to how it happened.

  What I find interesting is that scientist put an awful lot of faith in something that has never been proven.

  For example evolution has been likened to gravity as a fact that cannot be questioned. Well gravity can be proven experimentally (all you have to do is drop a ball onto the ground and you prove gravity.) Yet there has never been an experiment that has been able to prove that living things come from non living matter. There has never been an example of transgender species that did not resort back to its original form in within a couple of generations. (The experiment with mutated fruit flies would be a good example.)

  Science is suppose to be the search for facts and yet with evolution, I see a lot of taking things on 'faith'.