tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post9082167873230603214..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Stephen Hawking Versus GodStuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-78710577862189179562011-09-12T14:39:15.673-07:002011-09-12T14:39:15.673-07:00I found a great deal of helpful information above!...I found a great deal of helpful information above!muebles madridhttp://www.muebles.plnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-16615937411402636352010-09-29T09:19:13.648-07:002010-09-29T09:19:13.648-07:00This is a great discussion. Thanks to all.
I had ...This is a great discussion. Thanks to all.<br /><br />I had hesitated to post on this topic, but clearly many of you have good and pertinent things to say about it. <br /><br />Thanks, again.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-43595499766704690762010-09-29T00:40:34.325-07:002010-09-29T00:40:34.325-07:00P.S. ADDENDUM....
If you want to gain a better &#...P.S. ADDENDUM....<br /><br />If you want to gain a better 'appreciation' of some of the more cryptic/mysterious passages in that Old Book, e.g., the first few chapters of the first book, as well as the last chapters of the last one, look at the 'visions' given to the writers and ponder how a man of their time would explain what he saw to his contemporaries.<br /><br />Wouldn't he put the vision into terms they would understand?<br /><br />After all....<br /><br />....how could a man of pre-historic time explain to his fellows a vision of the Creation, as I propose He did it (above)?<br /><br />Then again, from Revelation....<br /><br />....how would a man of the First Century describe to HIS fellow men a vision of a runaway nuclear reactor? Or a flight of AH-64 Apache attack helicopters in the Saudi Arabian desert?<br /><br />P.P.S. About that nuclear reactor. That accident took place in 1986 at a place named Chernobyl. Guess what that name translates in to English from its native Ukrainian....<br /><br />....try 'Wormwood'. And notice the use of the 'proper noun' form in that Old Book.<br /><br />I know a Ukrainian emigre. I asked him about the naming of the town. He said it was named for the most common form of flora in the vicinity.....Wormwood.Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-26783453466311987462010-09-29T00:19:50.909-07:002010-09-29T00:19:50.909-07:00TO: MajorSensible
RE: [OT] [R]Evolutionary Thinkin...TO: MajorSensible<br />RE: [OT] [R]Evolutionary Thinking<br /><br /><i>....God made the Earth [Creation / Eden] and the Devil set it evolving [Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge and being expelled from the garden].</i> -- MajorSensible<br /><br />Cute. And, after a fashion, simple.<br /><br />I'm more inclined to see it as Disney portrayed all that, up to a point, in the Stravinsky Sacre de Primtemp portion of Fantasia. <br /><br />The fade-in/show a phase/fade-out correlates well with how I suspect God gave the vision of the Creation to the fellow who passed it on until Moses got it into Genesis.<br /><br />Think upon it.<br /><br />How would God give such a vision to a man?<br /><br />Would He make the poor fellow sit through the entire 13 BILLION years of Creation, up to the point where the man was? The fellow wouldn't last that long.<br /><br />What about playing it 'fast forward'? That would be too incomprehensible.<br /><br />How about showing Creation in 'stages'? And the transitions being fade-in/fade-out.<br /><br />What would the man think of the fade-in/fade-out? Would he think that was a 'day'?<br /><br />As for Adam and Eve and the Garden, have you ever noticed that there are TWO creations of Man in Genesis? <br /><br />There's the creation of mankind on the 'sixth day', in Chapter 1. THEN there's the creation of Adam and Eve and their placement in the Garden in Chapter 2.<br /><br />Ever wonder whatever became of the Neanderthals? Or Cro-Magnon?<br /><br />Look around you. They're STILL amongst us.....three guesses....<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />[We are they....]Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-6596960232204910392010-09-29T00:06:49.986-07:002010-09-29T00:06:49.986-07:00TO: David
RE: Nietzsche
Thanks for the education ...TO: David<br />RE: Nietzsche<br /><br />Thanks for the education on Nietzsche. Especially his prophetic comments relating to the 20th Century.<br /><br />However, just because Nietzsche claims that he was talking about faith in God being 'dead', as opposed to an actual entity being such, it still seems to me that he, as an atheist, was 'killing' God. And reveling in the 'act'.<br /><br />But that's OT.<br /><br />RE: Back to Hawking<br /><br />Atheists, throughout time, have wished God dead. And have done whatever their rationalization will allow them to achieve that.<br /><br />Still and all, God abides. Despite their 'best' efforts. As the bumper sticker I mentioned in my first comment in this thread states. We're 'here today, gone tomorrow', but He remains.<br /><br />Hawking can dream his self-important dream. And maybe all the attention he has been getting is causing him to think such. But that doesn't matter to God. <br /><br />How can I say this? Because in my last nigh on 60 years on this ball-o-dirt, I've seen enough to convince me He exists. Not to forget the fact that He's saved my sorry fourth-point-of-contact from being snuffed out on three occasions now: (1) plummeting out of a black-night sky with a malfunctioning parachute, (2) in a snit with an 18-wheeler at Interstate speeds, and (3) giving me what I needed for 'extended play', three months before it was needed.<br /><br />This besides other more significant aspects that happened AFTER I became a REAL christian.<br /><br />Hawking has serious problems. Other than his being bound to a wheel chair and not being able to communicate very well. Maybe if he had a more open mind, he'd see better.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />['Happy atheist' is an oxymoron.]Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-52695118337646038352010-09-28T21:40:44.390-07:002010-09-28T21:40:44.390-07:00Chuck: Love that definition. I will have to reme...Chuck: Love that definition. I will have to remember that one. Thanks.<br /><br />There was a sci-fi/fantasy series I read some years back, written by Piers Anthony. In the series, Anthony suggested that God made the Earth [Creation / Eden] and the Devil set it evolving [Adam and Eve eating from the tree of knowledge and being expelled from the garden].<br /><br />I've always thought that was as good an explanation as any that could tie together both creation and evolution.MajorSensiblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14546451851601460847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-40687013019228638902010-09-28T20:04:54.960-07:002010-09-28T20:04:54.960-07:00Nietzsche was talking about the decline of religio...Nietzsche was talking about the decline of religious belief among the educated classes, not the metaphysical truth or falsity of the belief. Here's Tom Wolfe's summary:<br /><br />"Nietzsche said this was not a declaration of atheism, although he was in fact an atheist, but simply the news of an event. He called the death of God a "tremendous event," the greatest event of modern history. The news was that educated people no longer believed in God, as a result of the rise of rationalism and scientific thought, including Darwinism, over the preceding 250 years. But before you atheists run up your flags of triumph, he said, think of the implications. "The story I have to tell," wrote Nietzsche, "is the history of the next two centuries." He predicted (in Ecce Homo) that the twentieth century would be a century of "wars such as have never happened on earth," wars catastrophic beyond all imagining. And why? Because human beings would no longer have a god to turn to, to absolve them of their guilt; but they would still be racked by guilt, since guilt is an impulse instilled in children when they are very young, before the age of reason. As a result, people would loathe not only one another but themselves. The blind and reassuring faith they formerly poured into their belief in God, said Nietzsche, they would now pour into a belief in barbaric nationalistic brotherhoods: "If the doctrines...of the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal, doctrines I consider true but deadly"—he says in an allusion to Darwinism in Untimely Meditations—"are hurled into the people for another generation...then nobody should be surprised when...brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non–brothers...will appear in the arena of the future."David Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15464681514800720063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-4859969966456739762010-09-28T19:07:43.176-07:002010-09-28T19:07:43.176-07:00TO: MajorSensible
RE: Speaking of Atheists
I like...TO: MajorSensible<br />RE: Speaking of Atheists<br /><br />I like THIS definition....<br /><br /><b>Atheist, n., One who is praying to God that He doesn't exist.</b><br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />[<b>I</b> am the lord my god. Thou shalt have no other god besides <b>ME</b>. -- atheist's first commandment]Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-61983328067065664972010-09-28T19:03:17.441-07:002010-09-28T19:03:17.441-07:00TO: Dr. Schneiderman
RE: Wanted: Dead or Alive
Be...TO: Dr. Schneiderman<br />RE: Wanted: Dead or Alive<br /><br /><i>Because Nietzsche's statement implies that God was once alive, but then died.<br /><br />Hawking is saying that God never existed at all, so that sounds a bit different to me.</i> -- Stuart Schneiderman<br /><br />Look at it from this perspective....<br /><br />If God 'never existed', that's the same effect as being 'dead'.<br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />[First God made idiots (for practice) then he made school boards. -- Mark Twain]<br /><br />P.S. Is Hawking on some 'educational' board? Inquiring minds want to know....Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-45518242123579152052010-09-28T17:39:36.631-07:002010-09-28T17:39:36.631-07:00Dr. Schneiderman,
Here's a challenge would po...Dr. Schneiderman,<br /><br />Here's a challenge would pose to militant atheists who would use science to "prove" the inexistence of God or that the events of the Bible aren't true:<br /><br />Describe love, using only engineering terms.MajorSensiblehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14546451851601460847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-47748145884175805682010-09-28T14:01:43.261-07:002010-09-28T14:01:43.261-07:00This is an interesting question... one that I had ...This is an interesting question... one that I had actually tried to avoid.<br /><br />Because Nietzsche's statement implies that God was once alive, but then died.<br /><br />Hawking is saying that God never existed at all, so that sounds a bit different to me.<br /><br />But then, whatever does Nietzsche mean? If he is referring to Jesus Christ, then his statement is banal, since Christ was alive and did die.<br /><br />If he is referring to God the father, then his statement, if taken literally, is meaningless.<br /><br />No one really believes that God is a biological organism and only biological organisms can be either alive or dead.<br /><br />But perhaps Nietzsche was thinking about metaphoric life and death... that would mean that God's influence, his importance in the culture, his ability to inspire belief, has died.<br /><br />And this might be true of Europe, because, after all, Nietzsche was just a few decades ahead of the triumph of godlessness in Europe.Stuart Schneidermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-87565996069332573412010-09-28T13:36:21.460-07:002010-09-28T13:36:21.460-07:00TO: Dr. Schneiderman, et al.
RE: What Was It....
...TO: Dr. Schneiderman, et al.<br />RE: What Was It....<br /><br /><i>If Hawking says that there is no God, then there is no God.</i> -- Stuart Schneiderman<br /><br />....someone said over 100 years ago?<br /><br />Oh....Yeah....<br /><br /><i>God is Dead.</i> -- Nietzsche<br /><br />However, I saw a bumper sticker that read....<br /><br /><b>"God is dead." -- Nietzsche (c. 1895) "Nietzsche is dead." -- God (Today)</b><br /><br />Regards,<br /><br />Chuck(le)<br />[History doesn't repeat itself. It has a speech impediment.]<br /><br />P.S. Three guesses....first two don't count....Chuck Peltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00407516830005550495noreply@blogger.com