I'm happy to park moral relativity if you are, but sure as eggs it will be back.

So if we could tiptoe gently around that for a moment and look at this statement of yours:

"But to reject God, you are still left with the barren wasteland of 'make_it_up_as_u_go' etc."

I'm not going to comment on the content of this, just the form. What you have done is to say "if you don't do X, then you must do Y." My objection to this is that whenever you do it - and trust me, you do it a great deal - is that you proceed to base all your arguments on 'Y'. I made the same comment earlier when you juxtaposed moral with amoral, and proceeded to rip apart the concept of "amoral".

I find this tiresome, in that it becomes necessary to pare back your argument from your issues with e.g. amorality, and ask you to talk about the original statement that led to the issues in the first place... but you are already 'way past that point, and racing off into the distance.

Hey, I'm new around here. I've been posting just one working week, so I've no idea whether I'm out of line in saying this. But to have a healthy discussion, rather than just bandy words about, we're going to have to work on some basics.

Deal?

Boaz, my post was addressed to Mark, but I should have realised that you were not far away, still trying to round up your non-existent flock. Just a couple of quick responses and then I am leaving you to your own thoughts.

You have a very limited understanding of feminism, no doubt gleaned from all your right-wing fundamentalist christian websites, and not from actually meeting any real live women outside your own "flock". You seem to think that there is some sort of contradiction between being a feminist and caring for others. Don't be silly. You should try to understand that women, being the stronger sex, are quite capable of participating in the workforce, pursuing other interests, and even running a country, at the same time as giving birth, bringing up children, and looking after others. It is happening all around you, if you lift your head from your keyboard occasionally. I doubt you could manage half what most women accomplish in their lives, and still you prattle on about the merits of biblical patriarchy.

Boaz, I am well aware that there were once female dieties, going right back into "prehistory". The earliest archeological finds all show worship of the female principle, not male. This makes sense because our paleolithic ancestors did understand that women are the givers of life. It was only during biblical times in the middle east, where your history begins, that the female dieties were overthrown by jealous male gods and the reign of the patriarchy began. Women have been resisting ever since.

Please don't refer me to your fundy websites Boaz, I am not interested and won't be going there. They give me the creeps, with their weird sexual obsessions and contempt for democracy, tolerance and diversity. Not to mention women. And I suggest you spend a little less time on these websites and listening to vicious american preachers. Step outside and feel the sunshine on your face. (Come to mention it, that's where I am going as soon as I finish this!)

It was Mark who said that his father killed himself as an act of defiance, not me, so address your question to him. I wish you would do the authors on this website the courtesy of reading what they say occasionally. You spend far too much time preaching extempore instead of listening, but I think someone else has already told you this.

Having said all that, I too wonder whether Mark's father might have been in the grip of a depressive illness. How terribly sad that no-one was there to help him, if that was the case.

Hi, All.

Some interesting discussion. Maybe its best if I just dump thoughts, rather than try to direct to individual people ...

The theme of my piece was supposed to align with what Einstein said about religion and science - the former being blind without the science; and the latter being lame without religion.

Intuition tells me there shouldn't be a battle between faith and reason. I beleive that arguing is pointless,ultimately, because I believe absolute truth, while real, cannot be articulated - it's too fast for the objectifying mind; only the heart can sense it. Hence, Pascal's famous quip that the heart has its reasons of which reason is ignorant.

I think this is where the righteousness of religion is limiting; it's belief that the Bible or Qur'an can adequately capture things. I think such words are meant to be metaphoric - and if you accept such, there is little point becoming desperate about someone else "getting it". You can't compel (not even convince) someone to find God - or nudge them into belief, as Boaz desires - because it manifests a contradiction: "Why are you in my face trying to argue for something you just a moment ago accepted was ineffable"?

But, then, reason must also be constrained. Because the truth DOES run through the mind on route to the heart, our reason cannot help but think it has a chance of "understanding" God, heaven, life, truth, etc. It's confusing. This was the essence of Kant's quote - who gives us reason and then denies us the ability to reason the existance of God.

All I think we can do is acknowledge the dilemma: neither faith nor reason is sufficient, yet their integration is problematic because each refuses to submit to the other.

The closing quote was from St Anselm (Archbishop of Canterbury from way, way back). I think his words are wise because I beleive we have to put faith "first" if we are to have a fighting chance - we have to keep believing their is a reasonable purpose for humanity that has yet to be unearthed. Like the current Archbishop, you have to hedge your bets a little - which is something of a contradiction - but that is the only way.

This is obviously very tiresome - and I basically think my father gave up. I believe a lot of men do this, but he couldn't live with himself.

I don't think women endure the same dilemma: they are built to always put faith before reason. Men slip into the loop of justification and end up being unable to break out, as the mind cannot possibly find a reason for suggesting the mind is "useless". You cannot think why you are thinking too much - there is no "too much" for the boundless mind.

I think men know they are "different" to women at some near-spiritual level, but don't want to admit it because we don't quite understand why this is. If you like, our very purpose incorporates a search for the solution to the difference, in the hope that with it, we can collapse all into the utter sameness of the whole.

Suicide is not rational - it is an escape from the excesses of rational thinking. I think my father thought he was defying God - but I don't.

Music is very comforting - largely because it is absolute; it cannot be reduced; it is pure "in the moment". If you are part of the harmony, there is no mind left to distract you from the ultimate reality of now.

The trouble is, man cannot rely on such uplifting releases (music, sex, alcohol, religion, philosophy) - he must let go of his arrogant mind unconditionally if he is to ever understand his true purpose.

Mark

Dear Grace

Flock ? *mystified look*
As for the rest....
That little burst was off the scale on the prejudice meter. That is further demonstrated by what you 'think' u would be hearing from Tony Campolo :)

To be honest but blunt.. "you don't have a clue" about much that u posted.

On patriarchy and women. Please read Judges 4 PLEASE..... it mentions a woman named Deborah.

"Deborah was unique among the women, and men, of Bible History in that she was prophetess, a judge and a military leader all in one - a powerful triple combination of authority and responsibility held by only two other Israelites, Moses and Samuel."

Now, can u please EXPLAIN this situation in terms of the 'Jealous male gods and the women oppressing patriarchal system' ? If you are going to make outrageous statements, at least make them be true ones.

Fundy web sites and their.....

"weird sexual obsessions and contempt for democracy, tolerance and diversity. Not to mention women"

Grace.. you could not be further from the truth. I've HEARD messages from them, I KNOW what u mean.... this is not like that. Tony's message on a balanced life sounds more like a Christian version of YOU than the hate trotted out by those fundy ones. Clearly you have listened to some of them or you would not have made that comment.

Tony is a radical sociologist Phd and has given more of himself to loving and helping the disadvantaged children of Haiti and other places than most of us put together.
He has seen large companies transformed by some of his actions, even to the tune of a 100 million dollar re-development program to turn 'profit making' land into food cultivation for the locals.
They did it by buying one share, turning up at the stockholders meeting and shouting out that the company was all wrong.
Please don't condemn the man by stereotyping.

http://www.tonycampolo.org/messages.shtml

"Staying Balanced in an Unbalanced World"

If u can point me in the direction of a feminist web site with real audio messages which fairly represent your views, I'm most happy to visit, listen and evaluate. In fact I'm eager to do so.

Its not me who needs to move out of a small and incestuous group of web sites, its you who needs to look more widely than the said small group of sites which you delight in attaching my views to.

I have read and re-read Marks article. I've responded to it. Not all, but those bits I can most relate to.

You and I cross paths on a number of issues, so I respond also to you.
I am adamant that you are viewing me, and my position thru very limited and narrow glasses, using cliche'd categories rather than looking beyond just what I say. If u think I have a narrow view on feminism, ok.. help me to broaden it :) From what I've seen, you are the (welcome) exception rather than the rule.

Hope the sun was nice for ya. Not much here in Melb this afternoon.

the WOMBAT

Well, none of us will ever know the reality until we die.Where were you before birth?In truth our awareness of being only grows with experience and education.We become more aware with the trials of life.If we knew the truth or reality of God or the truth of nothing but an eternal void,there would be no courage involved in living life.Organised religion can go and get stuffed,I believe in the religion of science and logic,that which gave us time to escape the realities of mundane survival and time ot indulge ourselves in creative,constructive thought.

Arjay: ‘none of us will ever know the reality until we die”

Perhaps it may be so for the vast majority, but there are higher beings and portions (inner selves) of some beings that already understand the unknown reality.

Man thought once, historically speaking, that there was but one world. Now he knows differently, but he still clings to the idea of one god, one self, and one body through which to express it.
There is one God, but within that God are many. There is one self, but within that self are many. There is one body, in one time, but the self has other bodies in other times. And all 'times' exist at once, i.e. simultaneously.

The unknown reality may appear esoteric or complicated, yet they are not beyond the reach of any person who is determined to understand the nature of the unknown elements of the self, and its greater world

Each individual is a part of the unknown reality. There are many with psychological awareness that bridges worlds of which you are consciously aware, and others that seem, at least, to escape your notice

This known reality is even more precious, more "real," because you will find it illuminated both within and without by the rich fabric of an 'unknown' reality now seen emerging from the most intimate portions of daily life.

Your concepts of personhood are now limiting you personally and en masse, and yet your religions, metaphysics, histories, and even your sciences are hinged upon your ideas of who and what you are. Your psychologies do not explain your own reality to you.

They cannot contain your experience. Your religions do not explain your greater reality, and your sciences leave you just as ignorant about the nature of the universe in which you dwell.

These institutions and disciplines are composed of individuals, each restrained by limiting ideas about their own private reality; and so it is with private reality that we will begin and always return, period

When you don't realize this, then you project upon life after death all of the old misconceptions. You expect the dead to be little different from the living--if you believe in afterlife at all--but perhaps more at peace, more understanding, and, hopefully, wiser.

The fact is that in life you poise delicately and yet perfectly between realities, and after death you do the same.