Amazing that anyone can write such drivel.

Amazing that someone can write such an empty sentence.

Meanwhile why not check out these references which provide a comprehensive all-inclusive Illuminated Understanding of the human condition in the "21st century.

http:///www.beezone.com/up/dogmassoicalmorality2.html
Check out sections 1, 3, and 4 of this long essay too.

Unfortunately for everyone the kind of dim-witted entirely exoteric institutional "religion" or religiosity that Sells promotes reduces everyone and everything to the fear saturated mortal meat body scale only. The first Three Stages of Life. It does not even begin to take the totality of the human body-mind-complex into account especially the 4th, 5th and 6th stages of life.
This reference describes the situation
http://www.beezone.com/7stages/7_stages_of_life-2.html

Furthermore most/all of what is now promoted as "religion" is patterned and controlled by the now universal doubt-mind which patterns and controls every minute fraction of human culture. This reference ( http://www.dabase.org/doubt.htm )introduces the 1984 book The Transmission of Doubt.

http://www.adidam.org/teaching/gnosticon/universal-scientism
The above essay was originally titled The Psychosis of Doubt

Cumberland. Absolutely agree and couldn't have put it better. I mean, if J.C had been a member of Morrison's belief system? Instead of whipping the moneychangers out of His Father's house. May have consulted them on the exchange rate, or some such?

What Sells misses, I believe, is the (falsely) assumed authority/relevance and the power that gave unelected (power-hungry, control freak) "church" officials?
Alan B.

The most annoying kind of religion possible, that automatically assumes it knows best, and anyone who disagrees must be "missing" out on something.

I have deeply religious friends, but none would presume to insult me like this

"Christianity, and Judaism before it has always been about the future. Time is understood as being linear and directed towards the establishment of the kingdom of heaven/God on earth."

Distorted vision and unrealistic expectations are a recipe for disappointment.

What a fool would hope that one day all schools will evolve into universities? Who would then teach the little ones?

Time in school is cyclical and so it should be - every year the older pupils mature and leave, the others advance to the next grade while new young ones fill in year 1.

Also in school, in order to advance, lazy pupils must be prodded and unless they occasionally feel unpleasant, they will fail to move on.

A good teacher watches with satisfaction as generations of students pass through their school, mature and leave. They ask for no more.

Human life on earth is better likened to a school. Earth will never become heaven, nor should it and suffering will never be eliminated because it is part and parcel of the process of learning.

Society ought to be based on truth, not on fantasy. True leadership ought to facilitate personal and spiritual growth so as to help us graduate and move on to live with God in heaven, not here (except for those who then volunteer to remain here as teachers).

Daffy Duck

Looks that's all very interesting, but for the lazy person, could you give us the gist of it in a paragraph?

*

People, myself included, chuck off at established religion, but it needs no theism to see that a man would be a fool to consider that he has nothing to learn from the scriptures; and that he is superior in mind and soul to all those who found high and enduring value in them.

... would be a fool to consider that he has nothing to learn from the scriptures...
Cumberland,
I'm not religious at all but I totally agree with what you're saying !

If God is dead, why do we miss Him so?

In a personal sense, this is not a relevant question, since belief in god is non existent without faith as a driver of belief.
The numbers involved in the belief system are irrelevant.

Belief in God as a socially binding mechanism, is also irrelevant, since society comprises a multitude of overlaying belief systems, which together define society.

If society is seen to be in decline, it’s more likely to be a fault of the political system, and not a question of religious belief.

Dan

"We may count Angela Merkle and Joe Biden as politicians whose lives are grounded in the Christian tradition".

That would be the worst advertisement for Christianity ever.

.

Dear Peter,

.

You wrote :

« … Nietzsche who, despite his atheism, lamented the death of God as a momentous event that untethered us. »
.

Though Friedrich Nietzsche’s father was a Lutheran pastor and former teacher – who died when Friedrich was only five years old – he grew up not believing in God.

Nietzsche was not only a philosopher, he was also a poet, as the expression “Gott ist tot” (God is dead) attests. He probably could not resist the use of the playful assonance for effect, but the phrase should not be interpreted literally. It was not exactly what he meant.

The original quote from “Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft” (The Gay Science) is : “Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet!” (God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him).

He didn’t mean that there was a God who had died, but that our idea that there was a God had died. The Enlightenment had revealed that the universe was governed by physical laws, not by divine providence. Governments did not need divine right to be legitimate but be freely elected by the people. And moral theories did not need to be “revealed” by a God to be conceived.

Nietzsche realised that not only was God dead but that human beings had killed him with their scientific revolution to gain a better understanding of the world, its origin, and evolutionary process.

While Nietzsche was persuaded that this was a good thing for some people, saying: “... at hearing the news that 'the old god is dead, we philosophers and 'free spirits' feel illuminated by a new dawn”, he nevertheless thought that most people would have difficulty facing-up to a godless and seemingly meaningless world – unless they had an alternative existential philosophy to replace it.

Despite that, I don’t think it is true to say, as you indicate in your article, Peter, that Nietzsche “lamented” the death of God.

Nietzsche was not a nihilist. He had faith in life – here and now – not in some hypothetical “after-life”.

.

To Peter Sellick who writes: "After so many of us have shrugged off the existence of God because it is impossible that He exists under our materialist terms and because He is an affront to our freedom, there remains a nostalgia for God, a longing to be at one with our neighbour and the world and perhaps even to stand in the midst of a congregation and be overcome by awe. Like the prodigal, we feel unmoored, and our newfound freedom has the taste of desperation."

This is one of your most egregious efforts among the glossolalian vastness of fantasy that has marked your contribution to OLO
A significant number of us had no need of shrugging off anything in order to develop and grow into a normal human being. So many? Have you the resources, the intellectual honesty and energy to advise roughly how many? Every one of us is born without belief and would continue in that most excellent, simple and innocent condition until we shrug off our mortal coil, were it not for the intellectually vulnerable who fear being alone in a cold and hostile Universe, who cringe and pee their pants at the thought of there being no all powerful friend and protector. The prospect leaves a hole in their mind that one could metaphorically drive a truck through. (223)Cont....

….cont: The concept of a god of any kidney is an affront to the Natural World, to the flora and fauna that it nurtures and the physical and chemical orderliness that keeps chaos, at bay. What we observe around us is a "movable feast" between Cosmos and Chaos where the phenomenon of life and the forces of chemical attraction/bonding maintain a delicate balance. Human conceit, (the trait that makes and defines gods) chooses to downplay the mechanics over which it has no control and puts a human construct at the controls, a construct that actually looks like a human! In the Cosmic schematic, is this not the ultimate conceit? That an unproven part of the whole should usurp a greater significance than its due and strive somehow to be master of the whole, but where intellect has no place, is non-sequitur. Doctrine, dogma and apologetics, as unstable and superficial as they are, replace intellect.

Life and self-awareness are traits few genera of animalia possess. So far, only humans have constant awareness of an imminent death. To dwell on this is destructive and can bring great anguish, so we fantasise the hell out of the truth to make ourselves feel better, even to live a more satisfying life. The quality of life, then, is moderated by human consciousness and this is the agency whereby we make fantasies of what we don't understand and what we fear. The very traits demanded of humans by gods of many stripe but most popularly that world of fantasy that sprang from the god of a bunch of murderous semitic tribes that burst out of the Arabian wilderness when the Middle East was probably much greener. It is a cause for some chagrin among free-thinkers that China, Nepal and Tibet were so distant, that Lao Tzu, Kung fu tze and Buddha were not the foundations upon which a world religious movement could be founded, where tranquility, love of the natural world, equanimity in the face of adversity and community of living were widely recognised and observed. (342) Cont…

Cont….There is a nostalgia for a god. It's about time you were confronted and pressed to explain precisely who your god is, his traits, his composition and his purpose for being. His mental stability marks him more with human traits than is healthy in a god. I commend Richard Dawkins' description for it pays homage to the book of which this god was Editor in Chief, if not the author. The nostalgia is as dishonest and as idiotic as the Latino nations yearning and waiting for the catholic version prior to Spanish conquest.

"Like the prodigal, we feel unmoored, and our newfound freedom has the taste of desperation."
"Unmoored''......."We" feel no such thing and resent your suggestion. It is not within the purview of politeness to attribute to "us" anything of the sort. This is a very satisfying figment of your imagination for you to view "us" in some unenviable situation. It is human conceit made holy by self-deceit.
"Newfound freedom"? You'll understand if a skeptic, atheist/humanist calls you out on your straw-man dishonesty and in branding your assertion as utter bovine excreta. Considerable numbers of us will have no compunction in branding you a liar. We assert that we have never suffered deprivation of our freedom and with rising hackles absolutely deny you the right to describe us so, especially when it is done in the interest of your self-glorification. (233) cont….

Cont…. "the taste of desperation"? Where in your faith does it adjure your denigration, belittlement and derision of those who disagree with you? You ascribe desperation to your opposition. Demonstrate that desperation........or is that the way you imagine you might feel if you were ever "free" of religious faith? (284) cont…

Cont…. "the taste of desperation"? Where in your faith does it adjure your denigration, belittlement and derision of those who disagree with you? You ascribe desperation to your opposition. Demonstrate that desperation........or is that the way you imagine you might feel if you were ever "free" of religious faith? (284) cont….

Cont….In the above, what has been demonstrated is a meanness in the faithful, a meanness of thought that surely, when properly recognised, is anathema to any remnant of charity and goodwill that festers in your faith.

Alotting religious faith the status of magisterium, as Stephen Gould did, is nonsensical in its weak-kneed, lily-livered cringe before popularity and unconscious, collective crowd-think.

I would deal with every word of your disreputable missive but my time is worth more than that. An hour spent every now and then is sufficient to keep me in trim. Your cerebral pathology gets no more respect from me than you would grant to your interlocutors. And herein lies a clue to which I'm sure your faith prohibits you access.

While you find it necessary to present your mean, conceit of a faith as some longed-for ideal and build your argument on a basis of ridiculing, misrepresenting and lying about those who disagree with you, then there will be vehement challenges. And there will be no more of your current acquaitance struggling to be Mr Nice Guy.

Warren Glover (formerly Pogi) 7 May 2021 (186) Fin

Jujutsu writes P1: "Time is understood as being linear and directed towards the establishment of the kingdom of heaven/God on earth."
The passage of time is not at the beck and call of a supernatural "power"/ "force" as the whim takes it. Time can be described in different ways but putting it in a supernatural setting and leaving it to the vagaries of religious dogma is anathema to rational processes. Time is endowed with nobler and richer origins. Its birth-place is currently unknown but may have heralded our Universe in the remnant Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (or CMB or Relic Radiation or the vernacular abomination, the Big Bang). It is one of the four fundamental forces- electromagnetism, so its ancestry and authority trumps anything religious faith can give it.
So it serves a nobler purpose for humankind (using "purpose" metaphorically of course.)
" Distorted vision and unrealistic expectations are a recipe for disappointment."
This opinion tells us only that you know nothing of the world outside your own fantasies. Hundreds of millions of people see your assertion that their visions are distorted and their expectations unrealistic as a measure of your bigotry and exclusivity. With equal legitimacy they can suggest that you suffer the focus on your own conceits and then publish a recipe minus the imaginary ingredients. (218) Cont…

Cont…"Human life on earth is better likened to a school. Earth will never become heaven, nor should it and suffering will never be eliminated because it is part and parcel of the process of learning."
Wherever any life is it learns by experience but life on Earth, for thousands of genera is a school moderated by family teaching. For Homo sapiens sapiens, schools are institutions provided by the state and includes family teaching as well, You had better check with a lot of others whether there will never be heaven on Earth. I believe you could be challenged severely for this assertion. You demonstrate a religious selectivity of a most egregious kidney when you honour your fantasies with capitalisation but deny such honour to the ark that birthed you and sustasins you in the Universe and and without which you would be nothing. Your biological mother is not the only mother in your life.

"Society ought to be based on truth, not on fantasy."
This is laughable coming from one who can utter the following with a grimly set jaw and steely gaze, knowing the readership will giggle at the confusion the utterer suffers.

"True leadership ought to facilitate personal and spiritual growth so as to help us graduate...."
As there is not yet a universally agreed definition of :spirituality", how can it possibly be part of a responsible government department's education curriculum? FANTASY

"True" leadership? Or a leadership of which you approve? FANTASY. It seems you disapprove of the principle of separation of church and state and see a real benefit in returning to the horrendous religious tyranny of the Dark Ages.
"....and move on to live with God in heaven...." FANTASY, (285) Fin.

It was the author, not me, who wrote: "Time is understood as being linear and directed towards the establishment of the kingdom of heaven/God on earth.". I objected to that statement in the article and so far neither the author nor his supporters attempted to refute my objections.

But well, what can I say for someone who can (and likes to) write, but cannot read, not even names or quote-signs (")? perhaps the young generation finds it fashionable to consider this "progress"...

To create heaven on earth is a materialistic fantasy, for one thing is for sure - there will come a time when this earth and universe, in which fools place their hopes, will be no more:

“What is the greatest wonder in the world?
That, every single day, people die,
Yet the living think they are immortal.”

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7650435-what-is-the-greatest-wonder-in-the-world-that-every

Yuyutsu writes P3: "It was the author, not me...." then I acknowledge this and add my own objections in the forlorn hope that the true author can overcome his timidity (I will limit myself to this attribution for the nonce) and defend himself. If he has failed to recognise by now that derogation and lies about those who disagree with him will continue to attract my moderate criticism then objections will follow as night follows day ad nauseam and ad infinitum while I can still gaze in awe at the natural world and experience the joy of the numinous.
If extolling his cerebral affliction cannot be done without said derogation and lies then his faith is worthy of no consideation from me.

You write: "But well, what can I say for someone who can (and likes to) write, but cannot read, not even names or quote-signs (")?
It's obvious that you can have nothing to say when you falsely accuse me of failing to use inverted commas at appropriate junctures. Kindly demonstrate this by pointing to it in my post. If you cannot then I can only offer sympathy for your dislexia and, management understanding and permitting, I will take up using double the space when responding to you. While you're in the mood perhaps too you might show me what names I cannot read. I don't recall using any names except yours, that arouses no nervousness in me whatsoever. (242) cont….

Cont….You write: "To create heaven on earth is a materialistic fantasy, for one thing is for sure - there will come a time when this earth and universe, in which fools place their hopes, will be no more."

I confess, I am disgusted beyond measure by individuals who cannot wait for death by natural means but by an event that will consign all but your approved of faithful to oblivion. This is a dreadful attitude to the only life you will ever enjoy. That you cannot wait to cast it away for fantastical promises is stunning in its stupidity and cannot but be condemned by all rational. thinking people. That you can live and rejoice in wishing this horror for all humankind arouses a certain sympathy in me for you, that you depart safely on your prospective journey with all haste. But before you leave would you be so kind as to advise this wretched sinner a definite date? I really don't want to push my luck but would I need to bring my golf clubs? Or is everything....you know.

"Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scattered, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust." (215) Fin

My attribution of the quatrain that concluded my last post was a function of OLO rules. This was overlooked by me when I was posting and therefore the blame is mine and I apologise.

It is the XXV stanza of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, poet, mathematician and astronomer of Naishapur.

Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 10 May 2021 2:04:52 AM.
Yuyutsu writes and accuses: "But well, what can I say for someone who can (and likes to) write, but cannot read, not even names or quote-signs (")? perhaps the young generation finds it fashionable to consider this "progress"..
I am accused of
(a) being unable to read....
(b) not recognising names....
(c) being of a "young generation" by implication.
(d) thinking that ignorance, inelegance and lack of erudition is some kind of progress.
I asked him to substantiate his allegations by specific references to my posts where such faults lie in abundance to the extent that the descriptives of "liar" and "coward" will not stick to his character.
He has resiled from the obligation that his behaviour imposes and thus has his character's stickiness increased.
Yuyutsu offers these pearls of wisdom:
" “What is the greatest wonder in the world?
That, every single day, people die,
Yet the living think they are immortal.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Mahabharata
This sooth-merchant states the obvious with a delve into the mock-heroic that he knows will impress the gullible. He's telling his followers the "truth" essential to all religions....that they were created vulnerable to error and sinful ways but it's still their own fault!
This pseudo-guru advises us that this quaint little puzzlement that infests his frail and feeble mind is a quake that rocks the very foundations of the Universe!
With all the wisdom that living in a cave for 100 years imparts through a diet of air, water, meditation and the odd louse for bulk, he berates the faithful in their striving for a thread of happiness in their lives, for not living in longing for the after-life. The sentiment is there in the Doberman vicar who spoke of Latin America's longing before the Spanish conquests, for the coming of the annointed one.
K-DV, condemns the faithful for not living every moment of every day in a lachrymose pleading for immortality after death and that joy, happiness, inner satisfaction. are distractions from the main game.
Where have we encoutered this drivel before?

Dear Pogi,

You are still abusive and ignorant, but I am glad that you learned to spell my name correctly.

You are still abusive and ignorant, but I am glad that you learned to spell my name correctly.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Saturday, 22 May 2021 11:46:30 PM

The misspelling of your name was obviously a typographical error. It doesn't surprise me though that you throw unfounded accusations instead of dealing with the substantive issues that are the basis of your post dated Monday, 10 May 2021 2:04:52 AM.

You display a gross timidity when placed in a position of being required to defend your ratbaggery. That you and Peter Sellick should assume that a sacred respect for religious drivel should guide an interlocutor's criticism reveals an inability or disinclination to defend faith as a basis of truth. Such irrationality and lack of courage deserves no respect and especially does this apply when you attach endless derogation and lies to the tenets of non-belief and attach unpleasant epithets to the non-believer/non-faithful.

You and Sellick are the abusive and ignorant when you think your accusations against your opponents are immutable holy writ that must, MUST, be accorded respect at all time and under all circumstances.

If you cannot defend your faith adequately on its own merits and advantages, then you should neither seek nor expect the obsequious help of your opponents to do so. Do you quake in fear of such a prospect? If you refuse to show respect for the convictions of others then you are not entitled to receive it. It’s as simple as that. It’s not quantum physics. And, strange to relate, such observance applies across the whole swathe of human behavior. Only religious faith insists on being the exception.
Your resort to petty and diversionary points will avail you of nought except as a revelation that religious faith, left to its own devices, is not susceptible of rational and reasonable defense. But that is a fault that you and your brethren must deal with.
The best point in time, when you’re beating your head against a brick wall, is when you stop to regain your senses. (339)

Dear Pogi,

As for my post dated Monday, 10 May 2021 2:04:52 AM, it was not addressed for you, only for some other readers who pass by. Why so? because nothing I say could help saving your soul anyway.

While my quoting the wisdom of the Mahabharata can be relevant and helpful for some (obviously not yourself), my statement there stands on its own merit and does not really require any further substantiation, I repeat:

To create heaven on earth¹ is a materialistic fantasy, for one thing is for sure - there will come a time when this earth and universe, in which fools place their hopes, will be no more.

Can you disagree?

---
¹ In response and rejection of the article's statement: "Time is understood as being linear and directed towards the establishment of the kingdom of heaven/God on earth"

My Dear Yuyutsu,
Re your post Monday 10 March 2021: This post is published on a public forum and is addressed to no one in particular. You want to pick and choose your readers and your responders?

" Why so? because nothing I say could help saving your soul anyway."

This is your one successful attempt at the unvarnished truth and goes back to my brick wall observation.
But YOU cannot know this for a fact. That reduces your assertion to a fondly held opinion which tickles the "faith spot" in your brain. Your interlocutor, poor deprived wretch, lacked such a spot from birth, his deprivation stretched to a soul as well.

"While my quoting the wisdom of the Mahabharata can be relevant and helpful for some (obviously not yourself), my statement there stands on its own merit and does not really require any further substantiation,"

The application of logic and reason inescapably demands that as a claim of this stripe falls without evidence, ergo such claims can be dismissed without evidence and, having no substance (not held together by logic and reason), ipso facto,they perish without substantiation. How would you convince me you are correct unless we both hold to the same credibility standards? Convince me your standards are better than mine. Both of us cannot be correct, but both of us can be wrong. Kindly avoid responding with a question as I will not be dragooned into making your case for you. Straightforward answers will gain respect. Straightforward but unsubstantiated opinions/assertions, less so.

Of course it is possible that everything as we know it will be no more. Prof Paul Davies in GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS describes the heat death of the Universe with science, logic and reason in ch.15. His Templeton Prize (2002, I think) is no taint to his scholarship. Asserting that you know the why , the how and the when requires the same scholarship based in science, logic and reason. Anything less will fail.

Taking pride in one's achievements is a sin only when someone else wants the credit. (248)

Dear Pogi,

I am not here to convince you of anything.
The author wrote his view in the article, I disagreed, regrettably he did not respond, then you intervened.

It seems that you anyway tend to agree with me (in this matter of the non-linearity of time) rather than with the author, Peter Sellick,
but you still seem to be uncertain and would like a further proof. However, the only kind of evidence that you may accept would be from modern material science, something neither the author nor myself have great interest in.

I am pretty convinced that modern scientific evidence can be found on this matter if sought, but I am not your slave to do your research work for free, so if you like to find it then roll up your own sleeves. I make it none of my business whether or not you accept my words or believe Sellick's Christian viewpoint instead - as far as I am concerned it is quite OK if you choose to follow him and become a Christian, even become a Jesuit monk or the pope if you like, I will not be offended.